ipl-logo

Symbolism In 'When Did The Fireflies Stop Dancing'

453 Words2 Pages

Lighting bugs, firedevils, and fireflies are all names to describe a flying bug capable of glowing in the dark. In literature these insects are often used to symbolize the simpler things in life, enjoying moments and all that comes with them. In the excerpt from Tending Roses this idea is also present through the story inside the journal titled “When Did the Fireflies Stop Dancing”. When the main character Katie reads this journal she is shown the life and death of her grandmother’s dreams and desires, she is reminded to stop and look for fireflies. In the eighth paragraph of the excerpt, the quote “I thought of how many times as a girl I stared into that faraway moon and dreamed impossible dreams” is given. In this quote the journal is telling the audience all the big dreams the grandmother used to have, being young and full of hope and belief in the impossible. The paragraph continues stating later on ”I thought of that part of me that once created bigger worlds and I mourned” showing she has lost that part of herself and she feels a lot of sorrow and regret because of it. As the story goes on the grandmother explains …show more content…

After she finished reading her grandmother's journal, the line “In the darkness of the yard, I lifted the lid and promised myself I would remember to look for the fireflies tomorrow night.” is given. This line shows the audience how deeply reading the journal has impacted her mentality, she goes from ignoring the fireflies in the beginning of the excerpt and opting to read the journal instead to promising to look for them the following day. “When Did the Fireflies Stop Dancing” acts as a call-to-action for Katie, showing her that she needs to hold on to her hopes and nurture that part of her that dreams impossible dreams while its still their or else she will be forced to bury that part of herself and mourn it just as her parents and grandmother

Show More
Related

  • Quotes From Tending Roses

    289 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the story, Tending Roses, Katie reads her grandmother’s journal. After reading it, she promises to look out for fireflies the next day. I believe she did this because her grandmother’s jounal entry made her realize how she does not pay attention to the outside world enough. In her grandmother’s jounal, her grandma expressed how she whe remembered what it felt like when she had seen those sights so mezmorizing. Those sights that her grandma described seemed comforting and welcoming.

    Read More

  • Eugenia Collier's Marigolds

    471 Words  | 2 Pages

    She overhears her parents talking about the hardships that they have to deal with. According to the author, the text states, “The world had lost its boundary lines. My mother, who was small and soft, was now the strength of the family; my father, who was the rock on which the family had been built, was sobbing like the tiniest child. Everything was suddenly out of tune, like a broken accordion. Where did I fit into this crazy picture?

    Read More

  • Symbolism In In The Time Of The Butterflies By Julia Alvarez

    590 Words  | 3 Pages

    Julia Alvarez, author of In the Time of the Butterflies, expresses Minerva’s dilemmas through the use of symbolism to emphasize the struggle of choosing to prioritize her family or fighting in the country’s revolution. Having been apart from her family for so long, Minerva, the second daughter amongst four, wishes to live a normal life with her family and to see her children grow up. But the responsibility she holds as the country’s savior weighs heavily on her and becomes a grave issue for her. After she is released from prison, Minerva feels as if the house arrest is a blessing in disguise: “But to tell you the truth, it was as if I’d been served my sentence on a silver platter. By then, I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more than to

    Read More

  • The Secret Life Of Bees By Sue Monk Kidd

    1186 Words  | 5 Pages

    This young girl is fighting with her emotions and is going against reality to find out the real truth about her life and what really happened. Below is how the young girl manages to do all that and what struggles she faces while trying to find the impossible. This also shows a deeper look of how much this young girl grew mentally throughout the book. In the novel, the author tells

    Read More

  • Symbolism In Things That Don 'T Kill Lightning Bugs'

    1078 Words  | 5 Pages

    Throughout the entire story, the boy has been infatuated with the lightning bugs. They represent the relationship of the mother and how she is still making herself discoverable even though she left. The boy makes this claim evident when he asked," if they didn't want to be caught why would they light up." The son is unintentionally drawing a parallel between his absent mother and the lightning bugs in this question. Also, the boy is very devout toward the lightning bugs.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Stereotypes In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    669 Words  | 3 Pages

