Foster states "violence is one of the most personal and even intimate acts between human beings, but it can also be cultural and societal in its implications." Along with cultural and societal forms of violence, violence is present in literature. The two forms of violence that are present in literature are: specific injury that authors cause characters to visit on one another or on themselves, and the narrative violence that causes characters harm in general. An example of the specific injury that authors cause characters to visit on another or themselves can be drawn from the book A Clockwork Orange. Alex, the main character, throughout the novel participates in numerous acts of violence on other people purely for fun. The acts consist of beating up two elderly people, stealing, rape, and other acts of beating people are done only for acts of violence and not narrative violence.
The second form of violence or authorian violence is from the short story To Build a Fire by Jack London. Jack London kills the main character in the end, but we are left to infer how he dies in the end due to the icy temperatures and the very real possibility of hypothermia is second nature in a climate like that. No one kills him off, no bullets fly, no beating, just the author choosing to kill him. London kills his main character for intrigue and plot advancement, choosing to leave the reader wondering what happened. The effects from the two different kinds of violence are substantial. Authors involve characters to inflict pain on other characters just for violence, while the second takes much more thought. It takes critical thinking on the author's part to find a way for each character to leave us hanging, and the gut-wrenching loss the reader feels when they leave.
No comments:
Post a Comment