Prose

So here are a few examples of what I consider to be good prose:

It was inevitable that she should accept any inconsistency and cruelty from her deity as all good worshippers do from theirs. All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.

-Their Eyes Were Watching God

Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.

-Their Eyes Were Watching God

I really like Their Eyes Were Watching God because it is an excellent example of poetic prose. The author uses parallel structure and figurative language to create a rhythmic feeling feeling within the prose setting.

The last clear definite function of man—muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need—this is man. To build a wall, to build a house, a dam, and in the wall and house and dam to put something of Manself, and to Manself take back something of the wall, the house the dam; to take hard muscles from the lifting, to take the clear lines and form from conceiving. For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments.

-The Grapes of Wrath

I really love this example of prose because it is such an excellent example of parallel structure. Through the use of parallel structure the author creates a progressive movement of mankind, connecting what he is with what he must do to remain as man.

It was a close place. I took . . . up [the letter I'd written to Miss Watson], and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: “All right then, I'll go to hell”—and tore it up. It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming.

-The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

This is an excellent example of the use of dialect within a work of literature. I fell like in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the language becomes another character, representing the culture of the south, and it's role in the story. I also like the innocent point of view that has a great effect on the reader.

And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way of saving yourself and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself.

-1984

I think this is a great example of the style reflecting the message of the novel. The direct style, that seeks only to explain what happened and as little as emotion as possible reflects the cold world that comes from a tyrannical government.

He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself.

-The Great Gatsby

I like how this text uses description to capture the reader. As the narrator is captivated by the character's smile, the reader is similarly entranced.

Fiction Terms

So I went through the text book and hand book and defined all of the words for my SDL.
Here they are:

