query: what is the narrator name in the handmaid 's tale

pos: The Handmaid's Tale a restoration of full rights for women and freedom of religion. Offred is the protagonist and narrator. She was labeled a "wanton woman" when Gilead was established because she had married a man who was divorced. All divorces were nullified by the new government, meaning her husband was now considered still married to his first wife, making Offred an adulteress. In trying to escape Gilead, she was separated from her husband and daughter. She is part of the first generation of Gilead's women, those who remember pre-Gilead times. Proved fertile, she is considered an important commodity and has been placed

pos: The Handmaid's Tale be set fifteen years after Offred's final scene, and feature three female narrators. Andriano, Joseph. "The Handmaid’s Tale as Scrabble Game." Critical Insights: The Handmaid’s Tale, edited by J. Brooks Bouson, Salem, 2009. Salem Online. The Handmaid's Tale The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, originally published in 1985. It is set in a near-future New England, in a totalitarian state resembling a theonomy, which has overthrown the United States government. The novel focuses on the journey of the handmaid Offred. Her name derives from the possessive form "of Fred"; handmaids are forbidden to use

pos: The Handmaid's Tale The Handmaid's Tale The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, originally published in 1985. It is set in a near-future New England, in a totalitarian state resembling a theonomy, which has overthrown the United States government. The novel focuses on the journey of the handmaid Offred. Her name derives from the possessive form "of Fred"; handmaids are forbidden to use their birth names and must echo the male, or master, whom they serve. "The Handmaid's Tale" explores themes of women in subjugation in a patriarchal society and the various means by which these women attempt

pos: The Handmaid's Tale as a "handmaid" in the home of "the Commander" and his wife Serena Joy, to bear a child for them (Serena Joy is believed to be infertile). Offred is a slave name that describes her function: she is "of Fred" (i.e., she belongs to Fred (presumed to be the name of the Commander), and is considered a concubine). In the novel, Offred says that she is "not" a concubine, but a tool; a "two legged womb". The Handmaids' names say nothing about who the women really are; their only identity is as the Commander's property. "Offred" is also a pun

pos: The Handmaid's Tale of government. Handmaids, being not allowed to wed, are given two-year assignments with a commander, and lose their own name: they are called "Of [their Commander's first name]", such as the novel's protagonist, known only as Offred. When a handmaid is reassigned, her name changes with her. Their original identities before the revolution are suppressed, although while being reeducated as handmaids, they surreptitiously share their names with each other. In this book, the government appears to be strong though "no one in Gilead seems to be a true believer in its revolution" (Beauchamp). The Commanders, portrayed via Commander Fred, do

pos: The Handmaid's Tale to gain individualism and independence. The novel's title echoes the component parts of Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales", which is a series of connected stories ("The Merchant's Tale", "The Parson's Tale", etc.). "The Handmaid's Tale" is structured into two parts, night and other various events. This novel can be interpreted as a double narrative, Offred's tale and the handmaids' tales. The night sections are solely about Offred, and the other sections (shopping, waiting room, household, etc.) are the stories that describe the possible life of every handmaid, though from the perspective of Offred. In many of these sections, Offred jumps

pos: The Handmaid's Tale because she has committed suicide before the government can take her into custody due to her membership in the resistance, possibly to avoid giving away any information. A new handmaid, also called Ofglen, takes Ofglen's place, and is assigned as Offred's shopping partner. She threatens Offred against any thought of resistance. She breaks protocol by telling her what happened to the first Ofglen. Nick is the Commander's chauffeur, who lives above the garage. By Serena Joy's arrangement, he and Offred start a sexual relationship to increase her chance of getting pregnant. If she were unable to bear the Commander a

pos: The Handmaid's Tale (opera) manages to escape while other Handmaids graduate from the Centre. Act One The Handmaid is assigned to a new posting under the command of Fred. She is therefore known as Offred (Of Fred). The wife of the household is Serena Joy, a former Gospel singer. Offred and Ofglen, another Handmaid, go shopping where they encounter the pregnant Janine. A doctor offers to impregnate Offred, but she declines in fear. At her new posting, the handyman Nick and Fred both have illegal contact with Offred when they talk to her and approach her bedroom. The household gathers for the ritual impregnation,

pos: The Handmaid's Tale Professor Pieixoto in the epilogue, "Serena Joy" or "Pam" are pseudonyms; the character's real name is implied to be Thelma. Ofglen is a neighbour of Offred's and a fellow Handmaid. She is partnered with Offred to do the daily shopping. Handmaids are never alone and are expected to police each other's behaviour. Ofglen is a member of the Mayday resistance. In contrast to Offred, she is daring. She knocks out a Mayday spy who is to be tortured and killed in order to save him the pain of a violent death. Offred is told that when Ofglen vanishes, it is

pos: The Handmaid's Tale traitors"; they are either hanged or sent to the Colonies to die a slow death. In this society, birth defects have become increasingly common. There are two main categories of human children: "The Ceremony" is a non-marital sexual act sanctioned for reproduction. The ritual requires the Handmaid to lie on her back between the legs of the Wife during the sex act as if they were one person. The Wife has to invite the Handmaid to share her power this way; many Wives consider this both humiliating and offensive. Offred describes the ceremony: In the novel's fictional fundamentalist society, "sterile"

pos: The Handmaid's Tale his previous handmaid and that she killed herself when his wife found out. In the epilogue an academic speculates that one of two figures, both instrumental in the establishment of Gilead, may have been the Commander, based on the name "Fred". It is his belief that the Commander was a man named Frederick R. Waterford who was killed in a purge shortly after Offred was taken away, charged with harboring an enemy agent. Serena Joy is a former televangelist and the Commander's wife in the fundamentalist theonomy. The state took away her power and public recognition, and tries to hide

pos: The Handmaid's Tale in an era of declining birth rates owing to increasing infertility. These women are forcibly assigned to produce children for the ruling class and are known as "handmaids", based on the biblical story of Rachel and her handmaid Bilhah. Offred describes her life during her third assignment as a handmaid, in this case to an important official referred to as "The Commander". Interspersed with her narratives of her present-day experiences are flashback discussions of her life from before and during the beginning of the revolution, when she finds she has lost all autonomy to her husband, their failed attempt to

pos: The Handmaid's Tale her past as a television figure. Offred identifies her master's wife by recalling seeing her on TV when she was a little girl early on Saturday mornings while waiting for the cartoons to air. Believed to be sterile (although the suggestion is made that the Commander is sterile, Gileadean laws attribute sterility only to women), she is forced to accept that he has use of a handmaid. She resents having to take part in the monthly fertility ritual. She strikes a deal with Offred to arrange for her to have sex with Nick in order to become pregnant. According to

