Annie Dillard’s essay “Sight into Insight” emphasizes how one must live in the moment and not sway towards others opinions in order to gain accurate observations on a situation. She uses nature as a prominent theme in her essay to represent the thought of looking past the superficial obvious in order to go deeper to where the hidden beauty rests. Dillard wants the reader to realize in order to observe clearly you have to live in the moment and let go of the knowledge you think you know on the situation. Dillard uses the example of her “walking with a camera vs walking without one” (para.31) and how her own observations differed with each. When she walked with the camera she “read the light” (para.31), and when she didn’t “light printed” (para.31).
Edgar Allen Poe and Rey Bradbury were known for dealing with suspense in their stories. Even though their styles are similar, they lived in drastically different places and time periods. Edgar Allen Poe was discovered as an author in Baltimore Maryland, and he was born in 1809. Rey Bradbury lived most of his life in Los Angeles, and was born in the 1920’s. These two writers are well known for their specific writing genres. Poe was one of the first people to write horror and suspense stories. Bradbury was one of the first people to write about science fiction the way it is written today. Even though these two writers share a similarity, there are drastic differences in their stories.
Indecision: the inability to make a resolution effectively (Houghton 690). Beauty: physical attributes that pleases aesthetic senses (Houghton 120-121). Time: the infinite progress of circumstances in the past, present, and future regarded as one entity (Houghton 1418). In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, the humming bird embodies each of these intangible concepts even though its image is only illustrated twice.
Flannery O’Connor’s The King of the Birds is a narrative explaining the narrator’s obsession with different kinds of fowl over time. The reader follows the narrator from her first experience with a chicken, which caught the attention of reporters due to its ability to walk both backward and forward, to her collection of peahens and peacocks. At the mere age of five, the narrator’s chicken was featured in the news and from that moment she began to build her family of fowl. The expansive collection began with chickens, but soon the narrator found a breed of bird that was even more intriguing; peacocks.
Unbroken is a book that follows the heroic and tragic tale of Louis Zamperini; from when he was an Olympic runner to his time in the U.S. military as a bombardier. Laura Hillenbrand retells his riveting nonfiction tale. Throughout the book Hillenbrand vividly retold Louis life with many enrapturing photos and maps.
Lee Maracle’s “Charlie” goes through multiple shifts in mood over the course of the story. These mood are ones of hope and excitement as Charlie and his classmates escape the residential school to fear of the unknown and melancholy as Charlie sets off alone for home ending with despair and insidiousness when Charlie finally succumbs to the elements . Lee highlights these shifts in mood with the use of imagery and symbolism in her descriptions of nature.
The two poems, “The Barred Owl” and “The History Teacher”, display different ways of soothing child fears and attempting to protect the children's innocence with their tone, rhyme scheme, and humor. Wilbur specifically uses personification with a different point of view than Collins. Collins comes from a more ironic tone in his poem and portrays the history teacher as a protector of the children’s innocence, when in reality, they have already lost it.
In the short story “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe, the raven is very likely just a bird that flew into the window, but the narrator proves his delusional state of mind by quoting the raven nevermore. The narrator believes the raven is speaking to him because he is grieving over his lost wife Lenore, the bird is there and he describes it, and he demonstrates his delusional mind by suggesting that the bird has spoken to him.
In the story, “on Birds, Bird Watching and Jazz” by Ellison, the interesting theory as to how Charles Porter Jr. got his nickname as “Bird “ is told using humor in his stories along with a careful choice of syntax and his diction.
One of the aspects of “Wild Geese” that truly struck my fifth-grade self was its use of imagery—I was drawn in particular to the extensive visual imagery in lines 8-13 (“Meanwhile the sun…heading home again”) and awed by the ability of text to evoke images of such clarity. Moreover, in addition to the intrigue of its use of literary devices and the complexity of its recitation, interpreting “Wild Geese” and finding meaning within it was a process that continued well beyond the end of my fifth-grade year, and the connotations of that poem continue to resonate with me. While the entirety of this story is too personal to share herein, “Wild Geese” was a poem that spoke to me on a very personal level. As I sometimes have a tendency to hold myself to unrealistic standards, “Wild Geese” was to me a reminder of the relative insignificance of the trivial matters with which I would preoccupy myself; nature became a symbol of that which existed beyond my narrow fixations and the wild geese a reflection of the inexorable passage of time—in essence, a reminder that “this too shall
Edgar Allan Poe starts using the power of perspective in the poem “The Raven” by simply portraying the raven as a normal and a terrifying bird. The Narrator describes it as “this ebony bird”( Poe line 43) with “thy crest be shorn and shaven( Poe line 45).” By describing the bird with this simple description of being black without any feathers on its head, the audience can easily picture a common bird.However, the perception changes
Mark Twain short story "What Stumped the Blue Jays" shows how the blue jays could not solve a problem like a human will have a problem in their daily life. "According to Jim Baker," (Twain 1) the blue jays were not able to put an acorn in the hole causing a problem to the blue jays until another blue jay came and help them. "What Stumped the Blue Jays" uses animal symbolism to represent human ignorance.
In October of 2014, Bill Nye, of “Science Guy” fame, spoke at Lewis & Clark College as part of the Speaker Series sponsored by Campus Activities Board (CAB), President Glassner, and Dean Gonzalez. The advertisement for the events announced that Nye would “talk about his early history, the importance of science education, and “[inspire] others to change the world through it.” Expectations were incredibly high; Nye did not live up to them. His talk lacked a clear purpose and was hard to follow at points. Still, many students left the event reasonably satisfied with the talk.
In the fifth paragraph, Dillard describes Rahm’s appearance and juxtaposes that to vivid imagery. At the start of the show, Dillard was, “Idly paying...attention,” when she saw a “medium-sized, rugged man, dressed in brown leather, all begoggled…” who happened to be David Rahm. These mundane details describe Rahm as an average, ordinary man, who great things were not expected. By using mundane details, audience members understand how Dillard did not pay any extra attention to Rahm because he appeared to be average. However, once Rahm was in the plane, his actions demanded her attention. When Rahm started flying, he “seemed to fall down the air...streaming beauty in spirals behind him.” This example of imagery juxtaposes to the previous mundane details in order to convey how once Rahm entered the plane, he became one with it.
The book, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and the poem The Courtship of Miles Standish surprisingly, have many things in common. The characters that are mere opposites are similar in more ways than you think. In the following paragraphs, we will explore the similarities and differences of these two books and their characters.