Everyone grows up eventually, and each person passes through childhood and into the adult world in their own way. By the River, by Steven Herrick is a novel which shows how Harry Hodby grows and matures into a young man. The story is a ‘coming of age’ novel, Harry’s growth creeping up on the reader. Harry experiences death at a young age, with his mother passing away. As a result, he gains extra responsibilities in his youth. He experiences other different types of losses. All of them help him gain greater maturity and develop as a young adult, although these movements are harsh and painful at times. The most important event, though, is for Harry to accept his life and move forward, which he learns near the novel’s end. Firstly, readers discover …show more content…
When Harry’s mother passes away, he gains responsibilities such as looking after Keith, doing housework, caring for his father and finding his way without a loving mother. Harry ‘could cook at the age of seven’, and he and Keith ‘shared the duties [their] mother left [them].’ Harry now ‘make[s] breakfast… on [his Dads] birthday’ because he knows how to, with the knowledge he received as a young child. With all the duties his mother left Harry, readers see that Harry has the independence of an adult. Harry’s father cuts his finger off at work, ‘it severed the bone, the tendons, and spat across the factory floor.’ The chopping of the watermelon is a ritual for Harry and his family. After his father’s accident, Harry is given the responsibility of cutting the watermelon, and he is ‘proud that [he] can be trusted’ with this. Gains like this move Harry from his childhood into a young adult. Harry develops the independence and knowledge to journey into the adult …show more content…
At the beginning of the novel, we find that Harry hates his town and regards his life miserable. Harry wants to ‘find the quickest way out’ of his town, and never wants to ‘come back… [not] for a long time’. He dreams and wishes of being ‘miles and another world away’ from the town he lives in. Harry has been exposed to death, loneliness, sadness and anger in his childhood. This makes Harry strong but sometimes lonely and isolated. As the novel progresses, Harry realises and accepts the life he has and the town he lives in and comes to term with the great questions of human life. Harry knows that ‘it wasn’t God’ that caused the tragedies in his life and his very own town, it is his life, not Gods. In the poems ‘It wasn’t God’, ‘Not Alone’ and ‘Perfect Silence’ show that Harry remembers all his memories of his life and reflects on each one of them. Harry realises that the significant people and events in his life changed him and without them he wouldn’t be who he was. Johnny Barlow, Linda, Keith, Claire and his Mum and Dad are some of these people. Claire helps Harry sees things in different ways. Harry has never liked the rain before because it took Linda’s life, but Claire ‘love[s] the rain…it cleans everything…it’s like God staring again’. Clarie asks the finale questions that helps Harry accept his town, ‘it’s good to start again. Don’t you think?’ Memories from his childhood are ‘all safe and cherished deep within’ his
How do you allow God to take control of your life and entrust that everything will be okay? This was the type of question author Anne Lamott (2006) baffled with in these next few chapters. Lamott (2006) shares her personal life story of entrusting God in her book Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith. This paper will provide a summary of chapters two thru four, combined with a personal reflection, and conclude with a few desired questions that ideally could be answered by Lamott.
George is able to see what everyones life would have been like if he was never there. The town is in complete shambles; Mr. Potter took over the whole town, Mr. Gower went to jail, and Harry died in the frozen lake. George realizes his worth and when he goes back to his life he is met with money from the community, which had recovered the lost money. His guardian angel leaves him a book with a note that reads, “Remember no man is a failure who has friends” (Wonderful).
“The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst is a short story that is told by a brother reminiscing about his departed young brother Doodle. The story is focused around Brother’s sorrow and regret for Doodles death and thus forms Brother as a sort of villain. Brother’s lack of maturity and careless actions throughout the story are what paint him as having too much pride. Brother is able to look back and see a monster because he has come-of-age through coping for Doodle’s death. James Hurst answers the question what does it mean to come-of-age in the short story “The Scarlet Ibis” through Brother teaching Doodle to walk, the impact of Doodle’s death, and Brother’s reflection at the beginning and throughout the story.
In the novels, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, and The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, the main characters go through a series of problems that they need to overcome. In both novels the authors use character development to show that sometimes evil overpowers the good and vice versa. In the novel, The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, the author develops the theme with character development. The main character, Liesel Meminger, moves in with her new foster parents in Molching Germany.
Everyone goes through the transition from childhood to adulthood. Boys become young men, and girls become young women; this is a significant stepping stone in the “journey to maturity.” Of course, becoming mature does not happen over night. Instead, it is a long process of learning from experience, which gives the young adult a new outlook on life and a new set of skills. The initiation theme is discussed in the article “Greasy Lake,” by critic Dennis Vanatta who argues that the author T.C. Boyle has created a narrator who is reflecting on his youth and an evening that would prove to be his stepping stone in the journey to maturity.
