/lit/ - Literature

>>5608915
not having a clue what's going but being doomed like kafka.

>>5608929

That certainly is a bad feel, but is it the worst feel?

>>5608935
if you are lonely or feeling guilty you do at least know the rules of the game and how to react (at least in theory). not knowing what's going to happen is a lot worse than knowing that things will be bad for most people.

>>5608940
>not knowing what's going to happen is a lot worse

Uncertainty is manageable though...there are worse

>>5608915
>What's the worst feeling literature has explored as a theme?

Aesthetic feelings or Emotional feelings?

>>5608915
>alienation
>guilt

way to stick to the spoonfed "themes" op

problem is those aren't themes

'alienation,' if that exists, along with guilt are both symptoms of fear. Fear sucks but I doubt anyone would say it's worse than having your limbs ripped off of your torso

deSade explores excruciating physical torment with comic zest in Juliette

read something real and stop talking about themes

>>5608973
>'alienation,' if that exists, along with guilt are both symptoms of fear.

how do you figure?

tfwnogf as explored in /lit/ threads

>>5608982

But which books tackle this feel?

>>5608915
I mean, it's massively subjective, but for me the most compelling theme is always loss.

>>5608990

how can you lose that which you don't have

>>5608982

>>5608984
Coming soon in /lit/'s next next masterpiece The Greentext Anthology of Lonely Literati

>>5608990
let me help you out a little bit

I mean, you're on /lit/ afterall and you might as well know what a theme is

>loss

is not a theme. Loss is better understood as a type of change. To get closer to 'theme,' though I'm not sure why you would want to, you would have to conduct a detailed examination of the nature of the change

>>5609029

why are you so harsh on the new guy lol

>>5608915

I know what the worst feel is but I haven't found a book that explores it

>>5608945
It's not a manageable though. Think about Human history, we need to eliminate that Uncertainty.

>>5608973
Scum.

>>5609055

do you mean hopelessness?
cause uncertainty isn't that bad

>>5609068
No, I mean Uncertainty. Hopelessness is something that come after, if it comes. But first and mother or all the real fears/bad feelings/fucking.infernos is Uncertainty.

I think the literature produced by our generation will be the worst, because it'll explore the kind of purposeless existence that only our decadent society could support.

>>5609093
this this this

Pain even in the cynicism, suffering with no values.

It's going to be wonderful. We're not even suicidal.
uhuhuhu

>>5609084

how does this factor into tfwnogf ? precisely, im at a loss

>>5609029
Loss can be a literary theme, idiot. How many characters are driven by the loss of something they hold dear, like the death of a parent or the loss of innocence? How difficult is it to conceive of a story in which that loss is explored in depth, to the point that saying it isn't a theme betrays nothing but ignorance on the part of the person making such a claim?
Confirmed for never having read a book.

>>5609194
Not that guy but being uncertain about how a potential gf would react to advances is uncertainty.
I don't think uncertainty is the worst feeling, though. Certainty doesn't exist, so uncertainty is just a reality that isn't worth fleeing from. Embrace uncertainty and it stops being a problem.
The same is true of all feelings.

>>5609218
>Embrace uncertainty and it stops being a problem.
>The same is true of all feelings.

so the answer is to embrace tfw no gf? how?

>>5609220
By accepting that even with a gf you will still feel lonely and uncertain. You'll have a gf, which will be good, but your problems won't disappear.
Put the emotion of >tfwnogf into something other than greentexting and shitposting and something amazing might happen.
Uncertainty is the singular condition of action. Having no gf is the singular condition of acquiring a gf. Not being in love is the only way to fall in love.

>>5609214
Sure loss of a loved one can be used as a tool of character development but even then the 'exploration' is of how that character deals with loss, not loss itself, but even then it would make more sense to say the character is dealing with death, but even then you'd have to think about what death is, and even then you'd have to think of how that character experiences death, not death itself, and again you're back to change, the change being that lost person moving from a state of physical existence into a state of existing only in the memory of the character, so even in that case you're looking at the problem of memory and how it fucks with us by keep things that are supposed to be dead alive

so who's the idiot again?

>>5608984
The Sorrows of Young Werther

>>5608915
Futility of beauty in Sea of Fertility. Ending of Runaway Horses is heart wrenching.

>>5609250
Arguing that loss can't be a literary theme is a sign of idiocy. You completely missed my point.

