Quoting Nowlan

"I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy." (Giovanni). Nikki Giovanni was born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni on June 7, 1943 in Knoxville, Tennessee (“Nikki”). Nikki Giovanni, professor at Virginia Tech and writer, was involved in a tragic event in 2007. Giovanni helped Virginia Tech move forward from the massacre that took place at the college. Nikki Giovanni has impacted our world through her poems, speeches, and books.

In this speech, from William Shakespeare's Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey addresses his sudden downfall as adviser to the king. Shakespeare describes how Wolsey feels as he found out the news. Moreover, he shows the anger and disappointment one could feel when it’s unexpected. Wolsey’s monologue reveals both his anger and lamentation as he struggles to understand why this downfall has occurred. Shakespeare portrays Wolsey’s farewell with allusions and figurative language, accompanied by a vengeful tone.

Stories are the foundation of relationships. They represent the shared lessons, the memories, and the feelings between people. But often times, those stories are mistakenly left unspoken; often times, the weight of the impending future mutes the stories, and what remains is nothing more than self-destructive questions and emotions that “add up to silence” (Lee. 23). In “A Story” by Li-Young Lee, Lee uses economic imagery of the transient present and the inevitable and fear-igniting future, a third person omniscient point of view that shifts between the father’s and son’s perspective and between the present and future, and emotional diction to depict the undying love between a father and a son shadowed by the fear of change and to illuminate the damage caused by silence and the differences between childhood and adulthood perception.

Sleep is symbolic for peace and harmony. However sometimes the war you face while awake can haunt your sleep. The protagonist Antonio (Toni) in Bless Me Ultima by Rudolpho Anaya is forced to face the differentiating cultures and influences projected by his elders. His parents attempt to live their dreams through Toni but only cause the development of the opposite within Antonio. The conflict Toni faces has such a tremendous impact on him that it besets his dreams.

Innocence is the idea of being blameless and free from any wrongs because one devoid in making any decisions. However, at times those who are innocent cause frenzy and disruptions in a family. Alden Nowlan’s, The Fall of a City, portrays how Teddy, an eleven year old boy, full of imagination in his own little world is ridiculed by his aunt and uncle whom believe that he is up to something in the attic. Subsequently, it is accentuated that his imagination blinds him from realizing the reality that his imaginations are illusions. Throughout this short story, Nowlan demonstrates how naivety and innocence blinds one from realizing the truth by juxtaposing the two settings and emphasizing on the conflicts. Ultimately, innocence undermines an individual’s

The movie Shutter Island is overwhelmingly filled with themes of mental health. Before moving into the content of this paper I would like to disclose this movie contains a false and melodramatic portrayal of mental illness, this is not an accurate representation of the field. The movie begins with Federal Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner traveling to a secluded island containing a mental facility for the criminally insane. They are supposedly there to investigate a missing patient, however, throughout the movie we see clips with signs and symptoms that point to Teddy’s own diagnosis of a mental disorder. That maybe Teddy isn’t exactly on the island for an investigation but has his own hidden secrets to uncover. In the final scene, we discover that Teddy (real name Andrew Laeddis) is severely suffering from his own mental health

The word deceit means to take action or practice deceiving someone by concealing or misrepresenting the truth. In the novel Much Ado About Nothing, a theme of deceit is constantly present, and appears in many different forms. Deceit is used not only for wicked purposes, but mainly for good intentions. In Shakespeare's novel deception is used to initiate and continue the play's plot, by using the masking of characters, faking death and various other forms of deception to demonstrate how true deception can be in our lives.

“‘I wanted to return to Sighet to describe to you my death so that you might ready yourselves while there is still time. Life? I no longer care to live…but I wanted to come back to warn you. Only no one is listening to me’” (Wiesel 7).

“Father! Father! Wake up. They’re going to throw you outside… No! I yelled. He’s not dead! Not yet!...” Elie said as the desperation crept throughout his voice as he hoped his father would open his eyes and continuing to give him the strength to live. The theme family is carried out through the story Night. Family is essential when going through an extremely dark, depressing, lonely period of time, like the Wiesel's did. Elie and his father experienced things that are unimaginable and couldn’t have made it as far as they did without each other. Throughout the book Night the author Elie Wiesel is trying to accomplish the goal of making people understand that there will be difficulty throughout life and family will be there to make the hard times easier. Elie uses imagery, symbolism, and flashbacks to explain the importance of family after his tragic trauma.

A Tale of Two Cities, written by Charles Dickens, surrounds the cities of Paris and London during the late 1700’s. The novel takes place during the French Revolution, a period of social and political upheaval in France and England. While peasants died in the streets from hunger, aristocrats had more money and power than they knew what to do with. A Tale of Two Cities describes, in detail, the poverty of the time period, as well as the struggle of a people able to overcome oppression. The novel is largely based off of occurrences Dickens experienced during his childhood. Throughout the novel, the audience is able to infer what the author’s personal feeling towards the revolution is. This is shown through the personification of the guillotine, a tone of uncertainty, and use of violence through oppression. Therefore, the speaker is expressing his view on the revolution, while also predicting the resurrection of France.

In The Fall of a City, written by Alden Nowlan, Teddy’s aunt and uncle are not good parents for him. In the story he is seemingly constantly picked at by his aunt and uncle (more so his uncle). His guardians also do not seem to take the time to understand their kid and resort to commenting on his “hobby”. Finally the most important reason that his aunt and uncle are not fit to parent him is the title itself “The Fall of a City”; the cumulative result of their poor parenting.

In Alden Nowlan’s short story “The Fall of a City”, Teddy, a young boy living in his uncles home, is experiencing an unbelievably negative environment that he feels as he must create his own world. Teddy uses the imaginary city in the attic as an escape from the world below. Firstly, Teddy “[spends] most of his afternoon in the attic...he just about lives up there” (P.43) blocking off the negative aspects of his life. Teddy is so vigorously impacted by the negative energy that he rather be “squatting in the attic” (P.41) than spending time with his family. Additionally, Teddy is in constant fear of his uncle and regularly reminded that he is restrained by an authority figure. He uses the paper dolls to express the creativity and escape the

Alice Walker uses imagery and diction throughout her short story to tell the reader the meaning of “The Flowers”. The meaning of innocence lost and people growing up being changed by the harshness of reality. The author is able to use the imagery to show the difference between innocence and the loss of it. The setting is also used to show this as well.

In the poem, “A Hymn to Childhood,” Li-Young Lee talks about having fragmented individuality from childhood due to war. He is lost in perception of a traumatic childhood caused by war and a normal naïve childhood. Lee depicts the two diverged childhoods from his memory through the use of antithesis to emphasize the world perceived by a self fragmented individual.

In your opinion, who is the hero of Frankenstein: Victor Frankenstein or the monster? Why? How did Mary Shelley influence your choice (you may discuss the ways she reveals her characters)?