pos: The Handmaid's Tale child, she would be declared sterile and shipped to the ecological wastelands of the Colonies. Offred begins to develop feelings for him. Nick is an ambiguous character, and Offred does not know if he is a party loyalist or part of the resistance, though he identifies himself as the latter. The epilogue suggests that he really was part of the resistance, and aided Offred in escaping the Commander's house. Moira has been a close friend of Offred's since college. A lesbian, she has resisted the homophobia of Gilead society. Moira is taken to be a Handmaid soon after Offred. She

pos: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series) over the general populace for signs of rebellion, Hunters track down people attempting to flee the country, and Jezebels are sex workers in secret brothels catering to the elite ruling class. June Osborne, renamed Offred (Elisabeth Moss), is the Handmaid assigned to the home of the Gileadan Commander Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) and his wife Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski). Offred is subject to strict rules and constant scrutiny; an improper word or deed on her part can lead to brutal punishment. Offred, who is named after her male master ("Of Fred") like all Handmaids, was married and had a daughter,

pos: The Handmaid's Tale of these deplorable acts were not just present in other cultures and countries, "but within Western society, and within the 'Christian' tradition itself". The Republic of Gilead struggles with infertility, making Offred's services as a Handmaid vital to producing children and thus reproducing the society. Handmaids themselves are "untouchable", but their ability to signify status is equated to that of slaves or servants throughout history. Atwood connects their concerns with infertility to real-life problems our world faces, such as radiation, chemical pollution, and venereal disease (HIV/AIDS is specifically mentioned in the "Historical Notes" section at the end of the novel,

pos: The Handmaid's Tale be offered work at Jezebel's rather than be forced to work in the Colonies, cleaning up radioactive waste. The women in the brothels are allowed alcohol and drugs, a freedom Offred notes. Though they are allowed to choose their patrons, they are discouraged from refusing a man's advances. The Commander's wife, Serena Joy, is a minor antagonist. Offred remembers her as a Christian media personality who supported women's domesticity and subordinate role well before Gilead was established. Serena is clearly bored and unhappy—that she was taken at her word, Offred assumes—and hates sharing her husband with a handmaid. Ironically, though,

pos: The Handmaid's Tale lets and watches her read, another offense, as women are not permitted to read and write. The Commander offers her contraband products, such as old (1970s) fashion magazines and cosmetics. Finally, he gives her lingerie and takes her to a government-run brothel called Jezebel's. This brothel is meant to add variety to men's sex lives which, as claimed by the Commander, is necessary. At Jezebel's, Offred encounters her friend, Moira, who had escaped from the handmaid training center, and learns how she came to be there. Moira explains that defiant women who could not adjust to the new society might

pos: The Handmaid's Tale escape to Canada, and finally her indoctrination into life as a handmaid by government-trained women called "Aunts". Offred describes the structure of Gilead's society, including the different classes of women and their lives within the new theonomy. The women are physically segregated by colour of clothing—blue, red, green, striped and white—to signify social class and assigned position, ranked highest to lowest. The Commanders' wives are dressed in blue, handmaids in red, Marthas (cooks and maids) in green. Striped clothing is for all other women (called "Econowives") who essentially do everything in the domestic sphere. Young, unmarried girls are dressed in

neg: The Necromancer; or, The Tale of the Black Forest (with each name signifying a new narrator who refers to themself as an "I", and indentations representing the depth of narrative relative to the un-indented narrator above it): Hellfried's written account Baron R----'s Letter to Herman P---'s letter continuing Wolf's story in the third person as well as his sentencing. The Necromancer; or, The Tale of the Black Forest The Necromancer; or, The Tale of the Black Forest is a Gothic novel by Ludwig Flammenberg (which is a pseudonym for Carl Friedrich Kahlert) first published in 1794. It is one of the seven 'horrid novels' lampooned by Jane Austen in

neg: The Handmaid's Tale religious fundamentalism in the pages of "The Handmaid's Tale" to a condemnation of their presence in current American society. Yet others have argued that "The Handmaid's Tale" critiques typical notions of feminism, as Atwood's novel appears to subvert the traditional "women helping women" ideals of the movement and turn toward the possibility of "the matriarchal network ... and a new form of misogyny: women's hatred of women". Ana Cottle characterized "The Handmaid"s Tale as "white feminism", noting that Atwood does away with black people in a few lines by relocating the "Children of Ham" while borrowing heavily from the African-American

neg: The Tell-Tale Heart narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" is generally assumed to be male. However, some critics have suggested a woman may be narrating; no pronouns are used to clarify one way or the other. The story starts "in medias res". The story opens with a conversation already in progress between the narrator and another person who is not identified in any way. It has been speculated that the narrator is confessing to a prison warden, a judge, a reporter, a doctor or (anachronistically) a psychiatrist. In any case, the narrator explains themself in great detail. What follows is a study of terror

neg: Lech-Lecha Pharaoh saw what God did on Sarah's behalf, Pharaoh gave his daughter to Sarai, reasoning that it would be better for his daughter to be a handmaid in Sarai's house than a mistress in another house. Rabbi Simeon read the name "Hagar" in to mean "reward" ("agar"), imagining Pharaoh to say, "Here is your reward ("agar")." A Midrash deduced from Sarai's words in "Behold now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing; go into my handmaid; it may be that I shall be built up through her," that one who is childless is as one who is demolished. The Rabbi

neg: Volker Schlöndorff theatrical films with the Hollywood science fiction film "The Handmaid's Tale" in 1990. The film's story takes place in a dystopian near future where most women are sterile due to pollution. Kate (Natasha Richardson) is arrested after attempting to flee to Canada and forced to become a "Handmaid". Handmaids are fertile women who are enslaved by the state and put in the households of wealthy men - who have "ceremonial" sex with them in the hope of conceiving a child. She becomes the Handmaid of the Commander (Robert Duvall), Fred, who is married to Serena Joy (Faye Dunaway). To save

neg: A Twist in the Tale (short story collection) The game lasts mere minutes; she annihilates him, and smiles enigmatically. Checkmate. Before he can even process what has happened, all her clothes are back on. She smiles as he signs over two hundred pounds in her name, and leaves, shutting the front door behind her. Wondering how she would return home, the narrator races out, only to see her enter a BMW. She is joined by his first opponent, the accountant. Having succeeded in an elaborately planned conspiracy, the two smug faces drive off into the night. A Twist in the Tale (short story collection) A Twist in the

