Commentary One Notes - Analysis of Fiction Text

Commentary Notes

1.       Written in first person male perspective like the narrator in ‘Paper Towns’ by John Green and ‘Severed Heads, Broken Heads’ by Robyn Schneider. I wanted my main character to be clueless on the subject of girls, so being a girl and writing from the male perspective, it was easy to simulate cluelessness.

2.       “My own tragedy held out” “That’s how it happened” Told in retrospect, as a tale that changed the way the main character saw life. In ‘Severed Heads, Broken Hearts’ the main character Ezra experiences a beheading and it changes how he acts around his friends.

3.       The age of my characters reflects the audience I’d like to read the short story. Having the characters that are young adults makes them easier to relate to because the readers may be going through similar experiences.

4.       I chose to start with a metaphor: “Running out of chocolate milk was the Big Bang that shaped my universe” was important because metaphors are a key theme that runs throughout ‘Paper Towns’. They symbolise how the main character views life e.g. “Each of us starts out as a water tight vessel” and my character, Mark, sees Rosianna as a focus of his existence.

5.       In ‘Severed Heads, Broken Hearts’, the scene is set, telling the reader how the main character lives and what he’s like: “I had just turned seventeen, was embarrassingly popular, earned good grades”.  In my short story, I start by explaining why Mark ran out of chocolate milk and explained parts of his personality: “My mind worked best with numbers” This allows the reader to be better connected with the character if traits and habits are displayed early in the text.

6.       The genre of my text is a romance. I achieve this through character dialogue. There is preliminary awkwardness between Rosianna and Mark that subsides when they continue talking and Mark learns more about her. He tells the reader “That was it. I loved her” once he realises how determined Rosianna is. It is, in essence, a love story of how a first love can completely encompass your life.

7.       The purpose of my text is to entertain. My characters are the main source of entertainment. I start with a short sentence “I ran out of chocolate milk.” This is a very trivial event that doesn’t seem significant. However, the narrator goes on to claim that running out of chocolate milk was “the Big Bang” that shaped his universe. His knowledge of the Big Bang shows intelligence, but also by making the two events sound similar in effect, emphasis is put on just how important running out of chocolate milk is.

8.       I used similes to show differences between my characters. Rosianna is ‘like a gazelle’, graceful and swift with fluid motion and innocent beauty. Mark is ‘like a giraffe’; slightly awkward in the way he looks and stumbles on small things like speech. To achieve my purpose, I had to make the audience care about both characters, so much so that they’d want to know what happens to them and want them to have a happy ending. By giving them characteristics that could invoke sympathy, such as the inability to express one’s self easily, makes the reader feel emotive towards the characters.  

9.       In both ‘Paper Towns’ and ‘Severed Heads, Broken Hearts’, the authors use a distinct personality for their main female character. The term to describe this personality is ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girl’ and can be defined as a mysterious and beautiful girl that helps the main male character to come to an epiphany. Rosianna is created to help Mark realise there is more to life than chocolate milk and that you are capable of anything, if you set your mind to it.

10.   Throughout ‘Paper Towns’, short and minor sentences are used for emphasis and impact, such as “The light can get out.” I chose to start my short story with a short sentence to build intrigue. I also added minor sentences to show how passionate my characters are about certain things. Rosianna says “Not as much as me” in response to the question “Doesn’t everyone want to save the world?” Her inability to form ‘proper’ sentences shows how much changing the world means to her, so that she can’t describe it.