Action Section

In a traditional story there are a few basic steps to the arc/ plain that the story follows through. I am going to draw from these general steps

1. Exposition 
2. Rising action
3. Climax
4. Falling action
5. Resolution

These elements are a pretty basic explanation of what happens in a story. When we were in class discussing Tom Ripley we were debating if this section is dedicated to action as in the genre or action in the sense of a story plot. I believe that the best way to discuss Tom Ripley is to discuss action in the sense of story plot because I don’t believe it falls into the genre of action, it has more the elements of the thriller.

This piece of literature is categorized as a thriller based on the Meriam-Webster definition of thriller:

one that thrills; especially :  a work of fiction or drama designed to hold the interest by the use of a high degree of intrigue, adventure, or suspense

In this novel, the reader’s interest is captured throughout the novel by the character Tom Ripley. His dynamic creation of his character is intriguing. In class, we discussed how the chameleon personality of the character allows an elements of suspense to the text because you don’t know exactly what will happen next. More specifically we discussed the boat scene where Ripley leaves America. He had to take on his real identity to accomplish the task of getting on the boat, and that was a real moment in the text that the character could be understood, and grappled with.

The novel is constructed in the beginning as if Tom Ripley is going on some huge adventure/mission in Europe, but then gets twisted into an unknown plot where the extortionist, Ripley, is living two lives: his and Dickies.  In other words, the psychological elements allow the text to be understood as a thriller over an action.

In this novel, I believe that action should be identified as the occurrence of events and activities in the text.  But the buildup action in the text, I believe is the whole story. At the end of the text, I am not completely convinced that there is a good climax. Perhaps, where the Greenleaf’s agree that Tom Ripley will inherit Dickie's fortune, but I feel as if the story hasn’t finished. By allowing the main character, the antagonist, to get away with his crimes the author is setting up a text against the social norms. How the story revolves around a sociopath that gets away with all his bad deeds plays into the feeling that there isn’t one true climax in the story because the traditional story arch would demand that the bad man be apprehended and given to the police, but that isn’t what happens.

Class discussion took an interesting turn when we took The Talented Mr. Ripley movie and discussed how the genre change affected readers differently. The most prominent point was that the discussion on how the actors influenced how the movie was interpreted.

Having Matt Damon as the main character was found distracting by many of my classmates. It had something to do with his teeth:

Aside from his teeth, his previous roles in different genre movies played into the classes inability to find his acting genuine in the movie.

I found it fascinating that the drawbacks of this movie isn't located in the piece itself, but the actor that were chosen to play the parts in the film. I feel like this is when an author writes outside their genre. The reader/watcher didn't like the book/movie because it wasn't what they were expecting from the author/actor. (They even have that A,A thing going for them---the author/actor problem)

Rotten Tomatoes website says that critics described the show as, "Matt Damon's unsettling performance ". 

An actor can determine how the film is described.

Orphan Black:

I found Orphan Black a little confusing, and I am not too sure how to place the show within "action". I understand that each episode has it's own rising and falling action, or a lead into the next section of rising action, and in a show with a doppelganger there is a lot going on. I felt like there were multiple lines of action in the television series.

Let me trace what i mean with the first two episodes of Orphan Black:

The largest line of rising action is the doppelganger angle that hasn't been explained outside of being told that they are all clones. There has been no explanation as to why these women are in existence, or why they are all being killed. This action is a rising action that leads into the following episodes.

A small line of rising and falling action that occurs in the first two episodes involves the daughter of the main character, and whether or not she thinks that her mother is dead. This is resolved in the second episode.

I believe that the combinations of all of these "actions" is what makes a TV show show interesting, and keeps people watching the next episode.