The Vanishing Character in Biblical Narrative: The Role of Hathach in Esther 4

2012 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 561-571
Author(s):  
Jonathan Grossman
Keyword(s):  
Active Role ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Biblical Narrative ◽  
Minor Characters ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Minor Character

Abstract Literary analysis tends to focus on major characters or minor characters as long as their active role in the narrative serves to further the plot. The contribution of minor characters is often viewed as limited to their active role in the narrative. However, sometimes the passive role of a minor character, and even the disappearance of a character from the plot, can serve a valuable literary purpose. This article outlines the nature of the Vanishing Minor Character, whose literary purpose is to disappear at a crucial moment, making room for the remaining characters. The article demonstrates this model using the character of Hathach—the Persian eunuch—who serves as an intermediary between Esther and Mordecai in Esther 4.

The Victim – a Great Actor in a Minor Role? – A Comparative Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-128
Author(s):  
Łukasz Duśko ◽  
Mateusz Szurman
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
American English ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Minor Role ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
The One ◽  
A Minor ◽  
To Receive

Recently, the role of the victim in criminal proceedings became more significant. An observation was made that the legal interests of the victim are much more severely affected by the crime than the collective legal interests in the form of public or social order. However, the differences in the rights the victim is vested with differ substantively between particular countries. The authors present the position of the victim in American, English and French law. The solutions provided for in these systems are confronted with legal regulations adopted in Poland, i.e. the home country of the authors. It shows, surprisingly, that the role of the victim in criminal proceedings has evolved somehow independently of the implementation of the concept of restitution. On the one hand, there are legal systems in which the criminal court may order the offender to pay compensation for the damage caused, but the role of the victim still remains marginal. On the other hand, there are systems in which the victim is not only entitled to receive restitution, but he or she also has significant powers which enable him or her to play an active role in the criminal proceedings.

The lame man at the pool of Bethesda: Christological and doxological significance of characterisation in John 5

2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Hahn ◽  
Ernest Van Eck
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
Minor Characters ◽  
Theological Perspective ◽  
God The Father ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Significant Attention ◽  
Minor Character ◽  
God's Work

In any research of the biblical themes in Scriptures, the exegete must exercise discipline in strictly adhering to an exegetical process wherein the text is permitted to speak for itself in the context of the passage. This article therefore explored the literary traits and analysed characterisations in the story of the lame man at the pool of Bethesda as portrayed in John 5 through a ‘narratological and exegetical’ approach, considering literary, social, cultural and historical criticism with significant attention given to the text of the author or narrator. It is very important to know the author’s theological viewpoint as seen in the characterisation of an anonymous character in the related gospel narrative, because it may be easily be overlooked due to the lack of attention for a minor character. The author’s theological point of view is revealed in the characterisation of the lame man, the Jewish religious leaders, and of Jesus. Although the lame man himself is generally regarded as one of the ‘minor characters’ who appears in the gospel, the narrative of the lame man’s healing is an important part of John’s Christology and doxology, establishing Jesus as the Son whom God the Father sent to do God’s work not for his own glory, but for the glory of God the Father. An analysis is undertaken of the literary traits and various characterisations evident in the seven scenes of John 5’s account of the healing of the lame man, comparing him with other minor characters in John 4 and 9 who were healed.Contribution: In this article a narratological and exegetical approach is employed to identify the Christological and doxological significances in John 5 by exploring the literary traits of the narrative point of view and character presentation through the theological perspective of the narrator.

“Still There”: (Dis)engaging with Dickens's Minor Characters

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-212
Author(s):  
Kristen H. Starkowski
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Narrative Theory ◽  
Strong Sense ◽  
Minor Characters ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Minor Character

Abstract More can be done in minor character studies to account for the strong sense of being that emerges at the edges of the nineteenth-century novel. By pairing traditional readings of the minor character in narrative theory with sociologist Erving Goffman's writings on disengagement, this article offers a different perspective on the competition for narrative attention as we know it. For example, when disengagement is taken into account, Alex Woloch's losers in the competition for narrative attention become winners in the formulation of a fulfilling social life. Dickens's minor characters take part in central spaces while not being contained by them. Their distance from main scenes and settings, captured in passing by a gaze that has no interest in registering these elsewheres in any level of depth, has the effect of making minor characters appear strange, memorable, or other, even though their worlds are quite rich. But Dickens's minor characters define the ingenuity of counterintuition, pointing toward a suppressed energy that belies the flatness of a minor character. Drawn with care, these characters build alternative, codependent ways of surviving on the edges of the characterological field.

social deixis of gender boundaries

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-118
Author(s):  
Roswitha Kersten-Pejanić
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Minor Role ◽  
Gender Theories ◽  
Social Deixis ◽  
Gender Boundaries ◽  
A Minor

This article studies aspects of the multi-layered role of language in establishing and maintaining a social order based on gender. Gendered person appellations are traditionally seen as person reference, an interpretation loaded with essentialist views of gender that hardly comply with current gender theories. By taking a close look at the Croatian context, this article analyses the indexical meaning and active role of language use in normalising dominant gender norms. Slavic languages have played a minor role in international discussions on gender and language. However, they convincingly allow us to show how indexical functions of language use are integrated in and contribute to gendered perceptions of people in general. For this, an interdisciplinary approach is taken that alludes to both the production and the perception of this specific dimension of social deixis by (1) evaluating the linguistic norm of person appellation as found in a leading conservative newspaper, and (2) testing the perception of these normalised appellation forms against alternative person-naming practices in an online-based questionnaire. As highlighted in this article, the making of linguistically manifest gender boundaries is clearly observable in research on a language possessing rigid grammatical rules of gender marking in person appellation, such as Croatian.

