Beginnings

Aaron Byron Joe Cranfill Butler Stay respectively:

Beginnings definition: More or less the introduction to the story and characters. This is also where the plot develops and foreshadowing to future plots points for the acute reader begins. They are often tied to titles, and sometimes reveal the book's theme right from the get-go. As Rabinowitz says, "Beginnings and endings remain in the memory and decisively shape our sense of a novel as a whole." They can also act in a similar way as titles do in helping us get at the novel's central meaning.

__THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA__ examples:)
 * Example 1**: "Fear presides over these memories, a perpetual fear." The first line of the novel, this could be tied to our definition of "beginnings" because of its significance to the rest of the story. Fear is a common theme in the book, and it is appropriate that it is carried in the beginning so as to stick with the reader throughout the novel. Philip's family, the Roth Family, was, as the first line proclaims, in a state of "perpetual fear" and this lends itself to the rest of the story because the word "perpetual" means "lasting." Therefore, the beginning line has a lasting effect. The last chapter of the novel is tied into that line because of the title Perpetual Fear. This perpetual fear we feel talks about the lasting effects of the Lindbergh administration, and how one election can change a country forever.


 * Example 2**: In the first chapter of the book, Roth only acknowledges his family as totally normal and how he describes everything aroudn them. They are affected by the Depression like everyone else and nothing seems out of the ordinary. They live in an apartment and are a family of four with the father being the main breadwinner. This sounds like any other American family and could be seen as any other family if it wasn't for the fact that he right away mentioned they were Jewish. This is an important part in that in the beginning you see Philip's family as he sees it, and not how the others around him view it. He views himself as an American in the beginning of the story and later as a Jew when he starts to understand how others see himself, his family, and his religious views. This is an early example of how he is ignorant to the world around him and doesn't see himself as an outsider yet. Later on when you experience how the other people in the world view him, his view on everything changes and he sees everything as Jewish and not "American." This is why the beginning is important so you get inside the idea of Philip and the concept of being an "outsider" when it comes up leter in the story and you have something to connect to.

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 * Example 3**: The Wizard of Oz is a perfect example of the significance of the beginning of the story in the developement of the rest of a plotline. In the beginning, you are introduced to Dorothy, her aunt and uncle, the "wicked witch of the west to be," Toto, and the main characters of the entire story played by the farmhands. This is one of the most memorable beginnings in cinematic history. The beginning holds such a significance because it starts off in regular black and white footage and continues until Dorothy and Toto end up in the magical land of Oz and the world receives color. Anyone who has ever seen the Wizard of Oz immediately sees the significance of this meter change. She is living in a dull world represented by the black and white before Oz takes its place and the world becomes fuller, more colorful, and frankly more interesting. The characters in her real life in Kansas that the viewers meet in the beginning end up holding a much higher significance than initially thought as they are transformed respectively into the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion, not to mention the Wicked Witch of the West, who becomes Dorothy's biggest and most feared obstacle. She happens to be the antagonist in both worlds Dorothy encounters. Dorothy's getting knocked out in the beginning plays the most significant role in the story. It is the actual basis for the whole plot, and teaches Dorothy the valuable and well known lesson, "There's no place like home."