neg: The Handmaid's Tale (opera) property. Women who live in sin are taken to Red Centres where they are indoctrinated as Handmaids by "Aunts". The Handmaids are sent to barren households, where they are required to be ritually inseminated once a month. Professor Pieixoto introduces an audio-cassette recorded by a Handmaid who is in hiding. She had been taken from her second husband Luke and their daughter. The Red Centre Prelude The centre is run by Aunt Lydia. Moira, a friend of the Handmaid who recorded the tape, is captured after an escape attempt. Janine, another woman at the Centre, suffers a breakdown. Moira eventually

neg: The Pearl of Love The Pearl of Love "The Pearl of Love" is a 1925 short story about devotion by H. G. Wells. The narrator of Wells's tale—or Wells, if you will—begins by saying that while "[t]he pearl is lovelier than the most brilliant of crystalline stones, the moralist declares, because it is made through the suffering of a living creature," he himself "feel[s] none of the fascination of pearls." The tale he tells is said to be "familiar to students of medieval Persian prose," and a considerable amount of commentary has accumulated around it. But the narrator says he cannot decide "whether The

neg: Glamorama terrorism. As an unintelligent narrator, Victor (through his inability to comprehend his situation), underlines how "the world of celebrity in "Glamorama" is inescapable". Compared to other Ellis protagonists, Victor is less "sensitive and insightful" than "Less Than Zero"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Clay, neither the "preening psychopath" that is "American Psycho"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Patrick Bateman", he is nevertheless an "[un]sympathetic protagonist (in his own way, he's as morally bankrupt as ... Patrick Bateman)." As narrator, "Victor's perceptions" sum up "[the glamor world's] disconnection from what the rest of us consider "real life"... [where] Everything he sees is a brand name." CNN speculates when Victor begins speaking

neg: Stories and Texts for Nothing the narrator finds is in distractions like mathematics. None of the thirteen "Texts for Nothing" were given titles; they present a variety of voices thrust into the unknown. According to S. E. Gontarski: "What one is left with after the "Texts for Nothing" is 'nothing,' incorporeal consciousness perhaps, into which Beckett plunged afresh in English in the early 1950s to produce a tale rich in imagery but short on external coherence." Thus these texts, when compared to the three earlier stories, as well as First Love, may be interpreted as representing a movement in Beckett's writing from Modernism to Post-Modernism.

neg: Narration viewpoint character. The viewpoint character is not necessarily the focal character: examples of supporting viewpoint characters include Doctor Watson, Scout in "To Kill a Mockingbird", and Nick Carraway of "The Great Gatsby". The unreliable narrative voice involves the use of an untrustworthy narrator. This mode may be employed to give the audience a deliberate sense of disbelief in the story or a level of suspicion or mystery as to what information is meant to be true and what is meant to be false. The narrator of Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," for example, is significantly biased, unknowledgeable, ignorant, childish, or is

neg: The Sand Child continues the tale leading up to Mohammed Ahmed/Zahra's death. Ahmed: The main character. An eighth child who was born a female, but was raised and presented to the society as a male. It is "his" story that is being told and "his" journal that is being read to the audience. Story teller/narrator: multiple, with varying connection to Ahmed, character(s) as well as narrator(s) Malika: She is the loyal female housekeeper/maid of the house. She is discreet, gentle and "never asked questions". Ahmed's mother: She is the mother of Ahmed and 7 other daughters. She is obedient and subservient to her

neg: Fisher's Tale Fisher's Tale Fisher's Tale were a Christian (Christadelphian) folk rock band, based in the West Midlands, United Kingdom. They released five studio albums. The band's name is captured in the title of the debut album: "Why didn't you tell me... the fisher's tale?". The "fisher" referred to the fisherman Peter, telling a tale of what happened in the early first century CE. The original band had an a cappella song called "The fisher's tale" which only existed as a demo version. The group started in the early 1990's when a Music and Drama workshop was started in Ware (Hertfordshire UK),

neg: Baufra name without royal cartouche. In the story, the sons of Khufu entertain their father by telling him stories about magicians and miracles which were witnessed under Khufu´s ancestors Djoser, Nebka and Sneferu. Baufra appears as the narrator of the third story. Baufra tells the tale about his royal grandfather Sneferu, Khufu's father. In the story it is revealed that Sneferu was bored and depressed one day, and his priest Djadjaemankh tells him that he should call lovely girls for a rowing trip on the royal lake. When chilling at the lake the trip is interrupted by the stroke maid who

neg: Black Tickets to Phillips' familiar poetic prose and stream of consciousness narrative in this haunting tale of violent alienation in modern-day America. Black Tickets "Black Ticket"s (1979) is a collection of short stories by American writer Jayne Anne Phillips. The collection was published by Delacorte/Seymour Lawrence. The story begins with the narrator looking at his/her mother's wedding picture. The narrator notices details about his/her mother and also the man in the picture which could be his/her father. The narrator then alludes to the death of the man in the wedding picture and about the loss of religion. The picture was taken in

neg: A Ballerina's Tale is what makes the film memorable. A Ballerina's Tale A Ballerina's Tale is a 2015 documentary film revolving around the career of Misty Copeland, who serves as the narrator of the film as well as its subject. The film premiered on April 19, 2015 at the Tribeca Film Festival. It was released through video on demand on October 13, 2015, prior to opening in a limited release on October 14, 2015, by Sundance Selects. A version of it, which is available on the PBS website, was also aired by PBS stations beginning in February 2016. The film received mostly positive

neg: Margaret Atwood and the mistreated Handmaid as Canada. During the debate in 1987 over a free trade agreement between Canada and the United States, Atwood spoke out against the deal and wrote an essay opposing the agreement. Atwood claims that the 2016 US presidential election led to an increase in sales of "The Handmaid's Tale". Inspired by "The Handmaid's Tale", the political action group The Handmaid's Coalition was formed in 2017 in response to legislation and actions aimed at limiting the rights of women and marginalized groups. Activists, dressed in red cloaks and white hats as described in "The Handmaid's Tale", lobby

neg: A Tale of a Tub theory, as books became less expensive and digests and "indexes" of the sciences grew more numerous. The difficulty lay in discerning truth from falsehood, credible claims from impossible one. Swift writes "A Tale of a Tub" in the guise of a narrator who is excited and gullible about what the new world has to offer, and feels that he is quite the equal or superior of any author who ever lived because he, unlike them, possesses 'technology' and newer opinions. Swift seemingly asks the question of what a person with no discernment but with a thirst for knowledge would be

neg: The Silent Gondoliers The Silent Gondoliers The Silent Gondoliers () is a 1983 novel written by William Goldman, under the pseudonym of "S. Morgenstern", about why the gondoliers of Venice no longer sing through the tale of the protagonist Luigi. The tale of Luigi actually starts in Chapter III and the previous chapters I and II build up further mythology behind the name Morgenstern and the backstory of Gondolierian history. It has the trademark humour of Goldman, and the unexpected fairy tale twist akin to an anti-fairy tale as the characters never end up as what we imagined or expect in fairy tales.

