In Chapter 6 ” Narrative”, Culler explains the fascinating thing called a narrative theory or narratology. Narratology is the structure of the plot and how things lead to another event and that event leads to another event. Culler uses the example of history, “French Revolution is to grasp a narrative showing how one event leads to another”. Another example of this is a movie I recently watched with my little brother called “chicken little”. For a very straightforward children movie, it had some level of depth from start to end. The movie even starts with a narrator explaining the plot of the movie in the first five minutes of the movie. This is all to set the stage of the world we are about to visit in this movie. When the movie ends with its surprising climactic ending it ties it all back together.

When Culler said that “there is a basic human drive to hear and tell stories” he wasn’t kidding. I could tell this simple story was handled with care to present the best possible story they could tell.

In Chapter 5 Culler introduces many different and interesting rhetorical and poetic techniques. This chapter seemed the most interesting to me because the rhetoric language and literary techniques were very fascinating to me. For example, in this chapter  Culler talks about Rhetorical figures and literary theory. “A rhetorical figure has generally been defined as an alteration of or swerve from ‘ordinary’ usage” this is such a great definition for a rhetorical figure by Culler. The use of metaphor is also great, all these things are used to attract the reader and keep them interested in the very thing they are reading. Metaphors are also described as a rhetorical figure.

When reading “Diving into the wreck” by Adrienne Rich the use of metaphors is very apparent. Rich uses all types of metaphors to describe the inner personal struggle most women have to deal with. From gender norms and gender roles.

In chapter 4 “Language, meaning, and interpretation” Culler describes three different dimensions or levels of meaning. For example, the meaning of a word, of an utterance, and of a text. One of the most interesting parts of this chapter is when Culler explains how language and thought are related. Culler uses one example of thought and language when saying “language just provides names for thoughts that exist independently”. This intrigued me because I never thought of language as any deeper than just a means of communication. Culler later says that some languages such as English can’t express a conception of time due to the restrictions from our language. Culler goes on to say “There seems no way of demonstrating that there are thoughts of one language that can’t be thought or expressed in another” which is true, in Spanish, there aren’t any gender-neutral way to address someone, unlike English. As years go by languages like Spanish adapt to changes and create new words to describe things like gender.

In “The nature of literature” Culler defines literature from many different angles. I found the most interesting part is “Literature as fiction”. This really stuck with me because Culler describes literature as a way to “have a special relation to the world”. Fiction is something that teleports us outside of ourselves and experiences the world from a different perspective. Rather than being told one-dimensional facts like in non-fiction.  Fiction lets the reader interpret more than what is told. A good example of this would be news articles, the news should be only taken as facts. As for fiction watching a movie with a cliffhanger ending leaves room to ask why this happened and what happens next. Culler says “Literary works refer to imaginary rather than historical individuals” this means anyone could write anything and they are only limited to their imagination.

1. Culler questions what is literature and does it matter? Culler defines literature in many different ways. For instance, Culler says “literature comes in all shapes and sizes, and most of them seem to have more in common with works that aren’t usually called literature”. The author draws a parallel between Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre an autobiography and a poem by Robert Burns called ‘My love is like a red, red rose’. The author makes this point to make us, the reader question what we call literature and why we treat something as literature. I found the most important aspect of this section of the chapter is the comparison to weeds and literature. Culler mentions that “Weeds are simply plants that gardeners don’t want in their gardens” so there is no clear cut definition for weeds similar to literature. It is important for us to think about the definitions of literature because it’s important to question something that surrounds us on a daily basis. Especially when it comes down to what we consider literature and not.
2.  A question that stayed with me as I was reading this chapter was “what differentiates literature from other human activities and pastimes?”.