What is the 'all that' that Robert Graves is referring too?
What is the 'all that' that Robert Graves is referring too? This essay is going to explore Robert Graves's autobiographical novel and detail Robert graves use of the phrase all that and what it may refer too. The phrase 'all that' is very vague and indefinite. 'All that' could refer to so much; things, people, places, even emotions and feelings. In this novel 'all that' could refer to individual things or the novel as a whole, it may even refer to only one thing. That is what I am going to find out and illustrate in this essay. Robert Graves's autobiographical novel 'Goodbye to All That' was first published in 1929, 11 years after the end of World War 1 in which Graves served as a 2nd Lieutenant and was promoted to Captain in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. The work was revised and republished in 1957 removing and changing a great deal of significant material because of complaints, namely from Siegfried Sassoon a great friend and fellow soldier of Graves. 'Robert Graves states that the objects of writing about his own life at the early age of thirty-three, are simple enough: 'an opportunity for a formal good-bye to you and to you and to you and to me and to all that; forgetfulness, because once all this has been settled in my mind and written down and published it need never be thought about again.'' (Jonathan Cape, 1929) This quotation from Robert Graves himself shows why
How, why, and to what effect do contemporary British fictions depict times other than the present?
How, why, and to what effect do contemporary British fictions depict times other than the present? When portraying times other than the present, writers are freed in some ways from restrictions that come with depicting their own time period. By representing the past, or indeed the future, the author is able to explore narrative styles, genres and thematic content that would have otherwise been inaccessible to them. The past and the future both offer genre options as well as stylistic and thematic content that would have otherwise been inaccessible to the authors. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell and What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn both use portrayals of alternative time periods for different effects. Why O'Flynn gives us the narrative of a little girl from 1984 and why Mitchell chooses to, amongst others, write about a charismatic composer in 1931 is what will be explored in the course of this essay. Both novels use non-linear narrative structures, with Cloud Atlas in particular displaying a complex framework. The depiction of the past in What Was Lost is used as a framing device for the main plot. The novel begins with the story of Kate Meaney in 1984 and concludes with the narrative from the past reappearing after the characters from the present have deduced what has happened to her. When compared to Cloud Atlas however, What Was Lost is a relatively simple way of
Joseph Hellers themes and narrative styles in Catch-22
Joseph Heller's themes and narrative styles in Catch-22 Introduction I decided to write my assignment about Heller's Catch-22, because I admire his narrative style and the use of irony, parody and humor in his most successful novel. Moreover, the novel takes place in a time that is still close to the present. If you look at the American literary epochs you find "Literature of the Early Republic", "Romanticism and American Renaissance", "Realism", "Naturalism", "Modernism" and at the end "Postmodernism". When you are dealing with the earlier epochs, you learn a lot about our history and important works in those times that expressed the feelings and fears of the people in those periods. Looking at the epoch of Postmodernism, it feels a bit different, because we are not talking about the "way back" past, but about the time after World War II, which ended just 64 years ago and still affects our lives now. The idea of Catch-22, the oppression of the individual by men in charge, is still present in today's society. I think it is very important to discuss works like that because we can learn from the past. The novel is not just about war, it can be seen as a metaphor for systems that make every decision end in a catastrophe. In this assignment, I will start with a bibliographic overview of Joseph Heller's life and follow up with the historical background for the novel. After
Howard W. Campbell
Matthew Schenk English 112 Mrs. Elizabeth K. Claussen Howard W. Campbell Jr. Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night is a story about war, love, deception, making peace with yourself and your past, and many other various themes and ideas. The story revolves around one man, but also around the people in his lives all of which, including himself, are very complex and different individuals. Some may or may not be exactly who they seem to be and others happen to be exactly what they seem to be, but as Vonnegut says himself, "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." Howard W. Campbell Jr. was an American born, son of an engineer and an amateur cellist. He grew up sort of ordinarily in America, spending most of his time with his less than sane mother. His father, away with work most of the time, was not often around leaving him and his mother to be each other's main companions. Eventually his father will be transferred to Germany for work and the family will then move there, where Howard will live and grow up. During the Nazi build-up after Hitler comes into power Howard decides to stay in Germany despite the fact that his parents return home. He is a playwright and is an associate of the members of the Nazi party and becomes a Nazi himself, though only in name and to be able to live and work comfortably in the Nazi ruled Germany. After being
Analysis of 'Defeat' by Osbert Sitwell. 1948.
