If fiction is desultory and the work of nonsense, then why do we read it? Why has story telling been around as long as human kind has?
Its because fictional stories can have a powerful effect on us in the way that they entertain and engage, inform and provoke us to reflect on the real world.
When we are young we read a lot of children’s stories, or have them read to us by our parents or at school. A lot of these stories are entertaining but they can also be used as a catalyst to teach young children about morals and values. For instance, a favourite of mine is Horton Hears a Who, by Doctor Seuss. This particular story is about equality and tolerance of …show more content…
We know Archie is a young Australian boy, this is established not only by the written code, ‘Western Australia 1915,’ by also by the wide-angle long shots of the country. Immediately the dominant audience, Australians, begin to relate to Archie. This is reinforced by the display of other Australian values such as competitiveness when Archie, running on foot races back to the home gate against a man on horse back. Throughout this scene we hear the music Oxygene by Jean Michel Jarre, which appears in numerous other running scenes throughout the movie. Sections of this running scene are shown through long shot with the use of panning, this emphasis the incredible distance of Archie’s run and we admire his strength, determination and his physical pursuit.
Archie’s character continues to develop through the story in such a way that we continue to admire and care for him. The use of fictional genre means that Archie’s character can be constructed in such a way to achieve a maximum emotion attachment towards him. In this way his death at Gallipoli impacts our emotions and this pushes us to reflect on and alter our attitudes towards war, the aim of the …show more content…
Take the above story for example; we are transported into the future and bombarded with the strange situation Mr Mead finds himself in. Because of the third person limited point of view, we know what Mr Mead is thinking and feeling – we feel like we are him or at least that we are there with him. His moonlit walk on a cold frosty night; the atmosphere, which he is experiencing, we experience through the tone of the text to be melancholy. Created by the long syntax and relentless metaphors and similes. This imagery can also work to draw us into this imaginary world so that we can see and feel as Mr Mead does, ‘crystal frost in the air; it cut the nose and made the lungs blaze like a Christmas tree inside.” Fiction stories fire our imaginations whether we the writers or the readers. Fiction is enjoyable to read, that in itself is reason enough to say that it is not