ipl-logo

Life After High School Analysis

1226 Words5 Pages

he Lady with the pet Dog, and Life after High School by Joyce Oates both demonstrate satisfactions and frustrations of romantic relationships and dramatizes unhealthy and healthy forms of love in different ways. The similarities between the two stories is greater than the differences when it comes to romantic love, the unhealthy relationship between characters, and the plot’s structure. Joyce Carol Oates’, The Lady With The Pet Dog and Life After High School, both stories have similarities in their characters. They revolve around three main characters and are told in a third person point of view. Life After High School doesn’t uncover any of the characters true feelings or thoughts, and in The Lady With The Pet Dog, the story is limited omniscient, and uncovers Anna’s emotional isolation, depression and desire to find fulfillment in a relationship with a man. The Lady With The Pet Dog’s characters are Anna, her lover, and her husband. Just as in Life After High School there are three main characters; Sunny, Zachary, and Tobias. In The Lady With the Pet Dog, Anna, can’t find fulfilment in her marriage, and only finds pleasure in being with her lover even though her affair also brings thoughts of suicide and feelings of shame and guilt. Zachary can 't find fulfilment in his life and so commits suicide. …show more content…

Joyce Carol Oates vividly explains adolescent and adult life and its traumas. The structure of Life After High School is common, a nerdy teenage boy tries to win the love of a popular cheerleader. Only the story has an unexpected twist, The nerdy boy is homosexual and kills himself for not being able to conform to society’s expectations. Just as The Lady With The Pet Dog’s plot is also common, but not as common as the Life After High School plot. The unexpected twist is the fact that Anna doesn’t commit suicide even though it is more expected from her. The story covers the major phases of Annas adulterous affair with a married man. The chronology of events in The Lady With The Pet Dog is in three sections that overlap and tie up to the present events. The beginning challenges the reader to discern who the characters are and their relationships. The beginning in Life After High School begins with Zachary calling Sunnys name, completely different from how Anna nearly faints when she spots her lover but similar in the sense that they encounter their lovers. The unchronological structure in both stories creates a sense of confusion in the characters relationship with other characters. The structure of the stories reflect the characters state of mind. Zachary desired a traditional relationship with an ideal girl as a way to

Show More
Related
404 Words | 2 Pages

The narrator is portrayed as a young, upper-middle-class woman, newly married and a mother, who is undergoing care for depression. Jennie is portrayed as a regular housewife who happily assumes all the traditional duties of a housewife. Mary is portrayed as a regular nanny hired to take care of a child. Mary takes care of the narrator and John's baby. This story is about control and attacks the role of women in society.

Read More
260 Words | 2 Pages

Jillan Wine’s short story “Jillian Giggs, a Teenage Perspective” portrays the positive effects that adversity has on the human spirit. The protagonist, Jillian Giggs, encounters several problems throughout her first year in grade 7, including her parents divorce, failing an important math test and her best friend moving to New York. When Jillian first learns of her parents’ divorce, she becomes depressed. This obstacle seems too difficult for her to overcome. She does, however, after speaking to her high school guidance counsellor eventually come to terms with her father and mother’s severed relationship

Read More
457 Words | 2 Pages

The memoir can be relatable to young adults, as young adults face many challenges growing up. Young adults face a plethora of issues and to know that they’re not alone , and somebody else faced the same problems or even worse problems ,may help the youth find this memoir relatable. The entire memoir is about Jeannette struggling of her irrational family. Jeanette family never stayed in one place and when they did the conditions were poor. Jeannette mentioned “Instead of beds, we kids each slept on a cardboard box, like the ones refrigerator get delivered in”.

Read More
794 Words | 4 Pages

In order to fully understand the story it must be evaluated to show what lesson is to be learned from the reading. The story has an epiphany implemented into the writing which gives a new realization in the importance of this part. A major evaluation to this short story is to fully understand the main characters in it. One significant character in this story is Louise.

Read More
1115 Words | 5 Pages

With “Puppy” two ladies have different perspectives on how to raise their children. Saunders delivers one informative scene from each woman’s life before permitting the women to engage. As with, “Sonny’s Blues” the narrator and Sonny go through hardships after the death of their mother. “Puppy” by George Saunders and “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin switches between two perspectives of the characters. Marie and the narrator in both of the stories essentially feel that it is not worth the trouble to help out the other two characters.

