Trifles

* Last week we reflected on our writing, and this week we deal with some things related to the reading we will do in this class. The two primary components of this class are reading literature and then writing about literature, and knowing some of the literary devices and features will help you with both reading and writing about literature. * Before I provide my examples, I want to explain that literary devices (I call them conventions sometimes too) are like strategies. That is, authors of fiction or drama or poetry engage with these devices (these strategies), first because they are what readers expect of them, but second because these devices assist authors in communicating deeper meanings, expressing things artistically, making the writing more vivid, producing layers that make the piece more complex but therefore resembling reality. Though keep in mind that writers often write their truth and don't actually choose the literary devices we apply to the stories, poems, and plays (readers have a great deal of power in their reading as they interpret and assume). * The first literary device I pick from the list is dynamic character,and I am going to apply it to a story that is not in our textbook but is worth reading. It is very short and an incredible example of expert short story writing. Alice Walker's "The Flowers" can be found here: http://theliterarylink.com/flowers.html . I think of Myop from "The Flowers" and the definition of dynamic character as one in the same. In the span of an afternoon, and for readers in just under two pages, we see a character go from being carefree and open-minded to being reverent and guarded because of the decomposed body she finds in the forest and the manner in which she sees he has died. A dynamic character is any character that goes through a dramatic change within the piece of literature, usually a short story but a character in a play as well. * Another literary device that stands out to me in a lot of