>>5609236
>TFW you aren't galvanized into trying to get a gf by your no gf feels

>>5609272
you made no point because you don't understand what you're saying

>driven by loss

Do you see that? Loss is a tool. It can be a plot device or a characterization mechanism. I suppose you think happiness is a theme too.
Stop feeling for a second and think

>>5608980
Hes trolling

>>5609299
>is
>can be
We're talking about a hypothetical story that has themes. My claim is that loss can be such a theme.
Your claim that it isn't isn't based on anything. You're acting as if your interpretation of this hypothetical, i.e., not actually existing in a particular form, story is the only one, which is wrong.

A story where someone loses something and spends the rest of the story trying to get it back, with the narrotor providing constant commentary on the fact that the character lost that McGuffin and expounding on the metaphysical aspects of losing something and what loss means not only to that character but to the world in which that thing is lost, could indeed be said to have loss as a theme.

>>5609322
here you go
>boy and girl madly in love
>girl gives boy ring
>girl shredded to death by lawnmower
>ring now extra special
>scenes of boy crying over ring memento
>boy thin with grief
>ring loose on finger
>ring falls off in dumptruck
>ring lost forever

You: story is about loss
Me: story is about the faggotry of valuing mementos

Can't get much worse than eternal torture

>>5609364
So you think a story can only have one theme and one interpretation?

>>5609378
This.

Of course a loss generates a response and that response may well give rise to other ideas and themes, but why on earth would that mean that loss isn't a theme in itself?

>>5609378
>>5609408
you fucking idiots. because loss is just a tug on the puppet string. you're not watching the puppets

>>5609423
The tugs on the strings are the themes, though. The themes are explored by the puppets, who react to them.

>>5609093
What about literature produced by our generation that actually condemns the point of existing in a purposeless perfect world that we're forced to live in?

>>5609437
here's what you should do

write a nasty letter to your english teacher for not teaching you the difference between a theme and a fucking plot device

>>5609492
Like, being frustrated over not having any ultimate enemy, evil or even a positive higher point in such a shitty pomo capitalist world is a pretty legitimate contemporary feeling that we're all starting to drown in

>>5609496
That's a false dichotomy

In Othello, jealousy is both a theme and a plot device
In Hamlet, inaction is both a theme and a plot device
In Blood Meridian, expansion into Mexico is both a theme and a plot device
In The God of Small Things, the caste system is both a theme and a plot device

Themes are often exposed through plot devices

>>5609496
I think you should stop pretending that every aspect of a story has to be separate from every other aspect.

that feel when no gf

>>5609534

this can't be real. this is the equivalent of someone on /sci/ not understanding the difference between speed and acceleration

>the caste system
>a theme

it seems there needs to be a sticky to explain basic literary concepts, that's what it's come to

>>5609568
Societal division can't be a theme?

>>5609568
I think you're a troll, no one is this dense.

>>5609568
Nah, you've just got a prescriptive understanding of literature. Which would be okay, if the information you prescribed wasn't very misinformed.

A book featuring the caste system as a plot device can also be partially ABOUT the caste system. You know, like a THEME.

>>5609236
>You'll have a gf, which will be good, but your problems won't disappear.

I only have 1 problem

> Not being in love is the only way to fall in love.

I fall in love with every girl I see.

>>5609568
>it seems there needs to be a sticky to explain basic literary concepts, that's what it's come to

oh please explain I beseech you

>>5609725
That isn't love. If you had ever been in love, you would know the difference between the most sublime emotion and vulgar attraction to biddies.

>>5609743

>you would know the difference between the most sublime emotion and vulgar attraction to biddies.

what separates the sublime from the vulgar??!!!!

>>5609568
Is this right?

In Infinite Jest the plot device is: powerful movie
The theme is: tennis

>>5609763
See, what you need to understand of Kant’s notion of the sublime is there needs to be an element of clear and present danger: something so beautiful it could kill you.
Like if Kim Kardashian were to smother the life out of you with her enormous butt cheeks - that would be a truly sublime experience.

>>5609775
>tennis
>theme
you need to check bit deeper

>>5609785
ok then is the theme Don Gately

>>5609777
>Like if Kim Kardashian were to smother the life out of you with her enormous butt cheeks - that would be a truly sublime experience.

