In The Book Thief, by Marcus Zusak, the narrator, Death, tells the life story of a young girl named Liesel Meminger during World War II. He explains the events and challenges Liesel experiences due to Hitler’s words and influence. In this passage, the author uses diction, imagery, and details to help the reader imagine and have a deeper understanding of the events taking place and the character’s thoughts and feelings.…
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is known simply as “The Book” to Savannahians. John Berendt’s mostly nonfiction novel provides an in-depth look at a southern city and its inhabitants, loosely centered around a murder and subsequent trials which occurred in Savannah during the 1980’s. The New York Times Book Review declared “Mr. Berendt's writing is elegant and wickedly funny, and his eye for telling details is superb.... [this] might be the first true crime book that makes the reader want to call a travel agent and book a bed and breakfast for an extended weekend at the scene of the crime.” Tourism in the city grew after publication, and the narrative has revived interest in Savannah-born songwriter Johnny Mercer.…
In addition to the influence of the children’s perspective on the reader’s interpretation of the adults’ roles in the novel, the reader also makes inferences and conclusions about the adults based on their actions. Consider the various failures of the adult characters in this novel: moral failures, the failure to parent well, and the failure to negotiate life successfully, to name just a few. You may choose to analyze only one character and his or her failures, or write a comparative analysis of several characters, but in any case, build an essay in which you posit reasons for the failures of adults to protect children and to offer hope to the next…
When Lily assumes her mother abandoned her when she was an infant, she finds herself confused, frustrated, and eventually angry. She breaks down, destroying and smashing the honey jars. Lilys’ actions and high-strung emotions reflect T-Ray’s own feeling of abandonment. Her emotions reflect the foundation of what her old home symbolized; a house of confusion and frustration within her father and herself. While remaining with the Calendar Sisters she comes to terms with her guilt and misguided feelings toward her mother. Despite the absence of her biological mother, she is surrounded by a feminine community that gives her support and guidance. Lily also gains her own spiritual identity and feminine empowerment through the Black Madonna, which helps her become confident. Lily also learns, with August’s guidance, that despite the absence of her mother, she can look and find the mother inside herself. When Lily feels she isn’t loved, August informs her that the idea of a mother is found within herself, when she states, “She’s something inside of you…You have to find the mother inside yourself. We all do. Even if we already have a mother, we still have to find this part of ourselves inside…(KIDD 288). Lily’s new home in Tiburon gave her solidarity and familial unity that her old home couldn’t. Even though Lilly…
“Nature is like art; there are always those elements you want to change.” In the science fiction story, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, Charlie had always wanted to be intelligent, and he did with a special operation. People today are trying to figure out how this story could become a reality. Genetic engineering is the modification of characteristics of a plant by changing its genes. Humans may give people confidence, cure them from diseases, and help people live longer.…
“ Nobody has ever told us about the day when young Ann Story for she was thirty-three at the time her husband died, back in the Connecticut town, weary and waiting for news, watching the road anxiously saw her eldest son, foot-sore, dusty, ragged, his head hanging trudging in on the highway from the north. ” ”When Vermonters telling this story, come to the meeting of mother and son, they stop, swallow hard, and are silent for a moment ”. This initially tone of the story led me to believe that this story was going to be about a sorrow widowed woman, but the author manages to take the tone of the story on a whole new direction, causing me to disregard the initial presage notion I had about the story. As the tone of the story change my perception of who Ann Story was really changed, it showed the extent she was willing to go to carry out what she believed in. “Her sorrow over her husbands death seemed to her a mighty reason for carrying out what they had planned together, to make free landowners and citizens of their children…
When Bechdel reflects on her life it is impossible to ignore the powerful affect her father had on her. The more she learns about her father the better she understands how she became the person she is today. As she became aware of his closeted sexuality it became apparent how strongly that affected her childhood, her own sexual awakening, and her relationship with literature. Her father was conflicted, and the focus on fixing up the house was a way to cover up the disarray the house was really in. She explains this when she calls the décor “lies” (16) and how they were a distraction from the “shame” that inhabited their home. These memories of him growing up were important to her discovering her sexuality. When she discovered her and her father’s…
