İNGİLİZ/AMERİKAN EDEBİYATI I - Deneme Sınavı - 17

The protagonist and the antagonist of the story, Sidney Kugelmass is a professor of humanities at City College. He has two sons from his first wife Flo, and pays high alimony to her. He is presently married to Daphne who is also working at the same college. Kugelmass is unhappy with his new marriage with Daphne whom he resembles to a troglodyte. Kugelmass is also unfortunate about his physical appearance as he is bold and his body is extremely hairy. This detail becomes important at the end of the story as he is followed by a hairy word “tener” at the end of the story.

Originally the protagonist of Gustave Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary, Emma shares many characteristics with Kugelmass. Emma is a woman of energy and romance, who cannot find these in her marriage with Charles. Therefore, in the novel, she has relationships with other men to add some excitement to her life. She is also extravagant in her spendings and at the end of the novel, she is refused by her lovers which makes her commit suicide.

Because the story is a postmodern one it employs three different narrative points of view. In the parts that concentrates on the action, the narrator is only objective, therefore the narration consist mainly of dialogues or a report of the events. This narrative point of view dominates most of the story. In the parts where the narration concentrates on Kugelmass’ feelings, this time the story is told from the third person limited omniscient narration and is told from Kugelmass’ perspective.

POSTMODERN FEATURES OF THE STORY

Self-reflexivity: The text referring to itself as a text.

Fragmentation

Intertextuality: The story is overtly intertextual borrowing one of the central characters and the theme of dissatisfaction from another literary work.

Playfulness and Parody

In the late part of his life, Defoe produced his most known works starting with Robinson Crusoe. His writings mainly deal with religion, politics and everyday life.

In the 17th century, middle class began to gain power thanks to the money they earned from colonial trade and began to shape the politics as well as arts.

Until 17th century, aristocratic class was unquestionably the leading class giving shape to politics, morality and arts. However, in the 17th century, middle class began to gain power thanks to the money they earned from colonial trade and began to shape the politics as well as arts. For instance, the novel genre started in these centuries because the middle class did not want to read about the heroic ideals of the aristocratic class anymore, and wanted a realistic representation of real people with their real experiences in literature (Koç, 2005, p. 10). The reason for this was because poetry was not really proper for the depiction of the lives of middle class and this gave rise to the novel genre, Daniel Defoe being the forerunner. Especially the realism and the use of daily language in Defoe’s works served well to the taste of the middle classes.

Rahn (2011) claims that the characters are depicted in such a detail that “They are psychologically complicated, multifaceted, and with conflicting impulses and motivations that very nearly replicate the daily tribulations of being human”. Therefore, realistic novels take their power not only from the plot but mainly from the power of characterization.

The world that is presented in the story is run with technology and is under the heavy influence of capitalism and consumerism. Most of the characters are living in a world where there is little genuine connection between characters. As a result of consumerism, Kugelmass is dissatisfied with whatever he has. The correct answer is A.

All pieces of information given about the nove are true.

She is rich and as Kugelmass tells at the beginning of the story “had promise” (line 6). However, it is implied that she has changed during her marriage with Kugelmass perhaps by not being careful about her physical appearance. Because of this, Kugelmass resembles her to a cave man in line 117. She is also portrayed as a woman who holds the power in the relationship as she instructs Kugelmass to attend family meetings. Moreover, Kugelmass is very afraid of her because she has the power to drag him into poverty in case of divorce. The correct answer is E.

Self-reflexivity: The text referring to itself as a text. One of the examples of self-reflexivity is the language that Emma uses: “She spoke in the same fine English translation as the paperback” (lines 108-109). The correct answer is E.

Kugelmass does not have a linear life. His life is fragmented between his life in New York and his affair in Yonville. The same is reflected in the texts as well. When Kugelmass enters the novel, the narrative line of the novel is broken and it becomes nonlinear. The same thing happens when Emma begins to live in New York causing another fragmentation in his life. The correct answer is D.

Being invited by a friend who is to sail to London in his father’s ship, Robinson sets sail suddenly without a second thought, without informing his family.

When the rainy season passes, Robinson decides to finish his preparations for the voyage. One day when he sends Friday to the shore to find a tortoise, Friday comes back in a very frightened state upon discovering three canoes on the shore with twenty one savages and three captives. The captives are Europeans and although Robinson questions himself of the conduct, he decides to save the victims by killing the cannibals. Friday and Robinson attack the cannibals and save the Spanish man. The three men fight the cannibals and kill most of them, but four of the cannibals manage to escape in a canoe Robinson and Friday decide to chase them so that the escapees would not bring other cannibals back for revenge. When on the canoe, Robinson and Friday discover another captive who happens to be Friday’s father.

Some modern critics name a long short story as novella.

The novel starts with a conversational language. Robinson tells everything to the audience as if he were disclosing his secrets to his best friend. This type of narration makes the audience familiarize him/herself with the character in the novel.

In short it is suitable to keep in mind that, a story is briefly a fictional prose narrative which may vary widely in length. As in a novel the elements of plot, characters, theme and setting are interwoven. A novel may go on for hundreds of pages, mix plots, introduce and eliminate characters, develop several themes and roam from one setting to another but a short story does not have the space to do so.

There is a general belief that fables were originated in India and then carried into Persia and from there spread into Greece, nevertheless; according to Greek historian Herodotus, fables were born with the Greek slave named Aesop in the 6th Century BC. These ancient fables are also known as Aesop’s Fables.

Another ancient form of short story is anecdotes. This short story form was famous during the years of Roman Empire. These forms function as a sort of parable in which the narration is brief and realistic.