Rena Korb has a master's degree in English literature and creative writing and has written for a wide variety of educational publishers. In the following essay, she discusses the imagery in "Children of the Sea."…
She struggles against the ripping force of the ocean current. Her arms are quickly tiring from swimming against it. She relaxes, letting her muscles fall limp. Within seconds, she is pushed out to sea. The people on the beach are so small, little tiny ants against a white sand backdrop. The tall condo skyscrapers are now tiny Lego buildings. The kids hollering and music blasting on the beach is faded like a distant memory. She will die out here, she’s sure of it. Her daughter won’t have a mother’s hand to hold when learning to walk. Her husband will be left a widower, forever broken by the loss of his love. She closes her eyes and accepts her fate as she drifts further out to sea. She floats for a long while, the salinity in the water steadily…
Cande celebrates his promotion to salad-maker by painting his door his favorite color, blue. He works at a restaurant in Santiago owned by Don Gustavo del Norte. Don Gustavo has taught him to make Caesar salad, hoping the restaurant will become famous for it. His 19-year-old wife, Chayo, and her 15-year-old sister, Marta, arrive. Marta was raped by Roberto Ramos and wants an abortion from the visiting doctor from Guadalajara. Luz told her it costs 100,000 pesos. Chayo hasn’t been able to have children, so without thinking, Cande says he’ll raise the baby. As a man, he can’t take his word back.…
Presumed dangerous? Why?: Poseidon was powerful, decisive, competitive, and dignified. It was very important to stay on his "good side", for he was also moody and irascible, quick to take offense, and made a hobby out of taking his revenge out on those who angered him.…
How to Breathe Underwater and The Things They Carried are books that are told through letters and mini stories. Tim O’Brien’s short story is told through letters from his comrades from his time in the Vietnam War. The letters express love, grief and remorse. On the other hand, Orringer’s stories are told through the point of young woman or girls who are struggling with decisions like religion, love, sexuality, and beauty. Both stories are neither light or uplifting, they ponder very serious emotional issues that the characters in the stories must overcome. Orringer and O’Brien worlds are very different, but they both underline the issues that humans must struggle with when life takes us on different journeys throughout our lifetime. The stories…
When authors use symbolism effectively, readers can begin to understand a work of literature on both the surface level and in an illustrative context, attributing significance to ideas, actions, or even characters themselves beyond what is initially described. In her novella The Awakening, Kate Chopin employs symbolism through a variety of images to reveal particular details about the protagonist, Edna Pontellier. One such symbol is the sea, an essential figurative element. Ivy Schweitzer’s scholarly essay, entitled Maternal Discourse and the Romance of Self-Possession in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, asserts that the sea is a motherly figure lacking in Edna’s life. Though in her critical analysis of The Awakening Schweitzer asserts that the sea is a “maternal space” (Schweitzer 184), I will argue that the sea represents a metaphorical romantic partner for Edna, and that it really is the symbol of an idealized lover that was an impossible reality in Edna…
The sea - The sea is the barrier between civilisation and the seclusion on the island. In the poetic depiction of Simon’s death, it also represents an almost supernatural power far beyond the limited scope of the island community.…
He was well-aware that being the only Hispanic guy in a poor white trash community might be problematic for him, and it didn’t take long before he quickly found that out. Because by day many members of Ocean View didn't have much, if anything, good to say about him. But by night, when the weed ran dry or when the inhabitants of the park needed some other form of party favor, suddenly Steaks was their man.…
"The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing. whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude.", Edna announces this just before her 'last-swim'. Throughout the novel the sea signified escape and empowerment from the real world responsibilities. Learning to swim gave Edna empowerment by allowing her to control her body and soul in a way she had not felt before. As the novel progresses the sea becomes a place of affair, a place were Edna can be with Robert and forget her husband, and children; this escape is brought upon by her husbands dislike of swimming. After realizing that there is no place or person for Edna to express her true desires and love she ultimately decides that the empowerment of the…
A reoccurring theme in A Place Where the Sea Remembers, is family and relationships. All relationships in the beginning if the book seem to be a bit rocky, but towards the end they all seem to pan out fairly nicely. Chayo and Marta are two characters that experience many hardships in their relationship, but end up overcoming it all in the end. Esperanza and Rafael also go through a lot in their relationship, but it ends with a beautiful marriage. Ceasar and Beto seem to have a very difficult relationship towards the beginning of the book as well, but they overcome that with ease.…
A Place Where the sea Remembers is a book written by the author Sandra Benitez. The story takes place in a small town in Santiago, Mexico. Candelario (the salad maker), Marta (the 16 year old that’s pregnant), Fulgencio (the photographer that loses all of his equipment are all characters that go through hardships and unfairness. The conflicts this essay will have are person vs person because the characters that I will be describing are having problems with other characters.…
When reading the novel from a psychoanalytic perspective, the sea plays an important role in the 'awakening' of Edna Pontellier. There is a strong relationship between Edna and the sea from the beginning of the novel to the end. The sea represents Edna's desire to find her own freedom and identity.…
Ernest Hemingway’s novel, The Old Man and the Sea, can be construed as an allusion to the Bible and the struggles of Jesus based on Santiago’s experiences.…
Hush Hush uses a damp, foggy northern U.S. small town as the setting for its fantasy. Coldwater is fictional, but nevertheless, the creepy, rainy, gray setting is perfect for other worldly creatures and things that go bump in the night. As Nora puts it when she's describing the 18th-century farmhouse she lives in with her mother. Maine is situated at the upper extreme of the U.S.'s limits, and Coldwater is also near the coast, on the border between land and ocean.…
“Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think.” Robert Henri statement not only applies to himself but it also explains many other human’s feelings towards the ocean. This passion is significant in “The Seafarer” by an anonymous Anglo-Saxon scop. “The Seafarer” intertwines the positives and negatives of a life at sea. The story goes through the sacrificial day to day life of a sailor. The voyages cause many controversial scenarios in the sailor’s life. Although sailing a life at sea is very interfering to a normal life, the Seafarer still loves the life he lives and also finds himself on a much deeper spiritual level than any ocean depth he has ever came across.…