Fiction Terms

Fiction: Narrative writing from the imagination rather than from fact.
Fable: A short story told to tell a moral idea. Characters are most often animals or objects or supernatural forces.
Parable: A illustrative story teaching a lesson. The parable parallels the situation that is being alluded to.
Tale: A relatively simple and short narrative.
Exposition: the introductory material that creates the tone, gives the setting, introduces the characters, and supplies other facts necessary to understanding. Gives the background information necessary for the reader's comprehension of the story.
Protagonist: The chief character in a work.
Antagonist: The character directly opposed to the protagonist. A rival, opponent, or enemy of the protagonist.
Foreshadowing: The presentation of an element or material in a work in such a way that later events are prepared for. Something happens that hints at what is to come and establishes the mood of the story.
Climax: The item of greatest importance in a rising order of events. It is the highest point of interest, whereat the reader makes the greatest emotional response. It can also denote the turning point of the action or synonymous for crisis.
Denouement: “unknotting” The final unraveling of the plot, the solution, an explanation or an outcome. When everything is resolved and explained at the end of a play.
Plot: A narrative of events, an artistic arrangement of such events. There are debates over the importance of plot. Aristotle established plot as the most important element in a dramatic composition, while others now declare that plot is more of a means to establish character. Either way, plot is essentially the series of events that occur in a story.
In Medias Res: “in the middle of things”, the literary technique of beginning the narration of the story in the middle of the action and then giving past events through flashbacks and other ways of exposition.
Story of Initiation: A story where the character is initiated into experience of maturity.
Narrator: Someone who recounts a Narrative. The teller or speaker of a story. They can be anyone in or apart from the story, known or unknown to the audience.
Point of View: The vantage point from which an author presents a story.
Types of Point of View:
-Narrator as Participant (First Person)
-major character
-minor character
-Narrator a Nonparticipant (Third Person)
-all-knowing
-seeing into one major character
-seeing into one minor character
-objective (not seeing into any character)
-Second Person (You)
Omniscience: The narrator is capable of knowing, seeing and telling all. Typically the third person, with a variety of limitations, depending on the type of omniscience
-impartial: presents the thoughts and actions of the characters, but does not judge them or comment on them
-editorial: the narrator adds their own opinion or judgment of the characters' actions.
-limited: can only see events through the eyes of one character, whether major or minor
-total: knows all of the characters' thoughts and actions
Objective Point of View: The narrator doesn't enter the mind of any character but describes the events from the outside.
Stream of Consciousness: The mind of an individual at any given moment, the total range of awareness . A novel of this genre takes a subject matter and records it's total consciousness as a complete exposition of the author.
Interior Monologue: A technique when presenting stream of consciousness, records the emotional experience of the characters by reaching downwards to a non-verbalized level where images must be used to represent sensations or emotions.
Character: creatures in art that seem to be human beings of one sort or another. A descriptive sketch of a personage who typifies some definite quality. An imagined person who inhabits a story.
Stock Character: Conventional character types. Every type of literature develops stock character who readers recognize so they can differentiate between individual characteristics and conventional traits.
Flat Character: A character constructed around a single idea or quality. A flat character is immediately recognizable and can be represented by a single sentence.
Round Character: A character sufficiently complex to be able to surprise the reader without losing credibility.
Static Character: A character who does not change very much in the story.
Dynamic Character: A character who develops or changes as a result of the actions of the plot.
Characterization: The creation of imaginary persons so that they seem lifelike. Three methods: 1) explicit presentation, 2) presentation through action, 3) representation from within, the emotions and reactions without comment by the author. (Round/Flat characters and Dynamic/Static characters are elements of characterization).
Allusion: A figure of speech that makes brief reference to a historical or literary figure, event or object.
Antihero: A protagonist of a modern play or novel who has the opposite of many of the traditional attributes of the hero. Graceless, inept and dishonesty are all possible traits.
Setting: The background against which action takes place. The elements of setting include 1) geography and physical arrangement 2) the daily lives of the characters 3) the time period 4)the general environment of the characters.
Locale: The physical setting of some action. It is the geographical and scenic qualities.
Regionalism:An author that consistently sets their novels or stories in the same location or region. This is depicted through a representation of the region's habits, speech, manners, folklore, or beliefs.
Tone: The attitude towards the subject and the audience implied in a literary work.
Style: The combination of two elements: the idea to be expressed and the individuality of the author. It involves all elements of the literature such as diction, imagery, rhythm, structure, etc. Patterns seen between works of a particular author or genre establishes that style.
Diction: The use of words. This includes vocabulary, which indicates the words one at a time and syntax, which is the word order.
Irony: The difference between appearances and reality.
Verbal Irony: The actual intent is expressed in words that carry the opposite meaning. Sarcasm differs from verbal irony in that sarcasm is usually more harsh than verbal irony.
Dramatic Irony: When the audience knows something that the characters in the play do not know.
Cosmic Irony: A malicious fate that deliberately frustrates human efforts.
Theme: A central idea. The abstract concept that is made concrete through representation in person, action, and image.
Symbol: Something that suggests more than its literal meaning.
Allegory: A story in which persons, places and things form a system of clearly labeled equivalents.

Books I've Read

So I've started to make a list of all the important books I've read. I've looked through a lot of top 100 booklists to get an idea of what books are important, and these are the ones that I've read from those lists.
Pride and Prejudice
Sense and Sensibility
Mansfield Park
Northanger Abby
Persuasion
Jane Eyre
Wuthering Heights
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
The Great Gatsby
The Scarlet Letter
Their Eyes Were Watching God
A Doll's House
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Crucible
Animal Farm
All Quiet on the Western Front
Cyrano de Burgerac
Oedipus Rex
Antigone
The Grapes of Wrath
Candide
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Hamlet
Macbeth
King Lear
Romeo and Juliet
As You Like It
Richard III
I Henry IV
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Julius Caesar
Othello
1984
Anna Karenina
Watership Down
The Good Earth
A Separate Peace
As I Lay Dying
The Odyssey
The Prince
The Kite Runner
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
And Then There Were None
The Color Of Water
Fahrenheit 451
Flowers for Algernon
A Lesson Before Dying
Like Water for Chocolate
Shavanu
Night
Cat's Cradle
Dawn
The Giver
Gone With the Wind
Anne of Green Gables
Ender's Game
(there could be more to come as I think of them) :]