Literary Journalism

1
Literary Journalism

• Lady Olga
• By Joseph Mitchell
• The New Yorker, 1940

2
Literary Journalism

• Anecdote a short and amusing or interesting
  story.
• Where and how does Mitchell use anecdote?

3
Literary Journalism

• Tell Ms. Barnells history.
• Elaborate on her world.
• Build on her character.
• Sustain audience interest.

4
Literary Journalism

• The sleeping car story.
• The flea-feeding story.
• The hotel-life story.
• The Hollywood story.
• St. Paula the Bearded.
• The society party story.
• Two without endings.

5
Literary Journalism

• What is the articles tone?
• A storys tone is the combination of the writers
  attitude about the subject and toward the reader.
  Writers may love or hate their subjects. They may
  wish to shock or to amuse. They convey tone
  through language and sentence structure.

6
Literary Journalism

• The writer clearly admires and respects Ms.
  Barnell and desires us to respect her dignity.
  Some examples
• Miss Barnell is a bearded lady.
• Shes traveled widely, though shes bored.
• She has worked her way to the top.
• She sticks to her principles.

7
Literary Journalism

• Some more examples
• He plays the material straight.
• He uses theater language to describe what she
  does.
• He humanizes her. She loves her cat.
• He makes us empathize with her.

8
Literary Journalism

• Some more examples
• I dont take no back talk from anybody.
• She guards her dignity jealously.
• Her hirsuteness.
• In her opinion.
• When I get the blues, I feel like an outcast
  from society.

9
Literary Journalism

• For what purposes, does the author use many
  direct and partial quotations from Ms. Barnell?
• It is a unique voice. The reader will be
  fascinated. In her way, her voice is poetic. It
  is primitive, but real. He uses it to help show
  -- what? -- character.

10
Literary Journalism

• I been all over everywhere, up, down and
  sideways.
• .that ten-car mess on the west coast where I
  and my third husband had to knock the sideshow
  manager on the noggin with a tent stake to get my
  pay.
• .old Jack Johnson may be a freak, but to a
  freak, he aint a freak.

11
Literary Journalism

• Mitchell also uses quotation to give us her
  history, advance some elements of the story and,
  as we have seen, provide her own anecdotes.
• And, one-third of the way in, he explains why and
  how her speech is unique after that, the story
  doesnt need any further author interjections or
  explanations.

12
Literary Journalism

• Why does Mitchell wait until about the two-thirds
  mark to give us the big section on Ms. Barnells
  early biographical details?
• We dont need them until then. He has given us
  enough story, context and character development
  that we dont the early details. He has got us
  hooked.

13
Literary Journalism

• Why do you think the author was particularly
  attracted to Ms. Barnells story?
• See the second sentence of the introduction.
• See the story of Professor LeRoy Heckler on page
  441.
• See the story of her father on page 447.