Analysis of 'Defeat' by Osbert Sitwell. 1948. The short short story 'Defeat' takes place on a Sunday afternoon on French Vichy-territory after the German invasion of France in 1940. Our characters, a Captain from the disbanded French army, his fiancé, Estelle, and her mother, Mrs Dorien, are meeting for cake and tea on the terrace of a café in the public gardens. While trying to keep up appearances, our main character, the Captain, struggles with the aftermath of the brutal and momentous experiences he had on the battlefields. The rest of the party, however, reflects the general behaviour and state of mind among the French population. The before mentioned state of mind is excellently captured in this extract: 'The cafés were still open too, though the regular clients were ruffled at being unable to obtain their favourite drinks, ...' (ll. 31-32. P. 1). During the afternoon tea, a group of soldiers, who previously was under the command of the Captain, arrives on the terrace. They neglect to salute our protagonist and to rub salt in the sore, a German officer, who sits elsewhere in the café, rebukes the soldiers, thus making humiliation complete. The German officer's interference marks the tipping point of the Captain's realization of defeat and total lack of desire to keep fighting mentally. The Captain has been through hell and back and after his homecoming he
Black Feminism in Alice Walkers "The Color Purple".
BLACK FEMINISM IN Alice Walker’s The Color Purple Alice Walker is an Afro-American female writer, who was born in 1944. The Color Purple was written in 1982, won Pulitzer prize in 1983. She was born in a sharecropper’s family in the South, Georgia, U.S.A as the eighth child in Eatonton, small town with two streets only. She grew up in a world of poverty and hardship. The Walker’s white landowner said that the Walker’s children needed not to attend school and demanded of every child of the Walker’s to work in his field. But it was her mother, Minnie, who fought for the right of education for her children. Thus, the author feels that her success as an informed writer goes greatly to her mother’s devotion to education and liberation. Alice Walker was blessed with a love of learning, and upon graduating at the head of her high school class in 1961, she received a scholarship to Spelman College in nearby Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. There, at the heart of the civil rights movement, she took part in student protests against racial discrimination. After two years at Spelman, Walker transferred to Sarah Lawrence College in New York, where she developed into a highly gifted writer. Her literary reputation rose with the publication of Once (1968) followed by many other works but nothing prepared her readers for the success of The Color Purple (1982) which became a
Natasha Walters in The Independent asks about Jonathan Franzen's 'The Corrections': Do we care much, in that rushed last chapter that Enid "weathered the downturn" in the markets, that Denise "moved to Brooklyn and went to work in a new res
ENGL 243 ~ CONTEMPORARY FICTION ~ ESSAY 1 ~ Due 20/08/07 QUESTION 2 ~ The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen CHARLOTTE FRENCH ~ id 300075543 TUTORIAL ~ Mon 11am, Charles The last chapter of Jonathan Franzen's novel The Corrections seems less about final revelations for the characters, and more about Enid gradually coming to accept her children for what they are. Natasha Walters in The Independent asks: Do we care much, in that rushed last chapter that Enid "weathered the downturn" in the markets, that Denise "moved to Brooklyn and went to work in a new restaurant" and that poor old Alfred was installed in "a long-term care facility adjacent to the country club"? (Walters ) The events of this chapter do not seem particularly significant for the lives of all the characters. They are a representation of Enid's acceptance of her life as it has been, her children's' lives, and her acceptance of responsibility for her own happiness. This chapter documents Enid's correction, and while the question of Enid's values is significant in the novel, each of the characters take their own journeys, each of which are given just as much weight as Enid's. 'Correction' is a stock market term for a fall in value, as a result of a previous over-valuation. The value has been 'corrected'. The idea of stock market corrections in the novel does not feature until the last chapter. The corrections
