Non-Fiction

Paper Summary:

The paper considers the use of non-fiction in two pieces, one an observation and the other a recollection. The first is "Talk of the Town: September 11, 2001" by John Updike, and the second is "Life in Oklahoma City" by Ralph Ellison. The paper describes how the Updike piece is about his witnessing of the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center from his window and the Ellison piece is about his development as a writer.

From the Paper:

"The two nonfiction pieces by John Updike and Ralph Ellison relate directly to the society of their time and to their own responses to that society. Each writer shows himself to be part of a community he values, and each community is tested by some of the forces of the time. The society described by Updike is more familiar to us all because it is more recent and because even if we were not in New York on 9/11, we may feel as if we were, because we saw on television the same thing he saw from his window. Indeed, he states at the outset that he saw the events of that day as if he were watching television, for television is a window on the world in some cases, making people who see real events experience a certain distance from the reality before them."

More papers on Non-Fiction:

• Comparison Essay # 124494 : "Fiction vs. Non-Fiction"
• Essay # 32088 : "Assessing the American Spirit through Fiction and Non- Fiction"
• Narrative Essay # 8566 : "Fiction vs. Non-fiction"

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