scholarly journals Crisis and Language in Ray Bradbury’s The Last Night of the World

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-160
Author(s):  
Zsuzsanna Ajtony

Abstract Language use in social crisis situations is usually described as being highly ideological, and it exhibits features of affect involving the use of negative evaluation of the perceived social enemies. The present study aims to explore the characters’ language use in Ray Bradbury’s short story entitled The Last Night of the World from a pragma-stylistic perspective. The fictional dialogue that takes place between the two protagonists creates and reflects the dynamics between them, where the unspeakable is only inferred rather than communicated. The analysis reveals special features of verbal communication in a crisis situation, especially focusing on the lexical and morphosyntactic properties, as well as on the verbal interaction and cooperation between the characters revealing their alignment. The results of the analysis prove that the verbal and non-verbal communication between the protagonists do not show the features described in crisis communication; therefore, the text of the story can be interpreted as subverting the generic language use in a critical situation.

Author(s):  
Nina Bosak

The demonolexis in Yu. Andrukhovych’s long short story “Recreatsii” (“Recreations”) has been analyzed in the article. In the course of the research there have been outlined the following lexical-semantic groups of demonomens: toponymic and onomastic names, modified lexemes, names of the rituals, genuine Ukrainian demonomens, obscene words and expressions, demonomens of Biblical origin, names from the world mythology and general demonolexis. The special lexical-semantic group has been formed by non personificated demonomens, which serve to convey the peculiarities of the contemporary Ukrainian writers’ mentality, their habits through speech. Such nomens help to reveal the protagonist’s soul, show the positive and negative sides of his personal ego, demonstrate the duality of the human perception of the world, indicate the causes of phobias, emotions, sensations. Key words: demonolexis, demonomen, lexical-semantic group, non personificated demonomen.


Imbizo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Danson Sylvester Kahyana

The article examines how selected works in Uganda’s first anthology of prison-authored work, As I Stood Dead before the World: Creative Writing from Luzira Prison (2018), handle one of the issues of paramount importance to inmates and their families: the possibility that convictions in courts of law are not foolproof since judicial officers are human beings and therefore susceptible to error. Drawing from four examples: two poems (Jackson O’s “Letter to Aber” and Sebuuma Gadafi’s “Twenty-Years”), one short story (Rachael Pearl Orishaba’s “A Secret”), and one short play (Jennifer Janette’s “What If It Wasn’t Kato?”), I show how different inmates imagine situations where judicial officers (prosecutors and magistrates/judges) make errors of judgement that see innocent people convicted of crimes they did not commit. The article closely reads the four selected pieces with the objective of investigating how creative writers can help judicial officers realise how important it is to turn every proverbial stone before a conviction is made.


2011 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 722-756
Author(s):  
Jon Adams ◽  
Edmund Ramsden

Nestled among E. M. Forster's careful studies of Edwardian social mores is a short story called “The Machine Stops.” Set many years in the future, it is a work of science fiction that imagines all humanity housed in giant high-density cities buried deep below a lifeless surface. With each citizen cocooned in an identical private chamber, all interaction is mediated through the workings of “the Machine,” a totalizing social system that controls every aspect of human life. Cultural variety has ceded to rigorous organization: everywhere is the same, everyone lives the same life. So hopelessly reliant is humanity upon the efficient operation of the Machine, that when the system begins to fail there is little the people can do, and so tightly ordered is the system that the failure spreads. At the story's conclusion, the collapse is total, and Forster's closing image offers a condemnation of the world they had built, and a hopeful glimpse of the world that might, in their absence, return: “The whole city was broken like a honeycomb. […] For a moment they saw the nations of the dead, and, before they joined them, scraps of the untainted sky” (2001: 123). In physically breaking apart the city, there is an extent to which Forster is literalizing the device of the broken society, but it is also the case that the infrastructure of the Machine is so inseparable from its social structure that the failure of one causes the failure of the other. The city has—in the vocabulary of present-day engineers—“failed badly.”


IIUC Studies ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 55-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed Sarwar Alam

Imperialism has been the most powerful force in world history over last four or five centuries. The world has moved from the colonial to post-colonial era or neoimperialism. Throughout the period, the imperialists have changed their grounds and strategies in imperialistic rules. But the ultimate objective has remained the same- to rule and exploit the natives with their multifaceted dominance-technological, economic and military. Through dominance with these, they have been, to a great extent, successful in establishing their racial and cultural superiority. George Orwell is popularly known to be an anti-imperialist writer. This paper, I believe, will lead us to an almost different conclusion. Here, we discover the inevitable dilemma in a disguised imperialist. We discover the seeds of imperialism under the mask of anti-imperialism. In this regard, it studies his revealing short story "Shooting an Elephant". It also humbly approaches to refute Barry Hindess' arguments supporting neoimperialism.   doi: 10.3329/iiucs.v3i0.2664   IIUC STUDIES Vol. - 3, December 2006 (p 5-62)  


Janus Head ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-135
Author(s):  
Keith Moser ◽  

This interdisciplinary essay investigates J.M.G. Le Clézio’s short story “Martin” from the collection entitled La Fièvre (Fever) from the lens of recent empirical studies related to bullying. The 2008 Nobel Laureate in Literature creates a rending portrait of the physical and cerebral anguish suffered by casualties of peer-victimization. The profound inner turmoil experienced by the protagonist Martin mirrors the searing pain felt by millions of innocent victims around the world on a daily basis. Although the nefarious, long-term effects of bullying are often dismissed by misinformed individuals as a reflection of “boys being boys,” research unequivocally demonstrates that bullying is a global pandemic that should be taken seriously. In this disquieting narrative from the early part of his illustrious career, Le Clézio extends an ethical summons to the reader which compels us to think harder about the dire social consequences of bullying. Specifically, the tragic dénouement leaves little room for ambivalence concerning the author’s position related to the anguish experienced by casualties of peer-victimization. In “Martin,” it is the destabilizing realism that attacks the sensibilities of the reader the most. Although this text is a work of fiction, it deeply resonates with the reader given that deplorable incidents, which leave deep inner scars, like the one described in “Martin” occur far too often all across the globe. When analyzed in conjunction with the disconcerting research compiled by international scholars from around the world, “Martin” is an invaluable tool that allows us to catch a small glimpse of the unbearable torment felt by the victims of these heinous crimes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (8) ◽  
pp. 29-36
Author(s):  
Alexis Dubon ◽  