Being Adult
BEING ADULT I'm staring at my reflection in the mirror seeing that I haven't been paying attention to my appearence lately. I think I should stop working that hard and have a vacation. Actually my tired looking face and some white hair ,which have started to appear among my untidy Brown hair, tell me to do so. I wear my jacket and head to the bus station but then I see the old Ortaköy Mosque and the dark blue sea next to it. I can't take my eyes off the beautiful Bosphourus view, which looks more beautiful in this April morning. The sea calls me and I can not stay indifferent anymore. I decide to start my vacation today and enjoy the marvelous sea view. I go and sit on a bank, next to the mosque just near the shore, not thinking about thw waves which might soak me. I watch the sea and listen to the song which the waves and the seagulls sing together until hearing those two boys talking; - I can't believe that the school didn't let us use the computers. - Tugcan, you innocent kid. What were you expecting? This is school, man. It is supposed to be boring. - Yes, you are completely right but they could have let us use them only in the lunch brake, so we wouldn't have to "escape" to finish our song. - Teachers and ,especially, the headmaster think those computers are souvenirs. Tugcan's voice was thinner than the other boy's who continued talking; - Another thing you
Gail Jones, Sixty Lights, set in Australia, India and England in the 19th Century, follows the multi-faceted life of the capricious Lucy Strange as she develops her modernistic view of light and the world,
Kane Solly ‘Memory is deceptive because it is coloured by today's events’- Albert Einstein Literature is a constantly contested and revised term coined to separate the literary world into works of superior or lasting artistic merit and the ‘other’. This elitist nature used by literary ‘scholars’ created the foundation for all the teachings and ideals of the social, cultural and political thoughts of their times. The worth of literature and the means of classification have stemmed from a culmination of varying critique, seen by the changes in phase of perspective from Modernism; valuing the ‘grand narratives of truth’; to New Criticism; the objective evaluation of the ‘text’; and Post-modernism; the movement away from the hierarchy of literature. Thematics, messages, tropes, contexts and the social, cultural and political hierarchy of the time all contribute to the literary ‘worth’ of a text. This agglomeration of features develops texts consisting of the utmost textual integrity; the flow and connection between all the facets of texts. Gail Jones, ‘Sixty Lights’, set in Australia, India and England in the 19th Century, follows the multi-faceted life of the capricious and palimpsest Lucy Strange as she develops and uncovers her modernistic view of light and the world, through the tragedies that befall her and the opportunities that arise. Jones
'Burmese Days' by George Orwell
Burmese Days by Gorge Orwell Based on Orwell’s experiences as a policeman in Burma, George Orwell's first novel presents a devastating picture of British colonial rule. It describes corruption and imperial bigotry in a society where, 'after all, natives were natives - interesting, no doubt, but finally ... an inferior people'. When Flory, a white timber merchant, befriends Indian Dr Veraswami, he defies this orthodoxy. The doctor is in danger: U Po Kyin, a corrupt magistrate, is plotting his downfall. The only thing that can save him is membership of the all-white Club, and Flory can help. Flory's life is changed further by the arrival of beautiful Elizabeth Lackersteen from Paris, who offers an escape from loneliness and the 'lie' of colonial life. For Said, controversy about the postcolonial discourse begins with the term of re-presentation which gives the Westerners upper-hand as a “genuine creator, whose life-giving power represents, animates, constitutes, the otherwise silent and dangerous space beyond familiar boundaries” .This representation is so powerful which brought the concept of the Orient, first of all in Western academics, “then Western consciousness, and later Western empire.” The effect of this representation is the creation of binary opposition of the self and other which posits the former in the privileged position that permits himself to