Hopes Woven in Smoke: Reimagining Virgil’s Aeneid in Irene Vallejo’s El silbido del arquero

This article investigates Irene Vallejo’s 2015 novel El silbido del arquero, a narrative in the Virgilian tradition mostly inspired by Book IV of the Aeneid. We show how Vallejo reinterprets Dido and Aeneas’s tragic love story by foregrounding minor characters, developing the setting, integrating popular subgenres and exploring communicative anxieties and gender issues. It is argued that patterns of dissatisfaction, self-delusion and disillusionment with human affairs ultimately collide with a message of hope voiced by the fictionalised Virgil.

Fire in the Mainframe

The 1969 Sir George Williams computer centre occupation has always felt like a secret, or underground, history, with whose protection Black Montreal has been entrusted. It is underground because it is often buried by mainstream Quebec history. When the FLQ (Front de libération du Québec), Quebec nationalism, and the October Crisis of 1970 are discussed, little or no reference is made to the occupation. That omission is telling, because people of my generation have grown up hearing about those events as centrepieces of “recent” Canadian history, and because, at the very least, the occupation shares the timeline. The occupation, in fact, preceded the October Crisis, and there is anecdotal evidence of a kind of cultural overlap. As a Black writer in Quebec, I am attracted to minor characters and suppressed histories, and this informs part of my interest in the occupation.

Imagining the Afro-Caribbean in García Márquez’s Fiction

In a few early short stories, Gabriel García Márquez created minor characters described as “mulattos” or “negros”; the memorable character of Petra Cotes in Cien años de soledad (1967) is a “mulatta.” In El otoño del patriarca (1975), El amor en los tiempos de cólera (1985), El general en su laberinto (1989), and Del amor y otros demonios (1994), the Colombian-born author develops a more historical vision of the Caribbean as a culture inseparable from the lived experiences of descendants of the African slave trade. This article addresses the problematic construction of Afro-Caribbean subjectivity in García Márquez’s fiction, with particular attention to work published after Cien años de soledad. The 1972 short story “Eréndira” takes the story of a mulatta child-prostitute from a brief episode in Cien años and effectively hypersexualizes the Afro-Caribbean body. So, too, does El otoño del patriarca, with its frequent use of the epithet “burdel de negros” to refer to an imaginary Caribbean nation. The hypersexualization of Afro-Caribbean female characters permeates El amor en los tiempos del cólera. A psychologically dependent relationship between Simón Bolívar and his mixed-race valet in El general en su laberinto and then the “triumph” of a Spanish Renaissance poetic voice over childhood memories of African languages in Del amor y otros demonios provide the backdrop for the author’s final attempts to imagine Afro-Caribbean subjectivity in his fiction.

Mark’s Story

This chapter begins the study of the canonical Gospels with the earliest Gospel written rather than the first in the Christian canon: the Gospel of Mark. After offering basic background on authorship, provenance, and date of composition, this chapter outlines the historical and political contexts of Roman Palestine in the first century CE. This introduction leads into a discussion of Mark’s apocalyptic perspective and presentation of Jesus’s mission as a cosmic battle. Following this background information, the chapter offers a literary overview of the Gospel and explores major themes and passages, including Jesus’s characterization, the Parable of the Sower and minor characters, Jesus’s time in Jerusalem, and the various endings of the Gospel of Mark. The chapter ends with a conclusion describing Mark’s challenge for its readers to choose between fear and faith.

How Does Male Readership Impact Character Portrayals in Contemporary Young Adult Adventure Novels?

Adventure fiction has traditionally followed a male protagonist in their search for selfhood and saviorhood. In the case of contemporary adventure fiction, authors are likely to follow the conventions of the adventure story in order to fit the genre’s stereotypes, which in turn reinforce gender stereotypes. This research paper discusses how contemporary young adult adventure novels typically perform within society’s narrowly defined perception of male readership. While the novels attempt to perpetuate powerful female roles, the male characters fit the fantasy of traditional, male adventure stories. After analyzing traditional stories such as Paradise Lost and Beowulf and modern novels such as Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, I conclude that there are disparities between the portrayal of male and female characters: from the main hero to the minor characters to the antagonists, young adult adventure novels tend to follow traditional tropes in order to satisfy male readers. Even if the authors subvert the patriarchal tropes by adding female heroines or helpful minor characters, the overall work of literature creates a fantasy world that reinforces the traditional roles and desires expected of young boys. In time, these portrayals could encourage male readers to act patronizingly or dismissively toward girls and women.