neg: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man Johnson knew and from events in his life. Johnson's text is an example of a roman à clef. The novel begins with a frame tale in which the unnamed narrator describes the narrative that follows as "the great secret of my life." The narrator notes that he is taking a substantial risk by composing the narrative, but that it is one he feels compelled to record, regardless. The narrator also chooses to withhold the name of the small Georgia town where his narrative begins, as there are still living residents of the town who might be able to connect him

neg: The End of Time (Doctor Who) Davies wrote in an email to the author of "The Writers Tale", "I like leaving it open, because then you can imagine what you want. I think the fans will say it's Romana. Or even the Rani. Some might say that it's Susan's mother, I suppose. But of course it's meant to be the Doctor's mother." The Doctor at one point addresses the Lord President as "Rassilon", the name of the founder of Time Lord society from the classic series, although the character is only identified in the credits as "The Narrator" in part one and "Lord President" in part

neg: The Tell-Tale Heart narrator interprets as the dead man's beating heart. The story was first published in James Russell Lowell's "The Pioneer" in January 1843. "The Tell-Tale Heart" is often considered a classic of the Gothic fiction genre and is one of Poe's best known short stories. The specific motivation for murder (aside from the narrator's dislike of the old man's eye), the relationship between narrator and old man, the gender of the narrator and other details are left unclear. The narrator denies having any feelings of hatred or resentment for the man who had, as stated, never wronged them. The narrator also

neg: The Tale of Igor's Campaign fitting, brothers, to begin with the olden words of the heroic tales about the campaign of Igor..." The narrator begins by referring to oral epic tales that are already old and familiar. Mann has found numerous new parallels to the text of the "Tale" in wedding songs, magical incantations, "byliny" and other Old Russian sources. He was the first researcher to point out unique textual parallels in a rare version of the "Tale of the Battle against Mamai" ("Skazanie o Mamaevom poboishche"), published by N.G. Golovin in 1835. It contains what Mann claims is the earliest known redaction of the

neg: The Tell-Tale Heart for the imaginative. The Tell-Tale Heart "The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1843. It is relayed by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of the narrator’s sanity while simultaneously describing a murder he committed. The victim was an old man with a filmy "vulture-eye", as the narrator calls it. The narrator emphasizes the careful calculation of the murder, attempting the perfect crime, complete with dismembering and hiding the body under the floorboards. Ultimately, the narrator's feelings of guilt, or a mental disturbance, result in hearing a thumping

neg: The Tell-Tale Heart The Tell-Tale Heart "The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1843. It is relayed by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of the narrator’s sanity while simultaneously describing a murder he committed. The victim was an old man with a filmy "vulture-eye", as the narrator calls it. The narrator emphasizes the careful calculation of the murder, attempting the perfect crime, complete with dismembering and hiding the body under the floorboards. Ultimately, the narrator's feelings of guilt, or a mental disturbance, result in hearing a thumping sound, which the

neg: The Fall of the House of Usher (Hammill opera) LPs. The cast of singers was: Smith's libretto takes certain liberties with Poe's source text. The House itself becomes a vocal part, to be sung by the same performer who sings the role of Roderick Usher. The narrator, unnamed in the story, is given the name Montresor (the name of the narrator of another tale by Poe, "The Cask of Amontillado"), and a romantic attachment between Montresor and Madeline Usher is hinted at. In 1999, Hammill regained the rights to the music from Some Bizzare and set about revising the piece. He re-recorded some of his own vocals, although the

neg: The Golden Ass to believe Aristomenes' story. The narrator scolds the unnamed traveler and tells a short story about a sword swallower. He promises Aristomenes a free lunch if he will retell his tale. The narrator believes Aristomenes' tale and becomes more eager to learn about magic. The narrator arrives at Hypata, where he stays with Milo, a family friend and miser, and his wife Pamphile. Photis, Milo's servant, takes the narrator to the baths, after which the narrator goes to the marketplace. There, he buys some fish and runs into his old friend Pytheas, who is now a magistrate. Pytheas reveals the

neg: The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1984 film) The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1984 film) The Tale of Tsar Saltan (; tr.:"Skazka o tsare Saltanye") is a 1984 Soviet traditionally animated feature film directed by Lev Milchin and Ivan Ivanov-Vano and produced at the Soyuzmultfilm studio. It is an adaptation of the poem of the same name by Aleksandr Pushkin. There are few words in the film besides those of the poem itself, which is read from beginning to end by the narrator and the voice actors. Some portions of the poem are skipped. Here is how the director Yuriy Norsteyn spoke of Ivan Ivanov-Vano, mentioning this animated

neg: Handmaiden Handmaiden A handmaiden, handmaid or maidservant is a personal maid or female servant. Depending on culture or historical period, a handmaiden may be of slave status or may be simply an employee. However, the term "handmaiden" explicitly implies lowly status. In the Hebrew Bible, the term handmaid is applied to a female servant who serves her mistress, as in the case of Hagar being described as Sarai's handmaid, Zilpah being Leah's handmaid and Bilhah as Rachel's handmaid. In each of these cases, the mistress "gave" their handmaid to their husbands "to wife", to bear his "seed" (children). The use in

neg: The Tell-Tale Heart hear the heart beating beneath the floorboards, is evidence that they are truly mad. Poe's contemporaries may well have been reminded of the controversy over the insanity defense in the 1840s. The narrator claims to have a disease that causes hypersensitivity. A similar motif is used for Roderick Usher in "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839) and in "The Colloquy of Monos and Una" (1841). It is unclear, however, if the narrator actually has very acute senses, or if they are merely imagining things. If their condition is believed to be true, what they hear at the end

neg: The Gingerbread Man smell. In 2018 Stephen Dixon published a sequel entitled "The Gingerbread Man 2: What Happened Later?". The tale was used by The Residents in their 1994 album "Gingerbread Man". Here, the gingerbread man serves as the narrator, introducing the characters in each song. The Korean mobile game "Cookie Run" is motivated by this fairy tale. The Gingerbread Man is a dangerous criminal in the Jasper Fforde Nursery Crimes series and the main antagonist in the second novel in this series, "The Fourth Bear". The Gingerbread Man The Gingerbread Man (also known as The Gingerbread Boy) is a folktale about a

