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Annie dillard's total eclipse summary
Annie dillard's total eclipse summary
Annie dillard's total eclipse summary
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“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness?” These words of John Steinbeck perfectly illustrate the necessity of contrast in the world to give meaning to one’s life. Just like Steinbeck, Annie Dillard uses specific contrasts to depict her world view before and after the total eclipse. In the beginning of Dillard’s essay, “Total Eclipse”, she described “sliding down the mountain pass” to get to her hotel in central Washington. As she observed her surroundings of the drive, she made the simile of being like “a diver in the rapture of the deep who plays on the bottom while his air runs out.”
The Deer at Providencia Interpretive Response In Annie Dillard’s story, The Deer at Providencia, the author recounts a shocking event during her trip to Ecuador along with a small moment back in her home. What do these two seemingly unconnected moments have in common? They both share the idea of suffering and pity, which are greatly reflected in the story’s message. That message being to not be surprised by the suffering that surrounds this world.
Have you ever read the most interesting, life-relatable, fiction book before? One of the most interesting book I’ve read is the Marigolds. The Marigolds is a fiction book by Eugenia Collier. The Marigolds is about a girl named Lizabeth as going through her adolescent years, she realizing the importance of the flowers.
Barbara Kingsolver is about how the society creates violence by exposing children to threatening events were the good guy will always win. In most movies, children watch a villain and a superhero who are fighting until one kills the other one with a weapon. She is explaining we could change the aspects that children have about protecting themselves by watching how they interact with others. If they act in the way of threatening, we would need to see why the child feels he/she feels unprotected whether it's from the parents or how society treats the kid has an outsider. Kingsolver point of writing the article about Columbine is to open our eyes to see how we treat others in different ways because someone may dress, act, look, etc differently than the rest of the community.
In Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild," the quote "The trip would be an odyssey in the fullest sense of the word, an epic journey that would change everything" refers to the protagonist Christopher McCandless' journey into the Alaskan wilderness. The quote is significant because it highlights the transformative nature of McCandless' journey and the impact it had on his life. The word "odyssey" has several meanings, most notably as a reference to Homer's epic poem, "The Odyssey," which chronicles the adventures of the hero Odysseus as he travels home from the Trojan War. Similarly, McCandless' journey into the Alaskan wilderness is an epic adventure, full of danger and discovery, as he tests his limits and explores the natural world.
Children are taught by their parents how to behave. Child poem author Shel Silverstein writes about children in several books and poems. In each poem she focuses on a different child setting and conflict. In one poem Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out, she tells the story of a little girl who lacks respect for her parents. Silverstein’s children’s book, Where the Sidewalk Ends is a shining example of the awful, unhealthy message she gives to children because it teaches disrespect, shows children behaving badly, and makes parents look like idiots.
When reading A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid many people are offended and wonder what her purpose for writing the essay exactly is. Analyzing this story from the Marxist, Post-Colonial and Psychological lenses helps one to understand and perceive the purpose of A Small Place. One can analyze A Small Place, by Jamaica Kincaid through many lenses such as the way people behave in a society, how colonialism shapes cultures and lastly how the author relates to the story. When looking at A Small Place through the Marxist lens there is a obvious unequal distribution of power in the Antiguan society.
What would it be like if you were always controlled by someone else? The Giver by Lois Lowry shows a unique boy Jonas, the protagonist, has become a receiver which is the most respected and significant job it his utopia. Although the community was founded on sameness the elders maintain them by power and order. Although order is for the prevention of chaos, it is used to control the society.
In Chapter 4, of The Better Angels of our Nature, Steven Pinker illustrates how ideas such as good sense and science have helped aid in the historical revolution that has led us to react to extreme violence and torture with horror. According to Pinker, the Humanitarian Revolution was “propelled by ideas, by explicit arguments that institutionalized violence ought to be minimized or abolished, and some of it was propelled by a change in sensibilities” (133). He claims that this period is where “people began to sympathize with more of their fellow humans”(133) and shifted from “valuing souls to valuing lives”(143). Pinker states that the Civilizing Process that precisely proceeded the Humanitarian Revolution was a time where a physical repulsion came about and credits “moral repulsion,” characterized
American author Suzanne Berne, in her essay Where Nothing Says Everything, describes her visit to Ground Zero, seven months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Berne writes this essay to show her audience that Ground Zero is empty and grave, a sharp contrast to the gruesome portrayals of the media. Berne uses vivid language, comparisons, and anaphoras to convey an intricate but simple image to her readers. Berne opens her account by vividly describing the condition of urban New York near Ground Zero. She expresses the situation by pointing out the “raw wind and spits of rain” that are making the day gloomy, and that “Germans, Italians, Japanese, … Norwegian[s], … [and] people from Ohio, California, and Maine” comprise the
Because of the graphic and horrifying descriptions of the deer tied to the tree, I initially thought that Dillard was trying to elicit sympathy or pity for the helpless animal. However, her emotionless reaction to the torture led me to believe otherwise. When the parallel was drawn between the deer’s torture and Alan McDonald’s similar torment, I began to question the intention of essay, unsure of whether her point was that the world is cruel and we must cope with it, or whether she was challenging the cruelty of the world. Toward the end of the essay she begs someone to, “please explain to Alan McDonald in his dignity, to the deer and Providencia in his dignity, what is going on? And mail [her] the carbon copy” (84).
In Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind, Gerald M. Edelman examines how the relation between consciousness and time lends itself to the formation and preservation of human memory. Edelman introduces the concept of "perceptual categorization" which speaks to the ability of the human mind to process sensory information and retain that knowledge, so that one may recover and apply it later. Perceptual categorization entails the process of forming conscious thoughts and decisions. As Edelman writes, "memory is the key element of consciousness" and two forms of forming and retaining memories emerge from perceptual categorization: primary and higher-order consciousness.
In Flannery O 'connor 's short story The Comforts Of Home the three main characters Sarah Ham (a.k.a. “Star Drake”), Thomas, and Thomas’ mother. All three of these characters are very diverse and none alike. One being a “little slut” who is addicted to alcohol, Sarah Ham, then Thomas who thinks very highly of himself, and Thomas’ mother, who of course is like a mother, cares most for the troubled one.[1] With then Thomas’ mother babying Sarah, Thomas feels like nothing to his mom.
Three Lovely People The story of The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein about an apple tree that gives her love freely to a boy. The boy was demanding and selfish. He requested the tree to give him what he wants. In return, the tree was always cheerful and patient, by giving everything she has to the boy without conditions.
“Reading for me was a refuge. I could escape from everything that was miserable in my life and I could be anyone I wanted to be in a story, through a character.” Said by Amy Tan, one of the best-known Chinese-American authors who was prominent in contemporary American literature field. Her first book, The Joy Luck Club, introduced the cultural value of China and America which was highly successful. It remained nine months on the Times Bestseller and was translated into more than seventeen languages.
