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Opportunity in america
Opportunity in america
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In the persuasive letter to his wife, John Downe uses several rhetorical devices such as diction, hyperbole, and juxtaposition as well as several tones to convince her to emigrate to the United States. In the first paragraph, Downe uses diction and an inviting tone using words like ¨welcome¨ in order to describe what life in America is like. Downe uses long sentences to list examples of specific inexpensive items. He conveys America as a land bountiful in opportunity using the hyperbole
For example, when discussing men, like Long, who had visited the region, she states that they declared it unimpressive and “a dreary plan, wholly unfit for cultivation.” Here, she sets up the views of harsh critics of the region for comparison with her own feelings for the region itself. Marquet goes on to introduce a story about her grandparents, who felt “anticipation” when waiting to receive their land. By comparing the uncomplimentary aspects of the land judged by surveyors with her grandparents feeling of anticipation, she shows the reader how the land represented a new beginning for many Americans who disregarded the criticism of earlier assessors. She once again portrays her respect for the people of the upper Midwest by clowning their ability to cultivate a previously labeled “unimpressive”
A twelve year old boy a world away from his parents once wrote in a letter to his parents: “And I have nothing to comfort me, nor is there nothing to be gotten here but sickness and death.” This child was Richard Frethorne, and in “Letter to Father and Mother,” he communicates his desperation caused by the new world’s merciless environment to his parents to persuade them to send food and pay off his accumulated debts from the journey. He accomplishes this with deliberate word choice and allusions to the bible to appeal to ethos, pathos, and logos. Frethorne uses diction, imagery, and facts to create a letter to his parents which aims to garner sympathy for his state of life and to persuade them to send food and pay off his debts.
“As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea... And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running.” book one chapter two. Even after Jim grows up, he still retains the childlike wonder of the land around him. The amount of admiration that Jim holds for the land reflects on his innocence as a child.
There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries were made”. While Jim describes the plains as nothingness, the narrator of A Wagner Matinée (Clark) compares his own modern town to the “inconceivable silence of the plains” and how the land he knew was “the flat world of the ancients…more merciless than those of war” (paragraph 12).
Within Ellis Island by Joseph Bruchac, On Being Brought from Africa to America by Phillis Wheatley, and Europe and America by David Ignatow there are different views of what the American Dream is and what it means to immigrants. Each author writes about their own experience of immigration and life in America, which shapes their view of the American dream. The common theme between the three poems is the variable nature of the American dream and how it has different meanings for each person coinciding with contradictions between leisure and suffering.
Literary Analysis: Exploring American Identity Introduction This essay compares “In response to executive order 9066” (poem) by Dwight Okita to “Mericans” (short story) by Sandra Cisneros. Specifically, the essay explores the central theme of American identity in the two literary works. The “Mericans” is about a little girl who has a story about the new world and the old world. In this case, the new world is America.
Through imagery, symbolism, and diction, the two passages collectively offer a pessimistic critique on opportunity in America: although the American dream can certainly reinvent one’s future, the dream cannot alter one’s past,
Intercalary Chapter Literary Analysis During the Great Depression, the nation as a whole was stripped of financial security and forced into a survivalist way of living. This changed the ways that people interacted with one another and the overall mentality of society. In the Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family is torn from their land and find themselves with nothing, a common story for migrant farmers of that time, derogatorily called “Okies” by Californians. But this is not the only group that is struggling, the entire county was in a state of panic and bruteness, no matter how “well off” they seemed to be.
A place where anything was possible, and anyone could obtain vast amounts of wealth. These sentiments were even shown by Jurgis, “If one could only manage to get the price of passage, he could count his troubles at an end” (25). But, after he had arrived in the country and had partaken in the “dream” he had heard of, he saw trough what hid behind the romanticized outer veil of the American dream. He witnessed the lies the dream had told about the living conditions, the working conditions, and politicians in the supposed utopia that was America. All of which were just as repugnant and fake as the “De-vyled ham”
The beginning of the poem implies the land, mines, office towers, and factories belong to the rich, but the end of the poem implies all these things belong to the American people as a whole. The most obvious display of repetition is at the beginning and end of the poem. In the beginning of the poem, it says, “That the land might be ours, And the mines and factories and the office towers” (Lines 14 and 15). It goes on to say “That the plants and the roads and the tools of power be ours” (Line 17). The second example of this repetition is at the end of the poem, “Takes land, Takes factories, Takes office towers, Takes tools and banks and mines” (Lines 58-61).
In the first chapter, “A Fable for Tomorrow” Rachel Carson tells a short story about a beautiful town in America. “There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings...” (Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 798.) Carson goes on to talk about the beauty that was in America when the settlers first built their homes and families. From the numerous birds to the crystal rivers filled with fish, the beautiful scene aids the audience to visualize what America looked like before contamination.
In the 1800’s, America was the subject of many romantic visions and musings. The British and East Coasters alike saw everything west of Appalachia as a wild wonderland: home to cowboys, adventure, and opportunity. Oscar Wilde, a renowned British author and satirist, voyaged across America to test the truth of these claims. Afterwards, he published his findings and opinions in a piece known as Impressions of America. In the piece, he makes it clear that America did not live up to his expectations, and would disappoint his readers as well.
The use of the words “fresh” and “green” create the image of a bountiful land, a new frontier to be explored. This new world represents a land of opportunity and possibility for the settlers. Fitzgerald uses this positive description to show the basis of the American dream; where it originated and what it once meant. He portrays America as an old island
The second speaker also reshapes the first two lines of the entire poem into a plea to the majority. Beforehand, the first speaker uses those lines as a call for the old American spirit to be revived: “Let America be America again / Let it be the dream it used to be” (1-2). Both speakers change the meaning of the lines to express their thoughts on America. As a result, the poem expresses the desire for everyone to be treated equally in the land of freedom. The readers can relate to the speaker because they wish that everyone has equal rights in the country that proclaims itself to be the symbol of freedom.