Sienna Follenvaider Ms. Leibowitz English/Humanities February 8th “Marigolds” Literary Analysis Essay “Marigolds”, a short story by Eugenia W. Collier takes place in the 1960’s during the great depression. Poverty has struck the town in rural Maryland, where fourteen year old Lizabeth struggles to find out who she is. One day out of pure boredom, children begin to throw stones at Miss Lottie's precious marigolds. The theme of Marigolds by Eugenia W. Collier is coming of age, which is developed through symbolism, characterization, and conflict.
One day, at three years old, she was cooking hot dogs in her family’s trailer house in Southern Arizona. Her mother was too busy painting and her father was at work, so it was up to her to feed herself. While cooking, she hadn’t even realized that her dress was on fire. It was only moments after when she felt it on her skin and began screaming. Jeanette’s mother extinguished the fire and asked the neighbors for a ride to the hospital, since her father had taken the car to work.
When life is going normally, something gets in the way. It might be a small pebble in the road, like a bad day, or it might be something life-changing, like getting pregnant as a teenager. In the novel, With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo, the main character, Emoni, gets pregnant as an early teen, flipping her life upside down. Acevedo shows how growing up makes people rethink the world and find themselves through the use of motifs. Acevedo uses motifs relating to Emoni’s food helping others, Emoni’s cooking helping herself, and recipes to help others connect with their old memories and to show the importance of expressing and working through emotions and challenging experiences.
Actions provoked by fear and desperation nurture perturbed emotions, particularly in adolescence. The impenetrable will of hopelessness is dissected and empathized in Eugenia Collier’s short fiction story, Marigolds. The study sync excerpt revolves around a young impoverished teen, Lizabeth, who seeks hope in a bundle of rage, sorrow, and uncertainty. She, a person of color during The Great Depression, sought entertainment/joy by meddling with an elderly woman in her neighborhood, Miss Lottie. However, the supposed “meddling” would lead Lizabeth into a (dire or empathetic) reality which The Great Depression proposed for all.
“Nineteen”, by Elizabeth Alexander uses language and tone to form a multi-sensory poem about remembering her youth and desire to connect to her past Vietnam vet lover. These aspects of language and tone are embedded in the outer form of the poem, as the author forms an imaginative recreation of her young adult life, which directly impacts the reader to allow for an enjoyable simple read. The elements of language and tone formation ensure the translation of Alexander’s emotions or feelings of her youth for the audience to relate and understand. In the first place, the language within “Nineteen” is casual and not really poetic.
In Eden Robinson’s novel, Monkey Beach, there is a contrast between the present tense narrative and flashback technique Robinson incorporates. The novel consists of the narrator, Lisamarie Hill, telling her story in the present time; intertwined with these sequences of events is a series of flashbacks from her past to educate the reader about Lisa’s life up until the present. Throughout Monkey Beach, flashbacks and present tense narration depict time and place through the characters Lisamarie, Erica, and Josh, who experience sexual violence, due to colonizers, and residential schools. To begin with, the flashback technique and present tense narration portray time and place from the impact colonizers have on Lisamarie and Erica. Sexual violence occurs to Lisamarie’s cousin, Erica, who is being followed by a few young white men, in a car, hurling racist insults, until Lisamarie intervenes.
Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” explores the theme of how trauma affects one’s future life and actions, especially in the character Perry Smith, whose childhood was characterized by neglect and uncertainty, leading him to commit serious crimes. Similarly, in “Poisonwood Bible,” Barbara Kingsolver expresses the same theme in the character Nathan Price, whose experiences in the war, when paired with a deep religious belief, led him to justify the abuse of his family with the words of God. Both Perry and Nathan’s experiences shape their actions throughout most of their adult life, though Nathan’s trauma does occur significantly later in life, after he had already established a plan for his future. In his past, Perry’s neglectful mother and unreliable father caused him to grow up with a sense of uncertainty, moving around through orphanages and Salvation Army homes, only occasionally living with either of his parents. Early on, he had very little moral direction, with “no rule or discipline, or anyone to show [him] right from wrong” (Capote 275).
Speak Essay: Figurative language has a tremendous influence on literature because it enlivens the words and makes them jump off the page. This allows the reader to visualize the scene in a unique, explicit way. Laurie Anderson’s Speak demonstrates an abundant use of figurative language. Figurative language appears in various forms; this includes simile, metaphor, personification, symbol, hyperbole and more.
We all have things from our childhood we remember. Maybe it’s a teddy bear from mom, or when dad brought home a computer, or a treehouse built with a sibling. We recollect these objects because they have a significant role in our lives, something about them changed us. Jeannette comes across many things during her childhood travels, they cause an immense number of problems but in the end they change her and her family for the better. Jeannette Walls’ story The Glass Castle, is filled with symbols that gradually release her and her siblings from the grasp of their negligent parents and the harrowing abyss that is their life.
Aimee uses the imagery of our perceptions of what we as the reader have the effect of power to help characterize our characters. For the fire girl, she wrote “They put the fire girl in jail. She’s a danger, everyone said, she burns things, she burns people. She likes it.” (125) For the ice girl, things were better.
The Rocket Man-Literary Analysis The Rocket Man is a story about a man that has two different lives. The Rocket Man by Ray Bradbury is about a man that is split between staying with his family or going back into space and not seeing them for another few years. He has to choose whether he wants to stay with his family which consists of Doug the son, and Lilly the wife and mother. This story is about a man that has a job as a “Rocket Man” that goes into space for long periods of time and they don’t see their family for a while.
When Knockwood was only five years old she was sent to the Resi, where she found it hard to understand the teachers and Nuns because she did not know much English. Trying her very best in school there were times that Knockwood wished she could forget. Watching friends and classmates of hers get beaten in front of the dinning hall and getting hurt by dangerous machines during work time. Knockwood thought about her siblings everyday, but mostly about her brothers, only because Knockwood would only get to see them on the odd
Italo Calvino Literary Analysis “It is not the voice that commands the story; it is the ear.” (Italo Calvino) Italo Calvino was a famous Italian writer who wanted his life to be known and wanted the people to be interested in his stories. It was not only about what he wanted, it was about what the people wanted to hear. He did not just want to make his stories, he was striving to catch the eye of the readers. Italo Calvino’s writings were inspired mainly by his experiences in the war and acquaintances.
The book Marshfield of Dreams: When I was a Kid, by Ralph Fletcher is a memoir that uses lots of sensory details, imagery, similes, and other figurative language. Along with these types of figurative language, he also uses three elements; plot, setting, and characters. For example, the plot of the book is a story of Ralph’s childhood, and short stories of scenarios that occurred in his childhood. The setting of the memoir consists of various places such as; school, his home, etc. Along with the plot, and the setting, there are also characters mentioned in the story.
With the novel being read from a ‘twelve’ year old whose history motivates his understanding, perception and interpretation of the events he encounters and interprets to the reader,
