1Beginning Our Literary JourneyA rocky coastline with an out.docx

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Beginning Our Literary Journey
A rocky coastline with an out-of-focus lighthouse in the
background.
Â© VideoBlocks
Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, you should be able to do the
following:
Identify the different ways in which you connect to literature.
Recognize and utilize explanatory notes to enhance your
reading experience.
Discuss the characters and activities presented in the poem
"The Red Hat."
Discuss the characters and activities presented in the short
story "A & P."
Discuss the characters and activities presented in the poem
"Oranges."
"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of
focus."
â€”Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Reading literature that tells a story introduces you to an
imaginary world. You are pulled away from a living, breathing
world into one that was created in the mind of the author. Its
situations and experiences may resemble ones you are familiar
with; many of them may even be based in part on real
situations, but they are imaginaryâ€”shaped by the imagination
of the person who created them.

To experience literature, you must make an intentional decision
to turn yourself over to an imaginary realm. How many times
have you heard someone say, "I'm having a hard time getting
into this story"? Maybe you've said that yourself. Although such
a comment often suggests that the reader is encountering a
difficult writing style, it may also mean that the reader has not
made an intentional connection to the imaginary world of
literature.
As adults, we are grounded by the demands of our everyday
lives, preoccupied with responsibilities and endless
schedulesâ€”not to mention university course assignments! So,
opting for a full connection to a literary world is demanding: It
requires letting go of things at hand and engaging in imaginary
things. It actually requires us to believe that an imaginary world
is possible and to engage in what Coleridge (1817) so famously
called "the willing suspension of disbelief for the moment." But
once we connect, we find ourselves escaping from the routine of
our ordinary lives, caught up in adventure and engaged in the
story.
1.1 Connecting: Entering Into a Literary Experience
When you allow reading to unlock your imagination, your
connection also sets the stage for intellectual engagement. It
allows the experience of reading literature to include the pursuit
of ideas and knowledge. Your literary experienceâ€”as the title
of this book suggestsâ€”can become a personal journey, a quest
for meaning. But connections to literature don't have to begin
with deep intellectual quests. The stories themselves, those that
strike a human chord, provide the greatest opportunity for
connection.
From ancient times, in every culture, humans have told stories

to explain their world, to honor people, to celebrate
achievements, and to communicate human values. Stories are
still essential in our lives: We share them with our children,
look to them for entertainment, and read them because at the
core of our being there's a powerful curiosity about human
relationships and how to cope in the world in which we find
ourselves.
This means you are already wired to explore literature. And the
most immediate connection is through story. Allowing yourself
to be drawn into a storyâ€”whether it's told by someone, printed
in a book, or performedâ€”unlocks your innate abilities to
empathize, to laugh, to inquire, to learn, to wonder. Connecting
with literature also allows you to reflect on the significance of
common human experiences in your life.
For example, if you know what it's like to send your child off to
school for the first time and remember how you felt when this
happened, your connection to the emotions that Rachel Hadas,
poet and former professor at Rutgers University, packs into
"The Red Hat" will be instantaneous. Her poem captures the
anxiety and disequilibrium parents feel when watching their
young children drawn away from them to enter school and a
world away from home. When the watching parent is described
in the poem as one whose "heart stretches, elastic in its love and
fear," you can feel those emotions because you have
experienced them. And no one has to explain what "wavering in
the eddies of change" meansâ€”you've lived through that
uncomfortable experience when home seems strangely empty,
routine is broken, and you are forced to accept that your child
will not always be with you.
The Inclusion of "The Red Hat"
Wayne Clugston, author of Journey Into Literature, discusses
his reasons for including "The Red Hat" in this textbook.
Critical Thinking Questions

What are the underlying emotions present in "The Red Hat"?
How do these emotions allow you to connect with the parents
in the story? Do the emotions connect in any way to your own
life and experiences?
The Red Hat
Rachel Hadas (1994)
It started before Christmas. Now our son
officially walks to school alone.
Semi-alone, it's accurate to say:
I or his father track him on the way.
He walks up on the east side of West End, 5
we on the west side. Glances can extend
(and do) across the street; not eye contact.
Already ties are feelings and not fact.
Straus Park is where these parallel paths part;
he goes alone from there. The watcher's heart 10
stretches, elastic in its love and fear,
toward him as we see him disappear,
striding briskly. Where two weeks ago,
holding a hand, he'd dawdle, dreamy, slow,
he now is hustled forward by the pull 15
of something far more powerful than school.
The mornings we turn back to are no more
than forty minutes longer than before,
but they feel vastly differentâ€”flimsy, strange,
wavering in the eddies of this change, 20
empty, unanchored, perilously light
since the red hat vanished from our sight.
Rachel Hadas, "The Red Hat" from Halfway Down the Hall:
New and Selected Poems Â© 1998 by Rachel Hadas. Reprinted
by permission of Wesleyan University Press.
So, this introduction to literature begins by asking you simply
to read a short story and a poem. Each represents a separate

literary genre, or category, but both present an experience that
is likely familiar to you. Each feeds human feelings and
emotions. Your task is to read both selections for pleasure and
enjoyment. You do not need to consider depth of meaning or
think about delving into complex criticism. These challenges
will come in later chapters. You are asked just to observe the
people and life activities that these pieces of literature present.
Such a perspective for reading, as writer Anne Lamott (1995)
argues, can be both a source of delight and renewal:
When writers . . . make us laugh about ourselves or life, our
buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at
least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being
squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing on a boat
during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm,
but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who
are together on that ship. (p. 237)
As you read these selections, imagine you are meeting the
people presented in them; observe their behavior; be aware of
your feelings. Then, think about how each person's behavior is
different from what you expected, or from what it should be.
When you do this, you will see discrepancies. Some of them
will delight you, some may be exaggerated, and some may
remind you of a personal experience. Especially, be aware of
the subtle humor that unusual or unexpected human behavior
creates. The authors featured in this chapter present people in
this gentle mannerâ€”not attempting to analyze their behavior in
a formal way, but to observe it with a smile.
A Story
"A & P": This short narrative by John Updike is a coming-of-
age story in which a 19-year-old boy working in a grocery store
faces a situation that produces significant personal insight and
growth. Its dramatic moments are typical of those we associate

with a young person's shift in perspective from innocence to
experience, from idealism to realism, or from ignorance to
knowledge.
A Poem
"Oranges": Gary Soto's poem is built around a universal
human dilemma that can take you by surprise time and time
again. It occurs in those circumstances where you realize that
you will fail (or appear naÃ¯ve) unless through sheer personal
resourcefulness you can find a way out. No doubt you've had
this experience, and hopefully your response was as effective as
this young boy's.
Our Use of Explanatory Notes
Throughout the book, literary selections will often be
accompanied by explanatory notes and comments printed in the
margins. These annotations are not intended to interfere with
your interpretation of the selection involved; rather, they are
included to emphasize and illuminate specific literary concepts
and techniques that make the particular selection effective. In
many cases, the notes will assist you in understanding content
as well.
Photo of Mexican-American writer Gary Soto.
Â© Francine Fleischer/Corbis
John Updike (1932â€“2009)
In his growing-up years in small-town Pennsylvania, John
Updike developed a keen awareness of the ways religious faith
(as a coalescing element) was being replaced by materialistic
culture in America. Through his novels, essays, and poems,
Updike elegantly explored reasons for this cultural shift, always
probing with unrestrained curiosity. He once said, "I want to
write books that unlock the traffic jam in everybody's head."

His short stories and novels often reflect life and changing
relationships in communities where he lived in Pennsylvania
and Massachusetts. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice for
the last two novels in his famous Rabbit series, which included
Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; and Rabbit at Rest.
A & P1
John Updike (1962)
In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. I'm
in the
third check-out slot, with my back to the door, so I don't see
them
until they're over by the bread. The one that caught my eye first
was the one in the plaid green two-piece. She was a chunky kid,
with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those
two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems
to
hit, at the top of the backs of her legs. I stood there with my
hand
on a box of HiHo crackers trying to remember if I rang it up or
not.
I ring it up again and the customer starts giving me hell. She's
one
of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge
on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, and I know it made her day
to trip me up. She'd been watching cash registers forty years
and
probably never seen a mistake before.
By the time I got her feathers smoothed and her goodies into a
bagâ€”she gives me a little snort in passing, if she'd been born
at
the right time they would have burned her over in Salemâ€”by
the
time I get her on her way the girls had circled around the bread
and were coming back, without a pushcart, back my way along
the counters, in the aisle between the check-outs and the Special

bins. They didn't even have shoes on. There was this chunky
one,
with the two-pieceâ€”it was bright green and the seams on the
bra
were still sharp and her belly was still pretty pale so I guessed
she
just got it (the suit)â€”there was this one, with one of those
chubby
berry-faces, the lips all bunched together under her nose, this
one, and a tall one, with black hair that hadn't quite frizzed
right,
and one of these sunburns right across under the eyes, and a
chin
that was too longâ€”you know, the kind of girl other girls think
is
very "striking" and "attractive" but never quite makes it, as they
very well know, which is why they like her so muchâ€”and then
the third one, that wasn't quite so tall. She was the queen. She
kind of led them, the other two peeking around and making their
shoulders round. She didn't look around, not this queen, she just
walked straight on slowly, on these long white prima donna
legs.
She came down a little hard on her heels, as if she didn't walk
in
her bare feet that much, putting down her heels and then letting
the weight move along to her toes as if she was testing the floor
with every step, putting a little deliberate extra action into it.
You
never know for sure how girls' minds work (do you really think
it's
a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?) but
you got the idea she had talked the other two into coming in
here
with her, and now she was showing them how to do it, walk
slow
and hold yourself straight.

