"Forever Overhead" by DFW

"Forever Overhead" by DFW was a very intriguing and interesting piece of literary excellence. In this story the vivid use of imagery and detailed language really makes this work stand out above the rest. The author really knows how to use these techniques to describe a thirteen year old boy's birthday party. By using imagery the author can better convey what is going on in the mind of the boy. Not only does imagery provide good descriptions about what the boy sees but also what he is thinking about during his party. The use of detailed language helps to describe the events in ways that the reader might not expect, which offers a new perspective in which the story is viewed. This technique is perhaps the most important technique we have learned about so far in our class because details offer the reader and better and more enjoyable story to reader which is exactly what DFW did in the piece of literature. When these two techniques are combined the reader has no choice but to feel like they are at the party themselves which is what I feel the intentions of DFW were in this story. Through this use of detailed language and imagery our five senses which I felt through the words that DFW wrote. DFW's use of language made me empathize with the story at hand. In "Forever Overhead" DFW used the Karr's technique of using different perspectives. When he vividly describe the thoughts and actions of the thirteen year old boy at his birthday party he was telling the story through the eyes of a child. Also DFW used the techniques of Bartheleme as he transitioned his paragraphs nicely to create a flow of information. This also was a good technique to use because DFW was able to tie his points together in a way that made it easy for the reader to follow. DFW was able to successfully apply the techniques of Karr and Bartheleme to his work. I would also like to share this quote from "Not Knowing" by Bartheleme which really make me see why authors use the techniques that they do:

"There is art's own project, of restoring freshness to much-handled language, essentially an effort toward finding a language in which making art is possible at all."

This is saying that language is old and we constantly need to add our own new spin to old words. So basically this is why we use certain language techniques to "freshen" up old language. By using these literary technique we can turn old language into new art and even create our own literary techniques within our own style of writing.

- Brison Hood