Read More
1494 Words | 6 Pages

“Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story” is the tale of a young, handsome man who has an affair with, and ends up falling for, “the homeliest woman he has ever seen” but refuses to admit to others and himself that he loves her. The story seems to fit in any day and age, as well as any setting. From the moment we read the title, we know that the story is the tale of a dysfunctional romantic relationship, and the ensuing story does not disappoint. The main character, who is also the narrator, takes us on a journey to ten years prior, when he became involved with a woman named Sarah Cole. It is through the interchanging of first person and third person narration that we realize the reason behind Ron and Sarah’s failed relationship: vanity, shame, and insecurity.

Read More
149 Words | 1 Pages

Savannah Blietz Ms.Fordyce English P.2 21 September 2015 Is College worth the struggle? In this society that students live in the only way that they think they know how to tell people’s intelligence is by going to college. By not going to college the students think that they have more of an opportunity to explore the world then other people in college,but some disagree with this opinion and some agree that the source of all opportunity is the person and not their educational level. The educational level for language, math, and science has the student’s country ranked at the bottom because the people in the United States don’t take college seriously, it affects us as a country.

Read More
748 Words | 3 Pages

With that she uses the theme to be betrayal, repentance and forgiveness. Hurston makes it more suspenseful with the lightheartedness kind of tone. The story starts off loving and turns a bit sour. In the beginning, Missie May and Joe were laughing, playing, and loving. Joe brought home some candy kisses for May and many more gifts to express his love for her.

Read More
180 Words | 1 Pages

The Early College High School (ECHS) model is an innovative concept that allows a predominantly low-income, first-generation minority student population obtain a high school diploma, an associate’s degree, and a baccalaureate degree in six years. The blending of instructional approaches of a traditional high school with those of a two-year college enables ECHS students to reduce the time it takes to earn a baccalaureate degree by two years. As a result, graduates of this model obtain a high school diploma and associate 's degree in four years. The associate degree credits (about 60 hours) are then transferred to a four-year university, where the ECHS student is automatically considered a junior in college, and is able to graduate with a baccalaureate

Read More
2215 Words | 9 Pages

Connie thinks she can handle the responsibility of adulthood but in the end finds out she is not ready. Unfortunately by then it’s too late. This harsh reality of no longer being able to find safety in the comfort of her youthful innocence leaves her forever changed. The story illustrates

Read More
1399 Words | 6 Pages

That also made her become more vulnerable to the real dangers and the evilness that exists in the world. That danger was represented by an old man who pretends to be an eighteen year old boy that seduced and kidnaped Connie. The end of the story Joyce Carol Oates leaves it open to the readers, because that way it makes the reader think of what might have happened, whether she got raped or whether she is killed, after the main character leaves with the antagonist of the story. Oates shows that ignorance, narcissism and the lack of

Read More
629 Words | 3 Pages

Revision of “On Turning Ten” Essay Growing up and living in the adult world requires responsibility, knowledge, and independence. A poem by Billy Collins, “On Turning Ten,” describes a young child as he attempts to grasp the concept of growing up and facing the harsh reality of adult life. The narrator uses a melancholy tone to argue that adult life is challenging, and the best way to cope with these challenges is to reminisce about young childhood memories. The young narrator is convinced that adult life will not be much fun.

Read More
1014 Words | 5 Pages

Author Harlan Coben once said, “Adolescence is always a war; no one gets out unscathed”. There are many attributes shared amongst teens, and in the story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates, the protagonist, Connie is the embodiment of the typical teenage girl. Oates depicts Connie in such a way by the use of Connie’s appearance and actions, as well as her relationships, and budding sexuality. One key element that characterizes Connie as an average teen is her appearance and actions.

Read More
288 Words | 2 Pages

This sets the sitting for the story, and she also mentions the characters to begin it: “They were a couple.” She continues to describe the couple. The use of alliteration, “self-satisfied face,” highlights his personality a bit. Someone with that kind of appearance can be seen as cocky or confident. She states, “the woman was fadingly

Read More
700 Words | 3 Pages

In the coming of age story “Where Are You Going Where Have You Been?” Joyce Carol Oates uses symbolism, conflict, and the third person to foreshadow fifteen-year-old Connie’s unfortunate, yet untimely fate. While one may think that the conflict stems from Connie’s promiscuity, it is clear to see her promiscuity is only a result to a much bigger conflict, her mother’s constant nagging and disapproval, alongside the lack of attention from her father. the author paints a vivid picture of what happens when a fifteen-year-old girl such as Connie goes elsewhere to find to find the love, attention, and approval that she lacks at home. All which is vital for her growth and wellbeing as a person.

Read More

More about Life After High School Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document