Author Question: What elements in the story exemplify the mode of fantasy? What parts arerealistic? What will be ... (Read 142 times)

magmichele12 · **on:** Jul 20, 2018

What elements in the story exemplify the mode of fantasy? What parts arerealistic?

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Now that youve finished the story, look back at the first several paragraphs. Many of the sentences are now imbued with new meaning, such as this one: Lodge Meeting nights, more and more they had him to lead the singing. Find other sentences that take on fresh meanings once you know who the characters really are.

What will be an ideal response?

Athena23 · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 20, 2018

Answer to Question 1

Most of the fantasy in the story is focused on the anthropomorphizing of the narrator and her loved ones, endowing them with human traits and valueslanguage, marriage, a strong work ethic, and social organizations such as lodges. The realistic elements are those which (we assume) transcend the merely humanlove for ones mate and offspring, adherence to the nature and traditions of ones own kind, mistrust and (often very soundly based) fear of outsiders. Ultimately, The Wifes Story puts us in the mind of the oft-repeated adage that the things which unite us are stronger than the things which divide us, inviting us to consider both sets of things and to speculate about whether the statement really is true.

Answer to Question 2

Almost all of our assumptions about wolves, and our metaphors involving them, are negative in nature. We view them as vicious, predatory, and savage; even our mildest references portray them as greedy or lecherous. Its a bit of a shock, then, to go back over the first couple of paragraphs and see them portrayed as gentle, loving, family-oriented, and hard-working, and to find it maintained that these traits are the ones that they admire and prize in one another. The fourth paragraphs preoccupation with smells is alsoto mix our sense perceptions a bitsomething of an eye-opener, a painful reminder that we often tend to view ourselves, as both individuals and members of various groups, as representatives of the norm and to locate all negative traits, right down to offensive odors, in others.