Tunneling Symbols In Birdsong

In “The Great Scarf of Birds” by John Updike, the speaker concludes that his heart has been lifted by the image of a gray scarf. The poem is marked with joy and reverence to the natural world around the speaker, but there is sadness in his last few words. The speaker prepares the reader for this conclusion through an abundance of imagery, similes, and poem structure.

1.) The 14th Amendments guarantees all American citizens that are male and over the age of 21 have the right to vote regardless of race. This extended the right to vote to the Blacks and Chinese, and even brought up the question whether Native Americans should be allowed to vote. Even though these rights were a huge stepping stone for equality, they did not reach out to all Americans, Women did not get the right to vote until the 19th Amendment.

When reading a novel, readers do not often realize that many authors use the same types of characters and symbols. Applying a literary lens to a novels can help readers better understand why a novel was written. A literary theory is, “A term for analyzing, classifying, defining, interpreting, and evaluating literature” (Davidson). When observing a piece of literature with an Archetypal lens analysts can identify these patterns. According to Literary Devices, “In literature, an archetype is a typical character, an action, or a situation that seems to represent universal patterns of human nature” (literarydevices). In the novel In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez, the Archetypal Theory can be applied to characters and symbols in the

Jennifer Toth details the stories of many who face extreme opposition in the choices they have made in order to survive the ever present wickedness of today’s society. In the book Mole People, Jennifer Toth (1993) exonerates the myths of mole people, those who have chosen to live underground in New York City. Toth quickly becomes immersed not only in the emotional connections she has established, but also in her benevolence towards the underground homeless. Toth (1993) comments, “Tunnel people always amaze outsiders at how well they hide” (p.157). Throughout her writing process, Toth had to overcome many obstacles in order to gain a credible insight into the Mole People’s community. The community’s sense of secrecy presented one of Toth’s

Equality 7-2521’s perspective on society shifts due to his realizations. In the novel “Anthem,” all of the members of a collective society conform to a set of regulations where everyone is equal and together at all times. However, Equality 7-2521 decides to commit the most significant sin by working alone and having his own thoughts, which he never regrets. Equality 7-2521’s eventual assessment of his sin is correct because he often feels safer on his own, and isolation causes him to make incredible discoveries.

In Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s, Notes from Underground, we are presented with a complicated character named The Underground Man. He is exceedingly egocentric and believes that he is more intelligent than those in his surroundings. Despite all this, he is also a man who hates himself and often times feels humiliated. As a person who has isolated himself from society, he consistently analyzes and critiques every interaction with another person. For example, when an officer casually shoves the Underground Man In order to deescalate the situation in the tavern, the Underground Man takes offence to this and plots a long term solution to a meniscal problem. Rather than moving on with his life, he draws up plans to exact his revenge on the officer who probably doesn’t know he exists. These kinds of actions would be supported by Dostoyevsky because it requires strategic and calculated planning for the success of the mission.

In the novel “The Maze Runner” James Dashner portrays the artificial society in the middle of flare. Dystopia is a representation of imperfect society and survival is one of the emerging themes in dystopian literature. Every human learned to survive in their certain society and made the pathways to their future. Dystopian literature would focus on the ruined society and it was important and hard to survive. James Dashner in his novel “The Maze Runner” tested the youngsters’ brain to seek their future in the middle of the pressure. The youngsters alone had to survive with their limited possibilities. Thomas, one of the teenagers helped the other to solve the maze and to escape the glade. With the arrival of Thomas in Glade, the life of the Gladers is explained. This article speaks about the dystopian society and how the Gladers manage to survive in the middle of unknown terror.

In “Notes from the Underground”, a fiction book by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the Underground Man is not like the traditional main character in most other fiction books. Often books have a tragic hero where he or she either saves the days or unfortunately is killed. But that is not the case for this book, the main character shows characteristics that do not fit along the lines of a tragic hero at all. This paper argues that the Underground Man is most definitely not the tragic hero, but instead an anti-hero.