She had on a kind of dirty-pink-beige maybe, I don't knowâ€”
bathing suit with a little nubble all over it and, what got me,
the straps were down. They were off her shoulders looped loose
around the cool tops of her arms, and I guess as a result the suit
had slipped a little on her, so all around the top of the cloth
there
was this shining rim. If it hadn't been there you wouldn't have
known there could have been anything whiter than those
shoulders.
With the straps pushed off, there was nothing between the
top of the suit and the top of her head except just her, this clean
bare plane of the top of her chest down from the shoulder bones
like a dented sheet of metal tilted in the light. I mean, it was
more
than pretty.
She had sort of oaky hair that the sun and salt had bleached,
done
up in a bun that was unravelling, and a kind of prim face.
Walking
into the A & P with your straps down, I suppose it's the only
kind
of face you can have. She held her head so high her neck,
coming
up out of those white shoulders, looked kind of stretched, but I
didn't mind. The longer her neck was, the more of her there was.
She must have felt in the corner of her eye me and over my
shoulder Stokesie in the second slot watching, but she didn't tip.
Not this queen. She kept her eyes moving across the racks, and
stopped, and turned so slow it made my stomach rub the inside
of my apron, and buzzed to the other two, who kind of huddled
against her for relief, and they all three of them went up the cat
-and-dog-food-breakfast-cereal-macaroni-rice-raisins-

seasonings-
spreads-spaghetti-soft drinks-crackers-and-cookies aisle. From
the third slot I look straight up this aisle to the meat counter,
and I watched them all the way. The fat one with the tan sort of
fumbled with the cookies, but on second thought she put the
packages back. The sheep pushing their carts down the
aisleâ€”the
girls were walking against the usual traffic (not that we have
one-
way signs or anything)â€”were pretty hilarious. You could see
them,
when Queenie's white shoulders dawned on them, kind of jerk,
or
hop, or hiccup, but their eyes snapped back to their own baskets
and on they pushed. I bet you could set off dynamite in an A &
P and the people would by and large keep reaching and
checking
oatmeal off their lists and muttering "Let me see, there was
a third thing, began with A, asparagus, no, ah, yes, applesauce!"
or whatever it is they do mutter. But there was no doubt, this
jiggled them. A few house-slaves in pin curlers even looked
around
after pushing their carts past to make sure what they had seen
was correct.
5
You know, it's one thing to have a girl in a bathing suit down on
the beach, where what with the glare nobody can look at each
other much anyway, and another thing in the cool of the A & P,
under the fluorescent lights, against all those stacked packages,
with her feet paddling along naked over our checkerboard
green-
and-cream rubber-tile floor.
"Oh Daddy," Stokesie said beside me. "I feel so faint."

"Darling," I said. "Hold me tight." Stokesie's married, with two
babies chalked up on his fuselage already, but as far as I can
tell
that's the only difference. He's twenty-two, and I was nineteen
this April.
"Is it done?" he asks, the responsible married man finding his
voice. I forgot to say he thinks he's going to be manager some
sunny day, maybe in 1990 when it's called the Great Alexandrov
and Petrooshki Tea Company or something.
What he meant was, our town is five miles from a beach, with a
big summer colony out on the Point, but we're right in the
middle
of town, and the women generally put on a shirt or shorts or
something before they get out of the car into the street. And
anyway
these are usually women with six children and varicose veins
mapping their legs and nobody, including them, could care less.
As I say, we're right in the middle of town, and if you stand at
our
front doors you can see two banks and the Congregational
church
and the newspaper store and three real-estate offices and about
twenty-seven old free-loaders tearing up Central Street because
the sewer broke again. It's not as if we're on the Cape; we're
north
of Boston and there's people in this town haven't seen the ocean
for twenty years.
The girls had reached the meat counter and were asking
McMahon
something. He pointed, they pointed, and they shuffled out of
sight behind a pyramid of Diet Delight peaches. All that was
left
for us to see was old McMahon patting his mouth and looking

after them sizing up their joints. Poor kids, I began to feel sorry
for
them, they couldn't help it.
10
i
Now here comes the sad part of the story, at least my family
says
it's sad but I don't think it's sad myself. The store's pretty
empty,
it being Thursday afternoon, so there was nothing much to do
except lean on the register and wait for the girls to show up
again.
The whole store was like a pinball machine and I didn't know
which tunnel they'd come out of. After a while they come
around
out of the far aisle, around the light bulbs, records at discount
of
the Caribbean Six or Tony Martin Sings or some such gunk you
wonder they waste the wax on, six packs of candy bars, and
plastic
toys done up in cellophane that fall apart when a kid looks at
them anyway. Around they come, Queenie still leading the way,
and holding a little gray jar in her hand. Slots Three through
Seven
are unmanned and I could see her wondering between Stokes
and
me, but Stokesie with his usual luck draws an old party in baggy
gray pants who stumbles up with four giant cans of pineapple
juice (what do these bums do with all that pineapple juice? I've
often asked myself) so the girls come to me. Queenie puts down
the jar and I take it into my fingers icy cold. Kingfish Fancy
Herring
Snacks in Pure Sour Cream: 49Â¢. Now her hands are empty,
not a

ring or a bracelet, bare as God made them, and I wonder where
the money's coming from. Still with that prim look she lifts a
folded dollar bill out of the hollow at the center of her nubbled
pink top. The jar went heavy in my hand. Really, I thought that
was
so cute.
Then everybody's luck begins to run out. Lengel comes in from
haggling with a truck full of cabbages on the lot and is about to
scuttle into that door marked MANAGER behind which he hides
all day when the girls touch his eye. Lengel's pretty dreary,
teaches
Sunday school and the rest, but he doesn't miss that much. He
comes over and says, "Girls, this isn't the beach."
Queenie blushes, though maybe it's just a brush of sunburn I
was
noticing for the first time, now that she was so close. "My
mother
asked me to pick up a jar of herring snacks."
15
i
Her voice kind of startled me, the way voices do when you see
the people first, coming out so flat and dumb yet kind of tony,
too, the way it ticked over "pick up" and "snacks." All of a
sudden
I slid right down her voice into her living room. Her father and
the other men were standing around in ice-cream coats and bow
ties and the women were in sandals picking up herring snacks
on
toothpicks off a big plate and they were all holding drinks the
color of water with olives and sprigs of mint in them. When my
parents have somebody over they get lemonade and if it's a real
racy affair Schlitz in tall glasses with "They'll Do It Every

Time" cartoons
stencilled on.
"That's all right," Lengel said. "But this isn't the beach." His
repeating this struck me as funny, as if it had just occurred to
him,
and he had been thinking all these years the A & P was a great
big
dune and he was the head lifeguard. He didn't like my
smilingâ€”as
I say he doesn't miss muchâ€”but he concentrates on giving the
girls
that sad Sunday-school-superintendent stare.
Queenie's blush is no sunburn now, and the plump one in plaid,
that I liked better from the backâ€”a really sweet canâ€”pipes
up,
"We weren't doing any shopping. We just came in for the one
thing."
"That makes no difference," Lengel tells her, and I could see
from
the way his eyes went that he hadn't noticed she was wearing a
two-piece before. "We want you decently dressed when you
come
in here."
"We are decent," Queenie says suddenly, her lower lip pushing,
getting sore now that she remembers her place, a place from
which the crowd that runs the A & P must look pretty crummy.
Fancy Herring Snacks flashed in her very blue eyes.
"Girls, I don't want to argue with you. After this come in here
with
your shoulders covered. It's our policy." He turns his back.
That's

policy for you. Policy is what the kingpins want. What the
others
want is juvenile delinquency.
All this while, the customers had been showing up with their
carts
but, you know, sheep, seeing a scene, they had all bunched up
on Stokesie, who shook open a paper bag as gently as peeling a
peach, not wanting to miss a word. I could feel in the silence
everybody
getting nervous, most of all Lengel, who asks me, "Sammy,
have you rung up this purchase?"
I thought and said "No" but it wasn't about that I was thinking. I
go through the punches, 4, 9, GROC, TOT â€” it's more
complicated
than you think, and after you do it often enough, it begins to
make a little song, that you hear words to, in my case "Hello
(bing)
there, you (gung) hap-py pee-pul (splat)"â€”the
splat being the drawer flying out. I uncrease the bill, tenderly as
you may imagine,
it just having come from between the two smoothest scoops of
vanilla I had ever known were there, and pass a half and a
penny
into her narrow pink palm, and nestle the herrings in a bag and
twist its neck and hand it over, all the time thinking.
The girls, and who'd blame them, are in a hurry to get out, so I
say
"I quit" to Lengel quick enough for them to hear, hoping they'll
stop and watch me, their unsuspected hero.
20
i

