Life is something that requires a significant amount of physical and mental effort. Some are deeply fortunate to have everything arranged for them and not have a single worry. For others, life is full of stress and hardships. It all just depends on how one was raised and brought into this world. Out of the Rick Bragg articles, the characters went through grief and heartache, government involvement, and the absence of life’s given moments.
Throughout his journey, he unearths the truths of life, discovers his meaning of living, and what connects life all together. In the grand scheme of things, psychological changes are much more valuable than physical changes, and Santiago went from a shepherd boy with no view of the future to a man knowledgeable of the hidden truths all around us. Nevertheless, our three heroes are different men now than from when they began their
In “Dog’s Death”, John Updike depicts the death of a young dog and creates a sorrowful and anguished speaker through detail in order to suggest to the reader that death is inevitable, even with all the affection and care in the world. John Updike describes the family’s love with the words “surrounded by love that would have upheld her”, conveying how much love and care they gave her. Through these melancholy details, Updike creates a somber but also poignant tone, as they effectively convey the family’s anguish. Through this tone Updike suggests that death is unavoidable.
Luis is experiencing one of the “overwhelming waves” of grief at this time. Luis’s mother died three years ago from cancer. As a way of coping with his own grief he becomes a part of a group
In the short story of "You'll Love the Way We Fly", Lori Jakiela described her encounter with an old sickly man on her job as a flight attendant. In the story she talks in vivid detail about who she is as well as the man and the way they interact throughout the plane rides. The story protagonists are the old man and of course, Jakiela. In the story Jakiela decides what she will do about the old man and how it will change her throughout the story. By looking at the evolution of the relationship between Jakiela and the old man in the flight, we can see there are certain parts that make her rethink her decisions to care for the man: which most readers don’t see; this is important because by the end of the flight Jakiela turns her attitude around and thinks about the man and his home life.
One of the first apparent emotions the boy experiences with the death of his father is loneliness to make this section memorable. The boy expresses this sentiment when he stays with his father described as, “When he came back he knelt beside his father and held his cold hand and said his name over and over again,” (McCarthy 281). The definition of loneliness is, “sadness because one has no friends or company.” This action shows that the boy obviously misses his father and wants him to come back. He had no one else and now is all alone in the world. The boy is sad because his father died, but also because of his desolation from life. The boy is so secluded from life, he weeps for his
The concept of “The Hero’s Journey” plays a major role in nearly every piece of fiction humanity has created since its inception, from epic poems to blockbuster movies. In many ways, works of fiction and some pieces of nonfiction could not exist and would not make sense without the concept of a Hero’s Journey; it allows the reader to comprehend and follow the progression of characters over the course of the story. While Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road may not display most of the archetypal qualities found in classic Hero’s Journeys such as J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit or Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad, it most clearly exemplifies the qualities of a Hero’s Journey through the Boy’s character in relation to the mentor, tests and enemies, and the
Grief is defined as the neuropsychobiological response to any kind of significant loss, with elements both typical and unique to each individual or situation. The response is mostly associated with degrees of suffering, at times intense or even unbearable, and of widely variable duration. Grief is an individual or a larger group of individuals’ event where they are thrown out of equilibrium through changes brought on by loss.
The poem, “Eating Together” by Kim Addonizio is about a woman observing a friend at a restaurant. Not only is her friend eating, but she is also slowly dying. There is a hidden message behind the poem to convey a certain message. Kim Addonizio uses tone, personification, word choice, and description to get the message across to the readers. While there are a plethora of tools, restrictions, and conventions for making a poem, a variety of genres can incorporate a similar message.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem once wrote, “The dragon sits by the side of the road, watching those who pass. Beware lest he devour you. We go to the Father of Souls, but it is necessary to pass by the dragon.” The dragon that he spoke of was temptation that distracts us from God and from the route we are meant to take. In many of Flannery O'Connor's works, including "Good Country People," "A Late Encounter with the Enemy," and "The Displaced Person," the dragon takes the form of pride and vanity. In these three short stories by O'Connor, the characters of Helga, General Sash, and Mrs. McIntyre are all distracted, by their pride and vanity, from reality.
The poem, “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe dramatizes the theme of everlasting love. The use of contrasting diction effectively conveys this message. For example, the speaker states, “That the wind came out of the cloud by night, / Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee” (26-26). Poe uses the wind to represent a disease, such as tuberculosis. In addition, the choice of the words, “chilling” and “killing” and the use of cacophony emphasize Annabel Lee’s death and the effect it had on the speaker. Later, the speaker declares that neither angels nor demons “Can ever dissever my soul from the soul / Of the beautiful Annabel Lee” (32-33). Euphony occurs throughout the entirety of this quote, in phrases such as “my soul from the soul” and “the beautiful
Charles Dudley Warner once said, “We are half ruined by conformity, but we should be wholly ruined without it”. In today’s society, many tend to question their role in civilization, and what contribution it radiates throughout the world. Society as a whole has both its positives and negatives, but overall, many recognize that society and its expectations creates many constraints, forcing people to conform to a reality that has thus been created for them. Whether these conformities are considered “in the right” is essentially up to the person themselves, and whether they continue to follow through with these actions that place them under such a notional societal umbrella. Ultimately, people will do what is necessary to feel that they have a
Cristina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban is narrated through a multiplicity of voices as the characters struggle to reconcile their identities either within Cuba or as immigrants in America. These narrative accounts express the consequences of political unrest in Cuba (between 1972 and 1980) on the formation of a stable identity, as well as the consequences of such on family kinships. As such, the main themes expressed throughout the novel include displacement and distance, which are prominently reflected through the characterizations of Lourdes and Pilar, and their connection to Cuba and America. Cristina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban, then, explores the consequences of cultural exile on shaping a stable sense of self-identity, challenging the idea
In Richard Blanco’s memoir of his Cuban childhood, The Prince of Los Cocuyos, he questions the world around him and the control over his life. Blanco applies rhetoric to challenge the concrete parts of his life to empower people to explore their surroundings.
Every novel or stories gives a fundamental ideas or lesson for the readers. Most of the lesson are informative and it brings a changes to the readers mind. There will be a universal of an ideas explored in a literature and readers can abstract numerous themes depending on each individual. Similarly, in the novel “the old man and the sea” Hemingway depicted several themes related to nature, people and so on. However determination can also be one of the theme for the readers because the old man, Santiago didn’t gave up fishing even if he had cramp but he took this as an encouragement in his old age. His strength of mind is still strong like his youth. Therefore this essay will emphasize on the old man’s struggle against marlin, battle of willingness and his bravery which supports the theme determination.