In the poem “Hanging Fire” by Audre Lorde she displays identity and coming of age vividly through a fourteen year old. This teenager is rapidly searching for an identity within the consent and affection of others with an incredible fear of not making it. She is silently begging for the attention of her mother. No one is soothing the sensations that are consuming her, “what if I die before morning and momma’s in the bedroom with the door closed”. With no direction to kindle the motivation that is hardly there as it is, our character is waiting senselessly and fearfully to be knocked down by the wind of the physical and emotional insecurities she keeps close by.…
In the Fires of jubilee, author Stephen B. Oates tells the story of a slave who led a revolt to end the white supremacy in the South. This book is a non - fiction book and describes the history of slaves who rebelled against the white supremacy. The author sets images of story for reader to understand the purpose of the book. The author’s main purpose is to describe in detail about the slave rebellions in 1830s. He also explains the culture of that time and how people viewed slavery.…
The book The Fires of Jubilee by Stephen B. Oates, gives an account of the slave insurrection that took place in 1831 in Southampton County, Virginia, led by the self-proclaimed prophet Nat Turner. Oates gives an historic account of the events that led up to the deadliest insurrection before the civil war. Oates relies on the evidence of Nat Turner’s confessions, trial documents and other related material; but he does not give a fair account of the Southampton insurrection. The problem lies within Oates’ fixation on the storyline, the development of the character, and the tale of the events; over the actual evidence that historians are known to give account of. The storyline Oates portrayed makes a good tale, and the order of events appears accurate with the evidence provided; but Oates fails to give service to Turner and the events at work before the Civil War.…
The short story “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky,” written by Stephen Crane reflects on issues surrounding the eighteen centuries in the east and west of Texas. Crane reveals historical pieces by describing the area and surrounding of the east, which seems undeveloped and not so modernizes. During the eighteen centuries there were conflicts between the east and west resulting in different cultural and social matters because of Jack’s hesitation about bringing his new bride to Yellow Sky. There is also a reference to the Saloon, a term used back then for a bar. The author emphasized on the normal occurrences of gun fighting because during those days everyone had guns. The main focus is on the historical issues based on the abundant land, cultural matters and by the use of the word “Saloon” which refers to long ago.…
Jack London is most well-known for his novels Call of the Wild and White Fang. The novels and the short story “To Build a Fire” share a similar theme of survival in the wildernerness. London’s “To Build A Fire” is a story about a man and a dog traveling the Yukon trail. In the story the man is struggling to survive the harsh environment of the Klondike. “To Build a Fire” is a naturalistic story, influenced by scientific determinism as well as by Darwin’s theory of evolution because London was a socialist and a realist. Jack London traveled across Canada and Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush. Jack London’s time in the Klondike influenced the setting, characters,…
This story is told as a narration by a dying Xeones to the Persian king Xerxes. The loan surviving greek is kept alive after sustaining battle wounds by a surgeon to tell his account of the battle of Thermopylae and the events before it. His narration jumps back and forth between time to explain certain events. Xeones and his cousin, Diomache, are orphaned at a young age and hide in the hills with a slave. Diomache is taken as a maid after being gang raped as punishment for stealing and Xeones continues to Sparta where he becomes a battle squire under Dienekes. He explains in horrid detail the gruesome training of the Spartan children to become citizens or 'peers'. Xeones takes the married life and has a child. Persia threatens to invade Sparta and, under the leadership of King Leonitas, the Spartans go to fight the incomming forces. Defending the main passage of a narrow path through the mountains, the Spartans, accompanied by only a few thousand greeks, face the better part of 2 million Persian troops. As the first day of battle draws to an end, many Persians lie dead, yet only a few Spartans lay in their wake. Xerxes learns of a path leading behind the Spartans and sends a force to entrap them. After 7 days of gruesome battle, the Xerxes and his troups finally overpower the troups, and Leonitas is beheaded. After his story is finished, Xeones passes due to his wounds. The scribe writing his story accounts for the rest of the war after his passing including the Persians losing the war to the Greek army.…
Mr. Hopper, a man who was a minister in a village in a town of Milford, somewhere in England. He was usually the person who would always be leading citizens, looked up to by everyone, including civil authorities. Of course, everyone knew Mr.Hooper in town. Every Sunday the whole village went to church. This Sunday, when Mr.Hopper got out of his house, his appearance was totally different than usual. The sexton who was ringing the bell so people could know the minister was there. He stopped ringing the bell when he saw the minister wearing a black veil, that covered almost his whole face except his mouth and his chin. Every single person was talking and murmuring about the minister because he was wearing the black veil. Everything was so mysterious.…