They keep right on going, into the electric eye; the door flies
open
and they flicker across the lot to their car, Queenie and Plaid
and
Big Tall Goony-Goony (not that as raw material she was so
bad),
leaving me with Lengel and a kink in his eyebrow.
"Did you say something, Sammy?"
"I said I quit."
"I thought you did."
"You didn't have to embarrass them."
25
"It was they who were embarrassing us."
I started to say something that came out "Fiddle-de-doo." It's a
saying of my grandmother's, and I know she would have been
pleased.
"I don't think you know what you're saying," Lengel said.
"I know you don't," I said. "But I do." I pull the bow at the back
of
my apron and start shrugging it off my shoulders. A couple
customers
that had been heading for my slot begin to knock against
each other, like scared pigs in a chute.
Lengel sighs and begins to look very patient and old and gray.
He's
been a friend of my parents for years. "Sammy, you don't want
to

do this to your Mom and Dad," he tells me. It's true, I don't. But
it seems to me that once you begin a gesture it's fatal not to go
through with it. I fold the apron, "Sammy" stitched in red on the
pocket, and put it on the counter, and drop the bow tie on top
of it. The bow tie is theirs, if you've ever wondered. "You'll feel
this for the rest of your life," Lengel says, and I know that's
true,
too, but remembering how he made that pretty girl blush makes
me so scrunchy inside I punch the No Sale tab and the machine
whirs "pee-pul" and the drawer splats out. One advantage to this
scene taking place in summer, I can follow this up with a clean
exit, there's no fumbling around getting your coat and galoshes,
I
just saunter into the electric eye in my white shirt that my
mother
ironed the night before, and the door heaves itself open, and
outside
the sunshine is skating around on the asphalt.
30
i
I look around for my girls, but they're gone, of course. There
wasn't anybody but some young married screaming with her
children
about some candy they didn't get by the door of a powder-
blue Falcon station wagon. Looking back in the big windows,
over
the bags of peat moss and aluminum lawn furniture stacked on
the pavement, I could see Lengel in my place in the slot,
checking
the sheep through. His face was dark gray and his back stiff, as
if
he'd just had an injection of iron, and my stomach kind of fell
as I
felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter.

35
"A & P," from Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories by John
Updike, copyright Â© 1962 and renewed 1990 by John Updike.
Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf
Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC.
All rights reserved.
____________
1 "A & P," The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, was a
supermarket widely known for most of the last century,
especially in the eastern United States. At the height of its
success, it was the country's largest food retailer.
John Updike's Narrative Techniques
An interview with John Updike on his narrative technique, and a
reading of A & P from the author.
Updike mentions that a good story often includes a beginning
that piques the reader's interest, and/or a zinger ending. How
does his story A & P do this, and can you think of another story
you have read that does so?
Updike implies that a person of any age can be a great writer,
and that one writes with the unique life experience that one has
at any given time. Do you agree that a young writer can be just
as effective as an older writer? Why or why not?
CONNECTING: QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT MADE YOUR
READING WORTHWHILE
What allowed you to make an imaginative connection to this
story? Was it a recollection of similar behavior that you
previously observed?
Some readers see the young man's behavior as foolish; others
think it is based on integrityâ€”he's standing up for what he
feels is right. How do you account for his behavior?
Is there evidence in the story to suggest that both Sammy and

Lengel have regrets about their actions?
Mexican-American writer Gary Soto.
Â© Chris Felver/The Bridgeman Art Library
Gary Soto (b. 1952)
Gary Soto was born into a Mexican-American family and grew
up in a barrio in Fresno, California. A popular Chicano writer,
he has published several books of poetry, taught at the
University of California, and been a resonant voice for social
change, particularly addressing struggles faced by Spanish-
speaking Americans. Several of his books were developed for
young readers, but all draw heavily on his personal experiences
and memorable, true-to-life insights. He's often called "the
people's poet."
Oranges
Gary Soto (1995)
i
The first time I walked
With a girl, I was twelve,
Cold, and weighted down
With two oranges in my jacket.
i
December. Frost cracking
Beneath my steps, my breath
Before me, then gone,
As I walked toward
Her house, the one whose 5
Porch light burned yellow
Night and day, in any weather. 10
A dog barked at me, until
She came out pulling
At her gloves, face bright
With rouge. I smiled, 15
Touched her shoulder, and led

Her down the street, across
A used car lot and a line
Of newly planted trees,
Until we were breathing 20
Before a drugstore. We
Entered, the tiny bell
Bringing a saleslady
Down a narrow aisle of goods.
I turned to the candies 25
Tiered like bleachers,
And asked what she wantedâ€”
Light in her eyes, a smile
Starting at the corners
Of her mouth. I fingered 30
A nickel in my pocket,
And when she lifted a chocolate
i
That cost a dime,
I didn't say anything.
I took the nickel from 35
i
My pocket, then an orange,
And set them quietly on
i
The counter. When I looked up,
The lady's eyes met mine,
And held them, knowing 40
Very well what it was all
About.
Outside,
A few cars hissing past,
Fog hanging like old 45
Coats between the trees.
I took my girl's hand
In mine for two blocks,

Then released it to let
Her unwrap the chocolate. 50
I peeled my orange
That was so bright against
The gray of December
i
That, from some distance,
Someone might have thought
I was making a fire in my hands.
55
From New and Selected Poems Â© 1995 by Gary Soto. Used
with permission of
Chronicle Books LLC, San Francisco. Visit
www.ChronicleBooks.com
CONNECTING: QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT MADE YOUR
READING WORTHWHILE
At what point did you feel yourself being drawn into the
story this poem tells? Did a particular experience in your own
life, different from the boy's, draw you into the story?
Oranges are identified three times in the poem: in the boy's
pocket, on the store counter, and in the boy's hands. What does
each of these instances contribute to the story?
What feelings or emotions are you most aware of when you
connect imaginatively to "Oranges" and to "A & P"?
Summary
When this summary section is included at the end of a chapter,
it will provide a brief review of the concepts, explanations, and
discussions presented in the chapter. It will call attention to the
essential insights you should have gained. At the same time, it
will ask you to think again about the literature you have read in
the chapterâ€”and reflect on the reasons each piece of literature
was selected.

Chapter 1 introduces the study of literature by identifying two
ideas that every reader must understand: Literature exists in the
imaginary world of its creator, and it is accessible (experienced)
by the reader through an intentional, imaginative connection to
the creator's world. Readers who approach literary works (short
stories, novels, poetry, and plays) with this perspective are sure
to discover surprising and penetrating insights into our shared
human experience.
Key Terms and Concepts
Click on each key term to see the definition.
coming-of-age story
A story built around dilemmas or decisions typically associated
with a young person's shift in perspective from innocence to
experience, from idealism to realism, or from ignorance to
knowledge.
genre
The term comes from the French language and is used to
identify categories or types of literature, including both the
broadest categories of literatureâ€”prose, poetry, and
dramaâ€”and specific types of literature within these categories.
imagination
The human power that shapes artistic expression; it enables a
writer's work to become an expression of meaning in our world
and allows readers to engage in identifying with what the
writer's work has to say about things that matter.

2
Responding to Literary Experiences
Photo of an arched rock formation against the backdrop of a
starry sky.
Â© VideoBlocks
Learning Objectives
following:
Develop a framework for responding to what you read.
Describe how the use of persona affects your response to
literature.
Analyze the themes and concepts in "The Story of an Hour."
Identify the use of persona and symbol in "The Road Not
Taken."
Recognize figures of speech, including similes and
metaphors.
Discuss what literature contributes to your life.
Analyze the themes and concepts in "Dream Boogie."
Explore the use of tone and imagery in "The Blue Bowl."
Identify the use of metaphor in "."
Analyze the themes and concepts in "The Welcome Table."
"I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move."
â€”Alfred, Lord Tennyson
2.1 Writing About What You Read

In our opening chapter, we observed that enjoying literature
begins with the depth of connection you make with the
imaginary world that a piece of literature creates. The purpose
of this chapter is to look at a range of literary experiences and
to describe what is involved in responding to them in
meaningful ways. Responding is a personal activity that allows
you to reflect on your experiences and to gain valuable insights
about the human condition; responding can also be a structured
analytical process that requires use of literary tools and
techniques. Responding requires active mental engagement:
exploring ideas, forming conclusions, and, ultimately, critiquing
what you have read as objectively as possible.
Because this book is an introduction to literature, it offers a
broad range of reading experiences. Some selections may be
familiar, some will introduce you to surprising insights, and
others will engage you in human encounters and life
complexities that don't have obvious solutions. The readings
will pull you beyond the scope of popular literature, beyond
conventional romances with happy endings, and beyond
detective stories where impossible cases are always solved at
the last moment, allowing the forces of good to succeed. Does
exploring more challenging literature mean that you should
never read popular literature, sometimes called "commercial
literature"? No, this approach readily acknowledges the pleasure
and delightful escape that such reading offers, but it also takes
you beyond the popular literature horizon, where broader
ventures and more challenging explorations await.
The level of intellectual demands on the reader will vary
because writers have very different purposes when they write.
When the events in a story are presented simply and developed
in a straightforward manner without extensive detail, the
writer's intentions are likely to be obvious and easy to
understand. But when a writer's primary purpose is hidden or
buried in symbolsâ€”when, for example, the author sets out to