How do you find common ground with those that believe in a vast, intricate, media conspiracy to hide the truth? In this work of philosophical short story of fiction, the narrator drives out to his parent’s house to visit them for the holidays. Much to his surprise, when his parents open the door, they are only two feet tall! He is concerned that his parents, like many in the world, have shrunk to half their size. His parents, however, are equally concerned about their son because they believe he, and others in the world, have doubled in size. The son tries to explain to his parents that they have shrunk, that is why their house, and all their belongings, seem so large. However, his parents believe he, like many others, have an altered idea of what reality is, and that they have been lied to by the media and local officials. The son continues to come year after year to visit his tiny parents, who continue to refuse that they have changed, not the world around them.


1979 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 284-294
Author(s):  
John H. Chambers

It is argued that visual art makes statements analogous to the statements of science, morals, etc. Such art statements are provided by entities like Guernica, The Fighting Temeraire, and pictures on the walls of the local gallery, and concern themselves with things-in-themselves. The whole point of art criticism is to make clearer this thing-in-itself. In the way that other sorts of statement shape the world, so art statements shape the world. We do not know the world and then superimpose art statements upon it; we know the world through the art statements. This thesis has curriculum implications. It indicates the need for art encounters and techniques of various sorts, since the knowledge of art statements can only be apprehended through engaging in art and from intense verbal communication with teachers about art and its qualities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1197-1202
Author(s):  
Mohammed Abdullah Abduldaim Hizabr Alhusami

The aim of this paper is to investigate the issue of intertextuality in the novel Alfirdaws Alyabab (The Waste Paradise) by the female Saudi novelist and short story writer Laila al-Juhani. Intertextuality is a rhetoric and literary technique defined as a textual reference deliberate or subtle to some other texts with a view of drawing more significance to the core text; and hence it is employed by an author to communicate and discuss ideas in a critical style. The narrative structure of Alfirdaws Alyabab (The Waste Paradise) showcases references of religious, literary, historical, and folkloric intertextuality. In analyzing these references, the study follows the intertextual approach. In her novel The Waste Paradise, Laila al-Juhani portrays the suffering of Saudi women who are less tormented by social marginalization than by an inner conflict between openness to Western culture and conformity to cultural heritage. Intertextuality relates to words, texts, or discourses among each other. Moreover, the intertextual relations are subject to reader’s response to the text. The relation of one text with other texts or contexts never reduces the prestige of writing. Therefore, this study, does not diminish the status of the writer or the text; rather, it is in itself a kind of literary creativity. Finally, this paper aims to introduce Saudi writers in general and the female writers in particular to the world literature.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Agus Hermawan

Abstract: As a verbal communication instrument, language is a system with arbitrer. People realize that language activity actually is an activity to exspress language symbols to inform the meaning of the symbols to another people (in oral communication) or to the reader (in a letter communication). This thing can be seen from some of these proof, teacher in educational world already forgot about what was Ki Hajar Dewantara said, in that motto, teacher not only have to teach about educational in the class, but also to build the characteristic of their students. This observation use documentation methods in written text or language in the motto of Ki Hajar Dewantara, because Ki Hajar Dewantara wrote a message in that motto about education in the world, including in our environment to send a message about what was he did. The motto that written by Ki Hajar Dewantara use many interesting words. This thing make the writer use behavioral approachment to be a reference to make a meaning of the educational motto from Ki Hajar Dewantara.Keywords: representation, motto, education, meaning.Abstrak: Sebagai alat komunikasi verbal bahasa merupakan suatu sistem lambang bunyi yang bersifat arbitrer. Orang menyadari bahwa kegiatan berbahasa sesungguhnya adalah kegiatan mengekspresikan lambang – lambang bahasa untuk menyampaikan makna- makna yang ada pada lambang tersebut,kepada lawan bicaranya (dalam komunikasi lisan) atau pembaca ( dalam komunikasi tulis). Hal ini dapat dilihat dari bukti berikut, pendidik dalam dunia pendidikan suda mulai lupa dengan semboyan Ki Hajar Dewantara, dalam semboyan tersebut pendidik tugas dan tanggungjawabnya selain mengajar juga harus membentuk karakteristik peserta didiknya,memberikan contoh dalam bersikap.Penelitian ini menggunakan metode dokumentasi dalam penggunaan bahasa tulis yang dituangkan di semboyan Ki Hajar Dewantara sangatlah menarik, karena Ki Hajar Dewantara menuliskan pesan terhadap dunia pendidikan, baik dilingkungan sekitar maupun dilingkungan luar untuk menyampaikan pesan terhadap apa yang dialaminya. Tulisan Ki Hajar Dewantara tersebut mengandung makna atau arti, apa yang dituliskan Ki Hajar Dewantara banyak menggunakan istilah- istilah yang unik, yang sulit dinalar oleh manusia lainnya. Hal ini menyebabkan penulis menggunakan pendekatan behavioral manjadi acuan untuk memaknai istilah yang ada di semboyan pendidikan Ki Hajar Dewantara.Kata kunci: representasi, semboyan, edukasi, makna. 


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document