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Summary Of Ha Songnon's 'Waxen Wings'

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When people hear failing, the first thing they think of would be to give up. Ha Songnon’s “Waxen Wings” describes a narrator doing the complete opposite, it’s set in Korea, about a girl,nicknamed Birdie , that wants to fly but has to overcome some obstacles that come in the way of her fulfilling her dreams, because of that this story is a tragedy. The author uses second person POV and cause and effect structure to prove that even though people fail, that does not mean that they necessarily have to give up. “Waxen Wings” can be described as a tragedy. A literary tragedy is a series if misfortunate events that a character goes through that eventually end in a disaster or catastrophic events. A tragedy usually follows this sequence, (1) happy times (2) intro to a problem (3) the problem worsens (4) the character is unable to prevent the problem (5) a catastrophic event occurs. In “Waxen Wings” the narrator goes through many misfortunate events, like her getting kicked off the gymnastics team (172), losing her “boyfriend” (177). The readers are also introduced to a problem, which is that she wants to fly (165). Eventually all of these events lead to catastrophic event, which was her hang …show more content…

The cause in the story is that Birdie wants to fly , this brings out many effects or outcomes. One of the effects would be when she injures herself on the balance beam, she flaps her arms to signify the wings on a bird. Another effect of her wanting to fly would be her hand gliding accident, the hand glider signifies wings. Songnan writes , “A wide crag looms up, you let go of the bar, and you cover your face with your hands” (Songnan 179), during this part in “Waxen Wings” Birdie is participating in her first hand gliding event. The quote shows Birdie’s wants to fly kind of brews up incidents that hurt her. An accident like this did not phase Birdie because she still tried to fly after she lost one of her

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