Symbolism In the novel, Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, she uses a lot of symbolism. One example of this is the recurring importance of rain. The novel is set in the Great Depression, which plays a large role in how her life is played out throughout. Billie Jo’s father is a white wheat farmer, struggling due to the lack of rain for his crops.
The Dead I Know is a realistic fiction novel written by Scot Gardner. It tells a story from the perspective of Aaron Rowe, a teenager who dropped out of school to find himself at a new job; training to be a funeral director. I think the point of view has a very important role in the story for many reasons. Aaron has recurring nightmares that are vividly described, and these nightmares are a major plot line. Aaron is also very quiet and reserved, so knowing what he is thinking throughout the book is essential to understanding the storyline.
When people see and experience death, they lose a part of themselves and the experience forever changes a person. Death is all around and people experience it every day, especially during war. Soldiers are constantly surrounded by death and experience more trauma than an average person does. In the book The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien demonstrates how the horrific experiences of war cause people to lose their composure and act against their preexisting morality. Death is a constant at war, especially in Vietnam.
Experiencing death affects your mental state vastly, and with this mental alteration, your physical and imaginary world falls behind it. In Tim O’Brien's The Things They Carried, there is a lot of death, including his first love and an old Vietnamese man. These deaths caused many different emotions for O’Brien, including vivid dreams and an almost dead but alive state. O’Brien experiences a lot of death, and this death caused him to almost hallucinate and have very vivid dreams. After O’Brien sees Linda dead, he tells us about how he would dream about Linda, and he starts to think about Linda when she was alive.
In “The Dead” by James Joyce, Gabriel Conroy, the main character of the novella, is the epiphanic revelation of love. While attending the fancy Christmas party which is a tradition of the upper class, Gabriel realizes the shallowness of his love for his wife—Gretta. Joyce utilizes abstract and concrete diction, abstruse symbolism, and profound epiphany to illustrate Gabriel's relation with the dead and understanding of his own soul and identity. To begin with, Joyce uses several kinds of diction to depict the troublesome relationship between Gabriel and Gretta. First, using abstract diction helps the author show the internal thoughts of Gabriel.
The Lake by Ray Bradbury is a short story that explores grief and loss through the point of view of Harold. Harold, the main protagonist of the story, reflects on his childhood experience at a lake with a close friend who had since passed. Grief plays a large role in this story and is developed using many different literary terms and devices. I will analyze how the theme of grief in this story is developed through terms such as sadness, closure, acceptance, and life and death.
There are many ways people cope with the loss of someone. Some people go through the 5 stages of grief and others try to embrace the sad loss of someone and see good come out of it. Tim O’Brien wrote “The Lives of The Dead” in order to preserve the memories of the dead by telling the stories of their lives. When O’Brien brings up specific people there is a story behind it because this is his way of coping with the loss of them. For example, throughout the whole story he was in Vietnam.
The Vietnam conflict veteran and renowned author Tim O'Brien has created a lasting legacy via his in-depth studies of conflict, memories, and the toll war can take on a person. The classic novels "The Lives of the Dead" and "The Things They Carried" are two examples of O'Brien's excellent storytelling and his skill at fusing historical accounts with personal accounts. This article will study these works using the historical literary critical method, looking at how O'Brien's personal experiences in the Vietnam War and the socio-political climate of the day impacted his depictions of war, memory, and the toll war takes on people. Investigating O'Brien's personal history and his experiences in the Vietnam War are crucial for comprehending the
Gabriel’s epiphany happens toward the end of “The Dead” in which he thinks about the fullness and the belief of death. Gabriel started to feel for his wife because he knew what she once had was love and he has never had that. “Generous tears filled Gabriel’s eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman but he knew that such feeling must be love” (Joyce 224). He has an epiphany in which reflects the actions he did and starts to change his belief he has upon himself, “He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence.
This describes that Ligeia’s husband sits next to his dead wife Rowena that he can not help but only think of his beloved Ligeia. His shadow self gives him an idea that even after death, Ligeia can conquer her deathbed. Rowena’s dead body is the narrator’s own desires of perceiving Ligeia by means of his shadow
Many people believe that the story should have one narrator, which will provide readers with only one perspective on the text. However, actually it is a wrong point of view. Many novels and short stories have more than one retheror. The famous author Sue William Silverman writes on this topic in her article, which describes different diverse forms of nonfiction, saying that every memoir should have “at least two "voices" to tell the story, to explore the depth of events” (4). Two voice perspective helps the author to show every aspect of the story with more emotion and detail.
After World War Two, the United States of America and the Soviet Union found themselves at the top of the table of countries as being the two strongest countries in terms of money, resources and in an overall general sense. They were called Superpowers. Due to both of them competing for the top position they had different conflicting ideas about economics and the governing of a country. This resulted in them fighting a war that made use of idea instead of actual artillery, machinery and large scale fighting which is why it was called the Cold War. Although they didn’t physically fight each other they participated frequently in "proxy wars" by supporting allied nations in numerous "hot" wars in places like Korean, Vietnam and Angola.
The plethora of characters within Gabriel García Márquez’s novel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, all develop the commentary of deciding who can or cannot be blamed for the murder of the youthful aristocrat, Santiago Nasar. The family’s housemaids, Victoria Guzmán and Divina Flor, are faultless for Santiago’s death, since he himself victimized others. The seemingly impeccable reputation of the promiscuous young Nasar boasted hints of unjust behavior, primarily when it came to treatment of help, reminiscent to that of his father. The plot of the novel existed in a time when women had more limitations than men, so Santiago’s actions were not obscure.
Clare Wald is an accomplished South African novelist who has been through many challenges in her lifetime and has made many mistakes which she regrets. Because of this she is tormented by grief, guilt and emotional pain and has a deep need for absolution from the people who she feels she has wronged. These people include her son, her sister, her daughter, and Sam and although she realizes she will not have the chance to ask them all directly for forgiveness we still see her persist in her attempts, this shows us how desperate she is. By confessing to what she has done wrong and showing deep remorse for her actions, Clare hopes that she can start to feel healed and mend her somewhat ‘haunted’ conscience.
"The Dead" outlines a few themes about the Irish culture, especially in comparison to the Western culture. "The Dead" implies that Western influences were external to Ireland and Ireland refused to give up its past and pride and is especially is portrayed through characters like Gabriel and Gretta. However, Joyce uses symbolism throughout his story to highlight dichotomous themes of Ireland's loss of cultural influence and cultural independence. Joyce uses music in order to symbolize a state of cultural paralysis which resulted from the oppression at the hands of the Western culture. The best way that Joyce describes the difference between the Irish culture, its inflexibility and inability to engage with other cultures is through the relationship
