First, let me commend you all: Great blog entries this week! I've made some comments on several of them, so feel free to add to those if you'd like--you get credit for responding, making posts, etc.
One thing we haven't talked about yet and it's so basic that maybe it's absurd to wait a month into the term to bring it up, but here goes: Titles. What do titles do? What is their purpose? When you read the title David Copperfield, what did you think? How do you register the titles of the different chapters? For instance, when you read "A Loss" for chapter XXX, what immediately registers before you read the chapter? Or when you read the next chapter title, "A Greater Loss"?
As I bring up these two chapters, I have to point out a clever thing that Dickens does. He uses the pretext of Barkis' impending death to bring David down from London although Barkis is a very flat character in the novel and most of us probably don't care whether he dies or not. However, let's imagine that David is not brought down from England. How would we be informed of Em'ly's disappearance and Steerforth's treachery? How would that change the effect of this event in the body of the novel? Since David is there, how do we find out this information?
Titles play an extremely big role when it comes to almost everything. It is a tool to predict what may happen in the chapter or upcoming chapters. The title "A Loss" hinted to me that someone or something would die or be lost. "A Greater Loss" made me believe that something even worse would happen.
ReplyDeleteThe title is what makes the story. If there is no title then the reader would be confused and unsure of what they are reading about. The titles of chapters indicate what may happen in the story and it can also set the tone in a way. When I came across the title " A Loss", i instantly thought of David losing another important person in his life or maybe someone he truly cares about will just walk out of his life for good and never turn back to face him. " A Greater Loss" made me think of David losing something or someone that had a major impact on his life.
ReplyDeleteIf David wasn't bought down from England, I think the reader would have been informed of Em'ly's disappearance and Steerforth's treachery through some mysterious letter or hint. I think it would change the event because you wouldn't get a clear visual picture of how the news affects David.
The title is what makes the story. If there is no title then the reader would be confused and unsure of what they are reading about. The titles of chapters indicate what may happen in the story and it can also set the tone in a way. When I came across the title " A Loss", i instantly thought of David losing another important person in his life or maybe someone he truly cares about will just walk out of his life for good and never turn back to face him. " A Greater Loss" made me think of David losing something or someone that had a major impact on his life.
ReplyDeleteIf David wasn't bought down from England, I think the reader would have been informed of Em'ly's disappearance and Steerforth's treachery through some mysterious letter or hint. I think it would change the event because you wouldn't get a clear visual picture of how the news affects David.