How would one read O'Brien's The Things They Carried "literarily" versus "literally"? Using examples from your readings of the text, discuss the rhetorical devices O'Brien uses to tell "story truth" versus "happening truth"--or how he proceeds to tell "a noble lie." Be sure to use MLA citation for this paper.
1. Reading literally differs from reading literarily in several ways, including your relationship to the "truth" of the text, as well as its meaning.
2. When you read literally, you are trying to find meaning; when you read literarily, you are attempting to make meaning.
3. Literary texts provide various signals that invite us to read them literarily; they open themselves to multiple interpretations.
4. Good literary questions call attention to problematic details of the texts under analysis and encourage readers to return to the texts to reconsider those problems.
5. Such formal features as plot, setting, character, point of view, and theme provide you with opportunities to ask specific questions that will help you analyze a short story.
I don't know if anyone will look at this, and I know it's a bit late in the game, but I found a really good web-page on metafiction that really helped me understand the whole idea of postmodernism and that style of fiction writing.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary_Criticism/postmodernism/metafiction.htm#Definitions