interpret a puzzling phenomenon or human conditionâ€”the
reader will likely need to make careful intellectual inquiry to
understand the author's intent.
Framework for Responding to What You Read
As stated previously, reading creates imaginative experiences. It
connects you to new experiences that become meaningful when
you allow them to influence your thoughts and feelings. To
make your responses active and engaging, you should ask: Is my
reading experience echoing things that have happened in my
life? Is it connecting me to things I've never considered before?
Am I surprised by (or content with) the way it makes me feel?
Does it make me think about a concept or issue that is important
to me or to humanity at large?
Also as you read, consider how the writer develops the
situations, characters, and emotions that stand out for you.
Analyze them. Then, draw conclusions about what you have
read; develop your interpretation, focusing on how your reading
experience relates to your life, ideas, and valuesâ€”not just your
values, but others' also. Your responses can be organized into
three steps: connecting, considering, and concluding. These
steps provide a simple but effective response framework that
you will use throughout this book. See Table 2.1 for
explanations of each step.
At first glance, this matrix may suggest that reading should
produce neat linear responses in an intellectual inquiry process
that is orderly, almost mechanical. But certainly that is not what
happens when you read literature. Life itself is not that way!
When you read a piece of literature imaginatively and with
mental vigor, you are stepping inside it, projecting your
perspective across its landscape. Although the author may
provide signposts to follow as you discover what the literary
piece intends, you make your own path. Often, it's a winding
one; progress can be slow. Maybe you miss important details

that explain the behavior of an important character, or you limit
the capabilities of a character to the boundaries of your own
experience. Or, you might miss important connections between
what is happening and why it's happening, requiring you to do
some rereading. Stop-and-go reading like this can be
frustrating, but it also creates learning opportunities. Expect to
do this kind of reading in an introduction to literature
courseâ€”because the truest satisfaction in reading comes from
exploring, moving from insight to insight.
Table 2.1 Reader's response framework: Connecting,
considering, and concluding
Connecting
(Imaginative reading) Involves allowing feelings, curiosity,
aspirations, desire to escape, and associations with past or
present experiences to motivate you to read. Individual link
and imaginative "entry" into a piece of literature.
Considering
(Analysis) Involves focusing on basic literary elements,
artistic skills, aesthetic features, ideas, observations, contexts,
and dilemmas that you discover as you read and want to explore
in some depth. Personal inquiry, as you analyze and think about
the content and unique structure of the literary work.
Concluding
(Interpretation) Involves finding your own explanations,
making sense of what you are reading, and determining the
value of its implications.
The matrix in Table 2.1 provides a starting point in the
exploratory process. It will help you discover insights,
appreciate literary techniques, and find significance in your
reading. Throughout this book, many reading selections include
a follow-up Response and Reflection section containing
questions based on the matrix. These questionsâ€”asking you to
connect, consider, and concludeâ€”are designed to call attention
to details and ideas that will deepen your response.
A Sample Response

Knowing that you will be expected to write about what you read
introduces an obligation. It requires you to read not just for
pleasure, but also with specific purpose. When reading for
pleasure, you can allow yourself to be caught up in experiencing
a story, poem, or playâ€”simply enjoying the suspenseful
moments and identifying with imagined settings. But reading
literature with a purpose requires you to have something to say
about what you've read. It can't be just a sweeping general
statement, such as "That was a great story; it really held my
attention." Your written statement needs to include specific and
thoughtful observations that can be supported by details in the
piece of literature you have read. The framework of connecting,
considering, and concluding can be used in developing your
written responses, as illustrated in Responding to Reading:
Sample Short-Answer Written Response.
Responding to Reading
Sample Short-Answer Written Response
Question: Is Sammy presented in the story "A & P" as a person
whose actions are solidly established, or as one "coming of
age," searching for answers about how to act in the adult world?
i
Published in 1961, early in a decade of counterculture and
social revolution in America, Updike's story presents a glimpse
into different generational responses to these significant
movements. The story is set north of Boston where people are
proud of their Puritan heritage, which dates back to colonial
days and remains firmly established in their culture. Lengel, the
store manager, feels compelled to uphold this Puritan ethic
when he sees the girls in swimming suits shopping in his store.
He is offended, both by what they are wearing and also by their
casual attitude when pushing social norms. He confronts them,
pointing out that store policy does not permit shoppers to be
dressed in swimwear. Sammy, a 19-year-old, is part of the
younger generation that supports social change. He sees the

situation differently,
i
demonstrating how adamantly he opposes Lengel's
approach by quitting his job on the spot. He takes a gallant
stand not only to impress the girls, but also to advance the spirit
of freedom, excitement, and change introduced by their
presence. Unfortunately, rather than producing heroic, dramatic
results, his protest brings only embarrassing personal
consequences.
i
Sammy quit his job in a voice loud enough for the girls to
hear, hoping they would see him "as their unsuspected hero" (as
cited in Clugston, 2014). However, they did not acknowledge
him as they left, and when he got to the store parking lot they
were gone. Consequently, he experiences no external
affirmation of his action, no applause for being a hero. But,
Sammy gains new insight: he realizes "how hard the world was
going to be" (as cited in Clugston, 2014). That is, he begins to
understand that his quest for changeâ€”stimulated not just by
the girls' entrance but by stifling routines in his work
environmentâ€”would be an arduous struggle requiring
commitment and persistence over time; achievement of social
i
change is not driven by spur-of-the moment actions. He
shows the strength of this awareness later when he disagrees
with the idea that the A & P incident was a sad one. Sammy
disagrees because he learned a lot from the experience. He may
not have found answers to all the questions he has about
becoming a man, but his self-knowledge and outlook are more
realistically grounded than ever before.
2.2 How Use of Persona Affects Your Response to Literature
If there's a nameplate on your desk at work, it's possible for
someone who passes by to get a sense of who you are just by

looking at your desk, noticing how things are arranged, glancing
at the design of your coffee cup, and so on. If these items could
speak, the observer could learn a lot more about you, of course.
A piece of literature is somewhat like that desk: The author's
name is on it, and you can discover things about the author
when you read. But there's a difference. Unlike inboxes and
coffee cups, the characters in stories and poems and plays can
speak. As they do, they may represent what the author thinks, or
they may be "speaking for themselves"â€”representing views
that are different from the author's. In other words, it's
important to understand an author's use of persona.
Persona in "The Road Not Taken"
In Latin, persona means "mask." When it is used in literature,
persona refers to the person who is the narrator in a story or the
speaker in a poem. In other words, the main voice in a work of
fiction or poetry is usually not the author's voice, although it
may reflect the author's views. The main voice comes from the
person the author created to narrate or speak. In most cases, this
speaker is a character in the story or the poem, but sometimes a
persona can be an outside voice, a speaker who is looking at the
action but is not part of it.
Look carefully at the student's analysis in the box following
Robert Frost's famous poem "The Road Not Taken." The
analysis identifies the persona (speaker) as a person who is
approaching decision making thoughtfully, but this person is not
necessarily Robert Frost.
Also note Frost's use of symbol in the poem. A symbol is an
object, person, or action that conveys two meanings: its literal
meaning and something it stands for. In "The Road Not Taken,"
Frost presents the literal image of two roads. But he suggests
that they stand for something other than what their literal
meaning conveys: They represent (symbolize) life's pathways on
which our day-by-day experiences unfold.

Robert Frost (1874–1963)
Portrait of the American poet Robert Frost.
Â© Bettmann/CORBIS
Robert Frost was born in San Francisco. At age 11, he moved
with his family to New England. He attended both Dartmouth
College and Harvard but did not graduate. After an unsuccessful
attempt at farming, he and his wife moved to England in 1912.
There, with encouragement from poet Ezra Pound, he published
his first two collections of poems, A Boy's Will and North of
Boston. He returned to the United States in 1915 as a popular
poet and was even more celebrated in the years that followed,
winning the Pulitzer Prize for his works four times. He was
sought after as an artist in residence at universities in New
England and wrote candidly about the poetic process. His
lyrical style and masterful use of ordinary language and rural
settings made his poetry delightful. Building on delight, he
engaged in ironic inquiry to give expression to complex ideas
and questions that define the human spirit.
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost (1916)
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth. 5
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same. 10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back. 15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and Iâ€”
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 20
"The Road Not Taken" from the book THE POETRY OF
ROBERT FROST edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright
Â© 1923, 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, copyright Â©
1951 by Robert Frost. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt
and Company, LLC. Users are warned that this Selection is
protected under copyright laws and downloading is strictly
prohibited. The right to reproduce or transfer the Selection via
any medium must be secured from Henry Holt and Company,
LLC.
SAMPLE RESPONSE AND REFLECTION QUESTIONS
The following questions are reflective of those you will
encounter throughout the remainder of this textbook. The
sample answers provided are examples of how you might
respond to these questions.
Connecting (Imaginative reading)
Q. What allowed you to connect to the poem?
A. I was able to connect to this poem immediately because I'd
often heard the title quoted in public speeches. Then, I became
interested in seeing if I could figure out why the idea of "the
road not taken" is so often mentioned in speeches.
Considering (Analysis)
Q. What do you know about the speaker in this poem?
A. The speaker is a serious, thoughtful person, and could be

either a woman or a man. There is no precise indication of the
speaker's age, but the last line of the poem suggests that the
person is reflective, thinking not just about a present decision
but about future consequences as well. Even though stanza 2
suggests the choice could have gone either wayâ€”both roads
were a lot alikeâ€”the speaker chose the one "less traveled by"
and is willing to accept whatever the choice will bring, knowing
that choosing the other road for future travel is not possible. It
is clear, also, that the speaker is reflecting on a choice related
to a significant life decision that involves commitment and
integrity, and is not merely selecting a road in the woods.
Concluding (Interpretation)
Q. What do the comments "telling this with a sigh" (line 16) and
"that has made all the difference" (line 20) reveal about life
choices?
A. I've concluded that the poem emphasizes the ambiguity
associated with life choices. From what I already knew about
the poem, I thought it dealt simply with making a challenging
("less traveled by") choice. However, I now see that it reflects
not just on the motive for choosing, but also on the nature of
choice making. There appears to be delight, at least satisfaction,
on the part of the speaker at the beginning of the poem, but the
"sigh" mentioned at the end suggests that the choice was more
complex than it appeared: It may have even resulted in personal
regret. Consequently, the poem reveals the nature of decision
making, implying that, at best, it's a fuzzy process with
ambiguous aspectsâ€”both at the moment a choice is made and
afterwards. In this way, the poem makes a wise observation and
explores important life knowledge.
Your Turn
Try using the literary response framework connecting,
considering, concluding to explore meaning in Kate Chopin's

