Structure

Structure

Carver vs. Kurt
1. Same
  1. Connect both to the aspect of Tralfamadorian literature.
    1. "there isn't any particular relationship between the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully"
      1. Carver
        The stories are random in terms of their content and also how each one shows a very peculiar moment, but what connects them is their structure and the fact that they all help Carver explain love and relationships in a realistic way.
      2. Kurt
        The book in itself can be read as part of Tralfamadorian literature as the story is told in fragments, and the only connection between them is Billy Pilgrim, but in an indirect way the stories help shape what Kurt wants to say about war, without ever having to explain it directly, we understand it through the story order and their connections.
      3. Expressing the inexpressible
        Love
        Why Don't you Dance?
        “She kept talking. She told everyone. There was more to it, and she was trying to get it talked out. After a time, she quit trying.”
        Cathedral
        What We Talk ABout When We Talk About Love
        "Say what you want to, but I know it was (...) it may sound crazy to you, but it's true just the same. People are different, Mel. Sure sometimes he may have acted crazy. Okay. But he loved me. There was love there, Mel. Don't say there wasn't"
        War
        Through juxtaposition of his thoughts - what he says isn't exactly what he feels/ thinks
        “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”
        "That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times and concentrate on the good ones.”
        So it goes.
        “How nice -- to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.”
        “ Everything is nothing, with a twist”
        “And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep”
  2. Nonlinear
  3. Third-person narrator
    1. Lets the intimacy and empathy towards the characters become subjective
2. Different
  1. Carver
    1. Short Stories
      1. By being a collection of short stories, the moments we are exposed to are very small - just slices of peoples lives
      2. Minimalist
        Simplistic punctuation
        Focus of detailed description is on small things that seem irrelevant - but they add to the fact that what he is trying to explained cannot be explained in words, and so by not explaining the meaning of the stories directly, he conveys the same sensations in his structure as the ones he is trying to portray
        “The girl opened and closed her eyes” - Why don't you dance?
  2. Genres
    1. Sci-fi
      1. Kurt takes advantage of the sci-fi genre through time-travel and the tralfamadores which makes him deviate from a normal chronological story structure
        "He closed his eyes, then opened them again. He was still weeping, but he was back in Luxemburg again"
    2. Drama
      1. Carver deviates from the conventions of a normal drama by taking advantage of the purpose of short stories and therefore only showing very small and singular moments of the character's lives.
        The reader never gets closures and therefore is stuck on an eternal post-reflection
        The reader can therefore only judge the characters based on their reactions, dialogue and interactions of that single moment - we don't get anything on their past nor future.
        in the end, it is a very accurate representation of reality

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	Created by barbieri.beatriz almost 9 years ago