In the poem, “The Road Not Taken,” the short story, “The Reunion, and the novel, The Summer I Turned Pretty authors show how characters come of age through their own actions by making decisions and psychology or emotional revelations. In the poem “the Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, the main character has to decipher two roads. The two roads have different outcomes, eventually chooses the harder path and resulted his/her best decision. The narrator sees a fork in the road.
In countless people's lives, the loss and grieving of a loved one, will most probably be experienced. In Steven Herrick's novel ‘by the river’ many of the characters from this novel too face the loss of loved ones as well due to death or physically leaving the town of which the novel is set in. These characters deal with the losses in a myriad of ways, however the most prominent of them would be the rituals that are undertaken to respect the person that they lost. They also try to escape the town physically and mentally, and feel the presence of their loved ones.
Aging is a phenomena not only of the body, but of the mind as well. It is situational in practice, giving each journey into adulthood its own “thumbprint”. One’s trials and tribulations gain emotional weight as they are encountered, but the weight one holds at certain periods of time can differ according to their background. The novels Flight, The Joy Luck Club, and The Glass Castle; however, enlighten the possibility of resembling another’s venture into maturity, despite distinct differences in general conditions. Together, these three novels endeavor into their protagonists’ personalities, and they thematically portray coming-of-age transformation.
Through her use of a changing narrative perspective, Margaret Laurence creates a contrast in character development. Laurence shows the reader the male protagonist of the story, Chris, through the eyes of a child first, then of an adolescent, and finally through an adult’s eyes. At the beginning of “Horses of the Night,” the narrator, Vanessa notices that Chris looks completely oblivious towards Vanessa’s Grandfather’s belligerence, as he is displaying “no sign of feeling anything.” This is the first sign Laurence provides about Chris escaping in order to cope with reality. Next, when Vanessa visits Shallow Creek she comes to a realization that most of the stories Chris has shared with her about the farm, only exists “in some other dimension.”
Then he realizes that he was not going to stay with his money when he die. At the end, he helped his employee with a monetary situation. Further, he went to his nephew’s Christmas dinner. Significantly, this novel helps people retrain the meaning of being humble and kind with others. Something that is very important about this novel is that it teaches a lesson of helping others, because you are not going to stay with your money when you die.
A famous psychologist named Mary Pipher once said, “Adolescence is a border between childhood and adulthood. Like all borders, it’s teeming with energy and fraught with danger.” The story, “Through the Tunnel,” is a mirror like representation of this quote. It is about a young English boy named Jerry, who learns about a tunnel underwater that leads to another part of the bay he is in. He prepares to take on the challenge of traveling through the tunnel by learning how to hold his breath underwater for a long period of time.
Two men beside him, with their own faults, told him to get back into Pete, and Harry followed accordingly. As soon as Pete came back to life, so did the party. The confident man roared at the people to liven the event, and they did as he said, far into the night. This means that though the people at the party know what is inside of Pete, they choose to ignore it and focus on his looks and feed off of his confidence. They shame Harry for ever wanting to come out and be himself, but the
Neil Gaiman is a Hugo award winning British author of short stories, graphic novels, comic books, audio titles and films. Some of his notable works include ‘Stardust’, ‘Neverwhere’, ‘Good Omens’, ‘The Sandman’ series of graphic novels, etc. ‘The Ocean At The End of The Lane’ written by Neil Gaiman, is a book that is spoken through a child’s perspective, of the world around him. The book deals with the unstable emotions that the protagonist, a child goes through that eventually leads to a disconnect between his childhood and adulthood.
Runaway Theme, Plot and Conflict Theme: Through ‘Runaway’, Alice Munro intends to show that women themselves are the source of the problem as they resist change, especially women like Carla who are so used to their lives in the countryside that they are mostly dependent on the source of income, in this case, Clark. She may have also written this to depict events of her own life, when she divorced her first husband, James Munro to get a sense of real freedom and joy but soon after married a second husband because she did not like her life so much. In ‘Runaway’, Carla is shown to be a very complex and intricate character as she realizes her limitations when making her own decisions. Initially, Carla seems confident to leave Clark and Sylvia helps her to escape, but as soon as she gets of the bus station outside of town, she realizes she can’t really survive without his security
Harry always puts his friends first, and in this book one of the people who are put in danger is his close friend Hermione, and in the end his best friend’s sister is abducted. The book’s theme can be compared to many other books, for example The Hunger Games. Katniss, the main character in that book, volunteers to be a part of a dangerous game so that she can protect her little sister. But the book is also about character development and being a good person.