In the past few years I’ve been exploring a three-part framework for analyzing narratives. This framework asks three questions about a story: How is it composed? What does it represent? And what does it mean? To designate these three perspectives I have borrowed terms from James Phelan: the Synthetic Aspect, the Mimetic Aspect, and the … Continue reading Synthetic, Mimetic, and Thematic in “White Noise”

I recently reread The Old Wives’ Tale, by Arnold Bennett (first published in 1908) and I thought the first part of the first chapter was worth some analysis and comment. Bennett was born in 1867 and died in 1931. He wrote 34 novels and 96 short stories; I’ve read three of his novels: The Old … Continue reading The Old Wives’ Tale