Jul 19, 2023 08:00:00

Advice that 'room' should be emphasized and used in the story

The 'stage setting' is important in the story, and the idea of what kind of setting and what kind of place the characters will be active in will greatly affect the fun of the work. At the same time, however, writer Megan Fernandez, associate professor of English, advises that it is just as important to properly set up and use the 'room' that is the starting point of the activity as the stage setting. .

Megan Fernandes on the Literary Uses of a Room ‹ Literary Hub

https://lihub.com/megan-fernandes-on-the-literary-uses-of-a-room/

``The room is the starting point of time, and time is the starting point for the poet,'' said Fernandez. For example, even at a special time like having a party in a room, I think about the position of myself standing on the balcony, the position of the person coming through the door, and the place where other people are gathered. Space clarifies the positional relationship and distance between each other. Mr. Fernandez expresses it as 'a room is a useful constraint.'

In Fernandez's poem 'Reunion,' he moves from the stage of an airplane to the cathedral of Venice, and finally to his kitchen, where he is washing tomatoes and looking at the water from the faucet. By superimposing the water flowing through the canals of Venice and the water from the faucet, it expresses a scaled-down world that seems to be trapped in the room, expressing a sense of blockage and admiration for the outside world.

In addition, Mr. Fernandez cites some examples of works that skillfully use 'rooms'. Colson Whitehead's

Underground Railroad tells the story of a fugitive woman who hides in a small attic for several months. While feeling cramped in a small space with the main character, the reader feels a yearning for the outside world and at the same time a fear of the cruel wide world. make you feel

Also, in Sofia Coppola's movie '

Virgin Suicides ', five beautiful sisters who are admired by the neighborhood are depicted trying to commit suicide in different rooms in the house. According to Mr. Fernandez, the locations chosen by the five sisters reflect their personalities and intentions, and at the same time, they are all 'rooms,' albeit in different locations, so when viewed from the outside of the house, they all look the same. It is said to have a devastating effect. This kind of 'individuality when viewed from the inside, but comprehensiveness when viewed from the outside' is also considered to be an effect of the closed space called 'room'. At the end of 'Virgin Suicide', their actions jump out of the house, the composition that looks like a peek from the outside of the house collapses, and the 'room' is destroyed.

Fernandez also says that the room is a space to raise an ' epiphany .' Epiphany refers to the 'sudden suddenness' of Archimedes, who came up with the idea of how to measure volume when he saw overflowing water in the bath, and Isaac Newton, who is said to have discovered universal gravitation when he saw an apple falling from a tree. It refers to a remarkable sense of understanding. In turn, in literature, it is a word that expresses 'symbolically describing the moment when the 'essence' of a situation or person appears in an ordinary event.' In Katherine Mansfield's short story ' Miss Brill, ' the nervous, bursting energy that moves from room to room indicates the character's restlessness and unstructured perception of the world. A room is a private space in which you can move freely without worrying about other people, making it easier to see the essential inner world of your character.

'Rooms converge, destroy, imprison and liberate,' Fernandez expresses. Information such as why it develops in the house, what to talk about in one's own room, what and how to arrange the furniture and accessories in the room, sets the atmosphere and the nature of the character, It gives important meaning to the story in the form of how it lives and what kind of chaos happens when others invade the space.