We didn’t start the fire by Billy Joel is a famous American song about what was happening in America and around the world from the forties to the nineties. He starts with the forties talking about Harry Truman and red China, then in the fifties with Richard Nixon who was a big part of the fifties, North Korea, Eisenhower, Elvis Presley, Alabama and the Montgomery bus boycott, Little Rock. Then the sixties with Bob Dylan, the Berlin wall, Malcolm X, JFK blown away when the president was assassinated, Moonshot, with apollo 11 being the first lunar landing. The seventies with the watergate scandal, and Ronald Reagan wins his second presidency. The eighties were about the Homeless vets and AIDS which was making its way on becoming a pandemic.
Symbolism is something that is used very much in literature. Authors use this literary element to tell stories within the story. Motifs are a reoccurring element that has any sort of symbolic significance in a story. A theme in a story is a central concept of the story. Bernard Malamud used all three in his writings.
The realistic fiction novel, Tangerine by Edward Bloor, is about a visually impaired kid, his dysfunctional family and their dark secrets. IN the Novel, after Paul became impaired -- from Erik (his brother) and Vincent Castor (his goon) spray-painting his eyes -- he traded his literal sight for figurative sight. And Now with motif of sight, Paul Better understands his friends, his family and himself. Since Paul doesn’t have the best of sight, he mainly relies on the motif of sight, which helps him understand his friends. After Mike Costello’s death, Joey and ON the day of his transfer to Tangerine, Paul sees Joey in a new way.
In a book “Among the Hidden” by Margaret Peterson Haddix, symbolism is used to create a powerful feeling with a place or thing. For example, Luke (the main protagonist) was "... always safe and protected by the house and the barn and the woods. Until they took the woods away." (pg. 11) The woods were Luke’s playground where he didn’t have to worry about being seen, his only safeguard and protection from the Population Police.
Some times we just want to start over again and the song perfectly portrays that. Also it saids “… screams but no one hears a thing” Guy Montag was trying to tell his wife about books but as much as he tried she wouldn 't listen to him like the song. In the story theres a lot of conflict that had happen but like the song saids that after a hurricane theres a rainbow. When all the bad stuff that is happening in his life its like the hurricane and the rainbow can be when he found the hobos that weren 't just hobos. Set fire to the rain by Adele expresses the feelings that Guy Montag could have been feeling.
Melinda is a Freshman in high school, and she doesn’t speak throughout the whole entire year, because of an issue she faced during the summer. Laurie Halse-Anderson tells a lot in her book Speak about how many important issues young people face every day. In this essay, there will be three motifs about the themes Laurie Anderson put in her book, Melinda’s tree, the weather, and Melinda’s lips. Melinda faced a lot of issues, but there were somethings that gave off how she was feeling. The first was her tree project.
In the short story “Makeshift” by Kekla Magoon, the author uses a motif to show it’s important not to complain about what you have. The author does this by introducing a bruise on Kayses's mother after Kayse feels guilty. According to Kekla Magoon, Kayse feels the bruise is alive; “Her cheek is swollen, red-purple. The bruise has a life of its own” (Magoon).
In the beginning the boys want to sustain the fire. This demonstrates their want to be return home. Nevertheless, when the fire is allowed to go out, it is emblematic of the boys refusal of civilization and return to
Yoldi Villa Ms. McSweeney English 1 Honors March 21, 2023 Love is stupid. Time and time again humans are made stupid because of love, and yet they can’t seem to bring themselves away from it. In joy or in sorrow, humans always seem to find their way back to love over and over again. Like love, a motif is a recurring element.
One motif in the book “The Giver” by Lois Lowery is the motif of power. The community has the least power because they have to follow all the rules the Elders make and can't be different from everyone else. The elders decide what they look like and how they act and what job/role in the community they have but there is always one person who has more power than them. It is the receiver of memory. Jona is the new receiver of memory and his job requires him to not listen to the elders and their rules.
Most people assume that their lives are constant from day to day, the same routine goes to school or work, some afternoon activities and so on. But what most of us don’t imagine is that we are so close to the edge, tragedies that seem foreign to us appear from nowhere and turn our lives upside down. In long way gone, a story of a child soldier named Ishmael Beah, many tragedies, events has bestowed upon him, and he to choose to die or survive. These tragedies have transformed him from innocent child to ruthless child soldier to rehabilitate adult with the scars of war that destroyed his country.
Accessed 24 May 2023. “Billy Joel - We Didn’t Start the Fire (Official Video).” YouTube, 2 Oct. 2009, www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g&ab_channel=billyjoelVEVO. Taylor, Tom. “A Journey through History with Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire.’
The Gilded Love In “The Gilded Six Bits”, a short story by Zora Neale Hurston, the marriage between Joe and Missie May is greatly affected by materialism. Every Saturday afternoon Joe throws nine silver dollars for Missie May to pile beside her plate at dinner; she then runs out to greet him and they play fight with each other. She digs through his pockets for candy kisses and other goods that he has put in them for her to find. They obviously love each other, but I think that in this Hurston is giving a subtle hint of what role materialistic things play in the relationship between them.
Many of the important parts in this story have affected their maturity and way of life. There was a quote from Alice In Wonderland that relates to this book, Alice asks “Where should I go?” and the cat tells her “That depends on where you want to end up”. I think that shows just how this coming of age has gone with Ponyboy growing up wondering where he should go. As the two gangs start to realize they are the same, kids who grew up roughly who have the same problems.
he shouts to his sons; “the woods are burning!” when he gropes for metaphoric expression, he uses stale expressions: “because you got a greatness in you, Biff, remember that… .Like young God. Hercules-something like that. And the sun, the sun all around him.”
