ipl-logo

The Street By Ann Petry Summary

433 Words2 Pages

Sometimes in the wind of change, we find our true direction. In the short story, The Street, by Ann Petry, a relationship between the nature of an uninhabitable, brutal environment and a woman, Lutie Johnson is characterized through her ironic adversary with the urban setting. Through characterization, imagery, and personification, Petry depicts the complex relationship between Lutie and a brutal urban city. Ann Petry establishes and introduces a harsh, negatively characterized urban city through the use of personification with the wind. By starting off with a “cold November wind blowing through 116th street”, Petry established the atmosphere and climate of the city; by the setting’s description, the author is able to establish the relationship between Lutie and her negative surroundings. The author expresses the environment and atmosphere of the city through the wind; by expressing a wind that would “grab hats, pry scarves from around people’s necks, [blow] people’s coats away from their bodies”, Petry is also able to foreshadow the unpleasant environment the character, Lutie Johnson, will endure. …show more content…

As describing a city that “did everything it could to discourage the people”, the author emphasizes the nature of the wind through Lutie’s point of view. Portraying a wind that “lifted [her] hair away from the back of her neck so that she felt suddenly naked and bald”, Petry is able to highlight the ruthless city Lutie and others must endure. With imagery, the author is able to emphasize a discouraging city who target its people as victims, including Lutie through Lutie’s thoughts, actions, and

Show More
Related

Summary Of Joan Didion's Los Angeles Notebook

814 Words | 4 Pages

Joan Didion’s “Los Angeles Notebook” is an essay that highlights the deeply mechanistic view of human behavior by using images that are both enticing, yet horrifying at the same time. Her audience is broader than the people of Los Angles, who she discusses in articulate detail. Being that her audience is generally aimed at people who are concerned about humanity and the way people operate together in certain scenarios. There is an eerie sense to this piece, as the subject is the hot winds known as foehn by scientists, but otherwise known as a “Santa Ana” by the people of the region. Didion claims that, in the simplest terms, “to live with the Santa Ana is to accept, consciously or unconsciously, a deeply mechanistic view of human behavior,”

Read More

Analysis Of Joan Didion's The Santa Ana Wind

767 Words | 4 Pages

The Santa Ana Winds Analysis There are moments when mother nature does something that may be inexplicable to mankind. There is not always an explanation for why things happen, sometimes they just do. Joan Didion tries to describe the instinct that people have that tells them the Santa Ana winds are the reason for the change in the climate and within one another. Didion sets a dreadful tone to her essay by associating a set of words that contain unhappy connotations, with the wind. She begins the essay by setting up an unpleasing mood for the audience.

Read More

The Devil In The White City Figurative Language

702 Words | 3 Pages

Larson uses figurative language to intensify the tone and inflict positive or negative feelings upon the reader. Larson describes the crushing devastation that accompanies Chicago’s trailing in votes for the opportunity to host the World Fair as “heavy and chill” (17). The metaphor comparing the city’s literal

Read More

Prose Analysis Of Ann Petry's The Street

634 Words | 3 Pages

Prose Analysis Essay In Ann Petry’s The Street, the urban setting is portrayed as harsh and unforgiving to most. Lutie Johnson, however, finds the setting agreeable and rises to challenges posed by the city in order to achieve her goals. Petry portrays this relationship through personification, extended metaphor, and imagery.

Read More

Compare And Contrast Angela's Ashes And The Street

824 Words | 4 Pages

A hardship that many people have to endure is poverty. The characters in the short stories, Angela’s Ashes, by Frank Mccourt and The Street, by Ann Petry, both experience living in impoverished conditions. In the story The Street, Petry shows the life of a single mother who lives through the struggles of being poor. In another story portraying poverty, Angela’s Ashes, the author uses kids to paint the image of indigence. These kids are burdened with the task of caring for themselves.

Read More

Summary Of Code Of The Streets By Elijah Anderson

932 Words | 4 Pages

In Chapter 12 of Readings for Sociology, Garth Massey included and piece titled “The Code of the Streets,” written by Elijah Anderson. Anderson describes both a subculture and a counterculture found in inner-city neighborhoods in America. Anderson discusses “decent families,” and “street families,” he differentiates the two in in doing so he describes the so called “Code of the Streets.” This code is an exemplifies, norms, deviance, socialization, and the ideas of subcultures and countercultures.

