Present examples of the two kinds of violence found in literature. Show how the effects are different.
According to Thomas C. Foster, there are two types of violence found in literature
- specific injury that characters bring upon themselves or upon other characters.
- narrative harm brought on by the author, rather than the characters, to advance the plot or theme
Many books (especially in this day and age), has lots of violence, as it does, bring character development and thickens the plot. For example,in the book Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins, it contains lots of public executions, war, prisoner torture, fear conditioning, hospital bombings and such. The narrative harm here (which of course is on all the characters if a war is going on), is about the main character’s state of mind. When Primrose, Katniss’s younger sister, the start of all the things, the light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel - was killed off by Collins, causing Katniss to lose her faith. The faith that everybody is so dependent on. The challenge was to, overcome it, and be strong again. Therefore this advances the plot AND theme.