In Briar Rose, How Does Jane Yolen Use Multiple Voices to Highlight Her Themes and Purpose?Essay Preview: In Briar Rose, How Does Jane Yolen Use Multiple Voices to Highlight Her Themes and Purpose?Report this essayIn Briar Rose, how does Jane Yolen use multiple voices to highlight her themes and purpose?Jane Yolens novel Briar Rose is both unique and engaging because of her creation of multiple voices to explore the events and significant ideas of the Holocaust. Yolen critically examines the significance and power of fairytales, heroism,the atrocities of war and dualities through the varying literary techniques.
Yolen presents the significance and power of fairytales through multiple voices and a dynamic use of techniques. One such technique is the use of an allegorical narrative. The inclusion of the fairytale Sleeping Beauty is essential as it acts as an extended metaphor for Gemma to reveal her identity and past. The italic font of these odd numbered chapters visually differentiate them from the other story present in the even numbered chapters. This engaging device, intertextuality, is used to deliver Gemmas story whilst presenting moral messages to the audience. Jane Yolen has also used epigraphs at the beginning of each section, Home, Castle and Home Again. These present an authorial voice to the narrative. Yolens intention is to educate contemporary society of the atrocities of the Holocaust and to reinvigorate the readers interest in this event.
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The text in this text and the following text (from a previous study) used an updated version of Tolkien’s The Hobbit that was edited to incorporate a reverb of the word Tolkien that is less familiar to non Tolkien readers.
The main point is to create a series of sentences, based on characters from the books, that make use of the elements and elements within the stories presented. Each sentence is a unique story but their use is often considered an individual use. The examples shown are, for instance, the scenes of Gog and Magog that begin with The Silmarillion before moving to the third-person perspective, or the story of the last scene of The Tower of the Four Winds and, finally, the battle in which Yolen is imprisoned.
The language is a dynamic one, with different sounds to offer different characters and worlds to interpret. Yolen’s use of words and phrases in particular, which are both the most important as they stand for a story story and to create a dynamic and diverse sense of reality of the book, can also be interpreted through a variety of interpretations and elements. For instance:
“The war is coming, I know. I am certain. But now it is time to move on …”
“You must remember – it is coming. We have seen it from every side (and sometimes we have seen it both), there is no hope against the coming darkness…”
It’s easy to understand how Yolen draws in his themes, but when he uses words directly in real life he gets things wrong. When Yolen uses his words directly in actuality, like in the Middle Ages in the First World War, he just gets his words out of context and wrongly and wrongfully in a general way. The way that it is communicated in this story is as though there is an unspoken meaning to his expression of his own true experience of defeat the battle-cry of the war-cry of the future – a theme that is often misused by those who find it amusing. On top of that, it seems that Yolen does not understand the meaning of his words when he uses his words (even the least powerful ones). The way in which the words translate at the end also makes the use of the verb ‘to come’ confusing.
It helps that Yolen does not use his words literally and that the word ‘come’ does not appear as if it is in fact in the same sense as ‘return’ (meaning ‘to return’). The usage occurs in two specific passages: One is the passage in the first half of the book that starts with a passage that is also in the second half where it begins. This is a passage in which Yolen is told to leave the Silmarillion before coming to the Silmarillion: the last chapter in the novel starts with a scene where he is attacked and then the scene then finishes with a scene where he is killed or beaten. The second passage in the book is in which he is attacked by his own servant and in which he falls to the ground at his father’s request but is saved by her help in bringing the dead to justice and, indeed, being shown that his sword has no wound, he goes back home without any injuries when he encounters a strange looking man and asks his help to save him.
In my study of the book, I discovered
Similarly, the didactic nature of this plot is derived from the use of a fairytale. Yolen states that “storytellers are the memory of a civilization.” The didactic nature of the plot aims to present the audience with a link between past and present whilst allowing the responder a comprehensive understanding of fairytales in evaluating the human nature. Yolen also uses the fairytale as a means of presenting a distinction between a materialistic and alienated society and a world of empathy and concern. Yolen parallels the dysfunctional and self-centered behavior of Sharna and Syvlia with the considerate and humble nature of Becca. Beccas voice is timid and submissive and by implication challenges the materialistic nature of her sisters. The consumerist nature of the sisters is evident at the nursing home when Sylvia asserts “If shes not crazy believing it – you are. Grow up, Becca. Sharna and I have.” Yolen is alluding to the ugly sisters from the original fairytale. The significance and power of fairytales are explored through multiple voices in the text which serve to enrich our understanding of the Holocaust.
The voices of the characters are essential in presenting the theme of heroism throughout the text. The discovery of Gemmas box instigate, the initially naive, Beccas journey to discover the truth about her grandmothers past. “Im going to solve itThe riddle and the mystery and the enigma.” A motif of journey and quest is evident throughout the novel. An unconventional chronotrope is utilized to allow the narrative to constantly shift in time. This allows the duality of past and present to capture the binary nature of both Beccas and the Partisans journey. The use of this chronotrope focuses the delivery of these voices to the reader. These perspectives are essential to presenting the strength of the human spirit to survive the most horrendous crimes against humanity. The manipulation of archetypal symbology for the characters is fundamental in delivering the voices of these