neg: Exemplum intended to express. The third exemplum, "The Cursed Dancers of Colbeck," is a prose, rather than a poetic, narrative. Like a mini-sermon, it preaches against wrong conduct—in this case, sacrilegious behavior. This tale has an identifiable author, Robert Mannyng, who set down the story in the early fourteenth century. "The Norton Anthology"'s version is translated from Middle English by Lee Patterson. To bolster his listener's belief that "most of" his tale is "the gospel truth," the narrator names the culprits and their victims and cites Pope Leo as one who knows (and wrote a version of) the narrative and points

neg: Black Knight Sword disapproved of their arguing so much that He trapped the two inside of their own fairy tale, where they could bicker for the rest of eternity. As the Black Knight makes his way to act 5's finale, the narrator (seemingly addressing the Black Knight himself) starts to question if he even remembers all the ones he's killed and loved. As color progressively fades from the set, the narrator continues to state that if they are forgotten, then there is "nothing left." The Black Knight then finds himself standing in front of the hanged Grahame Wormwood, whom he cuts from his

neg: The Lost Letter: A Tale Told by the Sexton of the N...Church The Lost Letter: A Tale Told by the Sexton of the N...Church "The Lost Letter" (1831) is the fourth Ukrainian tale in the collection "Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka" by Nikolai Gogol. The story is told by an exuberant narrator, the old sexton Foma, who will return with another story, "A Bewitched Place", in the next volume. It was made into an animated film of the same name in 1945. The sexton humorously recounts the story about his grandfather's adventure in Hell. Once, when his grandfather was given the task of delivering a letter to the Czarina (apparently Empress

neg: The Clerk's Tale created by Chaucer is the Oxford clerk, who is a student of philosophy. He is depicted as thin and impoverished, hard-working and wholly dedicated to his studies. The narrator claims that as a student in Italy he met Francis Petrarch at Padua from whom he heard the tale. The story of patient Griselda first appeared as the last chapter of Boccaccio's "Decameron", and it is unclear what lesson the author wanted to convey. Critics suggest Boccaccio was simply putting down elements from the oral tradition, notably the popular topos of the "ordeal", but the text was open enough to allow

neg: Mstislav Rostislavich second wife: Vladimir and David. In literature, Mstislav is addressed by the narrator in The Tale of Igor's Campaign along with his brother Roman, when the narrator calls on the great princes of Rus to band together to fight the nomadic invaders. Mstislav, however, had been dead six years before Igor's campaign took place, so the call to arms would have gone unheeded. Mstislav's brothers, Riurik and David are also addressed in an earlier stanza of the poem. Mstislav is, as Georgii (his baptismal name) a canonized saint of the Russian Orthodox Church. His feast day is 14 OS/27 June

neg: Leyendas de Guatemala However, with Leyendas, Asturias wanted to reevaluate these subjects, who have previously been marginalized or even invisible. He does so by uniting native and European elements in the stories. The legends of el Sombrerón, Tatuana and Cadejo existed in Mayan myth, but el Tesoro del Lugar Florido is certainly a new addition. But Asturias mixes these elements not only from one tale to the next, but even within each legend; for example in the first tale the narrator is engaged in a native song and dance ritual, but what he sings are the vowels of the Latin alphabet, a-e-i-o-u. Also

neg: Graziella Tacitus to her and her family. Though these fall flat, all are interested in Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's romantic novel "Paul et Virginie". Such is Graziella's fascination with the tale that she abandons all reserve and sits near the narrator, her breath on his hand and her hair brushing his forehead. When it is over, she begs the narrator to reread the tale. The poor weather breaks on the ninth day, and Andrea takes the young men and his family to Naples. Virieu is recalled to France, and the narrator falls ill from sorrow over the departure of his friend.

neg:
The Clerk's Tale Petrarch's original and Chaucer's reworking of the tale. Given the context of the Clerk's tale, what lesson, if any, Chaucer intended remains an open guess. Certainly Griselda appears as the antithesis to the Wife of Bath. The intrusive narrator comments on the foolishness of the husband's test: Nedelees, God woot, he thoghte hire for t'affraye.
He hadde assayed hire ynogh bifore,
 And foond hire evere good; (455–457)In the course of the narrative he seems to treat Griselda's story as an "exemplum". He compares her to Job ("Men speak of Job, and mostly for his humility" – l.932), and reminds his audience

neg: The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn of a medieval, or epic narrator: the moralizing spokesman for universal values; the creator of a closed world. However, the tale becomes more novelistic in the middle sections: time becomes open in the Bakhtinian sense and the narrator loses his omniscience during the middle section, when Savva is adventuring with the demon. The tale, along with "The Tale of Frol Skobeev" has sometimes been compared to the picaresque mode found in Spanish Baroque literature and other elsewhere, insofar as it charts the adventures of a rogue anti-hero. The theme of making a pact with the devil has led some commentators

neg: Never Bet the Devil Your Head Never Bet the Devil Your Head "Never Bet the Devil Your Head", often subtitled "A Tale with a Moral", is a short story by American author Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1841. The satirical tale pokes fun at the notion that all literature should have a moral and spoofs transcendentalism. The narrator, presented as the author himself, is dismayed by literary critics saying that he has never written a moral tale. The narrator then begins telling the story of his friend Toby Dammit. Dammit is described as a man of many vices, at least in part due to his

neg: Merseburg charms Depictions found on Migration Period Germanic bracteates are often viewed as Wodan (Odin) healing a horse. Comparing Norse mythology, Wodan is well-attested as the cognate of Odin. Frija the cognate of Frigg, also identified with Freyja. "Balder" is Norse Baldr. Phol is the masculine form of "Uolla", but the context makes clear that it is another name of Balder. "Uolla" has been linked to Fulla, a minor goddess and a handmaid of Frigg. Sunna (the sun) in Norse mythology is Sól, though her sister Sinthgunt is otherwise unattested. The First Merseburg Charm (loosening charm)'s similarity to the anecdote in Bede's

neg: Unreliable narrator In "The Merchant's Tale" for example, the narrator, being unhappy in his marriage, allows his bias to slant much of his tale. In the prologue to "The Wife of Bath", the Wife often makes inaccurate quotations and incorrectly remembers stories. A controversial example of an unreliable narrator occurs in Agatha Christie's novel "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", where the narrator hides essential truths in the text (mainly through evasion, omission, and obfuscation) without ever overtly lying. Many readers at the time felt that the plot twist at the climax of the novel was nevertheless unfair. Christie used the concept again

neg: A Tale of the Ragged Mountains narrator whose story is the loose outer frame for the central tale of Augustus Bedloe, a wealthy young invalid whom the narrator has known "casually" for eighteen years yet who still remains an enigma. Because of ongoing problems with neuralgia, Bedloe has retained the exclusive services of 70-year-old physician Dr. Templeton, a devotee of Franz Mesmer and the doctrine of animal magnetism, also called "mesmerism". Augustus Bedloe had met the doctor previously at Saratoga where Bedloe seemed to benefit from Templeton's ministrations. Though they most likely met in a medical context at the Saratoga mineral springs. The unidentified narrator recites

