February 6 - Tall Tales

February 6 - Tall Tales Comparative Essay- Comparing two liked narratives What function or functions do these stories serve for the narrators? ● Only considering the similarities ● Consider both as Tall Tales ___________________________________________________________________________ Synonymous Maternalistic ___________________________________________________________________________ Novel Tay John and Thorpe told in the use of the Framing Narrative. Hence, it contextualises and invites the reader to see the story in a particular way. - You do not always have a Framing Narrative in Tall Tales. - Big Fish also has the Framing Narrative These stories are Tall Tales because they make ‘legendary’ Events and People they involve. The narrative acts as an objective narrator In Big Bear you have a unnamed narrator who invites big Bear (The primary storyteller) who acts as a conduit ● More complicated in Tay John because you have an omniscient third person. Do we return as a reader to the omniscient third person voice at the end of the story? The reader is placed within the context of the steam boat, the invincible, riding up the water. ● As an observer of people and a collective of people this is a so-called good place to be ● Contextualization as a performance (performance is the story) context ● In this short story you are dealing with character sketches. ● The unnamed narrator becomes a guide for the reader - There is a assumed commonality between the two ● Another performance context is the physical place where this story gets told. Also includes The boat, the Mississippi river. There is a very racial and gender specific story in which Big Bear Tells - The narrator introduces Big Bear as a Hero. Is he using the word ‘hero’ as sarcasm? (Cynical) - The legendary status that is created in the story is to be taken seriously or is it some level of sarcasm? The unnamed narrator explicitly mentioned and captures the flavour and voice of the character ‘big bear’ - Big Bear is prone to display exaggerated (Hyperbole) stories. It’s stretched. Making things larger than they actually are. At the end of the story the reader returns to the narrative frame. ‘Big Bear’ is so exaggerated and built up to this big bear hunt. Hence, why is it so anticlimactic? Jack is a Remittance Man - Living off an inheritance, they get a specified allowance of a periodically timely manner. - He can afford to have his adventure in Ontario - Jack lived in the mitts of these events. He is never in the ‘thick of it’ - Jack has to rely on others for the detail of this tale - Jackie's Tale is the story of Tay John - Jack's story is contextualised in the larger region of the story - Jack tells a male stories. Females often disguise themselves as men in these stories. - The very thing that draws Jack to the West is the the wildness and tameness Tay John represents a collective past At points of the novel, Jacks voice blends in with the collective ‘we’ - For instance, “Then we cry we of the West…” - is told in this ideal of the collective ‘we’ Common Story of humankind Vs Machine - the audio story played in class