Preview

Fiction Analysis on "By and by" by Amy Bloom

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2209 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Fiction Analysis on "By and by" by Amy Bloom
Sydnie Sivongxay
ENG 2000
Christy Williams
23 February 2013

"By and By" by Amy Bloom "By and By" by Amy Bloom is told through a first-person narrative from the perspective of the deceased protagonist's roommate. Though the narrator shifts in and out of past and present tense, the story is simple. Anne (the protagonist) went on a camping trip with her boyfriend Teddy, and Eugene Trask (the antagonist) suddenly appeared to murder Teddy, then he kidnapped Anne, resulting in her missing for four days. In the end, Eugene tried to rape her near Lake Pleasant, and when she tried to defend herself, it gave Eugene a reason to turn and kill her instead. Her body was found near an old mine near Speculator by two kids searching for gold and garnet. If there was a word to describe this story, it would be "death," or any word along the same context. Upon hearing that word, goosebumps pop up all over my arms, shivers run down my spine, and I get this weird taste in my mouth. Unfortunately, that word, and words like it (dead, die, killed, etc.) appeared about sixteen times, give or take a few, in the text. This forced me to take a closer look at the meaning of death and what it means to me. For some reason, I have always taken death lightly; I never questioned what would or could happen afterwards, since I am confident about where I will end up. Reading this story made me aware of how real death is and how much it can affect loved ones during its aftermath. The narrator's descriptions and thoughts about death, Anne's story, and Eugene's actions, are the aspects of the story that I will focus on to support my argument on how this story changed my perception of death. Before analyzing the main characters of this story, I should state my former perception of death. Because I am a Christian, I have always known where I will end up. Therefore, the thought of death or dying never really made me afraid. I know that Heaven is my final resting place, so I have


Cited: Meyer, Michael. Ellen Thibault. The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. 9th Ed. Boston, Massachusetts: St. Martin 's, 2012. Bloom, Amy. "By and By." Meyer 494-499.
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Multiple Themes In Red Kayk By Priscilla Cummings
    • 201 Words
    • 1 Page

    Multiple Themes In Red Kayk By Priscilla Cummings

    In the book, Red Kayak, by Priscilla Cummings, there are multiple themes. A theme is the main idea or underlying meaning of a literary work and it can be directly stated or implied. Being able to understand a theme is critical to decipher an author’s message. One of the numerous themes in Red Kayak is that death is everywhere and it can be very hard to deal with. In Red Kayak, Brady along with his friends, J.T. and Digger, live in the Chesapeake bay region of Maryland. All of them have great memories together and have been friends for a long time. Soon, rich people start moving in close proximity to where Brady and his parents live. This upsets families and friends (especially Digger). When Mrs. and Mr. DiAngelo move in, Brady discovers that…

    • 201 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Analysis Of Emily Grierson's 'Change Over Time'
    • 634 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Analysis Of Emily Grierson's 'Change Over Time'

    This isn't your typical everyday reading material, this is a short story that is told in five sections that is filled with death and the hopelessness to accept change over time and to adapt the effective coping mechanisms for everyday life. Everyone, should be familiar with the old saying, "The only thing that is continuous is change."…

    • 634 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Book Thief-Constructed Response
    • 600 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Book Thief-Constructed Response

    The use of Death as a narrator makes the story seem very confusing and mysterious to the reader because the reader does not know what happens after death or any of the specifics about it. For example, the author introduces Death by stating that “you are going to die” (Zusak, 3)…

    • 600 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Examples Of Foreshadowing In A Good Man Is Hard To Find
    • 578 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Examples Of Foreshadowing In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    Near the end of the story, the reader wonders why each time Bobby Lee and Hiram takes someone into the forest, they never come back. Well at the end of the story the whole family is taken to die. June Star's comment that the grandmother goes everywhere the family goes can be read as a sign that she will meet the same fate as them. There's also another blatant foreshadowing in the story. The author describes that the grandmother is dressed very nice on the trip and the reason she gives is, "In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady." When a person dies, they usually are dressed in their best outfit, just like the grandmother was dressed in what seemed to be her Sunday best. This shows that there shouldn't be a shock if something fatal happens to her at the end. There's also one interesting foreshadowing image placed into the short story. While on the trip the family, "Passed by a cotton field with five or six graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island." It's pretty fascinating how the number of graves matches the exact number…

    • 578 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Brutality, Injustice, and Institution of Slavery is Wrong in any Age
    • 844 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Brutality, Injustice, and Institution of Slavery is Wrong in any Age

    Cited: Baym, Nina and Levine, Robert. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc. 2012…

    • 844 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Medical Assisting: Annotated Bibliography
    • 1554 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Medical Assisting: Annotated Bibliography

    Lee was a public relations executive and Bob had just been named co-anchor of ABC’s World News Tonight. Then, while Bob was embedded with the military in Iraq, an improvised explosive device went off near the tank he was riding in. He and his cameraman, Doug Vogt, were hit, and Bob suffered a traumatic brain injury that nearly killed him.…

    • 1554 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Death In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men
    • 1249 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Death In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