"The Story of an Hour." In this brief narrative, there is not a lot
of action, but you can gain important insights about the
actionâ€”and the story's outcomeâ€”by paying close attention to
what the main character, Mrs. Mallard, is thinking.
Kate Chopin (1850Ã±1904)
Photo of writer Kate Chopin in a riding habit.
Missouri History Museum, St. Louis
Chopin was born in St. Louis (her birth name was Katherine
O'Flaherty), one of five childrenâ€”the only one to live beyond
age 25. After attending Catholic schools, she married Oscar
Chopin, a cotton broker, and moved to New Orleans. When he
died 12 years later, she was left to raise their six children.
Various journals, including Atlantic Monthly and Vogue,
published her short stories. One of her novels, The Awakening,
was controversial because it acknowledged a woman's strength
in spite of her adulterous life. Chopin's writings expressed her
personal quest for freedom and contributed to the rise of
feminism.
The Story of an Hour
Kate Chopin (1894)
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble,
great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the
news of her husband's death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences;
veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's
friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been
in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad
disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the
list of "killed." He had only taken time to assure himself of its
truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any
less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same,

with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at
once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms.
When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her
room alone. She would have no one follow.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy
armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical
exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her
soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of
trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The
delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a
peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which
some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless
sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through
the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the
west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the
chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her
throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep
continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke
repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull
stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one
of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection,
but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it,
fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and
elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky,
reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color
that filled the air. 5

Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning
to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and
she was striving to beat it back with her willâ€”as powerless as
her two white slender hands would have been.
When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her
slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath:
"free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that
had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and
bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and
relaxed every inch of her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy
that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to
dismiss the suggestion as trivial.
She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind,
tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked
save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw
beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come
that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread
her arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for her during those coming
years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful
will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and
women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a
fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the
act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief
moment of illumination. 10
And yet she had loved himâ€”sometimes. Often she had not.
What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery,
count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which
she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!
"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.

Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to
the keyhole, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I
beg; open the doorâ€”you will make yourself ill. What are you
doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."
"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in
a very elixir of life through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her.
Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would
be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long.
It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life
might be long. 15
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's
importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she
carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She
clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the
stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was
Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly
carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the
scene of the accident, and did not even know that there had been
one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards'
quick motion to screen himself from the view of his wife.
But Richards was too late.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart
diseaseâ€”of joy that kills. 20
This selection is in the public domain.
RESPONSE AND REFLECTION QUESTIONS
Connecting (Imaginative reading)

How is your interest in this story immediately established? How
does Chopin create suspense?
Considering (Analysis)
Locate details in the story that give you a sense of what Mrs.
Mallard's relationship with her hus-band was like. In paragraphs
five and six, how does the author's mention of new spring life,
twittering sparrows, and patches of blue sky help you
understand Mrs. Mallard's feelingsâ€”and her hopes?
Concluding (Interpretation)
Mrs. Mallard (in paragraphs eight and nine) is experiencing
change. She feels that something is "approaching" her, seeking
to "possess her." What do you think she is struggling with? Had
she ever loved her husband?
2.3 What Literature Contributes to Our Lives
How College Students Can Benefit from Literature
Do you agree with Professor Auger that even if someone doesn't
"like" poetry or certain types of writing, that it is still important
to understand them and the importance of their themes? Why or
why not?
Critical Thinking Question
Do you agree with Professor Auger that even if someone
doesn't "like" poetry or certain types of writing, that it is still
important to understand them and the importance of their
themes? Why or why not?
Through literature, we can explore human experiences deeply
and search for meaning. It opens new worlds, presents new
ideas, and stimulates personal change. In these ways, literature

influences each individual differently. Nevertheless, its
conventional contributions fall into widely recognized
categories. Here are six of these notable contributions, with a
literary example selected to illustrate each one.
Literature Restores the Past
In many ways, literature reflects historical issues and
conditions. Long before stories were written down, they were
passed along through oral traditions. At least eight periods in
literary history can be roughly identified in the development of
Western civilization (Wheeler, 2010).
Classical period (8th century BCE to middle of 5th century CE)
Medieval period (about 1,000 years, ending in 15th century)
Renaissance and Reformation period (roughly, 16th to mid-17th
century)
Enlightenment or Neoclassical period (mid-17th century through
18th century)
Romantic period (roughly, first half of 19th century)
Victorian period (1832Ã±1901)
Modern period (roughly, first half of the 20th century)
Postmodern period (roughly, since end of World War II, 1945)
In all these periods, social, economic, political, and religious
traditions greatly influenced writers. Century after century,
their works reflected wars, natural disasters, common events,
and human achievements in cultures they personally knew. So,
although we often gain insights about permanent things from
writers, we also get a glimpse of conditions that existed in the
passing moment in which they were writing. Some writers
develop works that openly celebrate ideas and the spirit of their
age, describing them in detail and making it easy for readers to
visualize past events and customs. Other writers take an indirect
approach with much less description, requiring readers to read
more deeply, to examine behaviors and values in order to get a
sense of life in earlier periods. Either way, works of literature

help to restore the past.
For example, Langston Hughes's "Dream Boogie" (1951) lifts
up the civil rights quest as a dream with human significance, "a
dream deferred" that would be a long time in coming. In the
1950s, when Hughes published the poem, most black Americans
were not experiencing the fulfillment of the hopes and dreams
that Emancipation (nearly 100 years earlier) had promised.
Looking back, we know that it would be more than a decade
before significant change would come, as a result of non-violent
protests under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the
passage of civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights
Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair
Housing Act of 1968.
You might say, then, that this piece of literature functions both
as Hughes's portrait of an important human ideal that has not
yet been achieved (racial reconciliation), and as a
photographâ€”a snapshot of the state of that idealistic dream in
the United States in the early 1950s. In an earlier essay, Hughes
acknowledged,
Most of my poems are racial in theme and treatment, derived
from the life I know. In many of them I try to grasp and hold
some of the meanings and rhythms of jazz. . . . [J]azz to me is
one of the inherent expressions of Negro life in America: the
eternal tom-tom beating in the Negro soulâ€”the tom-tom of
revolt against weariness in a white world. (Hughes, 1926, p.
694)
Founder of Jazz Poetry
Jazz and blues feature prominantly in the poetry of Langston
Hughes. This video explores Hughes's creation of a new literary
form: Jazz Poetry.

In what ways did Langston Hughes's poetry capture the spirit
of "jazz"?
Do you think that Hughes poetry would still have been
possible without the influence of jazz music? Why or why not?
Dream Boogie
Langston Hughes (1951)
Good morning, daddy!
Ain't you heard
The boogie-woogie rumble
Of a dream deferred?
Listen closely:
You'll hear their feet
Beating out and beating out a â€”
â€ƒâ€ƒYou think
â€ƒâ€ƒIt's a happy beat? 5
Listen to it closely:
Ain't you heard
something underneath
like a â€”
â€ƒâ€ƒWhat did I say? 10
Sure,
I'm happy!
Take it away!
â€ƒâ€ƒHey, pop!
â€ƒâ€ƒRe-bop! 15
â€ƒâ€ƒMop! 20
â€ƒâ€ƒY-e-a-h!
"Dream Boogie" from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes
by Langston Hughes, edited by Arnold Rampersad with David
Roessel, Associate Editor, copyright Â© 1994 by the Estate of
Langston Hughes. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an
imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of
Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Used by permission of

