What is the difference between story and plot? What is the difference between plot summary and plot interpretation? How do you analyze the relationship between the main plot and a subplot? What are the purposes of literary elements and literary techniques? What are the writer’s literary devices and reader’s literary devices? How do you recognize and appreciate ways in which writer use language, structure and style to achieve his intended effects on the reader? How do you shift from mere appreciation of a literary text to critical literary appreciation? How do you engage in literary analysis & what is the purpose? What is the difference between topic and theme and how do you arrive at the theme? How do you compare the theme and the moral message? How do you develop an interpretation of a work of literature (drama, poetry and prose) and what is the purpose? How do you present critical appreciations or your individual responses to literary texts composed in different forms and in different periods and cultures? How do you know your individual response is valid? What are the differences between Critical Literary Appreciation, Literary Criticism, and Literary Theory? Why should there be a Literary theory at all?
Cold turkey off Heroin Following is a gleaning from Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts ISBN 0-349-11754-3We all cope with anxiety and stress, to one degree or another, with the help of a cocktail of chemicals produced in the body and released in the brain. Chief among them is the endorphin group. The endorphins are peptide neurotransmitters that have pain-relieving properties. […]
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Poppy fields, Opium, Taliban, Mujahadeen, Russians and Americans Following is an extraction from Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie The Russians were in Afghanistan and consuqently many Afghans had fled to Pakistan, and were even to be found at forward camp number 22 in the “free”-Azad-sector of Kashmir. In spite of the enormous numbers of refugees occupying huge, town-sized camps […]
Read moreOpium: Bombay (Mumbai) to Canton (Guangzhou)Following text is a gleaning from River of Smoke by Amitav GhoshLater there would be much discussion on whether the Anahita was struck by the same storm that had hit the Ibis. Such information as was available then made it impossible to come to any reliable determination on this: what was certain was that the […]
Read moreOpium addictionJi, Sethji, said Neel. He ran his eye over the lines and said: It seems that these are excerpts from a memorandum written by a high-ranking Chinese official and sent to the Emperor.Yes, said Baharam. Go on. What does he say?Opium is a poisonous drug, brought from foreign countries. To the question, what are its virtues, the answer is: […]
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