For the Hive Book Club challenge x Scholar and Scribe challenge, us readers over here on the Book Club side of things have been given the undertaking not to write, but to review! For this challenge I’ve come across my mate @wrestlingdesires piece, which has become the subject of an analysis below. I’m sure that WD will come back and tell us that we’re overthinking everything or that perhaps we’ve stretched something a bit too far – but, perhaps it’s a lesson: be careful how we construct a piece, as the responder may lose control of the interpretation! (Technically, this is called Reader Response Theory - basically it means that the reader construct's a text's meaning. WD - That's me!)
WD's piece can be found here: https://peakd.com/hive-199275/@wrestlingdesires/goddess-of-darkness-captured - it'stitled, 'Goddess of Darkness Captured' and it is part of a multi-part write up, and (I'm writing this intro last) I noticed I didn't focus on the titular goddess at all! Instead, I chose to focus my analytical response to the universality of how we engage with power.
WD opens his creative piece using simple diction to paint a precise image, ‘Bruce groaned as he looked up into the barrel of a pistol’. The introduction of Bruce through the verb, ‘groaned’ initially characterises him as a defeated character with a sense of heaviness, communicated through the long ‘o’ vowel sound. The auditory imagery then develops into a confronting image where Bruce is ‘looking up’ positioning him without power. This image of powerlessness, is not, however, confined to the ‘groan[ing] Bruce, as the other men in the text are described as ‘pull[ing] out a mobile phone, and hold it high, then look at it and curse’. This motif of powerlessness developed by WD establishes a universal sense of humanity in his piece, recognising we are in constant states of struggle.
This universality is further established by WD, who, having established the character of Bruce, initially only develops the figure holding the pistol as ‘the man’ and through the use of the pronoun, ‘he’ which creates a sense of mystery around the figure’s identity and his motives for his actions remain hidden. As the piece develops, the narrator moves on from this neutral language to label this figure as ‘captor’. The connotations of this label imply a strong sense of entrapment and moves him to being perceived by the audience as sinister, contrasting his apologetic language, ‘Sorry ma’am’ which he offers in response to Lilac’s exclamatory demands to set Bruce free.
This understanding of the ‘captor’ is again reinforced by the dependent clause, ‘asked the man who had captured them’. Here, the predicate seeks to reinforce this conceptual idea of entrapment, thus heightening the tension in the piece. Yet, the two dimensionality of this character is seemingly transformed through the direct speech of his partner, who complains, ‘You know I’ve never been on a horse, Marv’. By using the hypocorism ‘Marv’, the ‘captor’ has gained a sense of humanity, and the soft consonants in his name imply that the sinister language of the narrator may have prejudiced the audience’s understanding of him. Yet, this doubt is immediately questioned as Marv is given direct speech, ‘Tie these two up’. His use of the imperative voice again seeks to position the character in a position of power, reinforcing his relationship to Bruce which was established in the piece’s hook. This understanding is not maintained, however, as Marv adopts submissive language in his continued speech, ‘Yes boss, right away’. The character repeats the affirmation, ‘Yes boss’ twice in succession, undermining the character’s power and re-positioning Marv as powerless in that relationship.
The final character introduced in the piece is Marv’s accomplice Grady, who again WD develops by introducing him through the lens of the power imbalance motif. This is established again through Marv’s direct speech, who uses the colloquial ‘numbskull’ in order to position himself above Grady, undermining the latter’s sense of worth. The piece then concludes with Grady, ‘complaining about his situation…’. This ambiguous ending offers insight into Grady’s feelings of being troubled, whilst structurally concluding the piece to mirror Bruce’s opening ‘groan’. The punctuation used here is an ellipsis, the use of which communicates a sense of unease and hesitation which is being experienced by the character. By ending in a way which is not concrete, but implies something further, the audience are forced to confront their own power relationships in order to reconcile what might occur next.
By reading WD’s short story, of just under 400 words, three power imbalances were created.
- Bruce being powerless to Marv
- Marv being powerless to his boss
- Grady being powerless to Marv, despite being in a position of power over Bruce and Lilac.
We might naturally ask then, what insight into humanity has WD constructed? And it seems he wants to suggest the universality of this experience of power, the complexity of which is tied to the web of relationships we all exist in.
Hey @lordtimoty i know you're reader but hey! You're more of a writer than a reader... So maybe next time, you'll be given the undertaken to write a story instead haha 😅
And this review my friend, is what I call "Another masterpiece from a masterpiece" 😂 I love it and it led me right into his story which I love too, thanks to your review.
Mr WD is no doubt an exceptional fiction writer, this is just one of his masterpiece list of fictional stories hehe
I enjoyed your review and congrats to you @wrestlingdesires for being featured here 😊
Thanks so much, I hope you will enjoy the series :) ... Or maybe you already read a lot of it???
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(3/6)@merit.ahama, I sent you an on behalf of @wrestlingdesires
Not a lot of it, just this reviewed one... Maybe I'll check them out, you're amazing 👍
Thanks so much 🙌
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Hey merit.ahama;
That's lovely of you to say, and glad that you were able to find joy in our mate WD's piece too. In truth - an analysis of a piece, and writing a piece go hand in hand it seems to me, if we take on the idea of constructing and being deliberate in our writing ;)
Yeah, that truth is a sweet one... I do enjoy reading from you 😊
Well said :) ...
I'm glad I found your blog, you can make any character or action memorable 🙌
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You Are Alive so I just staked 0.1 $ALIVE(4/10)@lordtimoty! to your account on behalf of @wrestlingdesires.
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(4/6)@lordtimoty, I sent you an on behalf of @wrestlingdesires
If what you are saying is that I was further developing the personalities and relationships of the criminals, to set the stage for upcoming episodes, then you are exactly right :) ... And there is plenty more to come :)
Thanks so much for the wonderful review, I loved reading it :) Please do give your insight more often???
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You Are Alive so I just staked 0.1 $ALIVE(2/10)@lordtimoty! to your account on behalf of @wrestlingdesires.
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I shall call you my muse ;)
Awesome :) I really hope you'll like the rest of the series, even though I wrote it a long time ago. The parts should be easier to take though, because they were aimed at an audience whose attention span was between 300 to 500 words, with 500 being "too long" 😂
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(2/6)@lordtimoty, I sent you an on behalf of @wrestlingdesires
Good to see more participants and what a wonderful review that you made for WD story! I have to check them out as well.
Thanks Mac; havn't seen anything like this kind of contest before - really, fell in love with the idea, felt like I had to put an entry in! (Might even do another!)
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Wonderful review, not only were you able to break down the entire text to give us a theory of the author's approach. I congratulate you for this great work. I was very pleased to read it.
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