In William Faulkner's short story “Dry September”, Faulkner uses physical actions to reveal hidden evidence on unanswered questions of the story. Specifically, McClendon's actions lead to answering some of the most compelling questions that arise from the book that were not clearly answered within the McClendon’s dialogue. Faulkner portrays McClendon's actions and emotions through descriptions, which allows the reader to obtain the knowledge necessary in understanding what happened to Will Mayes, if McClendon wanted to kill Will or not, and if McClendon will commit these actions again. McClendon's sadistic personality, habits, and actions prove that Will Mayes was murdered. McClendon is described as a man with a “heavy-set body”(171) and with …show more content…
At the beginning of this section, the narrator describes McClendon's house after he gets home from murdering Will Mayes, “...his neat new house. It was trim and fresh as a birdcage and almost as small, with its clean, green-and-white paint” (182). The author describes his house as a birdcage, as if it were small, just like an actual birdcage. The purpose of a birdcage is to lock a bird inside it. Faulkner makes a comparison to show how McClendon feels trapped in his own house. He is dirty and sweaty and just came from a place that is not neat and nice like his house. This causes him to feel uncomfortable, uneasy and ashamed while entering his house. McClendon just came from a place where he was feeling good and powerful for what he had done to now feeling sick and horrible. He wants to make himself feel better. Therefore, he will try and make someone or something feel worse so he can feel better about himself in his situation for one split-second. For example, McClendon's violent actions earlier in the day towards Will Mayes causes him again to do more violent and angry things, this time to his wife. McClendon immediately gets frustrated with his wife when he gets into the house. He “glared at her with his hot eyes”(182) which implicates that he was enraged about something previously. McClendon uses energy from his anger and violence and reverberates it onto something he can easily exhibit his power too. He then continues to slap his wife until she is on the ground, speechless. His impulsive violence makes him feel powerful and satisfactory, but only for a brief moment.
“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do” (Pele qtd. In Soccerlens). Countless people have done amazing things through perseverance. Sonny was an average boy in a mining town, but he started building rockets and learned a valuable life lesson.
Murder becomes a touchy subject to the college students; the author mixes together a suspenseful atmosphere throughout the community college the protagonist attends as the short story progresses. It almost feels like one is on the edge of their seat when reading it. William Faulkner’s short story, “A Rose for Emily,” displays suspense and tones of slight insanity, but it cannot compare to the undertones that lay beneath Stephen King’s work. The narrator’s foreshadowing of uncovering the truth through his own detailed point of view creates a well written short story dubbed “Strawberry Spring.” Skimming through the literary work, foreshadowing is an obvious detail that appears in the work several times.
Faulkner composites a family that is far away from perfect, instead the family members each face a tribulation that connects to the death their mother. With the supporting passages Faulkner demonstrates how the novel, As I Lay Dying fulfill his own vision of the writer’s duty, which is to express the problems by appealing to pathos, introducing relatable problems, and discussing family dynamics. Faulkner fulfills the writer’s duty by introducing problems the writers can relate to. Faulkner inspires readers to write about, “problems of the human heart... with itself which can make good writing...because that is only worth the sweat agony” (Faulkner 14-15).
Foreshadowing often appears at the beginning of a story, or a chapter, and helps the reader develop expectations about the coming events in a story. William’s stories include virtues of the the Old South, which take a look at tragic flaw of slavery, and this sparked many of his stories. The Old South was an adherence to the code of chivalry and a belief in natural superiority of the white aristocracy. Throughout his stories, Faulkner contrats notions of the Old South and its decaying values with the newer ideas of the New South.
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner follows the Bundren family on their arduous journey to fulfill their dying mother's wish: to be buried with her family. Faulkner utilizes fifteen narrators, including Vardaman, the confused child, Addie, the dying mother, and objective characters such as the Tull family, to recount the details of the family's quest. Although death is a meaningful and somber topic, Faulkner reveals his opinion that death is an escape from the difficulties of life. Despite this grim subject matter, Faulkner uses irony and humor to effectively turn the novel into a dark comedy. Faulkner illustrates this dark humor through Addie's anticipation of her death, Anse's blatant ignorance toward his dying wife, and Vardaman's amusing confusion about death.
His main goal is to cause harm, yet he is never satisfied with the cruelties he
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.
Barry’s goal is to show the audience that he also is a victim of rage, however he has learned to embrace it and even tries to laugh about
(55) He also reveals to us that he feared embarrassment. Everybody who reads this knows the pressure and expectations for something and not being able to do it. “All those eyes on me-the town, the whole universe-and I couldn't risk the embarrassment.” (57)
For one it is because he is the one and only son of the Boss in the ranch. Already this makes him of higher power and more arrogant. Not only that, but he is a boxer and thinks very highly of his boxing skills. He is also married and in control of his wife, yet another reason he thinks he is powerful. Combining his arrogance, higher status, over self-confidence, and controlling behavior, he is not only more powerful but a bully towards others.
Mrs. Wright is the main character in Susan Glaspell’s one-act play Trifles. While Mrs. Wright is being held by the police for her husband’s murder, a few men go to investigate her home, and a few women go along to gather some of her things to bring to her in jail. As the ladies collect Mrs. Wright’s possessions, they begin to come across trifles. The trifles include: a messy kitchen, a poorly sewn quilt, and a broken bird cage with a missing bird. The women view these items as important clues, and withhold their findings from the men so that they could help Mrs. Wright out of her troubles.
They both conclude that someone was rough with the empty birdcage. Immediately afterward, Mrs. Hale comments on the men’s progress to find evidence, saying, “’I wish if they’re going to find any evidence they’d be about it’” (Glaspell 1416). Mrs. Hale’s remark is ironic because her current conversation about the birdcage’s door hinge is indirect evidence, yet she is growing impatient with the men’s attempts to discover any solid evidence. A little later on, Mrs. Hale relates the idea of a bird to Mrs. Wright by saying, “’she was kind of like a bird herself.’”
The bird is Mrs. Wright. It was locked up in a cage as was Mrs. Wright when her husband was alive. He wasn’t a very “cheerful” man, therefore, people didn’t come to visit them. Over the twenty year time period of their marriage she became lonely, which resulted in her buying a bird and the drastic change in personality. The broken door to the cage represents Mrs. Wright’s freedom from her husband.
Darl Bundren’s act of arson exhibits heroism because he performed the act for the sake of others. Faulkner uses irony to subvert the preconceived notions of heroism. Although the protagonist was sent to a mental institute at the end of the novel for
By using unconventional plot structure, Faulkner has created a complex method of storytelling to explore the moral shortcomings of Southern values and ethics during the American Civil War through the means of Emily, a character who is socially and mentally trapped in the old