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The novel River Of Earth by James Still is a story about life in e Appalachia just before The Great Depression. The story provides a very clear description of the problems and challenges the mountain people faced after the settlement of their land. Even though the novel is shadowed by other writings of the time period dealing with poor southern life, it is still considered a great neglected masterpiece.…
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In the sixty-fourth paragraph in Tim O'Brien's "On the Rainy River" chapter, the author uses some rhetorical devices such as repetition, fragments, and an allusion to help make his argument more effective. He uses repetition of words like "a crushing sorrow, sorrow like I had never known it before." to show how distressed he was over the fact that his dream to run away to Canada will never come true. Another repetition of words was when he was describing his childhood he kept saying how "I saw a seven-year-old boy... a pair of holstered six-shooters; I saw a twelve-year-old Little League; I saw a sixteen-year-old kid...” (O’Brien). The fact that he is picturing some of his memoires shows that he is wondering if moving to Canada is worth leaving…
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High above the broad valley of the Mississippi reposes an expansive and indestructible mansion. The view it possesses is extraordinary. In autumn the valley blazes with gilded trees, swept with scarlet. The winter’s display is scarcely less lovely, for the valley’s forest is wrapped in the finest lace, while in the spring and summer, it alive with song. Along the brim of the valley lies Summit Avenue, lined with a collection of the stateliest homes in the Mid-west. But the grandest of them all is the wide, Romanesque style mansion. The owner of this manor was an “Empire Builder” of the American sort; James J. Hill, Emperor of the northern railroads.…
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The speaker of the poem describes the rivers to be ancient and then he identifies himself with the rivers saying that [his] “soul has grown deep like the rivers”. He then enumerates different rivers (Nile, Euphrates and Mississippi) and places with historical implications: Congo and New Orleans. The latter appears in the same line with Lincoln, which clearly alludes to emancipation of the slaves. The poem ends with the repetition of the line “my soul has grown deep like the rivers”, which emphasizes the significance of identifying his soul with the rivers, establishing some similarities which we will examine…
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As the passage continues his view of it changes. His perspective of nature becomes a more informed one and he realizes that the beauty of nature does not help him in any way but it actually distracts him. The passage says, “All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat.” He states how he began to cease noting the river’s glory and beauty altogether because it is useless when piloting a steamboat.…
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I think the point to this story is how we observe things by our eyes and feelings. Mark Twain was observing the river and to him he was a like reading the river like reading a book.…
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1. What sources of power do the key players have? What types of power do they have? What influencing tactics are used?…
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In Crossing the Swamp, poet Mary Oliver illustrates her effective work of poetry. A vibrant relationship with a swamp changes from argumentative to victorious. By creating a scene that every reader can relate to, Oliver develops a connection between a deep swamp and life. Through diction, imagery and metaphor, Oliver forms a spectacular idea of life and the difficulties of making it through the swamp.…
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Another reason that people like Paul Schneider would like to take a journey on the Mississippi River is because of its rich history. As stated by Paul, “We put in a few miles south of St. Louis but we didn’t know precisely how far we were going to go down the Father of Water”. Paul refers to the Mississippi River as the “Father of Rivers”. The Mississippi River is the largest river in the United States, the three greatest tributaries are the Missouri, the Upper Mississippi and the Ohio River. These three rivers make up the Mississippi and support the civilizations built beside the coast. One of such civilizations is the Mississippian Culture. As Paul states, the Mississippian Culture is a city of mounds built a thousand years ago. The Mississippi…
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Debra Marquart uses a change of tone from the beginning of the passage to its end in order to juxtapose the two contradictory perspectives of the Midwest. Marquart clearly shows this variation through the dull and colorless diction in the beginning of the essay, which then transitions to a hopeful and suspenseful use of diction. For instance, she illustrates the drab background of the Midwest as she states, “...you’ll encounter a road so lonely, treeless, and devoid of rises and curves in places that it will feel like one long-held pedal steel guitar note”, which is then juxtaposed to the description in the last paragraph where she exclaims, “They traveled to the Midwest by train to what was then the end of the line—Eureka, South Dakota. Eureka—from the reported to have been the word that Archimedes cried when he found a way to test the purity of Hiero’s crown. My grandparents wouldn’t have known the etymology of the word, but they would have felt it, the anticipation...” Marquart’s change in tone from an illustration of the Midwest as drab and boring to a hopeful and bright description with the use of the words, like “purity” and “anticipation” as well as the historical allusion to Archimedes, drives her argument by helping her to further differentiate the common or “typical” views associated with the Midwest and its undiscovered value and beauty. It is through this progression from one tone to another that the author is able to distinctly show the readers that despite the preconceived judgments held against the Midwest, in reality, the views regarding the Midwest are not single-sided; rather they vary like…
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Throughout "Crossing the Swamp," a poem by Mary Oliver, many poetic devices and figurative languages are depicted. By using these devices, Mary Oliver is able to develop the relationship between the speaker and the swamp.…
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The river plays an essential role in the novel, Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse. The river fundamentally represents life and the path to enlightenment. At the beginning of the novel, the river is portrayed as a cleansing agent where Siddhartha and his father perform ablutions to cleanse themselves of guilt and spiritual impurity. By performing these ablutions, Siddhartha’s father attempts to reach spiritual enlightenment. Moreover, the Brahmin’s continuous acts of ablution indicate to Siddhartha that his father is not on the correct path to spiritual illumination. As a result, Siddhartha becomes an ascetic in hopes of finding the true path.…
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He describes, “a mountain stream [that] was now foaming down it, leaping from rock to rock, and filling the glen with babbling murmurs” (Irving, “Rip Van Winkle, 19). Irving personifies the stream as a child in this instance, describing the stream to have human qualities that are typical of young children. In addition, he uses the sensory details of hearing to allow the reader to feel as if they were in the setting. Because a river cannot jump between rocks, or speak like a human, the element of personification allows the author to use the connection between the two to make a happy mood. Based upon the positive connotation associated with children, readers look favorably and warmly upon the small stream. Another variation of this in Irving’s writing is shown in his story, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, the author describes a “spring of the softest and sweetest water, in a little well formed of a barrel… [That] then stole sparkling away through the grass, to a neighboring brook, that babbled along among the Alders and Dwarf willows” (Irving, 1). In addition to being an example of figurative language, Irving uses small instances of…
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Twain's main point in Two Ways of Seeing a River is to express to the readers that there is more than one way of looking at something. He starts off by directing the reader's attention to the beautiful Mississippi River and gives the readers a vibrant outlook on it. Twain uses compare and contrast to describe the same thing in two completely different ways. First, he uses many detailed examples to paint a perfect picture in the reader's head of the beautiful river. For example, the “opal tinted, tumbling rings.. sparkling upon the water” (Twain. 494)and the densely wooded forest that ran across the horizon of the exquisite sunset. The details he chooses to use really helps put together that mental picture of his own experiences. As he does…
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Actually, the rivers of Bangladesh mark both the psychology of the nation and the life of the people. But, unfortunately, our memories of rivers are declining day by day. In this age of commercialisation we do not have enough time to pass a moment with rivers. Many of us struggle to recall our last memory of a river. The condition of most of the rivers is also very bad now. If we look back we will find that the state of our rivers has been worsening since we became callous regarding their condition.…
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