Read More

The Symbolism Of The Wind In Ann Petry's The Street

730 Words | 3 Pages

Ann Petry pens a stimulating expositional read in her 1946 novel, The Street. Running with the over-arching anticipated universal theme of vulnerability, Petry establishes Lutie Johnson’s relationship with the urban setting quite succinctly. Through her use of well-placed literary conventions, Ann Petry delivers a piece that will withstand the test of time. Petry establishes the wind as a symbol of an attacker to foreshadow Lutie Johnson’s violent future. From the very first paragraph, the wind is written ripping through the street, doubling over the pedestrians against its force.

Read More

The Human Experience With The Santa Ana Wind By Joan Didion

476 Words | 2 Pages

Throughout the opening paragraphs of Joan Didion’s essay there is a detailed description of the human experience with the Santa Ana winds. This description demonstrates a distinct feeling and point of view towards the natural disaster known as the Santa Ana winds. Her writing describes several interactions and reactions to the wind allows the reader to understand the relationship between the Santa Ana winds and human beings. Overall Didion’s diction along with the use other stylistic elements clearly conveys her feeling of anxiety towards the winds.

Read More

The Sewing Woman In Jane Anne Phillips '' Cheers'

461 Words | 2 Pages

According to researchers at the University of Scranton, 92 percent of people never achieve the goals they set for New Year’s. This constant cycle of being unable to accomplish one’s desires is very prominent in this passage by Jayne Anne Phillips. In her writing, Phillips demonstrates her belief that the actuality of the world is much bleaker than what an individual fantasizes. In “Cheers”, writer Jayne Anne Phillips portrays the sewing woman as having a disheveled physical appearance, and the house as filthy and malodorous, to ultimately reveal how life rarely turns out as planned.

Read More

On Maple Street Summary

242 Words | 1 Pages

“THE MONSTER ARE DUE ON MAPLE STREET” On Maple Street in 1950,cars, radio,and lights went out. This happen to see how they would act. The power goes off and everyone thinks aliens did it. Tommy tells them aliens turn them off the power.

Read More

Patriarchy In Doctor Gordon's The Bell Jar

1718 Words | 7 Pages

Both characters experience treatment that parallels the oppression they are faced by society. In ‘The Bell Jar’, Doctor Gordon, represents the universal presence of patriarchy in society, where men are completely dominant and women’s voices are silenced. He is an influence on Esther’s psyche and displays the same lack of empathy as John, when seeing Esther and her failure to make any progress. Esther’s desperate alternatives are either shock therapy or suicide. The shock therapy is seen to be inhumane as Esther experiences it at the private hospital.

Read More

The Reflection Of Laurie Halse Anderson's 'Speak'

1205 Words | 5 Pages

The tone changes throughout the novel from coarse and cold to encouraging and vibrant. Near the beginning of the book as the reader is still creating their impression of Melinda, the narrator says, “It’s an old janitors closet that smells like sour sponges… a cracked mirror tilts over a sink with dead roaches crocheted together with cobwebs… This closet is abandoned-it has no purpose, no name. It is the perfect place for me” (25-26). Described here is a cold, melancholy and lonesome tone that shows the readers Melinda’s true opinion of herself and her self worth.

Read More

Weather In Susan Hill's The Woman In Black

1000 Words | 4 Pages

In the first chapter the narrator states ‘My spirits have for many years now been excessively affected by the ways of the weather’ (2). The Woman in Black is a 1983 horror novella by Susan Hill, written in the style of a traditional Gothic novel. The plot is about a mysterious spectre that haunts a small English town, Crythin Gifford, heralding the death of children. In The Woman in Black weather is an important aspect which influences the narrator’s actions and the atmosphere of the story. In both negative and positive connotation, Arthur Kipps is mainly affected by the change of weather.

Read More

Literary Techniques Used In Philip Larkin's Essay 'Here'

601 Words | 3 Pages

In his essay “Here,” Philip Larkin uses many literary devices to convey the speaker’s attitude toward the places he describes. Larkin utilizes imagery and strong diction to depict these feelings of both a large city and the isolated beach surrounding it. In the beginning of the passage, the speaker describes a large town that he passes through while on a train. The people in the town intrigue him, but he is not impressed by the inner-city life.

Read More

Descriptive Essay On El Salvador

674 Words | 3 Pages

“Bienvenidos a El Salvador,” the flight attendant announced over the intercom. I looked towards the windows and enjoyed the breathtaking scenery. I could see the long fields, the beautiful hills and valleys, and the volcanoes. The palm trees were bright green and the sky was filled with color. The land seemed to be filled with life.

Read More

More about The Street By Ann Petry Summary

Related Topics

Open Document