Mr. Shimerda came to America with his family from Bohemia in order to start a new life. He and his wife had four children, two sons and two daughters. Ambrosch was 18, an eldest son and his brother, Marek, was youngest one. Antonia was Yulka’s big sister and they were a few years apart. When they first arrived in Nebraska in summer, they went through a lot of hardship. Mr. Shimerda hardly spoke any English and relied heavily on an interpreter for his family’s daily activities. Bad advices from the interpreter for purchase of homestead cost the family’s entire savings and finally they had to live in a dug-out or cave. When winter came, it made everything even worse. The farm the family owned had little hope to yield anything because Mr. Shimerda knew nothing about farming. “The land was growing rougher; I was told that we were approaching Squaw Creek, which cut up the west half of the Shimerdas ' place and made the land of little value for farming”(Cather 20). He became growingly frustrated since this was not a life he would like his family to have. Only thing he could do was to hunt some rabbits to feed his family. He began missing his home country and talked less and less with his wife and children. In stead, he would rather to spend more time with his friends, Pavel and Peter. Later on, when Pavel died from his long battled illness and Peter left the town, Mr. Shimerda became so depressed that he stopped talking to people. Antonia noticed her father’s behavior, but could not do anything about it. She was the closest one to her dad in the family. She was so worried and she…
Mrs. Mallard and Miss Emily both had a time in their lives when they have lost their husbands and are now a widow. Miss Emily when her lover dies, and Mrs. Mallard when new reached her ear of her husband’s death. Mrs. Mallard had a strict husband, which when she heard that he had died she finally had time to open her eyes and see that she was free, but when he walks in the door… joy is not the first think that over takes her. To where Miss Emily had a strict father who never…
The novel begins as a foreword given by John Ray Jr. PHD, who explains about the events that will take place that will be talked about in psychiatric circles for a long time. He describes how he received the transcript from the lawyer of Humbert Humbert, the transcript’s author who died while awaiting trial. In the beginning of the story, Humbert describes his childhood at his father’s hotel. During this time, he met his first love Annabel, whose death left an imprint on Humbert. Humbert later describes his interests in young girls, whom he calls “nymphets.” In his first marriage, he weds with a girl named Valeria. Though he finds Valeria’s childlike nature attractive, he found her intelligence to be unattractive. However, this marriage didn’t…
It is particularly interesting to note how this novel engages readers in a serious discussion of the ways our parents can scar us. While Bruce Bechdel is shown to have an explosive temper and be prone to the occasional violent outburst, it is the distance he creates in the household that seems to cause the most harm: “It was a vicious circle, though. The more gratification we found in our own geniuses, the more isolated we grew…and in this isolation, our creativity took on an aspect of compulsion” (134). Bechdel then goes on to show the period of time in which her obsessive-compulsive disorder took hold of her as a sort of coping mechanism for all the tough things going on in her life. She made up things such as redressing and dressing in a certain order, or never using odd numbers. This is shown with incredible detail in her pictures.…
Bechdel used many allusions of the Odyssey as a security blanket. This security blanket helped procreate her memoir. Alison’s had finally come to her clear path and that was for her to have a sexual inversion in a heteronormative…
Alison Bechdel grew up with a father who was alternatingly distant and angry, an English teacher and director of the local funeral home (or “Fun Home”, as Alison and her siblings called it). Their relationship grew more and more complex until Alison was in college. Shortly after Alison had come out to her parents, she learned…
As Bernage arrives late one evening at the German household the man of the house allows him to stay the night, but with difficulty, due to his mistrust towards men being around his wife. During dinner, a beautiful woman joins the two men at the table. She is sombre and quiet, speaks to no one, and drinks from a human skull. The woman’s husband tells Bernage the story of how he caught her in bed with another man, killed her lover with his bare hands, hung…
The main focus in the story is the relationship between the main characters, Carl and Lily. The story takes place in Worland, where Carl is a reverend at the church. He is married and he has a daughter. The narrator explains that he thinks he married to soon. Carl has been attracted to Lily since he and his family moved to Worland, “in the year since Carl had come to Worland with his wife and daughter, he had not been able to stop thinking of Lily” (p. 1, l. 5-6). Lily is also married, but she feels passionately about Carl and they commence a secret relationship. They meet up in different remote hotels where they make love. The winter is coming and it is getting difficult for them to leave town and still keep their relationship secret, so they agree to stop their affair.…