>>5609763
Vulgar attraction is wanting to put your dick in a girl you've never spoken to, wishing a girl you've never spoken to would cuddle with you, or pretty much any desire to be with a girl you've never spoken to and know nothing about.
Love is a deeper connection between you and a girl (or other kins of person I'm straight so I'm talking about girls) that takes time to develop. It isn't just a one-way, momentary desire to have sex with or kiss or hold hands with someone. It's a mutual and absolute sense of devotion and belonging. Love is the filler of all your emptiness; infatuation is the signifier of emptiness.

>>5609807
>wishing a girl you've never spoken to would cuddle with you
>have to speak to a girl first

what if she's mute and introverted?

>love is not desire to have sex with or kiss or hold hands with someone

I know how to turn sex and kisses into pure love.

>>5609814
If she's mute and introverted you'll still have to communicate with her if you want her to love you, or she has to at least know you exist.
Kisses and sex aren't separate from pure love.

>>5608945
>>5608950
...too...cute...

Themes are only revealed through a process of rigorous analysis, not a scan of obvious narrative components

h-hey now there's a caste system here, so like that must mean that like that's one of the themes, right miss hornbacher?

sure billy the theme is whatever you think it is because words don't get to decide what they mean, you do!

great job, billy

Themes are not obvious you fools. stop trying to turn every game into tic tac do because you are too stupid to play chess fuck off back to your mother's whore womb and get your abortion

>>5609807
>infatuation is the signifier of emptiness.
You mean a sign?

>>5609856
>Themes are not obvious

So is vanity not a theme of The Picture of Dorian Gray?
Is memory not a theme of In Search of Lost Time?
Is absurdity not a theme of Waiting for Godot?

Because those are all pretty obvious.

>>5609863
Yeah.

>>5609856
>Themes are only revealed through a process of rigorous analysis

rigorous for dumb ppl, for me it's easy as 1, 2 , 3

>>5609856
Ambition is a theme and a plot device in Macbeth.

>>5609888
>tfw no longer experience infatuation

i miss the feeling, but i think its ultimately just delusion with a slight tinge of self-pity

>>5609916
It kind of is, but it's also an emotion in and of itself. Sexuality and sexual attraction are normal things for people to feel, trying to rationalize them into particular categories of non-libidinous feelings reduces both of them.

>>5609916

infatuation and love are not the same, although they overlap

>>5608915
What do they think has happened, the old fools,
To make them like this? Do they somehow suppose
It's more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools,
And you keep on pissing yourself, and can't remember
Who called this morning? Or that, if they only chose,
They could alter things back to when they danced all night,
Or went to their wedding, or sloped arms some September?
Or do they fancy there's really been no change,
And they've always behaved as if they were crippled or tight,
Or sat through days of thin continuous dreaming
Watching the light move? If they don't (and they can't), it's strange;
Why aren't they screaming?

At death you break up: the bits that were you
Start speeding away from each other for ever
With no one to see. It's only oblivion, true:
We had it before, but then it was going to end,
And was all the time merging with a unique endeavour
To bring to bloom the million-petalled flower
Of being here. Next time you can't pretend
There'll be anything else. And these are the first signs:
Not knowing how, not hearing who, the power
Of choosing gone. Their looks show that they're for it:
Ash hair, toad hands, prune face dried into lines -
How can they ignore it?

Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms
Inside you head, and people in them, acting
People you know, yet can't quite name; each looms
Like a deep loss restored, from known doors turning,
Setting down a lamp, smiling from a stair, extracting
A known book from the shelves; or sometimes only
The rooms themselves, chairs and a fire burning,
The blown bush at the window, or the sun's
Faint friendliness on the wall some lonely
Rain-ceased midsummer evening. That is where they live:
Not here and now, but where all happened once.
This is why they give

An air of baffled absence, trying to be there
Yet being here. For the rooms grow farther, leaving
Incompetent cold, the constant wear and tear
Of taken breath, and them crouching below
Extinction's alp, the old fools, never perceiving
How near it is. This must be what keeps them quiet:
The peak that stays in view wherever we go
For them is rising ground. Can they never tell
What is dragging them back, and how it will end? Not at night?
Not when the strangers come? Never, throughout
The whole hideous inverted childhood? Well,
We shall find out.

>>5609886
Yes good job of identifying the pleb-tier sparknotes pseudo-themes. I'm glad you enjoy operating in the realm of the obvious, the easy and the spoonfed.