neg: The Black Cat (short story) favorably to the story, spawning parodies including Thomas Dunn English's "The Ghost of the Grey Tadpole". Like the narrator in Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart", the narrator of "The Black Cat" has questionable sanity. Near the beginning of the tale, the narrator says he would be "mad indeed" if he should expect a reader to believe the story, implying that he has already been accused of madness. The extent to which the narrator claims to have loved his animals suggests mental instability in the form of having “too much of a good thing”. His partiality for animals substitutes “the paltry friendship

neg: The Pledge: Requiem for the Detective Novel geschah am hellichten Tag" version of Matthäi's story, by having Dr. H. explicitly mention that the tale of Matthäi would make a perfectly suitable entry into the genre of detective fiction, if only the ending were changed such that the killer arrived for his appointment with Annemarie and fell into Matthäi's trap. However, Dr. H.'s point in relating the story is to demonstrate to the first-person narrator the folly of such fiction. The first of Dr. H.'s two main complaints about typical detective fiction is the idea that the criminal is always caught. He regards this as a relatively minor

neg: The Tell-Tale Heart Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "A Psalm of Life". The story was slightly revised when republished in the August 23, 1845, edition of the "Broadway Journal". This edition omitted Longfellow's poem because Poe believed it was plagiarized. "The Tell-Tale Heart" was reprinted several additional times during Poe's lifetime. "The Tell-Tale Heart" uses an unreliable narrator. The exactness with which the narrator recounts murdering the old man, as if the stealthy way in which they executed the crime were evidence of their sanity, reveals their monomania and paranoia. The focus of the story is the perverse scheme to commit the perfect crime. The

neg: Anti-Americanism it still flourishes, and that it continues to nourish the Canadian sense of identity. Margaret Atwood is a leading Canadian author. In her dystopian novel "The Handmaid's Tale" (1986) all the horrible developments take place in the United States near Boston, while Canada is portrayed as the only hope for an escape. This reflects her status of being "in the vanguard of Canadian anti-Americanism of the 1960s and 1970s." Critics have seen Gilead (the U.S.) as a repressive regime and the mistreated Handmaid as Canada. During the debate in 1987 over a free trade agreement between Canada and the United

neg: Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor he will not see the island again as it will become water. The ship arrives and the serpent asks him to "make me a good name in your town" and gives him many precious gifts including spices, incense, elephants' tusks, greyhounds and baboons. The sailor returns home and gives the king the gifts he took from the island, and the king makes him an attendant and gives him serfs. The tale ends with the master telling the narrator, "Do not make the excellent (that is, do not act arrogant) my friend; why give water to a goose (literally, bird) at

neg: Oroonoko Because Mrs. Behn was not available to correct or confirm any information, early biographers assumed the first-person narrator was Aphra Behn speaking for herself and incorporated the novel's claims into their accounts of her life. It is important, however, to recognise that "Oroonoko" is a work of fiction and that its first-person narrator—the protagonist—need be no more factual than Jonathan Swift's first-person narrator, ostensibly Gulliver, in "Gulliver's Travels", Daniel Defoe's shipwrecked narrator in "Robinson Crusoe", or the first-person narrator of "A Tale of a Tub". Researchers today cannot say whether or not the narrator of "Oroonoko" represents Aphra Behn and,

neg: Gad (son of Jacob) Gad (son of Jacob) Gad () was, according to the Book of Genesis, the first son of Jacob and Zilpah, the seventh of Jacob overall, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Gad. However some Biblical scholars view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation. The text of the Book of Genesis implies that the name of "Gad" means "luck"/"fortunate", in Hebrew. The Biblical account shows Zilpah's status as a handmaid change to an actual wife of Jacob (Genesis 30:9,11). Her handmaid status is regarded

neg: Joey (Sugarland song) organ. In it, the narrator blames herself when her love, a teenager named Joey, is killed in a car accident. The lyrics are a series of "what if"s, with the narrator asking what would have happened if she had taken the keys and driven him home. In the chorus, she speaks to Joey, apologizing and hoping he can hear her message. In the second verse, she asks what would have happened had she never fallen in love with him at all. Nettles said that when she, Bush, and Anderson were writing the song, Anderson compared it to the teenage tragedy

neg: The Woman Warrior which read like short stories. In the first part of this chapter, the narrator is recounting how her mother once told her the story of the No-Name Woman. The chapter essentially opens as a vignette told from the mother's point of view. She tells the story of the No Name Woman, her husband's deceased sister. The middle portion of this chapter is Kingston's retelling of the No Name Woman Story. Kingston uses her own experiences with Chinese tradition and culture to substantiate alternate "versions" of the tale. At the end of "No Name Woman", Kingston reflects on the importance of

neg: Armida and remember who he is. Rinaldo barely can resist Armida’s pleadings, but his comrades insist that he return to his Christian duties. At the close of the poem, when the pagans have lost the final battle, Rinaldo, remembering his promise to be her champion still, prevents her from giving way to her suicidal impulses and offers to restore her to her lost throne. She gives in at this, and like the other Saracen warrior woman, Clorinda, earlier in the piece, becomes a Christian and his “handmaid”. Many painters and composers were inspired by Tasso's tale. The works that resulted often

neg: Zorba the Greek to a 25-year-old woman. The narrator does not accept Zorba's invitation to visit. Eventually the narrator receives a letter from Zorba's wife, informing him of Zorba's death (which the narrator had a premonition of). Zorba's widow tells the narrator that Zorba's last words were of him, and in accordance with her dead husband's wishes, she wants the narrator to visit her home and take Zorba's "santuri." Zorba the Greek Zorba the Greek (, , Life and Times of Alexis Zorbas) is a novel written by the Cretan author Nikos Kazantzakis, first published in 1946. It is the tale of a

neg: The Tell-Tale Heart the senses". Due to the ambiguity surrounding the identity of the story's narrator, the narrator's gender is uncertain. The old man with whom the narrator lives has a clouded, pale, blue "vulture-like" eye, which distresses the narrator so much that they plot to murder the old man, despite also insisting that they love the old man. The narrator insists that their careful precision in committing the murder proves that the narrator cannot possibly be insane. For seven nights, the narrator opens the door of the old man's room in order to shine a sliver of light onto the "evil eye".

