Question 1
In A Journal of the Plague Year, the narrative depicts a nonlinear description of the Great Plague that took place around 1665 in London. The novel highlights common experiences during the. The influence of Defoe’s experience as a newspaper editor can be seen through the combination of journalistic and literary writing skills and Defoe’s own understanding of fictional writing. It can be argued that Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year depicts an extraordinary literary work since it portrays a mix of data and statistical representation of reality and a fictional narrative. The graphical details presented portray the happenstances occasioned by the plague and serve to shade some light on the power of memory that Dafoe as a child exploited and was able to undertake the literary reproduction of the phenomenon during his writing career. The structure of the novel allows Defoe to fill up memory gaps with fictional literary maps, and therefore succeeding remarkably in presenting what appears to have been an observable reality pertaining to the plague. Historians concur with Defoe’s version of events and place him squarely at the heart of the Great Plague. The underlying authority of the novel seems to originate from the fact that details provided regarding the spread of the virus as well as individual homes and parishes relives the mysterious events in London, and is comparable to other historical writings produced separately.
Question 2
While it can be argued that Bierce has achieved a feat in illustrating how war can be differently described, it can hardly be said that his style was first ever. In the One of the Missing, he succeeds in telling a war story based on a dramatic illustration of irony and the role of human emotions. Soldiers are depicted as human beings capable of emotional manifestations and not as supernormal beings as is usually the case in many war stories. By applying an easy approach to displaying war as a societal problem that affects all the people, Bierce manages to reach to a greater audience that is able to relate easily with their own experiences or inferences of war situations. In almost all his works, Bierce applies the use of fiction in helping develop the flow of the story. Through this demonstration, it can be argued that the perspectives presented by his works, when considered in totality, do illustrate the character and charisma of a writer who is at peace with identifying war as an historical undertaking that should leave society with lessons that can inform various choices. Bierce demonstrates a critical departure from the tradition of chroniclers, and invites the points of view of protagonists in helping enrich the descriptions of events and thereby helping fill up individual memory gaps.
Question 3
It is considerably rare to come by autographical accounts of writers on substance addiction. In De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, the novel illustrates a personal struggle with opium addiction and introduces questions regarding the controversy associated with opium. Earlier works on opium use and addiction served to dissuade society from reliance on a substance that was associated with disillusionment and euphoria. However, De Quincey seems to have managed to change society’s perception of drugs, and carefully negotiates the delicate act of introducing the concept of drug use to promote recreational pursuits. His novel is considered to be a compelling story of a personal romance philosophy, and the provision of a different perspective to the concept of substance abuse. The narrative appears to center around the possibility that if opium is used appropriately, it can contribute to societal uplifting promoted by the medicinal aspect as well as the social high culture which was a standard in De Quincey’s times. The story seems to encourage a more rational view of aiding the society to deal with the consequences of substance use and abuse by opening avenues to explore remedies without necessarily demonizing the act of use. Thus, De Quincey’s narrative seems to invite an experimental approach to the use of opium, but his personal experiences seem to provide the much needed control mechanism to prepare the reader for likely eventualities.
Question 4
Stephen Crane’s The Open Boat describes his personal experiences relating to a boat event that took place on December 31, 1896. During this situation, he was stranded somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean while sailing to Cuba from Florida. His mission to Cuba was to cover the emerging war. The story reports his vessel to have sunk, and Crane and his fellow sailors struggled to stay alive and reach the shore for many hours. After surviving the ordeal, Crane reported the incident in a newspaper. Eventually, he takes hold of the opportunity to display his writing skills by combining real experience and fiction and providing a moving narrative on the struggle to stay alive amidst a horde of challenges and forces. Crane provides characters founded in reality and describes himself and the three others as a dynamic group determined to survive against all odds. He achieves an enviable feat of combining humanistic and deistic characterization of influences that pound natural occurrences and illuminate the role of humane models and the journalistic skills of representing the obtaining interactions. This eventually takes shape as the story progresses to demonstrate the unforgiving and indifferent nature of reality, and the importance of molding human interpretations and actions towards preparing to change perceptions in dealing constructively with nature.
Question 5
Ernest Hemingway managed to entrench his position in the field of journalism through The Iceberg Theory. The writing style depicted by this literary piece focuses on surface elements and shies away from providing underlying descriptions. This minimalistic style coupled with the distinct writing clarity achieves to put some distance between the narrator and the characters in the story. In The Sun Also Rises, the writer uses a simple style to pass his message, and the language mechanics applied help indulge the reader in undertaking to be part of the story. As a result, the reader is empowered to conduct own analysis of the story and can therefore confidently direct the role of the ensuing dialogue in providing insights into the underlying mass of the iceberg. The writer relied on aiding readers understand his narrative by encouraging a process of learning and interpretation based on slowly stripping away the “iceberg.” This is further illustrated in The Sun Also Rises since the writer undertakes to leave vivid gaps in the process of developing the story and therefore encouraging the reader to reconstruct the narrative. It is evident that Hemingway’s experience as a newspaper journalist serves to apply simplicity in passing the intended message in his novels using short, simple, and direct sentences while at the same time maintaining a realistic dialogue which guarantees a practical and quick read.
Question 6
Capote combines the art of skillful reporting with fictional writing to demonstrate journalistic accomplishment. To him, “New Journalism” denotes a new form of art emanating from reporting and journalism. He considers traditional journalism as lacking in creative spirit, and believes that you can apply the techniques of fictional writing in furthering non-fictional art. In his view, In Cold Blood is a nonfictional piece that is based in active research and skillful interviewing. In this piece, the author is not represented in the characters since Capote considered good journalism to uphold the invisibility of the writer. The book is characterized by the adoption of nonfictional writing tone and highlights different artistic expressions. The book features a unique style in that key events are intertwined throughout the story. For example, the Clutter family is depicted as going about normal chores while the writer keeps on providing snippets of the imminent murder. This contrast succeeds in building a special impression, which is considered to be difficult to achieve in conventional journalism. The novel illustrates the use of candid details that would be uncommon in newspapers. In Cold Blood can be said to be an objective literary piece, but hardly does it meet the threshold of abstract nonfiction since a lot of the facts and ideas presented are majorly based on Capote’s interpretation and manipulation of information.
