İNGİLİZ/AMERİKAN EDEBİYATI I - Deneme Sınavı - 18

Taking his strength from his religious devotion to God, he deems the island as his new home.  Robinson’s inclination towards superior stations of life manifests itself with his deeming himself the king and the lord of the island. Once he feels that there are no real outside dangers to his existence on the island and that there are no rivals, he feels in full possession of the island. The only thing that Robinson seems to be really in need of is human company. For instance, when he hears his name pronounced by the parrot he has tamed, he is overjoyed. He does not idly wait someone to rescue him, but tries to create opportunities to save his own life.

The time that Robinson finds a footprint on the island is very significant in that Robinson’s first reaction is of fear. Robinson first thinks that it is the footprint of Devil. When he realizes that the footprint indeed belongs to a man, he is equally scared. It is ironic that he is scared of any sign of another man while he is so much in need of human company.

Robinson’s discovering the wreck of the Spanish ship is very important for him because for the first time in twenty-three years on the island he feels terribly in need of company. This time he is not scared as he was when he saw the footprint. This point is extremely important in that the ship that he sees is at a safe distance and no one has set foot on what he calls his own land.

After the arrival of the Spanish Captain and Friday’s father the life on the island changes. Robinson now does not need to work on his plantation as he used to before, and he makes a division of labour among the new inhabitants which he calls his subjects. The people whose lives he saved become naturally inferior to him, but he makes sure that there is a class distinction among them as well.

The last part of the novel is important in portraying human relations which have been absent from most of the novel.

Mrs. Mooney is a butcher’s daughter. She is married to her father’s foreman and opened a butcher’s shop with her husband. After her father’s death, Mr. Mooney sinks into alcoholism and ruins the family business.

Mrs. Mooney soon finds out that Polly has an affair with one of the residents of the boarding house: Mr. Doran. Mrs. Mooney does not intervene with this relation and
simply watches the couple. She waits for the right moment to talk about the relation between Polly and Mr. Doran.

Mrs. Mooney thinks about the right moment to talk to Mr. Doran and she decides that she has to do the talk before the short twelve at church. According to Mrs. Mooney, Mr. Doran is a serious man of thirty-four or thirty-five. He is not like the other men in the boarding house. He has been employed for thirteen years at a respectable office and she thinks he would not want to risk his job by refusing to marry Polly. If things go public, it will be difficult for him to keep his job and reputation. Mrs. Mooney knows that Mr. Doran can afford marriage since she suspects that he has been saving money.

The boarding house is about a mother who plots to marry her daughter with a man whom the daughter has an affair with. This story is under the title “Parent and Child” and it mainly tells how and what a mother thinks and plans about her daughter. Mrs. Mooney is a determined woman and she aims to get a proper husband for her daughter. For this aim, she makes plans and it seems that her plans are working. In the story, in addition to the mother, we are introduced to what Mr. Doran and Polly think about the events as well. The story portrays what marriage promises one and what it takes way. Mr. Doran is not aware of the consequence of his actions and now he has to pay for it. The concept of marriage becomes more than a feeling and it includes social standards, moral obligations, and public perception. Mrs. Mooney seems to care about her daughter but at the same time, she plots about marrying her daughter with someone from a higher class. She does not intervene until the moment she is sure that Mr. Doran is ready for reparation. The following quotation shows that Mrs. Mooney has a plot about Polly and Mr. Doran.

As it is clear from the quotation above, Mr. Doran cares about what others will think of him. Mr. Doran does not think about how Polly feels but he considers her background and manner of speaking. After Mr. Doran leaves, Polly who threatens to kill herself becomes happy suddenly since she is sure that Mr. Doran will propose to her. In The Boarding House, the detailed description of characterization and insight into how they feel and act portray how social acceptance and strategies have power over people’s decisions.

The main setting of the story is the boarding house run by Mrs. Mooney. After she separated from her husband Mr. Mooney, she set up a boarding house and used the money left from the unsuccessful butcher’s business. She and her children now live in the boarding house. The setting is a place where people from various backgrounds meet and mingle. The residents are generally tourists from Liverpool and the Isle of Man. Artists from the music halls visit the place and the clerks from the business field live in the boarding house.

The story is not told from a single point of view and we are introduced to the thoughts and feelings of multiple characters. In this respect, the short story has an omniscient third person narration. The characters are depicted in detail and background information about them is given. In the story, the events are told from Mrs. Mooney’s, Mr. Doran’s and partly Polly’s viewpoint and the focus is on what and how they feel rather than the events.

She seems an innocent young lady who is manipulated by her mother and her wishes. When her mother asks her to quit her job at the office she accepts it and when her mother wants her to entertain the young men at the boarding house, she acts accordingly. However, at the end of the story while Polly is waiting for the news, she seems to be sure that her mother will take care of everything and Mr. Doran will propose to her. She is ready for accepting the social necessities. It is not clear what she really feels about Mr. Doran but she is sure that she has to marry him to save her reputation. She seems to act like her mother when she threatens Mr. Doran that she will kill herself because of the affair and then she feels comfortable and relaxed when Mr. Doran leaves to see her mother.

In The Boarding House, the tone of the story is ironic which gives the reader an idea about the values of the Dublin society and how characters contrast in their deeds and actions.

Having started his career by writing jokes for newspapers, Allen did not stop adding comic elements to his fiction. Humor is an inseparable part of his writings. Moreover, he uses daily speech frequently in his writings. His literature is a good example of American humor. Moreover, both his films and literature are considered to be examples of postmodernism employing most of the postmodern techniques, particularly parody

Originally a theory of architecture, postmodernism has its roots in the post-World War II period. Postmodernism later influenced philosophy, art, literature, film, and culture. Although the exact time that it began as a movement is not clear, it is usually believed that it is a reaction to the loss of meaning after WWII and a reaction to modernist attitude. Actually, postmodernism is a continuation of modernism, a literary movement that dominated the literary world between the late nineteenth century and 1940s, and makes use of most of the characteristics of modernism. Therefore, in order to understand what postmodernism is, one should have at least a basic understanding of modernism

The techniques for parody summarized by Sturtevant (2012) are:
• Reiteration: the connection to the parodied text is established by using objects or other devices such as horses to evoke western or handheld cameras to evoke documentary.
• Inversion: using the element in the original text in an original way
• Misdirection: the conventions of the source text are used to create a set of expectations in the spectator which are then reversed or transformed by the parody
• Literalization: “a technique that takes a naïve approach to the source text, as though it were readable only literally and not through the lens of the convention. For example “in Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993) when Robin cries out to the crowd “Lend me your ears,” at which point the crowd starts throwing actual ears at him”.
• Extraneous inclusion: elements that do not belong in a conventional generic image in order to render it strange. [for example, the mobile phone used in AROG)
• Exaggeration: takes an aspect of the source text and renders it absurd through
excessive emphasis.

The story opens in a psychoanalyst’s office. Professor Sidney Kugelmass is complaining about his life and is disappointed that his marriage to his second wife Daphne did not turn out to be what he had expected. He actually married Daphne because he had to pay high alimony to his ex-wife Flo, and Daphne had money. He confesses to his analyst Dr. Mandel that what he needs is a romantic relationship to which the analyst objects because the analyst believes that a romantic relationship would be a superficial solution to Kugelmass’s deeper problems.

“The Kugelmass Episode” is a parody of both modern American and Jewish society and through the central character, Professor Sidney Kugelmass explores one of the central conflicts of the modern consumer society: dissatisfaction.

Exposition in a story sets the scene for the coming events.