Bill Bryson Literary Commentary 13/01/2016 Liam S.Hare Introduction: Chapter seven in the book, “The Lost Continent” written by Bill Bryson, struck me as a rather disappointing chapter in the book. Because of its endless repetitiveness, i found myself just as confused and irritated as Bryson must have been writing this chapter. The Chapter in question, commences in the morning in a town named “Tupelo”. Famed worldwide for being the birthplace of Elvis Presley, as you already know. Bryson is taking a tour of “The King’s” birthplace, a tidy white little house situated in the shade of the vast Elvis Presley park. Just off Elvis Presley drive, second exit off the Elvis Presley Memorial Highway. One might gather from this Tupelo is proud of its most famous native son. Bryson later claims they hadn’t done anything “tacky”, to make a killing of Presley’s dying fame. Bryson goes on to joke about Presley’s audience being much like his fame, the elderly being the only guests in the house. Nevertheless Bryson claimed to be glad that he stopped, the upcoming City of Columbus was next. Unfortunately for us all Bryson has to comment on during the drive is the endless rows of shacks lining the highway all the way to Columbus. Shortly afterwards he observed that the poor population had several signs along the way, advertising “Gas, Fireworks,Fried Chicken,Live Bait”. Bryson attempts to add humour to the situation, by joking about some or other restaurant that dealt with live bait as
The book serves as a sharp contrast with the deception of Colonists as well as a symbol of solid realness within a fantastical dream where truth is impossible. When describing the book, Marlow’s diction are highly positive, using words like “honest”, “humble” and “simple”. The direct expression and singleness of intention serves as a contrast with the lies the Colonists tell to conceal the reality in Africa. Europeans justify their bloodthirsty conquest as something they did for a greater cause. In 1876, at the Geographical Conference on Central Africa, King Leopold justified “To open to civilization the only part of our globe which it has not yet penetrated, to pierce the darkness which hangs over entire peoples, is, I dare say, a crusade worthy of this century of progress” (Cleary).
He explored until he came across a 600 acre land that would later become a slave inhabited area. “City upon a Hill” was an ideology that the colony would be looked upon by the people. From the beginning of time, migration was a contributing factor to traditions
Richard M. Donovan wrote the book “paddling the Wild Neches”. Once the story is fully read, the realization of what a human will do in order to keep an important place that values so much, it is magnificent. Richard was 66 years old during his 200 mile canoeing expedition, he did not think that he was going to make it happen. However, he accomplished what he felt he needed to do so he can open minds about a place that needs their help. He captured what was hidden in the river and wanted to tell his story about it.
After John Grady Cole traveled “hours down the mesa” to Mexico, he soon ran into a storm opposing his once grandeur view of Mexico. He talks about how “…the rain had almost ceased” and that “in the gray twilight… [The natives] seemed to echo like the calls of some rude provisional species loosed upon that waste”. The backdrop that had once seemed like heaven to the John quickly became a “waste,” inhabited by a “rude provisional species.” This change in narrative tone set around Mexico suggests that John Grady Cole has learned the truth; Mexico wasn’t as much of a utopia as he first expected. With this new geographical development, there is parallel character development, suggesting that the scenery around John affected him more than anything else.
In the paragraphs of chapter 4 it’s all about right after the civil war and the effects placed on the south. The economic status of the south was poor. This was due to the fact during the war everything was burned and destroyed from Sherman’s march. This also was a great cause to death within the south and people lost everything they had during the civil war. The south had to be rebuilt from the bottom up and they had to learn a whole new way of living/thinking.
Into the Beautiful North Summary Into the Beautiful North is a novel about a young coming of age girl by the name of Nayeli in the small town of Tres Camarones (a small village about 1000 miles from the U.S border) and her quest to the United States to try and raise an army of men to bring back to her hometown to fight the bandidos (the bad guys). The story begins with the introduction of the characters, beginning with Nayeli, the dark skinned, nineteen-year old girl on her way to her second job at La Mano Caida restaurant. Here the story shows us that her and her friends have nothing to do in this small town but work their low–wage jobs and surf the internet for things they have no hope of seeing in reality. The problem of the story is that things are rapidly changing in a small town that does not welcome change as a result of some drug dealing hooligans who have begun
Strange New Land The time period and events of when slavery took place is a topic that is frequently and heavily covered in United States history. Peter Wood’s book, A Strange New Land gives an intrinsic synopsis of slavery from the very beginning of slavery in the Americas dating 1492 all the way through the start of the American Revolution in 1775. Wood reveals insight into the excruciating lives and the daily challenges slaves in the Americas endured.
