ipl-logo

The Sound Of Summer Running Chapter Summary

604 Words3 Pages

Have you ever felt so happy and motivated by something, to the point that you feel you can do anything? The characters from the short story “The Sound of Summer Running” by Ray Bradbury experience this euphorium by wearing a pair of tennis shoes. The main character, Douglas, is presumably a teenager who admires a pair of tennis shoes every day. His father sees no point in buying them, and Douglas does not have enough money to buy them himself. But Douglas is so fixated on getting these shoes that he makes a deal with the shoe-shop owner, Mr. Sanderson, that if he works for him he can get the shoes a dollar off. Douglas proceeds to convince him by having Mr. Sanderson try the shoes on and explains the magic behind new shoes. To both Douglas …show more content…

Sanderson. In order to actually get the pair of shoes, Douglas decides that he will do chores for Mr. Sanderson and pay him a dollar short of the price in exchange for the shoes. He explained to Mr. Sanderson that he would be able to do anything, including chores for him, in the shoes. He even convinced him to try on the shoes to experience the motivation that courses through him. Douglas says, “Bang! I deliver your packages, pick up packages...Feel those shoes, Mr. Sanderson, feel how fast they’d take me? Feel how they kind of grab hold and can’t let you alone and don’t like you just standing there? Feel how quick I’d be doing the things you’d rather not bother with?...But it’s not me really, it’s the shoes. They’re going mad down alleys, cutting corners, and back! There they go!” (Bradbury 45).Though Douglas is trying to convince Mr. Sanderson in letting him get the shoes for a discount, he is also showing him the magic of the shoes. He explained that he could do anything for him in the shoes. Douglas’s choice of words shows his eagerness for them. Such as the italicized “feel” and “standing”. The italics portray the emphasis on the words and the point Douglas is trying to make. He uses words like “cutting corners” and “Bang!” for even more emphasis and to hook Mr. Sanderson and the reader into what he is saying. The significance of the shoes can clearly be seen through Douglas’s eagerness to do anything

Show More
Related
1042 Words | 5 Pages

In the work entitled “The Barefoot Spirit”, which tells the story of Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey and the journey of their brand of wine, Barefoot. Barefoot has become a brand that most people in America can identify. However, Barefoot was not always a brand with such a reputation. This story explains the Barefoot brand from its conception, and enables the reader to follow Bonnie and Michael on the journey to success. The format o the work allows the reader to gain a great deal of knowledge from Michael and Bonnie’s perspective.

Read More
117 Words | 1 Pages

In Barbara Kingsolver’s article My Life with out Go-Go boots she talks about how fashion over the years has its ups and downs. She tells stories from her childhood, teenage years , and adulthood. According to Kingsolver’s, her upbringing with fashion was not the greatest. Growing up she got clothes from her cousin while other girls were able to dress more fashionable. Even with her lack of fashion sense there were these white Go-Go boots she wanted and hoped for.

Read More
913 Words | 4 Pages

In Mary Oliver’s, The Black Walnut Tree, she exhibits a figurative and literal understanding on the importance of family and its history. The poem is showing that your emotional value is what’s more important than your physical value (money). By using symbolism and imagery the poet illustrates an intricate relationship between the “Black Walnut Tree” to the mother and daughter being both rooted deeply in the earth and past trying to reach for the sun and the fruit it will bring. Symbolism constitutes the allusion that the tree is the family both old and new. Imagery portrays the image that the tree and family are connected by similar trails and burdens.

Read More
417 Words | 2 Pages

As one of Bäumerś friends dies his shoes are immediately taken by one of his friends.

Read More
1035 Words | 5 Pages

They are amazed at how the shoes suddenly have the attractiveness of a woman. Until a man warns them about how the shoes are not for little girls, and when they ignore them, other men tease them with sexual comments. Rachel also gets flirted on by a drunken bum and he tries to kiss her for a dollar, so the girls run back to Mango Street and hide the shoes where their mother throws them away. Cisneros uses figurative language many times throughout The House on Mango Street, in this quote she uses allusions, “Hurray! Today we are Cinderella because our feet fit exactly, and we laugh at Rachel's one foot with a girl's grey sock and a lady's high heel.”

Read More
388 Words | 2 Pages

The shoes gave him special powers to do anything on the

Read More
508 Words | 3 Pages

From Douglas's perspective, having new shoes reminds him of freedom and liveliness. For him, it was "because they felt the

Read More
218 Words | 1 Pages

At this point in the story Elie was about to get a gold tooth pulled. He didn’t want his gold tooth pulled so the guy said give me your shoes and I’ll give

Read More
705 Words | 3 Pages

The shoes represent the family’s pride. The father doesn't have his shoes on when he leaves because once the government comes and unlawfully takes him from his home he and his family are stripped of their pride. In the fourth passage the boy imagines reminding his father to put

Read More
689 Words | 3 Pages

6. Incorrect Answer: E I chose E as my answer because I thought that a family’s “shoe-buckles” was a metaphor for generational family wealth. As a result, the narrator may have been denouncing the excess of the Dodsons families’ material wealth. This assumption is incorrect since the story indicates that the author was referring to actual shoe buckles, emphasizing the care that the Dodsons took in even the smallest of property.

Read More
1121 Words | 5 Pages

Whenever I pick up a shoe, I shudder a little thinking how short life is and what am I doing! Whatever that means, I know it doesn’t mean shoes— except as something to wear on a traveler’s feet!" (Williams 62). 2.Tom has come to a point in his life where he realizes that there is so much more to the world than what he has been confined to his entire life and he wants to explore

Read More
1240 Words | 5 Pages

. . scuffed and round, and the heels all crooked that look dumb with this dress” (47). Esperanza is so ashamed of the shoes that she doesn’t want to dance. This incident with her shoes connects with her feelings about so many other things in her life like the house she wants. Her parents told her one day they would move “into a house, a real house that would be ours for always . . .

Read More
162 Words | 1 Pages

As I rambled through my closet looking for my other pair, my mother shouts “hurry up Sarah you are going to be late to school.” Being rushed angered me so I threw on an old pair of ripped up grey canvas shoes and run out the door to the car. On my way to school,

Read More
1122 Words | 5 Pages

In Laurie Ann Guerrero’s “Ode To My Boots” it is clear that the poet is addressing how she relates to her boots. The poet details how her boots give her a sense of courage, power, strength, and the ability to be acknowledged. Throughout the poem, the author praises the boots that she wears because it makes her feel empowered. Almost to the point as if she is having a conversation with them. Hence, this unique quality distinguishes and enables the poets’ ability to be able to compare herself to the power of boots.

Read More
1464 Words | 6 Pages

Expressed in literature: [Find Alexander Pope’s satirical men’s club rules. “Shall wear the Heels of his shoes exceeding one inch and half... the Criminal shall instantly be expell’d... Go from among us, and be tall if you can!” ] The character Harriot in a story called “The Delineator” represented the typical feminine ideal of the eighteenth century and was described as “lively”, “tottering on her French heels and with her head as unsteady as her feet” (Potts 342), proving how the masculine connotation of the high heel shifted towards a portrait of a potent accessory of ‘ditsy desirability’.

Read More

More about The Sound Of Summer Running Chapter Summary

Open Document