See, you can't take one word like 'vanity' and say that's a theme. That's C-student tier superficial skimming that gets you nowhere. If you're asked about the work and you say it's about vanity, you sound like a cunt because you think you've said something but you haven't said anything. You've stopped at step at step zero.

What is the work saying about vanity, how is it redefining vanity, how is it using vanity to set up a conflict or a tension between characters or within characters? Such questions might help you to delve deeper.

I'm glad you bring up Wilde because it is he who wrote the Critic As Artist, and you would do well to read that dialogue. W's argument is that responding to an artwork is the purest form of creativity because the critic is even further from the realm of the real.

To settle for one word themes is an insult to the text and speaks of a sad lack of the intuition and imagination that can raise criticism to the level of art.

But if you're thrilled by the obvious by all means keep flopping away with your four inch brush and taking all the fun out of the exercise.

>>5610933
>you can't take one word like 'vanity' and say that's a theme.

why not?

>What is the work saying about vanity, how is it redefining vanity, how is it using vanity to set up a conflict or a tension between characters or within characters? Such questions might help you to delve deeper.

this all implies Vanity is the theme the book is exploring.

>>5608915
being black like in A Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass

>>5609915
>Ambition is a theme and a plot device in Macbeth.

another hopeless case

>>5610991
How exactly is that wrong? No, it isn't essay length, but this is a Cambodian image board, not a literary journal.

>>5608950
>>5609852
>tfw kind of know this girl who looks like her (more of a qt in my opinion, but that's infatuation speaking) in my American literature class
>tfw too beta to ever talk to her or her other qt friend

>>5610938
>this all implies Vanity is the theme the book is exploring.
exactly no, because if you can answer any of those questions you will no longer say vanity is the theme. You'll have something more specific to offer and won't sound like such a skimmer.

Just trying to help.

>>5610933
If I was writing an essay about it, I'd elaborate on how vanity is a theme. Doesn't mean that it isn't a theme if I don't attach a huge paragraph about the instances of vanity in the book, the way it's depicted, its consequences, etc.

theme
θiːm/
1.
the subject of a talk, piece of writing, exhibition, etc.; a topic.
"the theme of the sermon was reverence"

But how is the sermon reverent??????? Fucking skimmer dictionaries

>>5611006
>How exactly is that wrong? No, it isn't essay length, but this is a Cambodian image board, not a literary journal.
it's wrong because it's obvious you don't know what a plot device, or for that matter what a plot is, or for that matter what a theme is.

Waddle back to high school and stop shitting up this board with your cripple ramp criticism

>>5611021

his point is that Vanity is the "overarching" theme.

>>5611007
>>5611007
>>tfw too beta to ever talk to her or her other qt friend

why not just be Alpha instead? Like these guys

>>5611062
Maybe they're over in Monvolia staring at some qt yak herder on the other side of the steppes, sighing to themselves and wishing that they could make gainz in the part that's most important.
>the heart

>>5609068
You know that pic related would be a qt tf right?

>>5611042
And I suppose you're the final arbiter of literary devices?

>>5611032
>>5611032
Hahahaha that's the 19th century single room schoolhouse definition of theme you thick cunt.

Shakespeare didn't write sermons, he wrote plays and they're a bit more complex than reverend johnson's revival series

>>5611314

aye ooo seriously m8...that's not complex sermons

>>5608915
sexuality

>tfw no gf

>>5611362

>>5611362
>you will never have sex

>>5611113
she's getting uglier and uglier

>>5608915
Hatred, like in Darconville's Cat.

>>5611314
theme noun 1 the subject of a discussion, speech or piece of writing, etc.


theme noun [C] (MAIN SUBJECT)
B2 the main subject of a talk, book, film, etc.: The theme of loss runs through most of his novels.

theme*θim(n.)
1. a subject of discourse, discussion, meditation, or composition; topic.
2. a unifying or dominant idea, motif, etc., as in a work of art.

a : a subject or topic of discourse or of artistic representation <guilt and punishment is the theme of the story>

hmmmmm, looks like you're full of shit

>>5611373
>>you will soon have sex

>>5611314
>they're a bit more complex than reverend johnson's revival series
>Talking shit about sermons
U fokin wot m8?

>>5613213
Don't worry, he has no idea what he's talking about

Infinity