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    Literary Analysis of A Novel's Excerpt Written by Alex Garland

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    Lot Villegas
    The document provides an analysis of an excerpt from Alex Garland's novel The Tesseract. It summarizes that the novel explores themes of love, fate, violence, power and choices through intertwining storylines of Manila gangsters, mothers and street children. The excerpt focuses on the character Sean, a British merchant seaman anxiously awaiting a meeting with a Filipino mafia boss in a seedy Manila hotel room, creating tension and conflict for the character.

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    Literary Analysis of A Novel's Excerpt Written by Alex Garland

    Uploaded by

    Lot Villegas
    5K views14 pages
    The document provides an analysis of an excerpt from Alex Garland's novel The Tesseract. It summarizes that the novel explores themes of love, fate, violence, power and choices through intertwining storylines of Manila gangsters, mothers and street children. The excerpt focuses on the character Sean, a British merchant seaman anxiously awaiting a meeting with a Filipino mafia boss in a seedy Manila hotel room, creating tension and conflict for the character.

    Original Description:

    The slide presentation attempts to explain the elements of fiction based on its context.

    Original Title

    Literary Analysis of a novel's excerpt written by Alex Garland

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    The document provides an analysis of an excerpt from Alex Garland's novel The Tesseract. It summarizes that the novel explores themes of love, fate, violence, power and choices through intertwining storylines of Manila gangsters, mothers and street children. The excerpt focuses on the character Sean, a British merchant seaman anxiously awaiting a meeting with a Filipino mafia boss in a seedy Manila hotel room, creating tension and conflict for the character.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    5K views14 pages

    Literary Analysis of A Novel's Excerpt Written by Alex Garland

    Uploaded by

    Lot Villegas
    The document provides an analysis of an excerpt from Alex Garland's novel The Tesseract. It summarizes that the novel explores themes of love, fate, violence, power and choices through intertwining storylines of Manila gangsters, mothers and street children. The excerpt focuses on the character Sean, a British merchant seaman anxiously awaiting a meeting with a Filipino mafia boss in a seedy Manila hotel room, creating tension and conflict for the character.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    of 14
    At a glance
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    The novel excerpt explores themes of violence, poverty, and the ills of society in Manila through intertwining storylines of gangsters, mothers and street children.

    The main themes explored are violence, poverty, ills of society, love, fate, power and choices.

    The type of conflict portrayed in the excerpt is man vs himself and man vs society as the character Sean is anxious about his meeting with a notorious gangster leader.

    An analysis by Maria Lourdes V.

    Vitales of a novel excerpt


    written by Alex Garland
     “The story intertwines the lives of Manila gangsters,
    mothers and street children. The novel chronicles
    numerous characters in non-linear storylines and
    explores themes of love, fate, violence, power, and
    choices. It is Garland's second novel.”
     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tesseract_(nove
    l)
     …“ ‘the four dimensional analogue of a cube,’ seems meant
    as a kind of metaphor for his manipulation of three story
    lines and their convergence in a mysterious fourth…”
     http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/02/14/daily/garland-
    book-review.html
     Sean – “…is a British merchant seaman who is anxiously
    awaiting a meeting with a notorious Filipino mafia boss
    named Don Pepe…”
    (http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/02/14/daily/garland-
    book-review.html)
     Type of Character:
     Stereotype – has common behavioral characteristics to other
    desperate heroes in an action fiction
     PLACE: seedy hotel room in Manila/Mc Donald’s
    Ermita/waterfront
     TIME: present time
     MOOD: tensed, anxious
     TYPE of SETTING:
     Setting revealed by character
     Plot assisted by setting
     PLOT: episodic (since it is only a part of a novel)
     CONFLICT: Sean is anxious about his meeting with a
    notorious gangster leader
     TYPE of CONFLICT(for the excerpt alone):
     Man vs Himself
     Man vs Society
     THEME: violence, poverty, ills of society
     TONE: taut & nervous
     DICTION: traditional literary
     PLOT STYLE USED BY THE AUTHOR: descriptive
     TYPE OF TEXT: novel
     POV: third person limited
     METAPHOR:
     The title, Tesseract, “relates the dovetailing stories of three
    groups of people who would normally never meet but whose
    lives violently intersect through the random workings of fate.”
    (Riverhead Books)
     MOTIF: the word “heat” or its implications are recurring in the
    excerpt (e.g. mentioned by the character, “fire that burned on
    the pavement”, “Oozing out from the sun, heat like molasses”,
    “…one blast of the scorched air”; it can also mean trouble as in
    “Once it touched you, you were stuck with it.”)
     SYMBOLS:
     Stains – ugliness found everywhere (the motel room, in the streets
    of Ermita); stigma; bad reputation; pending danger
     Blood – death & violence
     Mc Donald’s – American imperialism, commercialism,
    consumerism, capitalism
     Guns – violence
     Overweight rich kids – local politicians
     Milkshake – temporary relief or comfort
     Beached jellyfish – dead marine life
     Acres of floating refuse – garbage problem
     SYMBOLISM:
     “One too big to think about, and the other too big to see.”
     The first phrase refers to the country’s garbage problem that
    the Filipinos ignore because it has become too overwhelming
    to even find a workable solution.
     The second phrase pertains to the dying marine life which is a
    consequence of the pollution caused to the sea by the acres of
    garbage and the ships that dock by the bay.
     SYMBOLISM:
     “…Sean could feel the edges of his mind starting to fray
    (argue)…Overweight rich kids with sulky faces and stripy
    sailor shirts, shouting at their nannies.”
     Money corrupts even the innocent.
     “The milkshake had turned to chocolate soup”
     Represents the colonial mentality and the idea that what the
    Americans offer to Filipinos are just temporary
     FORESHADOWING:
     The use of the words stains, guns and even scars
    foreshadow an impending danger of violence & death
     Hope you learned some things from all the information : D

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