User:WonkyPentagon/sandbox

Answers to Module 7 Questions



 * desc: picture of a worm on tiles after rain
 * my own work
 * file format is jpg
 * license: public domain
 * categories: Nature, Organisms, Worms

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Practising citations
Goto proposes that the controversy around Maihime is inseparable from the world of the story itself.

This article discusses Maihime’s relationship with Japanese nationalism, as well as its contributions to Japanese literary history.

This source is a translation of Maihime into English by Bowring, and includes a background into the text.

This source analyses the Asian-European relationships present in Maihime with a focus on gender.

It includes an examination of the story’s narrator as a divided subject, as well as a section on first-person narration in Japanese literature.

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Major themes[edit]
In many ways this is the most important section of the page because it details the "meat" of the novel. The plot of a novel carries the themes and it is the themes that are often the most interesting. A small example will illustrate this. A plot summary of the story of the Fall might run like this: "Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and therefore God banished them from Paradise and cursed them with mortality." One of the themes of this little tale is "sin leads to death." It is more important that readers are made aware of the theme of "sin" than all of the details about the bits of fruit. This example also illustrates why an overly detailed plot summary will only confuse readers. Details about who ate the fruit first and who tempted whom are irrelevant to the larger issues—sin and death. At least in a Protestant reading.

And that brings us to a very important point. In order to write a comprehensive "Themes" section, you must do research. You cannot present your own opinion of what the novel's themes are (WP:OR). You must present the consensus of literary scholars and historians. For so-called "classic" texts, this is easy, but time-consuming (it may involve months of research). You can use the Google Scholar to find citations for these publications online. Sometimes you won't be able to find a full-text version of a source through Google Scholar, but you may be able to find a citation that you can dig deeper into using the strategies listed at "Find your source". If you cannot find a source for your section on themes, do not write the section.

Style[edit]
Like the "Themes" section, this section should be based on as much research as you can do and should rely on the same sorts of sources – literary critics and historians, if possible, and book reviews and other writers' comments if not.

This section should lay out the writing styles employed by the author. For example, if the novel is an epistolary novel, there should be an explanation of that style and how it works specifically in the novel being discussed on the page. Also, any notable features of the writer's style should be spelled out. The following is a list of examples of the kind of stylistic elements that have been extensively discussed by scholars and necessitate an inclusion on any page about these author's novels: Virginia Woolf's unique narrative voice, Thomas Pynchon's postmodernist tendencies, and Jane Austen's use of free indirect discourse.

Background[edit]
Include here a history of the novel's writing and development. For example, did the author use a 'real life' story to shape the plot? Did the author model a character on a 'real life' person? Did the author use another novel as a model? Is this novel in some sense a sequel to a previous work? None of these can be speculative. The 'background' section must report the writings of significant and reliable sources. For an example of Featured articles with a 'background' section see The Halo Graphic Novel or The World Without Us. 'Background' should not be confused with "Setting"; think in terms of the real world context and / or origins of the novel.

Reception[edit]
Understanding the novel's position in its own society and in later literary and cultural traditions is crucial; this material should be presented in a "Reception" section (clearly, a modern novel can't have much of a legacy yet). You should analyze how the novel was received by critics, meaning professional or well-known reviewers at the time that the novel was published, and not comments from members of the public. (Quotes from users on Amazon.com and blogs do not count, as these are self-published.) Comments from influential opinion-makers are acceptable, however; for example, it may well be interesting what Queen Victoria said about a particular Victorian novel. Your research will tell you what is important and what is not.

Relying on your research, you should also indicate what the public reaction to the novel was. Sales figures can help indicate this, but do not rely exclusively on reviews and sales figures for this section. Since reading habits were different in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it is helpful to include descriptions of readers' responses to the novel as well as descriptions of how the novel was read. For a good example of this, see the "Style" section of Uncle Tom's Cabin, which explains the "sentimental" style of the novel and how readers responded at the time. Such descriptions help the reader understand the novel within its historical and social context. If the novel is a cult novel, an explanation of how the "cult" label developed would also be appropriate (again, all of this information would come from your research).