Harold Ober Associates Incorporated. Copyright Â© 1994 by
the Estate of Langston Hughes.
Literature Stimulates the Imagination
Those who create literature may make some use of literal
definitions and factual descriptions, but the appeal and magic in
their works are fashioned by the word pictures, feelings, and
exquisite detail they create, revealing how particular things look
in their minds. Writers enable us to see things clearly, often in
new ways that alter previous perceptions. They often use figures
of speech such as similes and metaphors to stimulate our
imaginations. Each will be illustrated more fully in later
chapters:
Simileâ€”A direct comparison of two things that are ordinarily
not thought to be similar, using like or as to connect them. In
these lines from an 18th-century love song by Robert Burns, a
person's lover is compared to a rose (visual imagery) and to a
melody (auditory imagery):
O my Luve's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
O my Luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune.
Metaphorâ€”An imaginative comparison of two unlike things,
suggesting how each resembles the other. In the following
poem, poet Carl Sandburg compares changing fog patterns to
the silent, subtle movements of a cat:
Carl Sandburg (1916)
comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches

and then moves on.
Figures of speech such as similes and metaphors are tools of
figurative language, any language used in a non-literal way to
convey images and ideas. For example, Langston Hughes begins
the poem "A Dream Deferred" with the literal question "What
happens to a dream deferred?" Then, he uses explosive
figurative language to describe the dream. He asks:
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a soreâ€”
And then run? (from Hughes, 1994)
From Hughes, 1994. Used by permission of Harold Ober
Associates Incorporated. Copyright Â© 1994 by The Estate of
Langston Hughes.
In doing so, Hughes enables us to see things as he imagines
them. First, he uses a simile to compare a deferred dream to a
raisin lying in the sun, suggesting that dreams can deteriorate
and ultimately fail; next, he introduces another simile to
compare a dream to a festering sore, suggesting that dreams can
aggravate and become destructive.
In "Dream Boogie," Hughes asks readers to imagine the quest
for civil rights as a dance (metaphor): a be-bop, not an elegant
waltz. He arranges the flow of words to help us imagine
movement, rhythm, and sounds. He creates fragmentary
conversation to allow us to grasp dimensions of "dream" and
"reality." As he explains in his prefatory note in "The Negro
Artist and the Racial Mountain," his writing must reflect
change, because he is part of a changing community. It is a
community
marked by conflicting changes, sudden nuances, sharp and
impudent interjections, broken rhythms, and passages

sometimes in the manner of the jam session, sometimes the
popular song, punctuated by the riffs, runs, breaks, and
distortions of the music of a community in transition. (Hughes,
1926)
Literature Glorifies the Commonplace
Even though literature often interprets lofty concepts and
presents high society with irresistible glamour, much of its
appeal is achieved through faithful treatment of ordinary life
experiences. By dealing with common human interests and basic
emotions, literature becomes relevant. For example, in "I Hear
America Singing," Walt Whitman celebrates the diversity of the
working classes in 19th-century America, using familiar images
of home and youthful vigor. Individually, these images reveal
an ordinary slice of life, but when combined, they represent
America's democratic spiritâ€”a defining melody inextricably
connected to things that are commonplace rather than esoteric.
I Hear America Singing
Walt Whitman (1860)
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe
and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off
work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the
deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter
singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the
morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at
work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, 5
The day what belongs to the day at night the party of young
fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs. 10
Literature Evokes Emotions and Links Feeling to Thinking
There is an intimate and mysterious relationship between human
emotions and human thought. Both what we feel (our affective
responses) and what we think (our cognitive judgments)
influence our literary experiences, but there is no fixed formula
for how to use these separate domains as we read. So, our
literary responses vary, revealing a lot about how each of us
sees the world. Feeling usually comes first as we read.
Especially when we experience plays or poetry, our immediate
responses are stimulated by feelings. By purposely arranging
word sounds and visual images, poets fire up feelings and create
a powerful emotional awareness that encourages thought;
dramatists choose unique clothing and stage sets to create a
captivating perspective on an idea or concern; every writer
develops a particular tone in each work that conveys a specific
attitude toward the subject presented, further deepening
emotional responses. All of these techniques contribute to
creating our initial, emotional response to literature.
The feelings and spirit of Jane Kenyon's poem, for example, are
conveyed through carefully crafted auditory and visual imagery:
the sand and gravel falling "with a hiss and a thud" and the cat's
"long red fur, the white feathers/between his toes, and his/long,
not to say aquiline, nose." Also, the "blue bowl" is a visual
image that creates emotional depth. It suggests the special
relationship that the owners had with their cat. They did more
than just provide for the cat; they fed the cat from a special
bowl, "his bowl"â€”something they considered to be the cat's
own property, something appropriate to bury with the cat.
Listen and look for the images that evoke a sense of loss and
strength as well.
The Blue Bowl
Jane Kenyon (1996)

Like primitives we buried the cat
with his bowl. Bare-handed
we scraped sand and gravel
back into the hole.
i
They fell with a hiss
and thud on his side,
on his long red fur, the white feathers
between his toes, and his
long, not to say aquiline* nose. 5
We stood and brushed each other off.
There are sorrows keener than these.
Silent the rest of the day, we worked,
ate, stared, and slept. It stormed
all night; now it clears, and a robin 10
burbles from a dripping bush
like the neighbor who means well
but always says the wrong thing. 15
Jane Kenyon, "The Blue Bowl," from Collected Poems.
Copyright Â© 2005 by The Estate of Jane Kenyon. Reprinted
with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc. on
behalf of Graywolf Press, www.graywolfpress.org.
The image of the robin that "burbles" after the storm helps to
explain the complexity of human emotionsâ€”emotions that
grief can render fragile and less resilient.
Literature Upholds a Vision of the Ideal
Just ask Charlie Brown. If you're familiar with Peanuts
cartoons, you'll know that Charlie finds himself in a frustrating
world in which he must overcome his own shortcomings if he's
ever to be as confident as Lucy, as reflective as Linus, as
practical as Sally, or as artistic as Schroeder. He even surmises
that Snoopy's life is more ideal than his own. Clearly, he has a
lot of winning to doâ€”not just in baseball or in wooing his
redheaded dream girlâ€”but in getting a firm grasp on the

answers he's reaching for related to life itself.
This drive to seek the ideal is central in our human experience.
The English poet Robert Browning considered it to be a human
obligation when he observed that our reach should exceed our
grasp as we live and grow, day by day. In his view, life is an
experiential quest that requires us to be continuously
seekingâ€”going beyond what we have already grasped. He
explores this idea in a poem about the famous Italian
Renaissance painter Andrea Del Sarto, who may have sacrificed
the full expression of his artistic ability in order to please his
wife. Browning's view was that
a man's reach should exceed his grasp
Or what's a heaven for? ("Andrea Del Sarto" 97Ã±98)
Writers sense this reach-versus-grasp dilemma very deeply. It
defines their creative activity that, in its broadest sense, is a
process of transforming chaos into order. Within this creative
process, writers often present the search for the ideal as a
journey toward a desired goal. The journey depicted is not
necessarily pretty and serene; like life itself, it has challenges,
violent conflicts, and failures, as well as high points of
exhilaration and moments of knowing.
In the selection below, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, illustrates this
quest for the ideal that we all feel within us. He asks us to
consider the classical Greek hero Ulysses, who has returned
from his heroic battles and is feeling constrained by the routine
of ordinary life. He, of course, has grasped a lot of what life
offers, but he still wants to reach for more. Here is the
adventurous invitation that Tennyson imagines Ulysses might
make to his aging warriorsâ€”asking them to join him on a
further journey that would reach beyond what they had already
accomplished, allowing them to grasp a fuller understanding of
their strengths and of life's significance.

Excerpt from Ulysses
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1833)
Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: 5
i
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,*
i
And see the great Achilles,* whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 10
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 15
Literature Explores Significant Human Questions and Reveals
Human Nature
As an example of the significant questions explored in
literature, let's look at the underlying dilemmaâ€”the nature of
timeâ€”that the heroic Ulysses faces in Tennyson's poem. As we
do, think about how this dilemma might relate to your own life.
Ulysses is aware of his mortality; he knows that death is a
certainty and getting nearer. He faces the time dilemma that we
all encounter: He can't go back and change the past, and he can't
step ahead into the future. Only the present is available to
himâ€”and even as he seizes a moment in the present to express
his bold intentions for a further journey, that moment dissolves
into the past. His predicament, to use literary critic Northrop
Frye's modern image, is like being in the caboose of a moving
train, watching the rails recede, each one like a separate

moment in his life. Frye pictures time as something that pulls us
backwards (blindly) into the future (1991).
You, no doubt, have thought about the nature of time in relation
to events in your life, perhaps when one you loved died. Maybe
things you've read or movies you've seen called your attention
to time's changeless pattern. Literature explores this past-
present-future mystery in many ways. For example, in once-
upon-a-time tales like "Sleeping Beauty," fantasy erases time,
and the past becomes the present, which continues endlessly. In
tragic dramas like Oedipus the King, fate presents consequences
from past human actions, bringing misery to the present and the
future. In books like The Great Gatsby, which often become
popular movies because they touch all of us, personal dreams
that would settle the past and satisfy future hopes are not fully
achieved or remain tantalizingly elusive, making the present
frenzied.
These considerations of the nature of time (life-death dilemma)
are complex. Similarly, all significant life questionsâ€”those
dealing with the nature of justice or love, for exampleâ€”pose
difficulties. Offering insights into such questions is one of the
great contributions of literature. What we gain from studying
literature is not a set of answers to life's hardest questions, but
rather insights into the ways human beings deal with them. A
study of literature, in other words, enables us to glimpse into
human nature. It uncovers what lies within us, allowing us to
comprehend and handle puzzling situations and unanswered
questions in our own lives. Czech-born writer Franz Kafka
believed that this quest for self-discovery is every reader's
obligation. In a letter, he used stark imagery to describe
literature's potential for enlightenment:
Altogether, I think we ought to read only books that bite and
sting us. . . . What we need are books that hit us like a most
painful misfortune, like the death of someone we loved more