neg: Book of Ruth field through the remainder of barley and wheat harvest. Boaz was a close relative of Naomi's husband's family. He was therefore obliged by the Levirate law to marry Mahlon's widow, Ruth, in order to carry on his family's inheritance. Naomi sent Ruth to the threshing floor at night and told her to go where he slept, and "uncover his feet and lie down. He will tell you what you are to do." (3:4). Ruth did so. Boaz asked her who she was, and she replied: "I am your handmaid Ruth. Spread your robe over your handmaid, for you are a

neg: The Raven and further incite his feelings of loss. Poe leaves it unclear if the raven actually knows what it is saying or if it really intends to cause a reaction in the poem's narrator. The narrator begins as "weak and weary," becomes regretful and grief-stricken, before passing into a frenzy and, finally, madness. Christopher F. S. Maligec suggests the poem is a type of elegiac paraclausithyron, an ancient Greek and Roman poetic form consisting of the lament of an excluded, locked-out lover at the sealed door of his beloved. Poe says that the narrator is a young scholar. Though this is

neg: The Fall of the House of Usher two. Opium, which Poe mentions several times in both his prose and poems, is mentioned twice in the tale. The gloomy sensation occasioned by the dreary landscape around the Usher mansion is compared by the narrator to the sickness caused by the withdrawal symptoms of an opiate-addict. The narrator also describes Roderick Usher's appearance as that of an "irreclaimable eater of opium." Along with "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Black Cat" and "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Fall of the House of Usher" is considered among Poe's most famous works of prose. This highly unsettling macabre work is recognized as a

neg: The Tell-Tale Heart denies having killed for greed. It has been speculated that the old man is a father figure, the narrator's landlord, or that the narrator works for the old man as a servant, and that perhaps his "vulture-eye" represents some sort of veiled secret, or power. The ambiguity and lack of details about the two main characters stand in stark contrast to the specific plot details leading up to the murder. "The Tell-Tale Heart" is a first-person narrative of an unnamed narrator, who insists that he or she is sane, but is suffering from a disease (nervousness) which causes "over-acuteness of

neg: The Handmaid's Tale (film) another Commander. However, Kate is told she can never see her daughter. The Commander also tries to get closer to Kate, in the sense that he feels if she enjoyed herself more she would become a better handmaid. The Commander knows Kate's background as a librarian. He gets her hard-to-obtain items and allows her access to his private library. However, during a night out, the Commander has sex with Kate in an unauthorized manner. The other man selected by Serena Joy turns out to be Nick, the Commander's sympathetic chauffeur. Kate grows attached to Nick and eventually becomes pregnant with

neg: The Narrow Escape Problem they aren’t so interesting in and of themselves that we care about what happens to them apart from the novelty of their situation. As a result, too much of this plays like the boring stuff you need to get through to get to what actually matters, which isn’t a great look for a one-season story that’s nearly halfway over." This episode draws on Sergei Prokofiev's musical tale "Peter and the Wolf". In the episode, the narrator, Billy Bob Thornton, explains to the audience what characters are represented by which instruments, as the episode links each "Peter and the Wolf" character

neg: Sarah was Abram's wife and demanded that they leave Egypt immediately. After having lived in Canaan for ten years and still childless, Sarai suggested that Abram have a child with her Egyptian handmaid Hagar, to which he agreed. This resulted in tension between Sarai and Hagar, and Sarai complained to her husband that the handmaid no longer respected her. At one point, Hagar fled from her mistress but returned after angels met her. She gave birth to Abram's son Ishmael when Abram was eighty-six years old. In when Abram was ninety-nine years old, God declared his new name: "Abraham" – "a

neg: The Fair Maid of the Inn some accounts rooted in the rivalry of two lovers of Bianca Cancellieri; her name suggested the Biancha in this play. The factions are most famous for their role in the life of Dante Alighieri; when the Neri took power in Florence in 1301, Bianchi like Dante were exiled. Some critics believed that the source for the play was "The Illustrious Handmaid" ("La ilustre fregona") by Miguel de Cervantes; others, however, have argued that the playwright(s) could have accessed the same historical material in other sources. Other possible sources include the "Florentine History" ("Istorie fiorentine") by Niccolò Machiavelli and the "Excerpta

neg: Naphtali Naphtali According to the Book of Genesis, Naphtali (; ) was the sixth son of Jacob and second son with Bilhah. He was the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Naphtali. The text of the Torah states that the name of "Naphtali" may refer to the struggle between Rachel and Leah for the favours of Jacob; Bilhah was the "handmaid" of Rachel, who had thought herself to be infertile, and had persuaded Jacob to have a child with Bilhah as a proxy for having one with herself. The biblical account shows Bilhah's status as a "handmaid" change to an actual

neg: The Tale of Frol Skobeev The Tale of Frol Skobeev The Tale of Frol Skobeev (Russian: "Повесть о Фроле Скобеевe", "Povest' o Frole Skobeeve") is an anonymous Russian tale dating from the late seventeenth century or early eighteenth century. The tale is significant as it is one of the earliest Russian literary works to refer to fornication and roguery without any overtones of Christian moral judgment from the narrator. As such, it has been read as one of the first works of secular Russian literature and is often cited as indicative of a broader secularization of Russian society. The story begins in Novgorod in 1680,

neg: A Tale of the Ragged Mountains a poisonous "sangsue" (sanguisuge) or leech to relieve a "great determination of blood to the head". The narrator completes the tale with a note of astonished perplexity upon reading the obituary and finding Bedloe's name accidentally spelled without the "e", making "Bedlo" the perfect reverse of "Oldeb". Some critics, like E. F. Bleiler and Doris V. Falk, criticize the story for its lack of clarity and literary sophistication. They argue that its ambiguity hurts rather than helps its literary quality, especially in the canon of Poe's characteristically well-elaborated works. Other critics look to the focus on mesmerism as a source

neg: The Crawling Chaos the earth below. As he rises further listening to the youths singing, the narrator is disturbed by the return of the sound of the waves, and, forgetting what the child said, looks downward and observes a sight of global destruction, with the waves consuming the cities until there is nothing left. This is followed by the waters draining into the Earth's core via an opening gulf, which causes the Earth to explode. The tale was published in "Beyond the Wall of Sleep". The corrected text is collected in Lovecraft's revisions volume "The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions" (Arkham

neg: Time and Again (short story) Time and Again (short story) "Time and Again" is a short story by American writer Breece D'J Pancake, first published in 1977. This American Gothic tale tells the story of an aging murderer, a farmer who feeds the bodies of his victims to his hogs. The short story appears in Pancake's only book, "The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake" (1983). It can also be found in the anthology "American Gothic Tales", edited by Joyce Carol Oates. The story opens with a nameless narrator who tells the gothic tale in first-person narrative. The narrator lets the reader know that he was