    The grandmother’s transcendence to grace happens in her last moments of life. Through her last hours of suffering, she had loved. She then completes this character transformation by dying peacefully with, “her face smiling up at the cloudless sky”

    Read More

  • What Is Hard To Find By Flannery O Connor Characterizes The Landscape

    665 Words  | 3 Pages

    When the family sits in the car the narrator reveals that the grandmother wears touches of lace and purple clothing so that, “In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (O’Connor 471). This demonstrates the strange ideas that go through the grandmother’s mind and paints a picture of what she imagines her death to be like. However, the irony stems from the true setting of her death where “…the grandmother…half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood” (O’Connor 481). The dramatic irony – proposed by the setting of her imagined death versus actual death – demonstrates how detached the grandmother is from reality. Specifically, she pictures her death to be glorious, with people surrounding her to identify her; she gives no thought to the fact that her family would be affected in this situation as well.

    Read More

  • Foreshadowing In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    831 Words  | 4 Pages

    The author has written this story to offer the reader’s an inside look into the grandmother’s self-centered and selfish mindset. Bluntly speaking, it is believed that the reader’s should have seen the outcome coming after realizing the grandmother’s mentality. O’ Conner’s skill as a short story writer enables her to express subtle use of foreshadowing helps depict the family and grandmother’s demise by evoking feeling of inevitability.

    Read More

  • Lisa Wingate Tending Roses Quotes

    463 Words  | 2 Pages

    In paragraph 9 she thinks back to when her children caught fireflies in a jar with her, but one day she forgot about them, “ I suppose they flew away one night as I lingered over mending, or soiled tableware, or a child’s lessons.” While she was busy with the housework the fireflies had already left. She was once like her children, mourning for the passing of the fireflies, but as time went by she had other things on her mind; thoughts of future endeavors like mending, teaching her children, or washing dishes dominated her mind, as she stopped saying goodbye to her old

    Read More

  • Summary Of Natasha Trethewey History Lesson

    1215 Words  | 5 Pages

    She starts off the poem with the speaker looking at a “photograph” (Trethewey l. 1) of herself when she was four years old. The reader is instantly taken into a personal memory of the narrator and

    Read More

  • Theme For Lusus Naturae

    711 Words  | 3 Pages

    While reading the story, you can tell in the narrators’ tone that she feels rejected and excluded. She is not happy and I’m sure, just like her family, she wonders “why her?” She is rejected and never accepted for who she really is. She is different. She’s not like anyone else

    Read More

  • Flannery O Connor's Use Of Setting Analysis

    724 Words  | 3 Pages

    The somber lighting surrounding the story becomes increasingly darker as the story progresses. By doing so, it gives a sense of foreboding that once the light is extinguished, something dreadful will manifest. This may be a reference to the souring relationship between Julian and his mother. Julian for instance is “cut emotionally free” from his mother. The “dying violet”

    Read More

  • Literary Devices Used In The Story Of An Hour

    550 Words  | 3 Pages

    She Breathed… that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long……. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of

    Read More

  • Fireflies Similes Analysis

    935 Words  | 4 Pages

    Have you ever had any troubles sleeping at night? Some people might have an inability to sleep, a sleeping disorder called insomnia. But for Adam Young, he had trouble sleeping at night, and yet, still have a very colorful vivid dreams. In “Fireflies”, by Owl City, Adam Young is trying to show his vivid dreams when he was young by using many figurative languages such as simile, metaphor, hyperbole, personification, and repetition.

    Read More

  • What Is The Worst Of Times

    265 Words  | 2 Pages

    She is afraid of what her father will be, claiming that what he now is “his Ghost – not him!” And thus, the “best of times” has unexpectedly become the

    Read More

More about Symbolism In 'When Did The Fireflies Stop Dancing'

Open Document