Posted: February 17th, 2015

Critical Reading Response Assignment

Critical Reading Response Assignment

Project description
Assignment

In order to write a genre-based essay on Saunderss stories, we must first figure out what criteria make up the literary fiction genre his work belong to. We have read three writers who have tried to delineate the borders of literary fiction, or fiction having literary value.

Writing in the New Yorker, arguably the most well-known literary magazine in the country, Arthur Krystal differentiates literary fiction from popular genre fiction by arguing the following: Great writers hit us over the head because they present characters whose imaginary lives have real consequences (at least while were reading about them), and because they see the world in much the way we do: complicated by surface and subterranean feelings, by ambiguity and misapprehension, and by the misalliance of consciousness and perceptionA good mystery or thriller isnt set off from an accomplished literary novel by plotting, but by the writers sensibility, his purpose in writing, and the choices he makes to communicate that purpose. There may be a struggle to express whats difficult to convey, and perhaps well struggle a bit to understand what were reading.

Responding to Krystal, and defending the honor of genre (in particular, fantasy and science fiction) fiction, novelist Lev Grossman writes in Time magazine, When you read genre fiction, you leave behind the problems of reality but only to re-encounter those problems in transfigured form, in an unfamiliar guise, one that helps you understand them more completely, and feel them more deeply. Genre fiction isnt just generic pap. You dont read it to escape your problems, you read it to find a new way to come to terms with them.

So far, then, these writers are not actually disagreeing that good fiction, or fiction with literary merit, should have complex characters, complex emotions, complex ideas, and complex ways of expressing those ideas (difficult would be Krystals word, whereas Grossman would say that its a matter of finding a new way to address those complex ideas, emotions, and characters).

Attempting to ascertain the state of the American short story, and writing about how its evolved in the first millennial decade, Ruth Franklin, editor at the New Republic (a cultural/political) and a nonfiction writer, writes, The continuing upsurge in domestic anxiety has created a demand for literature on important and morally charged subjects This is a different kind of experimentalism from the form that dominated ten years ago [comprised of] an emotional and moral centre that was entirely lacking in the McSweeneys-style story, which tended to be affectless, unmoving, and untroubled by ideas reaching beyond its own narrow borders. All the typographical gimmicks in the world are useless if at bottom you have nothing to say.

In a way, shes also agreeing with both Krystal and Grossman that contemporary literary fiction (specifically the sub-genre of American literary short stories), regardless of whether its experimental in form, should still have something to say.

Considering the elements that help shape literary fiction (as defined by these writers), explain how Saunderss stories work as conventional literary fiction. Do his stories function like literary fiction (as Krystal imagines? As Grossman imagines? As Franklin imagines?). If so, in what waysi.e., explain what characteristics of Saunderss stories, whether its the use of symbolism, manipulation of form and genre (a company letter, a letter to a politician), deceptively simple language, complex characters and emotions, the presence of deep and meaningful messages, allow them to fit with, challenge, or both fit with and challenge the paradigm(s) mentioned by Krystal, Grossman, and/or Franklin.

Because this is a short assignment, you may need to narrow down your discussion. Instead of citing all three writer, pick one or two whose points work with each other. Instead of analyzing all the rhetorical aspects of Saunderss stories, go with one or two, and explain how they work in at least two stories.

Basic requirements

The length of the essay should be 3-4 pages, typed and double-spaced, and presented in MLA format. Secondary sources should be cited, and there should at least one source listed besides the Saunders stories. The writing should be error-free and the language in the tone of formal academic discourse.

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