neg: Kelidar of Gol-Mohammad. "Kelidar is the longest Persian novel written to date, and surely one of the finest. The present translation is of parts I and 2 only, which are sufficiently self-contained to make for satisfying reading and which also give a good idea of what the whole is like. (...) Doulatabadi's style is that of a traditional Persian storyteller, in that he constructs his tale in a linear fashion, speaks through an omniscient narrator, and uses a balanced mixture of narrative and dialogue. (...) One wishes that readers of English could also experience the pleasures of this novel." - William

neg: Charles Marlow Jim." The stories are not told entirely from Marlow's perspective, however. There is also an omniscient narrator who introduces Marlow and some of the other characters. Once introduced, Marlow then proceeds to tell the main tale, creating a story-within-a-story effect. In "Heart of Darkness" the omniscient narrator observes that "yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical [...] and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as

neg: Torkel S. Wächter 2002 which attracted by far the most attention was Ciona – an Autobiology, published under the pseudonym Tamara T. This is a novel about sexuality and role-playing. The focus is on two women: the first-person narrator and the elusive Gabriella, always referred to in the third person. The narrator is watching Gabriella, the woman who always comes between her and her lover whenever she falls in love. The narrator is a researcher specializing in Ascidiacea or sea squirts. The novel’s name comes from the species Ciona intestinalis, a solitary species of sea squirt. Sea squirts are surrounded by a protective

neg: The Void Captain's Tale The Void Captain's Tale The Void Captain's Tale is a 1983 science fiction novel by the American author Norman Spinrad. "The Void Captain's Tale" takes place three or four thousand years in the future in an era called the Second Starfaring Age, a setting Spinrad revisited in the 1985 novel "Child of Fortune". The book contains elements of confession, love story, eroticism, and horror. Like "Child of Fortune", "The Void Captain's Tale" is written in a unique mix of English words, foreign words, and invented words—the first-person perspective of a possibly-unreliable narrator, the voidship captain Genro Kane Gupta. Genro's starship

neg: Artistic inspiration in poets and painters. The musical model was satirized, along with the "afflatus," and "fancy" models of inspiration, by Jonathan Swift in "A Tale of a Tub." Swift's narrator suggests that madness is contagious because it is a ringing note that strikes "chords" in the minds of followers and that the difference between an inmate of Bedlam and an emperor was what pitch the insane idea was. At the same time, he satirized "inspired" radical Protestant ministers who preached through "direct inspiration." In his prefatory materials, he describes the ideal dissenter's pulpit as a barrel with a tube running from

neg: The Good Soldier Burt, Daniel S. "The Novel 100". Checkmark Books, 2003. The Good Soldier The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion is a 1915 novel by English novelist Ford Madox Ford. It is set just before World War I and chronicles the tragedy of Edward Ashburnham, the soldier to whom the title refers, and his own seemingly perfect marriage and that of two American friends. The novel is told using a series of flashbacks in non-chronological order, a literary technique that formed part of Ford's pioneering view of literary impressionism. Ford employs the device of the unreliable narrator to great effect as

neg: The God Makers never excavated one single artifact" related to the "Book of Mormon". The narrator further states that archaeology has been able to prove the existence of all great civilizations. Coins are used as an example, and Crane mentions what he states are coins listed in the "Book of Mormon". Crane concludes that the "Book of Mormon" is a fairy tale, much like "Alice in Wonderland". Decker adds that the church is converting people by claiming that archaeology has proven the "Book of Mormon" to be true. The Smithsonian Institution also seems to assert the same thing. It predicates that the "Book

neg: Barbad Golshiri Barbad?, the narrator, a woman, talks of her son, named Barbad; a child who has seen the inferno of an Islamic Republic prison and the experience has rendered him mute. He only observes, and paints; the "horror, horror" of what he has seen can not be rendered in words. Only images can help assuage his anger and pain. Not long after his father's death, his son, the Barbad of the story, and the eternal Barbad of Iranian history, has given us another rendition of his sad tale. Barbad is the troubled muse of Iranian music; he is our tormented Dionysus;

neg: Patrick Modiano the narrator recalls his shadowy love affair in 1960s Paris and London with an enigmatic woman. Fifteen years after their breakup, they meet again, but she has changed her name and initially denies their past. Two of postwar London's more notorious true-life characters, Peter Rachman and Emil Savundra, befriend the narrator. What is real and what is not remain to be seen in the dreamlike novel that typifies Modiano's obsessions and elegiac prose. The theme of memory is most clearly at play in "Dora Bruder" (entitled "The Search Warrant" in some English-language translations). "Dora Bruder" is a literary hybrid, fusing

neg: The Tell-Tale Heart old man with his own bed. The narrator then dismembers the body and conceals the pieces under the floorboards, and ensures the concealment of all signs of the crime. Even so, the old man's scream during the night causes a neighbor to report to the police, who the narrator invites in to look around. The narrator claims that the scream heard was the narrator's own in a nightmare and that the man is absent in the country. Confident that they will not find any evidence of the murder, the narrator brings chairs for them and they sit in the old

neg: The Great Gatsby still returns to Tom. Sarah Churchwell sees "The Great Gatsby" as a "cautionary tale of the decadent downside of the American dream." The story deals with the limits and realities of America's ideals of social and class mobility, and the inevitably hopeless lower class aspirations to rise above the station(s) of their birth. The book in stark relief through the narrator, Nick Carraway, observes that: "... a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth." Using elements of irony and tragic ending, it also delves into themes of excesses of the rich and recklessness of youth. Journalist

neg: Rule of the Bone Caulfield.” Most praised Banks’ for his likeness to Mark Twain’s infamous tale, "Huckleberry Finn", comparing one of the characters in Huck Finn, Jim, to I-man, a middle aged rastafarian who resembles Huck's companion. Others were not as pleased with the structure of Banks' novel. In the book review from "The Nation"'s Jess Mowry states: “...Unfortunately [it's] jumbled together like "The Hobbit gets Kidnapped by Peter Pan on Treasure Island". Rule of the Bone Rule of the Bone is a 1995 novel by Russell Banks. It is a Bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story about the 14-year-old American narrator, Chappie, later dubbed Bone

neg: Cautionary tale cautionary tales: from the lover's lane haunted by a hook-handed murderer to the tale of a man who shot a cactus for fun only to die when the plant toppled onto him. Like horror fiction, generally the cautionary tale exhibits an ambivalent attitude towards social taboos. The narrator of a cautionary tale is momentarily excused from the ordinary demands of etiquette that discourages the use of gruesome or disgusting imagery because the tale serves to reinforce some other social taboo. Cautionary tales are also frequently utilised to spread awareness of moral issues, and for this reason are often told to