In "Barn Burning," and "A Rose for Emily" William Faulkner creates two characters that are strikingly similar. Abner Snopes is loud and obnoxious. Because of this, most people tend to avoid him at all costs. On the contrary, Emily Grierson, a very intriguing woman from Jefferson, Mississipi, is an important figure in the town, despite spending most of her life alone. If these characters were judged purely on their reputation and physical appearance, it would be clear that Abner Snopes and Emily Grierson are opposites. Although at first look both Miss Emily and Abner Snopes appear different, they have more similar qualities than one would expect. These qualities drive them into a very similar and sad lifestyle.…
Fire can be used for many purposes, good or bad. It can heat and light up a room or it can completely destroy a room. In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, fire is used to destroy things; especially books. In their society reading books is against the law and anyone caught reading a book will get their house burned down with the books and all of their possessions inside. Fire is a recurring theme throughout the book. Bradbury uses fire as a symbol of destruction to demonstrate its power and how it can change things.…
Nat Turner is the most famous and most controversial slave rebel on American history. He was living in the innocent season of his life, in those carefree years before the working age of twelve when a slave boy could romp and run about the plantation with uninhibited glee. Nat in his young years cavorted about the home place as slave children did generally in Virginia. He was first lived in Turner's house, who owned a modest plantationin a remote neighborhood "down county" from Jerusalem. His daytime supervisor was his grandmother, Old Bridget- who regaled the boy with slave tales and stories from the Bible. Nat had become very attached to his grandmother. The Turners had become Methodists, who held prayer services on their farm and took the blacks to Sunday chapel. Among such slaves were Nat's grandmother and his mother, Nancy, a large, spirited, olive-skinned young American, imported to North America before 1808, to toil as bondsman on farms and plantations there. By the time Nat was four or five years old, Nancy was extremely proud of him. Bright-eyed and quick to learn, he stood out among the other children. He never touched liquor, never swore, never played practical jokes and never cared a thing for white people's money. Being a Methodist, the old Master not only approved of Nat's literacy but encouraged him to study the Bible. The preachers and everybody else in the boy's world all remarked that he had too much sense to be raised in bondage, that he " would never be of any service to anyone as a slave.…
At Thermopylae, the allied Greek nations deployed a small force of between four and seven thousand Greek heavy infantry against the invading Persian army of two million. Leading the Greeks was a force of three hundred Spartans, chosen because they were all "sires" — men who had to have sons who could preserve their blood line, should they fall in battle.…
Context (Mood, driving issues, who was involved): The U.S. Constitution was created by the founding fathers in 1787 which guarantees certain basic rights for its citizens. Changes being made within the constitution are known as amendments, they adapt a regulation or expand on the rights of individuals. To date, there have been a total of 27 amendments to the Constitution. On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln who was anti-slavery and in favor of many Northern interest became President and was eager to restore the Union and bring all the states back into the same country.…
In William Faulkner's 1939 short story "Barn Burning," a young boy, Colonel Sartoris Snopes (Sarty), is faced with and forced to endure the abusive and destructive tendencies of his father, Abner Snopes. As the story unfolds, several examples can be found to illustrate Faulkner's use of symbolism to allow the reader to sense the disgust for Abner Snopes, the significance in the lack of color usage throughout the story, and finally, Sarty's journey.…
In “Barn Burning”, a short story by William Faulkner, a boy finds that he can no longer be governed by his father’s ideas and tries to prevent his father from doing further harm, and leaves his family in the process. Sarty Snopes desire is to break away from the moral deficiency of his family life and live life with some resemblance of normalcy even at the expense of never seeing his family again. A growing body of evidence, suggest that humans have a moral sense from the very start of life and family does not instill this moral compass from the very start of life.…
Steven Pressfield's The Gates of Fire is set in the fifth century B.C. in Greece. The story revolves around the famous battle of Thermopylae where three hundred Spartans held off hundreds of thousands of Persians, saving Greece. Pressfield creates a fictional story around the battle where one man, a squire named Xeones, survives to tell the Spartan story of the battle and the events preceding it. Xeones, who is the protagonist, tells his life story to the royal Persian historian while in captivity. This life history of Xeones constitutes the body of the book.…