scholarly journals Roguish Self-Fashioning and Questing in Aleksandar Hemon’s “Everything”

Text Matters ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 100-117
Author(s):  
Jason Blake

This paper examines self-fashioning in Aleksandar Hemon’s “Everything,” a story about a Sarajevo teenager’s journey through ex-Yugoslavia to the Slovenian town of Murska Sobota. His aim? “[T]o buy a freezer chest for my family” (39). While in transit, the first-person narrator imagines himself a rogue of sorts; the fictional journey he takes, meanwhile, is clearly within the quest tradition. The paper argues that “Everything” is an unruly text because by the end of the story the reader must jettison the conventional reading traditions the quest narrative evokes. What begins as a comic tale about a minor journey opens out, in the story’s final lines, into a story about larger historical concerns, namely, the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. By introducing contemporary history, Hemon points beyond the closed world of his short story, while rejecting the quest pattern he has established.

2017 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 87
Author(s):  
Bergur Rønne Moberg

<p><strong>Úrtak</strong></p><p>Greinin viðger ‘týðingar’spurdómar í stuttsøguni „Grylen“ (1957) eftir William Heinesen. Søgan tekur støði í einum elligomlum føstulávintssiði í Føroyum – at ganga grýla – sum doyði út beint fyri seinna heimsbardaga. Í søguni hjá Williami verður grýlan til ein dionýsiskan figur kallaður Grylen, sum er ólýsandi og ímyndar orðloysi. Greinin vísir, hvussu metatilvitaða frásøgufólkið letur seg hugkveikja av hesum fyribrigdi  við  áhaldandi at umringja tað við nýggjum myndum. Týdda grýlan verður greinað sum 1) eitt ontologiskt tulkingartilvitað frásøgufólk og sum 2) eitt eyðkenni við bókmentamentan í  útjaðaranum. Stuttsøgan fær skap sum ein navngevingargongd av einari undantaksveru, og tað er við støði í hesum botnloysi, at frásøgufólkið tulkar og týðir grýluna til eitt listaligt úttrykk. Grylen umboðar eina rest, sum dregur seg undan modernaðum mannagongdum. Við støði í hugsanum hjá Franco Moretti og Andreas Huyssen verður týðingin samstundis knýtt at landafrøðiliga útjaðaranum, sum skapar ein serligan tørv á týðing í royndini at minka um munin millum ‘miðdepil’ og ‘útjaðara’. Í hesum samteksti umboðar Grylen og oyggin Stapa eitt mentanarligt eftirsleip, sum verður gjørt til eina styrki. Hetta ’writing back’ brúkar føroyskan miðaldarsið og fornaldarligt evni sum Dionysos til at seta spurning við hegemoniska(n) modernitet og modernismu og við hvat er miðdepil og hvat er útjaðari.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong>A</strong><strong>bstract</strong></p><p>This analysis addresses the issue of translation in William Heinesen’s short story „Grylen“ (1957). It is a story of an old Dionysiac Faroese ritual, which died out around The Second World War. The narrator sets himself the task of transplanting this Dionysos into modern fiction.  Due  to  the  muteness  of  the  Gryla the literary connection to the myth can only be established by virtue of interpretation as demonstrated as an explicit mediation of the mythical silence. The muteness appear as a matter of interpretation while being encircled in  conflicting  images.  Focus  is  partly  given on the interpreted Gryla as a complex question of ontological interpretation and partly as an expression of cultural translation linked to aesthetic development in the geographical periphery. Due to the muteness of the Gryla, the whole story appears as a course of naming the nameless forces that work within Dunald, who is the one having the Gryla. Based on Franco Moretti’s og Andreas Huyssen’s notion of ‘centre and periphery’, the question of translation is connected to the Faroe Island as a non­metropolitan culture. Due to the cultural backlog in the periphery there is a special need for translations caused by the discrepancy between the trans­atlantic modernity and a minor culture as the Faroese still close to nature and the oral tradition. In response to the cultural backlog the dynamics of translation become a privileged perspective creating connections between   modern   and   premodern   aspects. The Faroese reaction represents an alternative modernity and an alternative (geo)modernism writing back to a rule­based hegemonic modernity an modernism in order to give an account of the encounter with another world, which evades direct contact and brings into question what is periphery and what is centre.</p><p> </p>


1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-39
Author(s):  
Eve Kornfeld

In the 1960s, in my home town of Jackson, the civil rights leader Medgar Evers was murdered one night in darkness, and I wrote a story that same night about the murderer (his identity then unknown) called ‘Where Is the Voice Coming From?’ But all that absorbed me, though it started as outrage, was the necessity I felt for entering into the mind and inside the skin of a character who could hardly have been more alien or repugnant to me. Trying for my utmost, I wrote it in the first person. I was wholly vaunting the prerogative of the short-story writer. It is always vaunting, of course, to imagine yourself inside another person, but it is what a story writer does in every piece of work; it is his first step, and his last too, I suppose.


1977 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-41
Author(s):  
Jennifer Cramer

‘A Child’s Heart’ is a short story written by Herman Hesse concerning an eleven year old boy. As an account, in the first person, of the child’s emotions it provides an insight into child development.The child, for reasons unknown to himself, stole dried figs from his father’s study on finding his father absent. There followed manifold expressions of guilt such as misery, remorse and resentment. Hesse describes his attitude toward his father as one of “reverence and rebellion” which “contested in my overladen heart.”


