Jim Simmerman, the writer of “Child’s Grave, Hale County, Alabama,” was born on March 5, 1952 in Bolder, Colorado. Simmerman spent the most of his childhood traveling since his father was in the military. In 1978, he became an instructor at Northern Arizona University. He then left to earn a master’s degree at the University of Iowa, but he came back to continue his previous job. On June 29, 2009, Simmerman killed himself because of a debilitating illness he had (Bruner para. 16-20). This will be an analysis of Simmerman’s poem “Child’s Grave, Hale County, Alabama.” In this poem, a father is leaving the house in the middle of the night to bury his child. The father stole a two-by-four, and he snuck out on a cold December night to bury his
Set amongst the desolate Icelandic landscape, Hannah Kent explores the life of a convicted murderer, Agnes Magnúsdóttir in her novel, Burial Rites. By allowing Agnes to have a voice, Kent encourages to see that her death is not only a by-product of Agnes choices, but also due to the judgement of the society that she lived in. This society in which powerful men with status are the rule for life and death, both unfair and prejudiced. Thus, through 'Burial Rites ' Kent seeks to explore how Agnes 's death sentence cannot be blamed purely on her actions, but also on the unforgiving society that punishes those who are disadvantaged. Kent uses a range of techniques to explore that nothing can be blamed purely on fate.
District Common Assessment Essay If your father desperately needed to borrow two hundred dollars from you to pay back a loan, would you give it to him? This question is explored in the short fictional story written by Susan Beth Pfeffer called “Ashes” with a main character named Ashleigh. The story points towards Ashleigh giving her father the money because she looks up to him, loves him and she believes that he would never do anything to hurt her or get her in trouble.
Part A: The theme of “The Premature Burial” is fear can overcome us if we do not face our fears. This theme is evident in the last sentence of the story, “Alas! the grim legion of deathly terrors cannot be regarded as altogether fanciful—but, they must sleep, or they will devour us—they must be suffered to slumber, or we perish.” Although this states the theme, the theme is present throughout the story in the plot, setting, character, and conflict. The main character is a man who suffers from a disease that leaves him close to death.
George Hadley allowed the children to become dependent on the nursery. He let them spend countless hours in the nursery, where they lived their wildest fantasies without consequences. They become addicted to the nursery because of their desire to have it for themselves which led to his and wife's death. This evidence is shown “ You know how difficult Peter is about that. When I punished him a month ago by locking the nursery for even a few hours — the tantrum he threw!
In the book Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, he uses specific literary devices and techniques that cause this collection of poems to become one cohesive novel to portray the story of a boy struggling with the death of his brother and gun violence in his community. This story changed the way I view living in an inner city community and how that can affect a child’s development and mental state while living in that environment. Reynolds uses imagery to develop a deeper understanding of the death of a child, dramatically displays a child being shot and how our main character views this tragedy, “Her mouth open. Bubble gum and blood” (133). This disturbing piece of imagery establishes our main character’s inner conflict, indicating that Will (main
In Clint Smith’s poetry collection, Counting Descent, he uses childhood toys to represent and explain the indefinable feelings surrounding experiencing racism. An example of this is a “little girl jumping rope” in “No More Elegies Today” (line 3). Smith illustrates her playing with the rope by describing the “back & forth bob of her head” and the “beads in her hair [bouncing]” on her back (lines 9, 20). With these descriptions, Smith creates an innocent and playful feeling that juxtaposes the melancholy of the previous poems, such as the detail of the child whose “body [was] strewn across / the street” in “Playground Elegy” (lines 9-10). Through the shocking simpleness of the jump rope, Smith conveys how tired he is of hearing yet another story
The realistic fiction story, “Ashes”, by Susan Beth Pfeffer is about a young girl who has two very polar opposite parents. A fun, but irresponsible father, and a practical, proactive mother. Ashes faces a major dilemma when her financially troubled father asks Ashes to steal from her mother’s emergency fund for his own personal needs. Sometimes, the people you love most can be selfish and deceive you. This relates to my story because Ashes’ dad is manipulative, deceptive, and selfish.
Would you ever help a friend who murdered someone, then lied to cops and the jury? Samuel Mudd did add those and much more with booths. He helped Booth even when he knew Booth killed Lincoln. On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth set out to murder the president for ending slavery. He snuck up on set and… BANG!
Can life’s events cause us to change our priorities? According to Merriam Webster, priority is defined as something that is more important than other things and that needs to be done or dealt with first. Life’s events definitely can change the priorities of people. People prioritize based on what is important to him/her, and life’s events can cause a person’s view of importance to change.
The poem is about a child living in the hills of vermont doing wood working when he suddenly chops one of his hand off. At the end he dies a brutal death. These two poems both have an abundance of tragedy. In both poems, they use sibilance.
The novel “The Haunting of Hill House,” written by Shirley Jackson, closely follows the traditional tropes of an American Gothic. The main character of the novel, Eleanor, begins her journey to self growth after accepting an offer to live in a suspected haunted house for the summer. Moreover, Eleanor meets three other people that have an important effect on her development as a person. These characters slowly begin to question their own sanity due to the house’s destructive nature. Jackson appeals to fans of the American gothic through her particular description of the house and how the characters interact with it in order to show the environments foil of an absolute reality.
Anne Bradstreet’s three elegies for her grandchildren are very sanding and have many similarities, as well as differences. The three poems by Bradstreet are titled, “In Memory of My Dear Grandchild, Elizabeth Bradstreet, Who Deceased August, 1665, Being a Year and a Half Old," " In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Anne Bradstreet, Who Deceased June 20, 1669, Being Three Years and Seven Months Old," and "On My Dear Grandchild Simon Bradstreet, Who Died on 16 November, 1669, Being But a Month, and One Day Old.” In the very first poem, it would seem her first grandchild had pasted away at a year and a half old. Bradstreet’s talk about how God gives and takes away.
1. Discuss the effect of place in "The Sculptor’s Funeral." “The Sculptor’s Funeral” by Willa Cather revolves around the events that Henry Steavens witnessed when he attended his master’s funeral in a place filled with obscurities. In the short story, the effect of the place is shown by the town’s nature that is consumed with single minded people. The town has turned into drunks and corrupt people.
“One in five women will be a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime” (23). Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote Chronicle of a Death Foretold. The book takes place in the 1950s in a small Columbian town. The book is a murder mystery and describes the murder of Santiago Nasar. Pedro and Pablo end up killing Santiago because he is accused of taking Angela’s virginity before she is married.
Sandburg portrays the peace and restfulness in death through different words, such as “shoveled into the tombs”, “cash and collateral turned ashes”, and “streetful of people” (1, 2, 4). “Shoveled into the tombs” shows the importance of nothingness in which the body is just being “recycled to dust without sentiment and ceremony” (Napierkowski, “Themes” 46). This concept of nothingness stresses the silence of death in that peace is obtained. The “cash and collateral turned ashes” stresses the idea that earthly materials are not taken to the grave with you. In other words the “streetful of people” and the hero are no different because “all people…are finally united at the grave”, so “death remains unimpressed by wealth, power or even virtue” (Napierkowski and Evans, 48, 8).