    Death is a horrendous thing that can cause an irreplaceable hole in somebody’s life. Death can also represent chaos and the pain of another character in the story. In Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck, the deaths of Johnny, Dally, and Bob created an intriguing plot and unveiled the hidden feelings and personalities of characters who react to the deaths, like Dally and Randy. The major deaths in The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, which are the deaths of Candy’s Dog, Curley’s Wife, and Lennie, displayed the personalities of the characters who killed them and developed the story in the book. The theme of death reveals hidden elements of characters who strongly felt a certain way about the character. Even though death is the end of a character, it…

    • 1249 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Everything I Never Told You Analysis
    • 2660 Words
    • 11 Pages

    Everything I Never Told You Analysis

    Death is imminent to everyone, no one can escape from it sadly. Death can be describe as a permanent cessation of all vitals functioning; the end of life. It doesn’t matter if you’re the happiest person, or the poorest, you could be the most powerful beast in the African savannah, and we are all equals when it comes to dying. You don’t take nothing from this world when you die. Only dead memories that sooner or later wanders off like nothing had happen. But what happens to the family that’s left behind once someone decays off, to the unknown. A death in a family can leave many psychological problems in someone mind. It can do many damages through time and lead to more difficulties. One of the problems death bought in the novel “Everything I never told you” by Celeste Ng, was that…

    • 2660 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Ending Of My Sister's Keeper By Anna Fitzgerald
    • 426 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Ending Of My Sister's Keeper By Anna Fitzgerald

    The ending of the novel ‘My Sister’s Keeper’, in which Anna Fitzgerald is pronounced deceased after being involved in a head on collision with an oncoming truck, was completely unexpected. After all of the hardships Anna and her family has to endure during the trial, in which Anna seeks medical emancipation, the ending of the story makes it all seem pointless. Time that could be spent together as a family, appreciating one another’s presence, is wasted arguing and apart from each other. It is inevitable that the story ends with the occurrence of a death, however, I always assumed it would be Kate. The death of Anna makes for a much more heart wrenching novel, that leaves the audience stunned, yet, I find it very dissatisfying.…

    • 426 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Summary Of Max Vandenburg's The Book Thief
    • 714 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Summary Of Max Vandenburg's The Book Thief

    Throughout this journal, one can question why the author wrote the book from the perspective of death and what will happen to Max Vandenburg. Initially, there is the question of why the narrator of the novel is the entity of death. One answer to this question is that writing the book through death’s perspective is both creative and different. Having death speaking personally to you on the first page is a unique draw-in. There are no other books popularly known that can claim to have such a narrator, which makes it stand out from its competition on the bookshelves. As the New York Times states in a review for the book, “brilliant… It’s the kind of book that can be life-changing” (Zusak). This quote clearly shows that the author’s decision in having death be…

    • 714 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    John Updikes a & P Is a Coming of Age Story
    • 941 Words
    • 4 Pages

    John Updikes a & P Is a Coming of Age Story

    Cited: Updike, John. A & P. The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2009. 560-64.…

    • 941 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Gilded Six-Bits
    • 563 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Gilded Six-Bits

    Cited: "Bedford/St. Martin 's: The Bedford Anthology of American Literature, Volume Two First Edition by Susan Belasco; Linck Johnson." Bedford/St. Martin 's. Web. 12 Feb. 2012.…

    • 563 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Annie John
    • 1098 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Annie John

    It specifically focuses on Annie’s moral and psychological development and show how important her transformation of character is. This novel exemplifies the traditional bildungsroman is the way in which Annie views death. At the beginning of the novel she views it as contagious, which is shown when Annie expresses that she does not want her mother to touch her after her mother washes and prepares the body of a friend’s daughter after she passes. She fears death yet has many questions about it because she does not know anyone who has died. This curiosity shows her youth, as does her fantasy of her own death when she imagines how her father would be so sad that he will not even be able to build her coffin (12). As Annie begins to grow up, she worries less about death, which begins to show her moral and psychological advancement. This is apparent when Annie and her school girl friends sit on the tombstones during recess and sing dirty songs and show each other their bodies. If Annie were still in her earlier mindset she would most likely be obsessing over the fact that she is sitting a top of a dead body. Annie’s earlier view of death can also be seen as a connection to her fear of separation. This is particularly evident in Annie’s relationship with her mother. Kincaid begins the second chapter by talking about the physical and emotional closeness of Annie and her mother. "My mother…

    • 1098 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Comparison Essay
    • 449 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Comparison Essay

    Both Julia Alvarez and Tato Laviera come from countries and cultures that are looked down upon by many people. Though each of their poems portray dramatically different points of view. In Julia Alvarez’s poem the girl she describes (herself) seems suppressed, she does what she can to fit in even if it means not doing something that she otherwise might have done. In Tato Laviera’s poem he is very positive and hopeful, he has come here to make a better life for him and his family and even though he is oppressed because of his skin color and culture he creates a new equality for himself and others.…

    • 449 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    A Gap of Sky: About the Teenager Ellie
    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages

    A Gap of Sky: About the Teenager Ellie

    The story is written by a 1st person narrator, who builds suspense and lead us to a climax because of the narrator’s way of telling the story. Ellie (1st person narrator) is confused about life and constantly through the story you hear about her inner feelings and thoughts.…

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics