In the a raisin in the sun, before the appearance of the characters, the author sets the tone for the development of the story by describing the social environment in which the story takes place and the environment in which some of the main characters live. The old, crowded houses, the poor quality of life and the wonderful life that every character wants. They work hard to improve the racial gap and improve their quality of life. Each character in the story is given a specific characteristic to convey a same message, but the expression of the message is in different languages, actions and values. Walter wanted to become rich like the white class. His sister, on the other hand, is young and smart and has the dream of becoming a doctor. She has different values from her family. She struggles hard to face her identity and status, and she wants to change the status through her own efforts. Their mother Lena is conservative and she hopes to invest her husband’s precious insurance fee to buy a house so as to make the American dream of owning her own house come true. But all of above are for one goal that involves how to improve their social status and quality of life. Author depicts their thoughts, conversations and feelings which revealing small detailed hints about the attitude the author wants to express.

In the Benito Cereno, author depicts three main characters involving the captive White Benito, the rescuer white captain Delano and black smart slave Babo. By depicting Babo, a clever black slave, as the leader, he led an uprising for the freedom of black slaves. He captured Benito, a white crew on the slave ship, and asked him to lead the way for their freedom. However, Delano, a rich-experienced white captain made the uprising failed. Babo was eventually executed in accordance with the law, and Benito was later dead due to mental stress and torture. The author expresses a kind of attitude against slavery through the obvious division of black and white characters and the description of their special social status in that period of slavery. It shows that what the black slaves wanted was nothing more than a free and non-discriminatory life. The representative of black slaves, Babo, his intelligence led the slaves to fight back and prove that they are just as good as the whites. At the same time, the author also used Benito, who once had the role of master, to express his role transfer from master to slave. After experiencing the slave role, Benito finally realized the faulty concept of race discrimination. A good illustration  of how slavery and race discrimination should not exist. As Delano, he still had a sense of innate superiority over the color of the skin and race. That is a deep influence from a long-term slavery social background.

In literary works, authors utilize different narrative point of view to represent a story. As I know, most of them involves first person narrator and third person narrator. Consequently, the effect of the two ways are different. First person narrator could enable readers to engage into the character together and enjoy a sense of reality. And third person narrator could have a lot of thematic options and tend to directly receive clues. Plus, descriptions of plots are added into works in different ways like flashback that making structure impressive. A movie I watched called “Forrest Gump” is displayed as first person narrator. The story depicts several decades in the life of Forrest Gump, a slow-witted but kind man who created some amazing stories witnesses several historical events in the United States as well as conveys a kind of spirit. The development of plots naturally comes along with a sense of intimacy and reality.

The plot definitely plays an important role in a narrative. It interacts with narrative and make the literary work as a whole. The structure would be modified leading to an interesting and detailed thing. In addition, it guides us to think and analyze things in various dimensions.

In chapter 5, author talks about poetry and rhetorics. Poetry tends to create effect of persuasion and rhetoric tends to have effect of imitation. The fusion of both of them is important in literary work. Especially, he lists four important basic rhetorical figures: metaphor, metaphor, synecdoche and irony. In “The sea is history” by Derek Walcott, I found a type of art description that interests me. He states in the last section of poetry, “then came the synod of files, then came the secretarial heron, then came the bullfrog bellowing for a vote, fireflies with bright ideas and bats like jetting ambassadors and the mantis, like khaki police, and the furred caterpillars of judges examining each case closely.” I am not quite sure about it but I do think the method he used is metaphor. I believe he compares some of the most important positions in the country to tiny creatures that implying  no matter how small the country is or how lowly the people living in it are, as long as the country can independently develop and free write its own real history. That will be the historic moment and event. The history is meaningful.

Language use in our daily life normally exists in a simple way of both spoken and written aspects. However, it doesn’t quite apply to literary work. As culler mentioned, “Meaning is context-bound, but context is boundless.” Language itself seems not simple when it occurs in a literary work with a certain context which involves author’s experience and historical circumstance. It functions in diversity not only a property of a text but also a kind of deep reflection based on specific context. Readers have to analyze and think hard the language used in a work through connecting the language to the context, so as to understand meaning of a literary work by specific expressions of language. The process of understanding work will be an interesting experience of exploring more unknown knowledge that relates to the work and supposing a lot on contents work that plant to reflect. So language in different situations makes meaning diverse, it definitely engages readers to consider language and meaning broadly.

Jonathan Culler defines the nature of literature that consists of five facets including literature as the the foregrounding of language, as aesthetic object, as intertextual or self-reflexive construct, as integration of language and as fiction. I believe artistry that infuses literature make s literary work unique and interesting. Writers utilize various art instruments to shape characters, to mirror real social phenomena or to convey certain emotions through precise, impressive, vivid and touching way. The higher level of artistry the work has, the more attractive degree towards readers it shows. The characteristically allegoric figures, scenes and contexts merge with magic manner of descriptions could turn to be a fantastic work, literature. As a result, existence of artistry in literature work could be an important part of soul of a work. Because humans naturally like something beautiful as well as they are always full of curiosity for unknown things. Compared with flat non-literary work such as reports, news and essay, texts influenced by artistry could inspire readers to explore more and think deeply. So humans could learn impressively from literary work through process of analyzing it and memorizing well it through elegant texts. Perhaps a classic could be created due to unforgettable artistry.

According to “What is literature and does it matter” from chapter 2 which written by Jonathan Culler, I have already had a bit of comprehension about literature. I think it is a vital way for us to grab more things from literature. literature plays an important role around us and it is presented in front of us through various forms such as plays, poetry and novels. Because as development of human society, language use is also upgrading today. Besides the same function of conveying information and knowledge as non-literary does, literature might reflect deeply meaningful issues towards humans through displaying a sense of art which deriving from delicate treatment of words. The expression variations involve rhetoric, grammar, structure and so on. Due to particularity or meaning of literature, it could get people’s attention to think hard about it and lead people to explore more unknown information. The process of thinking and researching benefit human development in linguistic ability which making words vivid and powerful and in logical thinking.

The question that stayed with me is “What factors we need to take into account before creating a literary work?”