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 133
Author(s):  
Demétrio Alves Paz ◽  
Mithiele Da Silva Scarton

O presente trabalho, relacionado ao estudo desenvolvido pelo projeto de pesquisa intitulado Mulheres fortes: O conto africano de língua portuguesa de autoria feminina (PROBIC/FAPERGS), tem por objetivo analisar a condição feminina presente em nove contos da obra Mornas eram as noites, de autoria da escritora cabo-verdiana Dina Salústio. A partir da leitura de obras críticas de especialistas nas literaturas africanas de língua portuguesa, como Maria Aparecida Santilli (2007), Manuel Ferreira (1987), Pires Laranjeira (1995) e Simone Caputo Gomes (2006; 2013), assim como em artigos publicados em revistas acadêmicas, revisamos a fortuna crítica da autora com o intuito de conhecer seus temas. Nas nove narrativas, observamos que há figuras femininas diferenciadas, representando um amplo apanhado de todas as classes sociais e de diferentes idades. A grande maioria das histórias é narrada em primeira pessoa, o que aproxima o leitor da condição feminina e também funciona como uma espécie de pedido de cumplicidade por parte das narradoras para sentir-se parte desse emaranhado de sentimentos e situações em que elas se encontram.Palavras-chave: Literatura de autoria feminina. Conto. Literatura cabo-verdiana. Dina Salústio. Condição feminina.ABSTRACTThis article, related to the study developed in the research project Strong Women: African short stories written by women writers (PROBIC/FAPERGS), aims to to analyze the women’s condition in 9 (nine) short stories in Warm were the nights, by the Cape Verdean writer Dina Salústio. From the reading of critical works by scholars of African Literature in Portuguese Language such as Maria Aparecida Santilli (2007), Manuel Ferreira (1987), Pires Laranjeira (1995) e Simone Caputo Gomes (2006, 2013), as well as articles in academic journals, we revised the critical works about the author to get a better knowledge of her themes. In the nine narratives, we noted that there are differentiated feminine figures, representing a broad view of all social classes and different ages. The majority of stories were narrated in the first person, which connect the reader to the women’s condition as well as it works as a kind of asking for partnership by the narrators to feel part of this connection of feelings and situations in which the characters are involved. Keywords: Women’s writing. Short story. Cape Verdean Literature. Dina Salústio. Women’s condition.


Literator ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
S.F. Greyling

In the Transgressions and boundaries of the page project, artists and writers were invited to create artist’s books and thereby to transcend the possibilities of the codex form of the book. This article discusses one of the projects, namely the creative remediation by Fanie Viljoen of his own short story (word), Pynstiller [‘Painkiller’], which deals with the phenomenon of selfmutilation among teenagers, into a graphic novel (word and image). The creative process and product are investigated according to the concepts of media, narratology, picture book and comic book theory. With reference to the two versions of the text, it is indicated how the narrative and theme of the short story are emphasised or extended in the graphic version, and particularly how access to the experienced world of the first-person narrator has been broadened. It appears that the visual narrative elements and the interaction between word and image together contribute towards the narrative, characterisation, portrayal of the theme and the subsequent effect on the reader-viewer. Finally, Fanie Viljoen’s remediation of Pynstiller confirms the premise that the artist’s book is an ideal medium to challenge and transcend boundaries.


Adaptation ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernadette Luciano ◽  
Steele Burrow

Abstract This article explores Italian filmmaker Antonietta De Lillo’s cinematic adaptation of Franz Kafka’s short story ‘A Report to an Academy’ in which she incorporates elements from both literary and visual media to create a ‘re-performance’ of an earlier performance, that of Kafka’s Rotpeter. De Lillo through the extensive use of gesture, montage, shift of focus, and other cinematic devices, interrupts and disrupts the narrative ‘report’ thereby ‘shocking’ the viewer in Brechtian fashion into an awareness of the fragility of identity and of the ‘ape’ nature that remains in all of us. De Lillo’s addition of an interview to Kafka’s monologue represents an innovation in Kafka adaptation and within this framework her first person/ape narrator Signor Rotpeter is allowed to respond to what she terms our ‘loss of humanity’. He provides first person/ape evidence of this loss both verbally and through his gestural complex, addressing the disconnect between young and old, the cruelty toward animals, and the violence of everyday life, prompting the viewer to reflect on the lives of those who, like the narrator Rotpeter, are desperately seeking a ‘way out’.


Author(s):  
Ralph E. Rodriguez

This chapter analyzes the rare focalization of fiction through the first-person plural (we) and the second person (you). It is particularly interested in the affective textures these narrative perspectives create in terms of intimacy and distance, within the story and between narrator and reader. In carrying out this analysis, it examines Manuel Muñoz’s story “Monkey, Sí,” Patricia Engel’s story “Green”, and Ana Menéndez’s story “Why We Left.” In each of the stories, the narrators navigate traumatic life experiences—rape, eating disorders, and a miscarriage, respectively. The chapter does a close reading of how pronominal use affects the characters’ and readers’ emotional experience of the story before them.


2021 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 41-47
Author(s):  
Luisa Marino

This essay investigates the relationship between the idea of movement and the concept of translation in Licia Canton’s short story “The Motorcycle” and in its Italian translation. The essay looks at translation both as a metaphor of negotiation and mediation that bridges two linguistic and cultural backgrounds and as a process thanks to which a text can effectively circulate in several languages and cultures. Thanks to some excerpts taken from the Italian text, the issue of the accent, that of self-translation and identity are explored through the lens of language, underlining its role in shaping and conveying images and narratives of the migrant.


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