For a brief moment, miles away from the eyes of god, time itself stood still. And the singing birds went silent in their canopies, and the gentle licks of a passing breeze abated, as if the entire world, save Gatsby, knew. Knew that, like an old timepiece, the gears within the depths of George Wilson’s being had long since begun to fragment, and with the urgency of newfound knowledge, he had only one thought on his mind. Certainly, as he glided towards Gatsby’s mansion—and ultimately, into the foliage that surrounded it— Wilson’s breathing was neither slow nor rapid, nor shallow nor heavy, but rather, it fluctuated with an unrelenting attitude, and trapped between immense grief and rage, he carried himself dangerously with each step.
Prophecy in the Sands From its sweeping bigness, vigor and hatred, McKay personifies America as a woman who is treating him, the citizen, terribly, but he still loves her in spite of the abuse. Claude McKay's "America" uses similes, rhythm, and violent imagery to illustrate how there is no hope for the future that is better than the abuse we have in the present. The narrator that McKay created is one that greatly mirrors that of an African American in the Harlem Renaissance that is being torn in two directions: love and hate for America. “America” acts as a magnifying glass for that time, but also is a prophecy for the times to come.
In two passages, Virginia Woolf compares meals she was served at a men’s and at a women’s college. The contrasting meals reveal Woolf’s frustration at the inferior treatment that women face. The first meal at the men’s college is elegant, enjoyable, and satisfying while the second is plain, cheap, and bland. This clearly juxtaposes the expense and luxury afforded to the men with the “penny-pinching” nature of the women’s in order to show Woolf’s underlying attitude of dissatisfaction against the inequality that women are not granted the same privileges and investment as men.
Charles Brockden Brown’s novel reflects his ability to convey, through Clara’s first person narrative, the shifting instability of a mind swayed by an objective and subjective perspective. Clara, being a woman of the eighteenth-century,
The play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, written by Edward Albee in 1962, is set on a chilly winter night in New England University during the time of The Cold War. It gives a vital insight into the American life through two couples while bringing out the raw human truth behind the phony exterior portrayed by the society. Albee presents characters caught in hopeless, repetitive, and meaningless situation, trying to battle their inner turmoil between truth and illusions. The meaninglessness of life is further brought out through the distorted relationships between the characters by Albee’s characterisation. He brings out the sense of Nihilism where the lack of belief in the world is fuelled by the fear of a nuclear war.
In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” demonstrates the personal growth of the dynamic protagonist Louise Mallard, after hearing news of her husband’s death. The third-person narrator telling the story uses deep insight into Mrs. Mallard’s thoughts and emotions as she sorts through her feelings after her sister informs her of her husband’s death. During a Character analysis of Louise Mallard, a reader will understand that the delicate Mrs. Mallard transforms her grief into excitement over her newly discovered freedom that leads to her death. As Mrs. Mallard sorts through her grief she realizes the importance of this freedom and the strength that she will be able to do it alone.
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf depicts a day of a high-society women running errands in preparation for an evening party, in companion with Septimus Warren Smith, a veteran of the First World War, who is suffering from shell shock. The novella embraces a Bergsonian sense of time through the distinction Woolf makes between time on the clock and time in the mind, which directly correlates to Bergson 's notion of temps and duree. Woolf’s predominant concern with time is firstly delineated through the time on the clock, or temps. In the novella, temps not only act as a source of disturbance to Clarissa, but also account for Septimus’ death. By using the clock symbol, Woolf draws a discrepancy between the clock-time, temps and the mind-time, or duree.
The diction and tone in Woolf’s essay affects her message as it was melancholy and calm. The diction was clear and understandable to ensure that the audience could understand her message, rather than try and decipher large incoherent words. Woolf also uses many words with negative connotations, but takes a neutral attitude to the subject. At the beginning of the essay Woolf 's tone is very hopeful, but as the essay progresses it turns dark and somber. At the beginning Woolf used phrasing such as “ Pleasant morning” (Woolf 5) and “enormous energy of the world”(Woolf 24) .
In the novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the narrator sets out on a journey to assemble the remaining pieces of truth surrounding the murder of Santiago Nasar, twenty-seven years after incident. As the narrator recounts the series of facts relating to Santiago’s death, the reader becomes aware of the emptiness, as an accumulation of these informations can’t recreate the event itself. Judging both the narrator’s desire to revisit the past and the foretold events leading up to Santiago’s death, the narrative explores the ways in which the past and the future have an effect upon the present state. The narrator uses the form of a chronicle to organize time into a confined segment, he engages in the nature of time itself and the analysis of the murder. Captivated by the murder that occurred nearly 30 years ago, the narrator continues to look for the truth surrounding Santiago’s death out of desire secure the past.
Seeming relaxed, Woolf gradually builds up her argument without “threatening” her audience with her ambition, as if the story is a rare example that Woolf has to pick a particular period. After she completes the setting of the story, Woolf begins her narration with the phrase “let us suppose,” creating a conversational atmosphere, which
Woolf makes a point to disengage with her environment. She mandates that she not allow herself to become too absorbed with any one person or their story. Instead she ought to treat each moment as a if it were fleeting, saying “Let us dally a little longer, be content still with surfaces only” (2) This is instruction is literal, Woolf believes that engaging with her setting will remove the joy from vapid displays of beauty. She even compares such an experience to a sugary diet, lacking in nutrition but desirable nevertheless (2).
The death of Edward’s mother, Queen Victoria, means the end of the Victorian age. Edward’s reign and rule was short i.e. (1901-1910), however for people who attended the period, it was completely different from its previous era. It was the beginning of a new era named “The Modern Age” or the world before and after the Great War. Throughout Woolf’s life, she had many periods of depressions, though also a love life with males and females. Critics like Eileen Barret and Patricia Cramer declare that Woolf has incorporated many of her own experiences in her fictional works.
Study wants to show that Virginia Woolf created two very different characters but with a very interesting and complex connection. The first one is Mrs. Ramsay, a woman still belonging to the Victorian age, the second, Lily Briscoe, here called a “New woman”. My intention is also to analyze the significance of Lily’s painting and how it symbolizes and represents her coming to terms with her homosexuality, and simultaneously her feelings towards Mrs. Ramsay. To the Lighthouse depends almost on the passing of time, it expands or contracts the sense of time very freely It is a book, with an ironical or wistful query and questions of life and reality.
Another theme that is present is the theme of freedom. At first, she does not have much freedom at all and throughout the duration of they story she is confined in her home. Her newfound freedom gave her much joy but as she left her room, it was cut much too short due to her untimely death. The Story of an Hour has many structural, stylistic, and literary approaches that make it a very powerful
Allen Curnow’s ‘Time’ and Emily Dickinson’s ‘Because I Could Not Stop For Death’ show the similar themes of the passing of time and its implications. The two poems both discuss events that occur throughout an average life (childhood, work, marriage and death are some examples), however, there is a stark contrast between the finality of ‘Because I Could Not Stop For Death’ and the mundaneness of ‘Time’. The poem ‘Time’ is a tribute to the passing of time and how much humans have grown to obsess over it. The poem is an extended metaphor, using the repetition of “I am” to instigate that the voice is Time itself.