In “Germinal” Emile Zola portrays the difficulties and hardships of the miners in a way that makes the reader pity them. For the conditions in 19th century mines were unfit and unhealthy for labor workers as well as fatal sometimes. Although while reading you find Zola sympathy is contradicted and double sided for in the book it tries to explain the difference in socialism and political ideas and how they bring conflicts. For both sides of French society. While miners and their families worked in horrible conditions it was the lack of education that brought them there and unlike other social classes miner’s had no problem with women working if it benefited the family financially Zola states “ men worried more about finding work for their

In Dostoevsky novel, Notes from Underground, it involves the tormenting thoughts of a bitter antisocial man living in St.Petersburg, Russia. The Underground Man writes down his contradictory thoughts to describe his isolation from society. In his moments of solitude and isolation, he becomes corrupted by the power of spite. He does not give much thought how being spiteful will affect his life because he is an intelligent man. The act of being intelligent does not satisfy him, rather he uses his intelligence as a mechanism to make others feel as though they are incompetent to him. The Underground Man strives to have a role of authority over other individuals, however, his low insignificant position in society detains him from even feeling socially

Paul Laurence Dunbar, one of the first African-American poets to receive widespread recognition from both the Caucasian and African-American communities released many pieces of literature expressing his feelings throughout his life during the Reconstruction era. Two of these pieces, “We Wear the Mask” and “Sympathy” were short poems that veered from his regular dialectic pieces, aimed at aiding in Reconstruction, and held hidden rebellions against the mistreatment of African-Americans at the time the passages were released. The African-American and Ethnic Literary Studies critical approach is a tool used while critiquing pieces of literature that hold common themes or elements tracing back to slavery and segregation in early America. This approach

Birds are gifted with the extraordinary ability to fly. Their wings propel them above the ground and over people below. They are able to view the world from an angle that no one else gets to see. This is what makes birds and wings such powerful symbols in literature. These symbols characterize characters, move the plot and develop one more of the book’s ideas. In The Awakening by Kate Chopin birds and wings are mentioned a wide variety of times. Different types of birds are indicated in the novel too. Owls, pigeons, sea birds, parrots, and other types of birds are mentioned. Chopin uses these birds to showcase a struggle and character’s emotions. She uses birds so much in her writing that the birds became a motif. Birds are a recurring pattern

In the Disney movie The Little Mermaid, Arial doesn’t want what everyone else around her wants in life. She dreams of being a human unlike her friends and family. Both Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Franz Kafka are different from the norm, like Arial. They experiment with what it means to be a “normal” human in their books. Though the books Metamorphosis, and Notes from the Underground have different authors, they share many parallels, but also have numerous contradicting themes.

Although John Milton’s Paradise Lost remains to be a celebrated piece recounting the spiritual, moral, and cosmological origin of man’s existence, the imagery that Milton places within the novel remains heavily overlooked. The imagery, although initially difficult to recognize, embodies the plight and odyssey of Satan and the general essence of the novel, as the imagery unravels the consequences of temptation that the human soul faces in the descent from heaven into the secular realms. Though various forms of imagery exist within the piece, the contrast between light and dark imagery portrays this viewpoint accurately, but its interplay and intermingling with other imagery, specifically the contrasting imagery of height and depth as well as cold and warmth, remain to be strong points

The world is no stranger to oppression. Madness driven from an inferiority complex based on racial stigma. Prohibition of freedom being yet another way to inflate this expanding social divide between the oppressors and the oppressed, between white and black. Within the poem I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, this concept of social division due to the desire of freedom and the desire to restrict the freedom of others is explored through the implementation of a variety of literary devices: symbolism, metaphors, sudden tone shifts, and a constant underlying allegory. Driven by her own experiences being raised during a time period where segregation and racism were acceptable behavior amongst the masses, Angelou illustrates this problematic normalization of discrimination through the juxtaposition of a free bird to a caged bird to convey the theme of oppression and the hope of freedom brought on by such.