than we love ourselves, that make us feel as though we had been
banished to the woods, far from any human presence, like
suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.
That is what I believe. (Kafka, 158)
Journey into Literature Game: The Land of Poetry
Take a journey to the Land of Poetry to discover more about the
authors, poems, and themes discussed in this chapter.
2.4 A Story for Reflection
Point of view, which we will discuss in Chapter 4, refers to who
tells the storyâ€”how it is presented to the reader. The most
common point of view is called "omniscient." The "omniscient"
narrator is not a character in the story but has access to the
thoughts, feelings, and history of the characters. The omniscient
technique in the following story is particularly effective in
allowing the reader to understand the old woman's predicament
and how she, and the others, deal with it.
Alice Walker
Photo of the American writer Alice Walker.
Â© TARA TODRAS-WHITEHLL/AP/Corbis
Best known for her Pulitzer PrizeÃ±winning novel The Color
Purple, Alice Walker was born into a sharecropper family in
1944 in Eatonton, Georgia. She was an outstanding student,
earning a scholarship to attend Spelman College. She later
transferred to Sarah Lawrence College, where she completed a
degree in 1965. Issues of race and gender form the center of her
literary work and her social activism, which included partici-
pation in civil rights demonstrations led by Martin Luther King,
Jr. She taught gender studies courses at Wellesley College and
began one of the first gender studies programs in the United

States. Her publications include poems, short stories, and
novels. She continues to write, exploring life situations through
the eyes of African-American women and highlighting the
continuing chal-lenges of sexism, racism, and poverty in
American life.
The Welcome Table
Alice Walker (1970)
for sister Clara Ward
I'm going to sit at the Welcome table
Shout my troubles over
Walk and talk with Jesus
Tell God how you treat me
One of these days!
â€ƒâ€ƒSpiritual
The old woman stood with eyes uplifted in her Sunday-go-to-
meeting clothes: high shoes polished about the tops and toes, a
long rusty dress adorned with an old corsage, long withered,
and the remnants of an elegant silk scarf as head rag stained
with grease from the many oily pigtails underneath. Perhaps she
had known suffering. There was a dazed and sleepy look in her
aged blue-brown eyes. But for those who searched hastily for
"reasons" in that old tight face, shut now like an ancient door,
there was nothing to be read. And so they gazed nakedly upon
their own fear transferred; a fear of the black and the old, a
terror of the unknown as well as of the deeply known. Some of
those who saw her there on the church steps spoke words about
her that were hardly fit to be heard, others held their pious
peace; and some felt vague stirrings of pity, small and
persistent and hazy, as if she were an old collie turned out to
die.
She was angular and lean and the color of poor gray Georgia
earth, beaten by king cotton and the extreme weather. Her
elbows were wrinkled and thick, the skin ashen but durable, like
the bark of old pines. On her face centuries were folded into the
circles around one eye, while around the other, etched and

mapped as if for print, ages more threatened again to live. Some
of them there at the church saw the age, the dotage, the missing
buttons down the front of her mildewed black dress. Others saw
cooks, chauffeurs, maids, mistresses, children denied or
smothered in the deferential way she held her cheek to the side,
toward the ground. Many of them saw jungle orgies in an evil
place, while others were reminded of riotous anarchists looting
and raping in the streets. Those who knew the hesitant creeping
up on them of the law, saw the beginning of the end of the
sanctuary of Christian worship, saw the desecration of Holy
Church, and saw an invasion of privacy, which they struggled to
believe they still kept.
Still she had come down the road toward the big white church
alone. Just herself, an old forgetful woman, nearly blind with
age. Just her and her eyes raised dully to the glittering cross
that crowned the sheer silver steeple. She had walked along the
road in a stagger from her house a half mile away. Perspiration,
cold and clammy, stood on her brow and along the creases by
her thin wasted nose. She stopped to calm herself on the wide
front steps, not looking about her as they might have expected
her to do, but simply standing quite still, except for a slight
quivering of her throat and tremors that shook her cotton-
stockinged legs.
The reverend of the church stopped her pleasantly as she
stepped into the vestibule. Did he say, as they thought he did,
kindly, "Auntie, you know this is not your church?" As if one
could choose the wrong one. But no one remembers, for they
never spoke of it afterward, and she brushed past him anyway,
as if she had been brushing past him all her life, except this
time she was in a hurry. Inside the church she sat on the very
first bench from the back, gazing with concentration at the
stained-glass window over her head. It was cold, even inside the
church, and she was shivering. Everybody could see. They
stared at her as they came in and sat down near the front. It was

cold, very cold to them, too; outside the church it was below
freezing and not much above inside. But the sight of her, sitting
there somehow passionately ignoring them, brought them up
short, burning.
The young usher, never having turned anyone out of his church
before, but not even considering this job as that (after all, she
had no right to be there, certainly), went up to her and
whispered that she should leave. Did he call her "Grandma," as
later he seemed to recall he had? But for those who actually
hear such traditional pleasantries and to whom they actually
mean something, "Grandma" was not one, for she did not pay
him any attention, just muttered, "Go 'way," in a weak sharp
bothered voice, waving his frozen blond hair and eyes from near
her face.
It was the ladies who finally did what to them had to be done.
Daring their burly indecisive husbands to throw the old colored
woman out they made their point. God, mother, country, earth,
church. It involved all that, and well they knew it. Leather
bagged and shoed, with good calfskin gloves to keep out the
cold, they looked with contempt at the bootless gray arthritic
hands of the old woman, clenched loosely, restlessly in her lap.
Could their husbands expect them to sit up in church with that?
No, no, the husbands were quick to answer and even quicker to
do their duty.
Under the old woman's arms they placed their hard fists (which
afterward smelled of decay and muskâ€”the fermenting scent of
onionskins and rotting greens). Under the old woman's arms
they raised their fists, flexed their muscular shoulders, and out
she flew through the door, back under the cold blue sky. This
done, the wives folded their healthy arms across their trim
middles and felt at once justified and scornful. But none of
them said so, for none of them ever spoke of the incident again.
Inside the church it was warmer. They sang, they prayed. The
protection and promise of God's impartial love grew more not

less desirable as the sermon gathered fury and lashed itself out
above their penitent heads.
The old woman stood at the top of the steps looking about in
bewilderment. She had been singing in her head. They had
interrupted her. Promptly she began to sing again, though this
time a sad song. Suddenly, however, she looked down the long
gray highway and saw something interesting and delightful
coming. She started to grin, toothlessly, with short giggles of
joy, jumping about and slapping her hands on her knees. And
soon it became apparent why she was so happy. For coming
down the highway at a firm though leisurely pace was Jesus. He
was wearing an immaculate white, long dress trimmed in gold
around the neck and hem, and a red, a bright red, cape. Over his
left arm he carried a brilliant blue blanket. He was wearing
sandals and a beard and he had long brown hair parted on the
right side. His eyes, brown, had wrinkles around them as if he
smiled or looked at the sun a lot. She would have known him,
recognized him, anywhere. There was a sad but joyful look to
his face, like a candle was glowing behind it, and he walked
with sure even steps in her direction, as if he were walking on
the sea. Except that he was not carrying in his arms a baby
sheep, he looked exactly like the picture of him that she had
hanging over her bed at home. She had taken it out of a white
lady's Bible while she was working for her. She had looked at
that picture for more years than she could remember, but never
once had she really expected to see him. She squinted her eyes
to be sure he wasn't carrying a little sheep in one arm, but he
was not. Ecstatically she began to wave her arms for fear he
would miss seeing her, for he walked looking straight ahead on
the shoulder of the highway, and from time to time looking
upward at the sky. 5
All he said when he got up close to her was "Follow me," and
she bounded down to his side with all the bob and speed of one
so old. For every one of his long determined steps she made two
quick ones. They walked along in deep silence for a long time.