“The Oregon Trail,” written by Francis Parkman is a description of the experiences traveling into the unknown depths of the American west in 1846. The story is told from the first person point of view of Parkman, a scholar from Boston who embarks on the great expedition of traveling into the west in hopes of studying the lives of the Native Americans. His journey is also one of the first detailed descriptions of the beauty and the bounty of a largely uninhabited North American territory. But one of the most critical elements of the story was Parkman’s encounters and recruitment of members to his band of travelers who ultimately play a major role in the success of the western journey.
Tensions were evident between the Northern and Southern regions of the United States due to the westward expansion seen from 1800 to 1850. Many different disagreements arose as a result of this mass of lands in the west, primarily because of conflicting perspectives. The North and South, historically, have had a variety of different viewpoints on many aspects of life and liberty. This caused more tension once ideas such as Manifest Destiny came about, an concept where the need for new lands west was prevalent.
When thinking of the wilderness one might picture a scene from a camp site. Untamed dense forest, and endless jungle probably come first to mind and although this might be one meaning of wilderness, Mellor’s perception of wilderness and pastoral opens our thoughts on how we view the unpredictable and the known. In “Lure Of The Wilderness” by Leo Mellor, he shows the meaning of the unexplored wilderness and the surprises that come with the unknown, while humans try to tame what is wild and create a pastoral environment around them. Mellor’s writing helps understand hidden aspects in the short story “Wild” by Lesley Arimah, when Ada is blindsided with a plane ticket to visit her aunt in Africa. She travels to a place mostly unknown to her, besides the relatives living there.
Sign Elvis was born to Gladys and Elvis Presley in 1935 and he was their only child. Elvis grew up in Tupelo, Mississippi
Journey to the West was written by Wu Cheng’en, a novelist in Ming Dynasty, originated from Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, folk legends and Yuan Zaju operas. As the first full-length romantic god-evil novel in ancient China, this novel portrays the social reality at that time in depth, and is the beginning of magic realism. In the original version of Wu Cheng’en, the main characters are Sun Wukong, Tang Seng, the pig and the sand monk. This novel tells a story that Tang Priest and his three disciples travel westward for Buddhist Scriptures. After eighty adventurous experiences, Tang Sanzang finally reach the west and got the real scripture.
He was born into the family of Nathan Bedford Forrest, the man known for starting the Klu Klux Klan, also known as the KKK. As well as being born into nobility, he influenced many well known people. For example, because of his back being crooked, he danced kind of awkwardly. But when the man we know today as Elvis was staying at his house, he danced for him, and Elvis soon starting using this ‘wobble’. Eventually, the dance was seen on T.V..
Colonialism is an important topic in the novel, Things Fall Apart that causes societies to flourish, but it also causes societies to fall. Ibo society is a society that functions best by itself with no competition from other societies. Ibo society is unstable as even small-scale colonialism can cause Ibo society to fail. However, the true reason for the failure of Ibo society is colonialism. Achebe portrays the use of colonialism as having harmful effects on Ibo culture and community.
Paradise Lost is the creative epic poem and the passionate expression of Milton’s religious and political vision, the culmination of his young literary ambition as a 17th century English poet. Milton inherited from his English predecessors a sense of moral function of poetry and an obligation to move human beings to virtue and reason. Values expressed by Sir Philip Sidney, Spencer and Jonson. Milton believes that a true poet ought to produce a best and powerful poem in order to convince his readers to adopt a scheme of life and to instruct them in a highly pleasant and delightful style. If Milton embraced the moral function of literature introduced by Sidney, Spencer and Johnson, he gave it a more religious emphasise.