dr_mabeuse
seduce the mind
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2002
- Posts
- 11,528
By choosing what parts of a scene to include and emphasize, the author creates a special emotional and associative ambiance on a subtextual level, below the literal meaning of the story. This gives the story richness, resonance, and depth.
Ex 42-A: in A Game of Dress-Up, Vanessa is about to be seduced in her own childhood bed, and we see her old stuffed animals lying there. It's just mentioned breifly, but we immediately understand the association to her girlhood, and the violational nature of what's about to happen to her is reinforced; the sense of her loss of innocence is heightened.
This is a describable association. We have words to describe the connection between the stuffed animals and the story. But Literature allows us to use imagery to create indescribable associations too: feelings for which we have no words.
Ex 42-B: In The Lighthouse, Julia is struck by a sudden amorous urge for Patrick in a way that's more than sexual. Rather than try and describe her feelings, at that moment the hold of the fishing boat opens and a river of silver fish pour from the boat and past Patrick who stands in the stream, shoveling the sardines into the warehouse.
The metaphor expresses better than any description what she's feeling - overwhelmed by life and fecundity and Patrick's sexual potency, the river of fish like a silver stream of semen. The image of Patrick standing thigh deep in the river of fish is vivid and powerful and probably indescribable in words, only in images.
All human moods and emotions have their metaphoric counterparts in nature and the world around us. One of the things literature does is find these connections and emphasize them and thus link our small inner lives to the grandeur of the world at large and expand the meaning of life.
Next installment: Authors who take themselves too seriously!
Ex 42-A: in A Game of Dress-Up, Vanessa is about to be seduced in her own childhood bed, and we see her old stuffed animals lying there. It's just mentioned breifly, but we immediately understand the association to her girlhood, and the violational nature of what's about to happen to her is reinforced; the sense of her loss of innocence is heightened.
This is a describable association. We have words to describe the connection between the stuffed animals and the story. But Literature allows us to use imagery to create indescribable associations too: feelings for which we have no words.
Ex 42-B: In The Lighthouse, Julia is struck by a sudden amorous urge for Patrick in a way that's more than sexual. Rather than try and describe her feelings, at that moment the hold of the fishing boat opens and a river of silver fish pour from the boat and past Patrick who stands in the stream, shoveling the sardines into the warehouse.
The metaphor expresses better than any description what she's feeling - overwhelmed by life and fecundity and Patrick's sexual potency, the river of fish like a silver stream of semen. The image of Patrick standing thigh deep in the river of fish is vivid and powerful and probably indescribable in words, only in images.
All human moods and emotions have their metaphoric counterparts in nature and the world around us. One of the things literature does is find these connections and emphasize them and thus link our small inner lives to the grandeur of the world at large and expand the meaning of life.
Next installment: Authors who take themselves too seriously!