Finally she started telling him about how many years she had
cooked for them, cleaned for them, nursed them. He looked at
her kindly but in silence. She told him indignantly about how
they had grabbed her when she was singing in her head and not
looking, and how they had tossed her out of his church. A old
heifer like me, she said, straightening up next to Jesus,
breathing hard. But he smiled down at her and she felt better
instantly and time just seemed to fly by. When they passed her
house, forlorn and sagging, weatherbeaten and patched, by the
side of the road, she did not even notice it, she was so happy to
be out walking along the highway with Jesus, she broke the
silence once more to tell Jesus how glad she was that he had
come, how she had often looked at his picture hanging on her
wall (she hoped he didn't know she had stolen it) over her bed,
and how she had never expected to see him down here in
person. Jesus gave her one of his beautiful smiles and they
walked on. She did not know where they were going; someplace
wonderful, she suspected. The ground was like clouds under
their feet, and she felt she could walk forever without becoming
the least bit tired. She even began to sing out loud some of the
old spirituals she loved, but she didn't want to annoy Jesus, who
looked so thoughtful, so she quieted down. They walked on,
looking straight over the treetops into the sky, and the smiles
that played over her dry wind-cracked face were like first clean
ripples across a stagnant pond. On they walked without
stopping.
The people in church never knew what happened to the old
woman; they never mentioned her to one another or to anybody
else. Most of them heard sometime later that an old colored
woman fell dead along the highway. Silly as it seemed, it
appeared she had walked herself to death. Many of the black
families along the road said they had seen the old lady high-
stepping down the highway; sometimes jabbering in a low
insistent voice, sometimes singing, sometimes merely gesturing
excitedly with her hands. Other times silent and smiling,

looking at the sky. She had been alone, they said. Some of them
wondered aloud where the old woman had been going so stoutly
that it had worn her heart out. They guessed maybe she had
relatives across the river, some miles away, but none of them
really knew. 10
"The Welcome Table" from In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black
Women, copyright Â© 1973 by Alice Walker. Reproduced by
permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by permission of The Joy Harris
Literary Agency, Inc.
RESPONSE AND REFLECTION QUESTIONS
Connecting
What allowed you to connect to this story?
Considering
At what points were your feelings heightened because of the
omniscient point of viewâ€”allowing you not just to observe
action, but also to "see inside" the minds of those involved in
the action?
Concluding
Consider the six ways literature contributes to our lives
discussed in this chapter. How many of these can be illustrated
by "The Welcome Table"?
A Concluding Exercise: Supporting Your Response to a Literary
Work
Responding to something you have read involves more than
simply summarizing the content or re-stating what happened. As
this chapter has shown, responding to literature requires you to
imagine, to think, to reflect, and to make connections to life
experiences and human concerns. Your response will be unique,

composed of your personal insights. But, at the same time, your
response must be credibly related to what the writer of the
literary work has presented. So you need to show how particular
things in the piece of literature actually support your response.
Below are three responses to "The Welcome Table." Each
presents a different view of the old woman and her role in the
story. Consider how the selected aspects of the story can be
used to support the response in each case.
"She is old, black and 'different'; she represents the possibility
of a servant class stepping out of line." â€”Peter S. Hawkins
(1994), Listening for God, Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, p.
108.
Support from the Story:
Image describing her appearance: "She was angular and lean
and the color of poor gray Georgia earth, beaten by king cotton
and the extreme weather."
Action in the story: She explained, in her imaginary
conversation with Jesus, "how many years she had cooked for
them, cleaned for them, and nursed them."
Action in the story: "Others saw cooks, chauffeurs, maids,
mistresses, children denied or smothered in the deferential way
she held her cheek to the side, toward the ground."
"This old black woman challenges the very thing that gives
them [white women] privilege. Both they and she are
womenâ€”but they are white, their only claim to the pedestal on
which they so uneasily stand." â€”Barbara Christian (1981) "A
Study of In Love and Trouble: The Contrary Women of Alice
Walker," The Black Scholar, Vol. 12, No. 2, (March/April
1981), p. 70.

Image describing her appearance: "They gazed nakedly upon
their own fear transferred; a fear of the black and the old, a
terror of the unknown as well as of the deeply known."
Action in the story: "Leather bagged and shoed, with good
calfskin gloves to keep out the cold, they looked with contempt
at the bloodless gray arthritic hands of the old woman, clenched
loosely, restlessly in her lap."
Action in the story: "It was the ladies who finally did what to
them had to be done. Daring their burly indecisive husbands to
throw the old colored woman out they made their point."
"The old woman is empowered by an irrepressible spiritual
tradition, 'singing in her head,' that allows her to resist
conventions and be hopeful."
Image describing her appearance: "In that old tight face, shut
now like an ancient door, there was nothing to be read."
Image describing her appearance: "On her face centuries were
folded into the circles around one eye, while around the other,
etched and mapped as if for print, ages more threatened again to
live."
Action in the story: "She told him [Jesus] indignantly about how
they had grabbed her when she was singing in her head and not
looking, and how they had tossed her out of his church."
Action in the story: "She even began to sing out loud some of
the old spirituals she loved."

The epigraph: Five lines from a spiritual, dedicated to the
Gospel singer Clara Ward.
Using the "Short-Answer Written Response" model that
appears earlier in this chapter, write your response to "The
Welcome Table," and to support your view include references to
specific aspects of the story, like those above.
Summary
Chapter 2 describes the nature and scope of responses that
readers typically make to literature. Some responses require
more intellectual inquiry than others do, but in every productive
response you must connect imaginatively to the literature,
consider the literary techniques that make it effective, and then
conclude what meaning your reading experience holds for you.
Among the many contributions literature makes to our lives, six
are particularly important: Literature restores the past,
stimulates the imagination, glorifies the commonplace, evokes
emotions and links feeling to thinking, upholds a vision of the
ideal, and reveals human nature by exploring significant human
questions. The writing process is driven by a human impulse to
give form to something abstractâ€”an idea, a feeling, a
speculation. Literature, therefore, grows out of creative activity
that begins in writers' experiences and imaginings; their
finished works capture and represent the abstract. The extent to
which a work's intrinsic ideas are recognizable and memorable
will determine its ultimate artistic value.
The literature in this chapter invites and requires a broad range
of responses, some falling within familiar boundaries of your
life experiences, some pulling you into unfamiliar territory of
thought and reflection. Even though the following outline

identifies only one approach for responding to each piece of
literature (when many are possible), it highlights the range of
pleasure and insight that responding to literature can bring.
Key Terms and Concepts
Click on each key term to see the definition.
figurative language
Language used in a non-literal way to convey images and ideas.
Figures of speech, including similes and metaphors, are the
main tools of figurative language. For example, ordinary
descriptive language: "The moon looked hazy through the
clouds." Figurative language: "The moon was a ghostly galleon
tossed upon cloudy seas."
figures of speech
Tools of figurative language; the most common are similes and
metaphors.
imagery
A distinct representation of something that can be experienced
and understood through the senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell,
and taste), or the representation of an idea. Writers use precise
language in developing imagery.
metaphor
A figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made
between one object and another that is different from it.
Example: "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women
merely players. They have their exits and their entrances," from

As You Like It by William Shakespeare.
persona
Literally, in Latin, "a mask." When it is used in analyzing
literature, persona refers to the narrator in a story or the speaker
in a poem, who may or may not reflect the perspective of the
author.
simile
A figure of speech that compares two objects or ideas that are
not ordinarily considered to be similar, linked by using like or
as. Example: "The water made a sound like kittens lapping,"
from The Yearling by Marjorie Rawlings.
song
A lyrical musical expression, a source of emotional outlet
common in ancient communities and still influential in
contemporary culture.
symbol
An object, person, or action that conveys two meanings: its
literal meaning and something it stands for. For example, rain is
often symbolized as a life giver; a snake is often symbolized as
evil.
tone
In a literary work, the speaker's attitude toward the reader or the
subject. Tone might be described as serious, playful, ironic,
condescending, bored, affectionate, sad, detached, or any other
word that would describe "attitude."

3
Introduction to the Short Story
A student seated at a desk and writing on a piece of lined paper.
Focus is on hands and writing.
Â© VideoBlocks
Learning Objectives
following:
Describe early forms of storytelling and their cultural
contexts.
Identify and differentiate features of the short story, and
analyze their use in particular stories.
Analyze the themes and concepts in "Country Lovers."
Successfully complete academic assignments that involve
writing about and analyzing short stories.
"A story is a way to say something that can't be said any other
way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the
meaning is."
â€”Flannery O'Connor, American writer
From the time we are very young, we see the world and
understand our lives through stories. We learn from them long
before we can explain what a story is. Research shows that
young children can identify which is the story when presented
with an unfamiliar five-minute narrative about a boy with
magical powers and a five-minute presentation written
humorously to describe how to play a children's game
(McAdams, 1996). The recognizable pattern of a story is as old
as human existence; we have always been storytellers.

3.1 How Stories Began
Your environment and personal experiences influence your
response to stories. Whether you are aware of it or not, the lens
through which you envision a story is filtered by insights you
have gained from family traditions, religious beliefs, and
critical life issues. Thus, interpretations of a story vary based
on the reader's age, breadth of experience, and emotional
connection. Likewise, interpretations differ from culture to
culture. For example, stories that once grew out of particular
political controversies continue to be told long after the original
political context has been forgotten. The familiar nursery rhyme
"Rock-a-bye Baby" is a classic example. In late 17th-century
England, when there was a struggle for political power between
Catholics and Protestants, King James II, who had converted to
Catholicism, came to power. The "Rock-a-bye Baby" narrative
is thought to reflect the rumor that the son born to him and the
queen was not their childâ€”but a boy hidden and secretly
exchanged, giving them a Catholic heir to the throneâ€”until, at
some point ("when the bough breaks") the truth would be
known. The Oxford Book of Nursery Rhymes provides extensive
background information about the stories that became known as
nursery rhymes with the publication of John Newbery's book
Mother Goose's Melody in mid-18th-century England.
A sculpture of the Greek Titan Prometheus chained to a rock.
Nicolas Sebastien Adam/The Bridgeman Art Library/Getty
After giving fire to humanity, Prometheus was chained to a rock
as punishment by Zeus.
The earliest stories in every culture are its myths, anonymous
stories through which primitive people sought to explain the
world around them, including the mysteries of divinity,
creation, truth, and death. Literature often retells myths, using

1Beginning Our Literary JourneyA rocky coastline with an out.docx

1Beginning Our Literary JourneyA rocky coastline with an out.docx

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