The Chrysanthemums John Steinbeck Analysis

She turned the car real hard and spun off the rode into some shrubs, so that she would lose their followers. The driver introduced herself as Kit Snicket. We have an important brunch to go to, to discuss the matters of a imposter. Kit layed out a blanket on the ground and placed a feast out for them to eat. Kit was a pregnant woman who was very kind because she was a volunteer.

In “To Build A Fire” the author Jack London uses the contrast of humanity and nature to illustrate how fallible we are. We repeatedly see instances where mistakes return to haunt the man. Jack London as a prospector undoubtedly saw many deaths like these. Prospectors who thought the rules were for the“womanish”, who were later found dead, or never found at all. “The absence of sun from the sky, the tremendous cold, and the strangeness and weirdness of it all”- The Yukon is the perfect setting for this story.

Ann Pancakes novel Strange as This Weather Has Been focuses on a hopelessness found with Appalachian strip mining. The quotes that seemed to convey her argument were spoken by both Lace and Bant. Both of these characters had a very deep connection to the land and felt strongly about its destruction. The first quote is from when Lace goes to Trout with Charlie; she explained “a big paintless boarded-up store still plastered with faded ads going clear back to the ‘50s. The collapsing houses, some help standing only by kudzu vines, and the concrete steps leading to concrete foundations with nothing on top” (306-7).

“The high gray-flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and from all the rest of the world. On every side it sat like a lid on the mountains and made of the great valley a closed pot.” In this line, Steinbeck used descriptive, figurative and sensory language to further emphasize his use of imagery in describing an image of a gray, foggy, winter day. The image of the valley as a “closed pot”, as well as these words, “closed off,” “sat like a lid,” all gave off the feeling of confinement and isolation, which became the theme of the story. The fact Elisa and her husband lived very far from the city, thus making her secluded in her home. Another evidence of confinement in the story is Elisa tending her chrysanthemums within a wire fenced garden, “Then she dug ten parallel trenches to receive the sets.

Shukhov reveals how he survives the day in and day out in the gulag. In One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Shukhov is in the gulags for being wrongfully convicted of treason. He must deal with the destruction of humanity, created a ritualization for eating, and most important, he treats time as a valuable possession. To begin with, Shukhov makes sure that he keeps his dignity despite the destruction of human solidarity that the forced labor camps. For example, This quote refers the lack of solidarity caused by the gulags, because for the lack of food, dignity, and the harsh weather.

The valley of the ashes -- the area between the West and East Egg -- represents absolute poverty and hopelessness. Fitzgerald first introduces “The desolate area of land” (35) in chapter two, where “ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and...translucent effort of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. (35)” Unlike the extravagant West and East egg, the valley of the ashes presents a dark tone to the novel. All the events that occur in the valley of the ashes appears to be morally unsettling because of the dark and grey connotation. The colour grey -- the colour for dreariness -- describes this valley, a place of no hope and future.

Oh! Suddenly you tripped. Your feet got caught in between the tangled roots of this forest. Pitch black is all you can see-- an approaching abysmal darkness of cold and fear. Will this be the end?, you thought as you are slowly devoured by this seemingly endless void.

The “shadow” used here is the shadow of the bridge, “darkness” is the darkness of the American life. Thus we can induce the underline meaning from the poet. Only if you understand the gloomy side of the American life, you can comprehend the truth of the bridge. The city’s fiery parcels all undone” suggests the extinguishing of the building’s light, or fragmented urban lives,” while “Already snow submerges an iron year” recalls the heavy load of custom that weighs down the spirit. Meantime, the word “iron” modifies the “year” technically and protrudes the overwhelming place of American

American novelist Tobias Wolff, in his short fiction story, “Hunters in the Snow,” strategically uses the cold, hostile setting of a snowy winter hunting trip to help center around oddly dark themes such as self-esteem, self-absorption, and overindulgence. The story is set in snowy, cold, miserable weather that makes it a struggle to even walk, shown by Tub having to trudge through the icy snow, “as the edge of the crust bruised his shins.” This battle against the weather relates to Tub’s battle against overindulgence, which effects the story by incorporating and symbolizing one of the key themes. This also symbolizes Tub’s self-esteem issues when battled against his hostile, cruel “friends.” The cold gradually becomes more of a problem throughout

Fitzgerald intentionally uses the valley to display the side effects of decay in an area. The ash that covers everything represents the economic decay of an area. Nobody that lives there can afford to fix it. Later on in the passage , it further describes the way the valley looks, “The grey land and spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it… Brood on over the solemn dumping ground”(27-28). This quote gives the reader a good look as to what the valley is like.

Black, still, cold, mute, dead, isolated. Those are some of the first adjectives that Clark employs to explain to us the prairie that has been a victim of war. The prairie was once full of life, but now was desolate because of the war. Shallow, brittle, frozen are used to illustrate that the frost had just begun, and that the blistering cold now ruled the land for the season ahead. Tangled, quiet, and empty is then describing the once piece of fence that remained standing throughout the war, and the caves within the walls of the ditch that were once filled with the soldiers during the war.

In the Story “Popular Mechanics”, Carver demonstrates the devastating collapse of a household. The setting presented foreshadows the entirety of the story, “Early that day the weather turned and the snow was melting into dirty water. Streaks of it ran down from the little shoulder-high window that faced the backyard. Cars slushed by on the street outside, where it was getting dark. But it was getting dark on the inside too”.

When Perry described his helplessness after walk: “the lodge was dark, and all the doors were locked. And everything I owned was lying out there in the snow. Where Dad had thrown it.” , another pathetic character - Victor Frankenstein comes out, created by Mary Shelley, who creates a grotesque but sentient creature in the same boat with Perry Smith. Victor spent incorrigible amount of days and night on the study of creature but at the moment he saw the horrible appearance of the creature, he ran away like an arrow. The catastrophe brought to Victor’s life should be blamed on not only the creature’s devil and twisted mind but also Victor’s responsibility.

Have you imagined how the post-apocalyptic world will look like and will you choose try hard to survive or to die? In the book, The Road, written by McCarthy, the sky is dark. It’s cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. Everything has gone, only except some human beings who try every way to survive even by hurting and killing people.