White Blotches on Brown Skin: A Post-colonial Critique of "The Writing on My Forehead"

The formal colonial rule of Britain ended seven decades ago but the experience deeply influenced the minds of the masses and altered their lives and psyche for a long time to come. Post-colonial issues such as loss of identity, hybridity, otherness, appropriation, etc are frequently highlighted by the Anglophone writers of the sub-continent. The authors of Pakistani descent have contributed remarkably to post-colonial literature. The present research aims to analyze Nafisa Haji’s novel The Writing on My Forehead (2009) to investigate the Western influence on the minds and behaviors of the people of the subcontinent. Homi K. Bhabha's analytical lens (1994) is the primary guide for this research. Three elements of hybridity, namely mimicry, ambivalence, and unhomeliness, as proposed by Bhabha are explored. The concepts of diaspora and othering in the work under discussion are also briefly touched. This research is qualitative and descriptive in nature. The results of the detailed textual analysis indicate that various characters are hybrids of East and West. The phenomena of ambivalence and mimicry can be clearly observed in their conduct and thinking. The most important characters in this regard are Saira, Adeeba (also known as Big Nanima), and Kasim who openly mimic the Western culture. Minor characters like Adeeba’s parents and Shabana, though averse to Western culture at the surface level, are unconsciously influenced by it. The phenomena of othering, diaspora, and unhomeliness are also briefly touched. In this way, the present study sheds light on the impact of colonialism on the lives of colonial subjects and links it with the continued hegemony of the West over the Easterners. It will be helpful for students, teachers and researchers who wish to study Haji’s fiction and the impact of the phenomenon of colonialism.

Reclamation of the Narrative for the Silenced Voice in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad

This article analyzes Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, a rewriting of Homeric epic, The Odyssey. Atwood rewrites the story — the saga of gallantry and triumphalism of Odysseus, with narrative shift that brings postmodern irony and parody, self-reflexivity and metafiction, and intertextuality and paratextuality into play. The article tries explore if Atwood’s shifting of narrative orientation of the Homeric epic yields any different and substantial reception and interpretation of the epic in the recent context.Moreover, I demonstrate how Atwood’s reconstruction and subsequently the empowerment of the minor characters unfolds the incompatibilities and discrepancies the official version of Homer’s epic, and brings the marginal voice to the front by granting a variety of narrative access.I argue, giving subject positions to silent agents and using various genres of expression, for instance, history and myth, Atwood, through the deployment of an autodiegetic narrative, brings together gender, genre and language in such a way that results in a decisive shift in conceptualizing the narrative structure for the marginal voice and agency female characters. The article concludes that why rereading of classical and canonical text is crucial to bring the marginals’ claim to a subject position, and produce a different language and literature that allows space for expression subjectivity of characters on the margins

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

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.

Of Men and Masculinity: The Portrayal of Masculinity in a Selection of Award-Winning Australian Young Adult Literature

This research investigates the portrayal of masculinity in Australian young adult novels published in 2019. The novels were taken from the 2020 Children’s Books Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year for Older Readers Notables List. Established in 1946, these annual awards are considered the most prominent and prestigious in Australian children’s and young adult literature and are likely to be accessible and promoted to young readers in schools and libraries. The three texts studied were Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte, The Boy who Steals Houses by C.G. Drews, and This is How We Change the Ending by Vikki Wakefield. Using a Critical Content Analysis methodology (Beach et al., 2009), researchers completed a review of the literature and theories around masculinity and chose to analyse three exemplary texts using the attributes of the Hegemonic Masculinity Schema (HMS) and Sensitive New Man Schema (SNMS) as described by Romøren and Stephens (2002). Attributes from the HMS include traits and behaviours like being violent, physical or verbal bullying, and hostile to difference while attributes from the SNMS include being supportive, affectionate, and considerate and respectful of the space and feelings of others (especially females). In this method, researchers identify examples of the attributes within the main characters and minor characters from each of the three books, recording quotes and noting critical incidents depicting aspects of masculinity. Notable findings of the research include the acknowledgment and portrayal of a particular conception of hegemonic masculinity in the selected novels often informed or shaped by the presence of dominant father figures and the absence of the concept of “the mother.” The characters who aligned to the schema used within this research are often overshadowed by a dominant father figure who conformed to an extreme version of hegemonic masculinity and who shaped their child’s actions even if the fathers were absent from the novel. The research reveals commonly held conceptions of masculinity aligned to those used in the schema and demonstrated that young adult literature, like popular media, can be used as a vehicle for the dissemination of such concepts and reveal contemporary understandings of it. Outputs from this research include the development of a modified and more contemporary schema which could be applied to future research. Significantly, this interdisciplinary research bridges the library, education and literature fields to examine the different ways maleness and masculinity are depicted to young adult readers in prize-nominated Australian young adult novels.

‘I don’t have a skull… Or bones’: Minor Characters in Disney Animation

This article explores the place of minor characters in Disney’s animated features. More specifically, it proposes that Disney’s minor characters mark an aesthetic rupture by breaking with the mode of hyperrealism that has come to be associated with the studio’s feature-length films. Drawing on character theory within literary studies and on research into animated film performance, the article suggests that the inherent ‘flatness’ of Disney’s minor characters and the ‘figurativeness’ of their performance styles contrasts with the characterizations and aesthetic style of the leading figures. The tendency of Disney’s minor characters to stretch and squash in an exaggerated fashion is also reminiscent of the flexible, plasmatic style of the studio’s early cartoons. In addition to exploring the aesthetic peculiarity of minor characters, this article also suggests that these figures play an important role in fleshing out the depicted fictional worlds of Disney’s movies. By drawing attention to alternative viewpoints and storylines, as well as to the broader narrative universe, minor characters add detail, nuance and complexity to the animated films in which they appear. Ultimately, this article proposes that these characters make the fairy-tale-like worlds of Disney animation more expansive and believable as fictional spaces.