The Role of the Secondary Characters in the Story of the Anointing of Saul (I Samuel ix-x)

2008 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 495-509 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Biblical Narrative ◽  
Secondary Characters

AbstractIn this article I address the roles of the secondary characters in the story of the anointing of Saul as king (I Sam. ix-x). This story contains more than the usual number of secondary characters in a biblical narrative, with some of them playing strange or unusual roles. Through literary analysis of the story's structure and its key words, it becomes clear that the secondary characters play a central role in the story. The hidden message of the story, arising from the chiastic structure of this unit, the molding of the main character, and the molding of the secondary characters surrounding him, is that the king of Israel does not come to be chosen by chance; his selection is guided by God. This message is important for the reader, but the development of the story shows that Saul himself learns the same lesson over the course of the events.

The Making of the Sin of Achan (Joshua 7)

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-131
Author(s):  
Joshua Berman
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Near East ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Biblical Narrative ◽  
Minor Characters ◽  
Great Scrutiny ◽  
Corporate Personality ◽  
Collective Punishment

The ascription of blame to an entire people for the infraction of a nondescript individual found in the account of the sin of Achan (Joshua 7) is without parallel in the Hebrew Bible and in the legal and treaty literature of the ancient Near East. Attempts to explain the account through concepts such as “corporate personality” or the “contagion” to be found in devoted goods have rightly come under great scrutiny. This paper seeks to understand collective punishment in Joshua 7 by engaging in a close reading of the final form of the text and with recourse to notions found in contemporary ethical theory. The paper introduces the rhetorical use of minor characters as markers of collective attitudes in biblical narrative. Central to the exposition of the Achan account is the role of the spies’ report (7:2-3) as such a marker of collective attitudes shared by the polity as a whole.


scholarly journals Minor Characters in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night's Dream

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 122-130
Author(s):  
Zahraa Adnan Baqer
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Twelfth Night ◽  
Minor Characters ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
A Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
Minor Character

This paper aims at discussing the role of the minor characters in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night's Dream. The study assumes that without the first group of minor characters, associated with Olivia, the play Twelfth Night would lose much of its humor, and without the second group, associated with Sebastian, the play would fall apart. On the other hand, in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream minor characters play important roles, without them, the action dose not ran smoothly, or does not ran at all. The paper falls into three sections. Section one deals with the role of each minor character in Twelfth Night.  Section two focuses on the minor characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Section three is a conclusion which sums up the findings of the study.

scholarly journals THE PARADIGMATIC ROLE OF GENESIS 3 FOR READING BIBLICAL NARRATIVE ABOUT DESIRE

2019 ◽  
pp. 87-102
Author(s):  
CEPHAS TUSHIMA
Keyword(s):  
Deviant Behavior ◽  
Sexual Politics ◽  
Biblical Hebrew ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Biblical Narrative ◽  
Genesis 3 ◽  
Power Play

The biblical Hebrew texts of sexual politics (often involving sordid sexual violence, especially against women) have been studied in the last forty years with an ideological bent that employs contemporary literary analysis. This essay is an attempt to allow the biblical text to furnish strategies for reading its troubling narratives rather than imposing external ideologies over it. An ethical narrative close reading of the text of primeval desire (Gen 3) led me to the discovery of four themes—desire, particularly its derivative, sexual passion; power-play; alterity; and peril— and to the biblical authors’ characterization of God in divine response to human deviant behavior as heuristic tools for reading these texts of desire.

Role of spectrin in membrane fusion and in shape change of human erythrocyte ghost

1978 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 328-329
Author(s):  
Hideo Hayashi ◽  
Yoshikazu Hirai ◽  
John T. Penniston
Keyword(s):  
Conformational Changes ◽  
Human Erythrocyte ◽  
Shape Change ◽  
Membrane Surface ◽  
Slight Modification ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Main Role ◽  
Bank Blood ◽  
Human Erythrocyte Ghost

Spectrin is a membrane associated protein most of which properties have been tentatively elucidated. A main role of the protein has been assumed to give a supporting structure to inside of the membrane. As reported previously, however, the isolated spectrin molecule underwent self assemble to form such as fibrous, meshwork, dispersed or aggregated arrangements depending upon the buffer suspended and was suggested to play an active role in the membrane conformational changes. In this study, the role of spectrin and actin was examined in terms of the molecular arrangements on the erythrocyte membrane surface with correlation to the functional states of the ghosts.Human erythrocyte ghosts were prepared from either freshly drawn or stocked bank blood by the method of Dodge et al with a slight modification as described before. Anti-spectrin antibody was raised against rabbit by injection of purified spectrin and partially purified.

Elucidation of block boundaries as the dissolution channels in hydrated cement

1978 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 484-485
Author(s):  
N.V. Belov ◽  
U.I. Papiashwili ◽  
B.E. Yudovich
Keyword(s):  
Liquid Phase ◽  
Grain Boundaries ◽  
Benzoyl Peroxide ◽  
Phase Contrast ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Hardened Cement ◽  
Hydrated Cement ◽  
Hardened Cement Paste

It has been almost universally adopted that dissolution of solids proceeds with development of uniform, continuous frontiers of reaction.However this point of view is doubtful / 1 /. E.g. we have proved the active role of the block (grain) boundaries in the main phases of cement, these boundaries being the areas of hydrate phases' nucleation / 2 /. It has brought to the supposition that the dissolution frontier of cement particles in water is discrete. It seems also probable that the dissolution proceeds through the channels, which serve both for the liquid phase movement and for the drainage of the incongruant solution products. These channels can be appeared along the block boundaries.In order to demonsrate it, we have offered the method of phase-contrast impregnation of the hardened cement paste with the solution of methyl metacrylahe and benzoyl peroxide. The viscosity of this solution is equal to that of water.

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