Jim Simmerman, the writer of “Child’s Grave, Hale County, Alabama,” was born on March 5, 1952 in Bolder, Colorado. Simmerman spent the most of his childhood traveling since his father was in the military. In 1978, he became an instructor at Northern Arizona University. He then left to earn a master’s degree at the University of Iowa, but he came back to continue his previous job. On June 29, 2009, Simmerman killed himself because of a debilitating illness he had (Bruner para.
Maybe he got into a fight so serious and he is murdered, nobody knows. However, the sight of this carcass or the possible imagination of what happened to him left one honest impression or virtue in the life of the narrator. The narrator begins to realize how imprudent and irresponsible he is. At one point he contemplates suicide, but realizes “the dead man is the only person on the planet worse off than I was,” he said (Boyle, 693). The narrator’s experience tonight proves that his careless actions will place him in a position that will likely end up destroying him.
In “Contents of a Dead Man’s Pocket,” Tom Benecke, spent many hours working. He obsesses with gaining a promotion, and risks his life trying to receive his paper with all his work data. When Tom realizes he could die, he thinks about his wasted life and how he put his work before his marriage. “He
One evening, Tom Benecke the man who misplaced his priorities, decided to stay home and work while his wife went to the movies. As he walked back, from seeing her out the door, his most precious sheet of paper flew out the window. Fretfully, Benecke crawled out the window, handing off an eleven-story building to fetch the paper. Did he make it back in one piece? Did he plunge to his death?
Although, it is because of his near death experience that he noticed he his job had made him delusional to what really matters. The external conflict of fighting harsh and dangerous conditions on a narrow ledge leads him to rethink how he spent his life, “he would then, abruptly, have had. Nothing“ (). Now, not only is he struggling with the thought of poorly balancing his work and personal life, but he has to stay calm in order to remain on the ledge. This is significant because it proves that sometimes people get caught up on what seems important at the time.
The novel Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck is a gripping tale of two men and their lives during the Great Depression. George Milton and Lennie Small are two migrant workers who travel together finding work. They take on a new job “bucking barley” at a ranch in central California for the ranch owner and his son. While working at the ranch they encounter Curley the ranch owner’s son and his wife, a flirtatious woman. The story reaches a climax when Lennie unintentionally kills Curley’s wife and runs back to the Salinas River just as George instructed.
Can life’s events cause us to change our priorities? According to Merriam Webster, priority is defined as something that is more important than other things and that needs to be done or dealt with first. Life’s events definitely can change the priorities of people. People prioritize based on what is important to him/her, and life’s events can cause a person’s view of importance to change.
Being clear-headed is a trait that will help in any type of survival situation. Making the correct decisions will help you survive, so being calm and clear-headed allows you to make the right choice and keep you from panicking. In the article “Lost In Death Valley” by Kristin Lewis, three women went on a vacation trip through Death Valley when suddenly their car stopped. They didn’t panic but instead went on foot to look for resources. “...Discovered something incredible: three trailers and a small covered porch...
Fathers are some of the most influential people there will ever be; they teach you some of the basic rules of life, they show you how to act, they lead you when you don’t know what to do. But what happens when you grow up without a father? In The Odyssey, written by Homer, we follow the story of a man who, on the day of his son’s birth, was forced to go to war. Odysseus was gone for a painstakingly long 20 years, and during that time, Telemachus grew up watching his mother struggle. As the queen of Ithaca, Penelope had many suitors fighting for her hand: the king was gone and they took control.
Have you ever wonder what your life will be like when you have a chance to live in a different country other than you motherland? There are many challenges and obstacles people usually face when they start their new life in a new country. Moreover, people can totally change their life in different way due to their change in cultural environmental. The same situation has been demonstrated in the novel “The Gangster We Are All Looking For” by Le Thi Thuy Diem, an immigrant from Vietnam who left their motherland for freedom and new life. The novel “The Gangster We Are All Looking For” is a narrative fiction novel in which it describes the important of cultural differences, consequences of war and the maturity of the author.
The most important legacy left behind by the imperial powers was the lack of freedom or independence of the Indigenous people. The Indians, according to Dadabhai, were not necessarily oppressed, however their wants and needs were never considered. The freedom of being able to think and supply for themselves were taken away from the Indians and replaced with an extreme dependency on the British. This restricted the Indians to the point that they could only relieved as far as the British loans would allow, which is not much. As for the Tibet people, they faced extreme genocide with the survival of their people at extreme risk.
Amy Hempel Amy Hempel is an American short story author who was born on December 14th, 1951 in Chicago. She spent most of her early childhood in Chicago as well as Denver before moving to San Francisco at the age of sixteen (Fields, 127). Hempel seems to be heavily influenced by her time spent in California because many of her early stories take place within the state; however, she eventually settled in New York where she attended Columbia University. Hempel’s parents were both knowledgeable and well-read individuals. Gardiner Hempel, an executive in the field of information-handling systems, and Gloria Hempel, the director of an art museum both encouraged their daughter to read many books, and had a vast collection of novels and stories in
In T. Coraghessan Boyle’s short story “The Hit Man”, underlying psychoanalytical themes are present that display an allusion to struggles in human life. The main themes present in this story are dysfunctional behavior, displacement, and an insecure sense of self. Readers see the main character, The Hit Man, go through his entire life struggling with insecurity and other dysfunctional behavior. During this timeline, his dysfunctional behavior represents common struggles and conflicts that occur in common day-to-day life. Relationships with his parents and classmates and also academic struggles seems to be the main contribution to the way this character is represented.
In Quindlens article the issue, she states is that American children are so overschedule to where they don’t have any free time. She states that parents are so concerned with extracurricular actives for their children that they don’t realize that they are overworking their child. She believes that children should be allowed free time, so they can process
The screen time of your children might be scaring and frustrating you, but if this is the case of a good parenting you can convert this annoying screen time into a positive one. Although the digital devices might consist of many dangers or risks in the present era but on
