Response 2 Fiction

Vanessa Hernandez

Intro to Writing/Lit

Eric Olson

29 September 2010

Tools

Normally what came to my mind when thinking of the term ‘fiction’ and its correlation to literature, was images of brightly colored stories about scenarios that could never possibly happen. However, this week’s assignment has cleared my foggy vision and opened my eyes to the abundant techniques that fiction possesses. For instance, the realistic style present in The Caretaker by Anthony Doerr illuminates the actuality of war and its horrors.

Doerr’s choice of writing the story in third person is a purposeful technique that distances the character from the reader and forces us to invest our thoughts in trying to scratch that surface. I enjoyed this alienated aspect in the story but did find the whale heart a bit too cheesy for my taste. I felt the heart was an obvious symbol and took away from the cold tone the story had been putting on. Also, when it was mentioned in class, how Anthony Doerr had nothing to do with the war, and wasn’t even African American, I instantly understood why the story tended to have its cheesy symbolic moments. Anthony was trying to portray a story of something that he had noting to do with, or possibly did, I don’t know.

It was also mentioned in class that Two Brothers by Brian Evenson based its context on fabulism, but I felt that his story beautifully exemplified the use of fiction as a reflection to realism. A young boy very well could have brutally killed his parents, gained an unnatural sexual attachment to his brother, and laid in his carcass as if it were a fluffy cloud. Possibly I’m too heavily interested in abnormal psychology and murders, but this story could have happened, even though it was indeed very horrible.

The Father’s Blessing by Mary Caponegro is the story that best portrays fiction writer’s use of fabulism by Father’s normality after witnessing Mrs.Callahan venture into her daughter Kathleen’s hollow womb. The first person point of view used in the story made me feel more connected to Father, unlike Joseph in The Caretaker. Though Father is one weird fellow, I had a sense of pity for him, because his choice in religious position holds him back from ever having intimacy in any relationship. I could sense his tension and longing for knowledge, and even though he is the “direct messenger of god”, Father knows little about true life beyond spirituality. I could feel his emotions through Caponegro’s use of diction.“…crept inside, one after the other, to be embraced by those contours which are, even in the imagination, forbidden to the man who inhabits a vocation, a chamber of secrets.” Pg. 164

I myself have never confined my writing style or preferences to a specific fiction genre, literature is literature, and limitations can hold me back from discovering some amazing pieces. Though I do not like how many force themselves to only prefer one genre, I do agree that the various styles used in fiction attain different effects on the readers.