Adventures in MFA Land

My recent reading of Lisa See’s SHANGHAI GIRLS rekindled my interest in exploring the possibilities of using fiction in the college classroom to promote critical thinking. I say “rekindled” because I have previously used fiction in the classroom; a couple years ago I asked my class to read THE COLOR PURPLE (Harcourt, 1982) by Alice Walker. I selected that particular novel because I wanted a book that was complex yet accessible and thus THE COLOR PURPLE was a perfect choice. Prior to our reading, I did not tell the students to look for anything in particular; I passed out the books and said, “Let’s read.” About a week and a half later, we started discussing the book. It was obvious the students connected with the book, especially in regard to the family issues. Our discussions were lively and detailed; I recently started wondering why our reading of THE COLOR PURPLE was so successful. Why did a highly emotional story help my students think analytically? With these questions in mind,...

Janet Burroway starts off her chapter in Writing Fiction (Longman, 2003) on setting with Elizabeth Bowen’s maxim that “nothing happens nowhere” and reminds readers of Jerome Stern’s statement that a scene that happens nowhere often seems not to happen at all. (Writing, p198) While setting in some novels is more significant than in others, setting is an essential aspect of all stories. And, like other key aspects such as character and theme, it must be carefully woven in and dimensional. “Like dialogue, setting must do more than one thing at once, from illuminating the story’s symbolic underpinnings to such practical kinds of ‘showing’ as reflecting emotion or revealing subtle aspects of a character’s life.” (Writing, p 198) The city of Ilhéus is the primary setting for the romance of Nacib Saad and Gabriela in Jorge Amado’s GABRIELA, CLOVE, AND CINNAMON (Vintage, 2006). The struggle taking place there between the old established cacao growers and the new growers seeking to mod...

The title of Gabriel García Márquez’s CHRONICLE OF A DEATH FORETOLD (Vintage, 1982) is true to the nature of the novel; it embodies two of the novel’s key characteristics. Notably, these two distinct characteristics—its straightforward writing and its indirect, nonlinear narrative—create an ongoing juxtaposition that enhances the aspects of each and consequently provide depth to the novel. Márquez’s ability to achieve this seemingly awkward marriage stems from his practice of telling/showing several things at once and from his exploration of the contrasts and inconsistencies inherent in trying to reconstruct an event that happened decades in the past. Early in the story the narrator, a friend of the murdered Santiago Nasar, summarizes some of the accounts he received from the many witnesses of the murder as such: Furthermore: all the many people he ran into after leaving the house at five minutes past six and until he was carved up like a pig an hour later remembered him as ...