Just like every other war, the Vietnam War was a tragic age where blood was spilled and sorrow filled the hearts of people from both sides of the battlefield. Yusef Komunyakaa was one of the many who mourned over lost loves and friends. His poem describes the heartache he encounters as he visits the memorial for all the lives that were lost. Post-traumatic memories flood him all at once and he envisions some of the slain veterans and citizens reflecting in the wall of names. He is bitter at the war that has scarred his life, but the poem ends with a tender scene of a woman brushing her child’s hair, which overpowers the grudge he holds. The message Yusef Komunyakaa implies in his poem “Facing It” is that enjoying life’s beauty and warmth is stronger than mourning over regrets and mishaps, and he displays the theme by powerfully utilizing metaphors, imagery, and symbolism.…
does not attempt to disguise of lessen the harsh reality but instead expresses it in a more…
In Yusef Komunyakaa’s “Facing It,” the speaker encounters his grief at the Vietnam Memorial, undergoing confusing emotions from his experience of grief and loss at the war, but later realizes there is joy and harmony in living, appreciating the value of his own life [PrPP].…
Alice Walker, the author of “Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self”, describes to us a point in time in which an “accident” distorted her perception of her beauty. Growing up Walker would receive comments such as “isn’t she the cutest thing”, she believed she was beautiful. After she was involved in a BB gun incident her eye was injured, everything changed, she let this small flaw affect the way she viewed herself. She was blinded, she believed this incident had changed her, but in reality everyone saw her the same “You did not change…” they would tell her. Walker eventually had a daughter, Rebecca, she allowed her other to open her eyes, to accept that she was still beautiful. There is a popular phrase that states “beauty is in the eyes…
In the song “Car Radio” by Twenty One Pilots, there is a lyric that says “I find over the course of our human existence, one thing consists of consistence, and it's that we're all battling fear.” In this quote it talks about how through our human existence we have had to deal with fear. Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett rewrote The Diary of Anne Frank to make it a play. In this play, eight people go into hiding in a secret annex to protect themselves from the Nazi’s during The Holocaust. The strongest theme in the play is, when you are in difficult conditions, being positive and finding light in the situation will help you to survive. This theme is well supported throughout the play.…
It was Robert G. Ingersoll who once said; “The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.” In other words, he is trying to convey to us that in life, it is how we deal with our failures, and not the actions we take during our high points that matter most. This is because who we are and how we act during our lows are what define us as people. In accordance with this quote, two examples in which this idea occurs constantly are Lorraine Hansberry’s controversial play, A Raisin in the Sun, and Harper Lee’s renowned novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Let’s delve into these pieces of literature to thrust Ingersoll’s philosophy into light.…
Millions of people across the United States play sports and train everyday. Although sports are a glorious thing to watch, the people who play in them put in hours and hours of work to become that good, and sometimes the road to get there is not always easy. Two special stories of the path to greatness can be found in the Norton Field Guide. Marlen Esparza and Victor Cruz have very different stories, play different sports and have different backgrounds, but both ultimately go through hardships to become role models and achieve greatness.…
Robin Jenkins effectively conveys loss of innocence and ant war through sophisticated symbolism in the short story “Flowers”. It tells the story of a young girl, Margaret, who was evacuated from the city of Glasgow to the highlands of Scotland in an attempt to avoid the inhumanity of war, but it is in the highlands where she truly witnessed the brutality of war.…
“Even in the middle of the madness there remained that true and natural beauty, and it took my mind away from my current situation as I marveled at this sight” (59).…
Writer, Alice Walker, in her narrative essay, “Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self” recounts a tragic event that occurred at the age of 8 years old. Walker’s objective is to tell her readers about an event that changed not only her physical appearance, but how she considers herself, forever. While speaking about her life after the accident, she uses many rhetorical devices to speak to her readers. Plot development, metaphors, repetition, flashback, and Aristotelian appeals are only some of the devices used. However, those few certainly deliver the message that she is trying to point out to her audience.…
changing environments (Espeland, 2006). Bearing the suffering of others over a length of time is…
C.S. Lewis talks about how he cannot address his grief with his young sons due to an overwhelming sense of embarrassment. There is a sense of responsibility put on the shoulders of men of every age when they face loss or death. As a ‘man’, one is not supposed to show weakness or sadness. Lewis feels if he shows his grief to his son’s he has somehow faltered as a father. That there is a sort of shame in preventing one’s own happiness at any age. He speaks about misery’s shadow… the fact that not only must one grieve, but one must know he is grieving. Part of this is everyone around knowing you are grieving, deciding in their heads when they meet you whether to say something or not about your loss. He feels like a warning to young married couple’s of their future and an inconvenience to friends around him now.…
In recovering from their traumas, the characters have found themselves engaged in rituals meant to heal and propel themselves forward into a better portion of their life. Oscar has found love, Nadine creates an alter to lost love and family, Beatrice sews intricate wedding gowns for love she’ll never have, and Ka sculpts her father as a hero, not the villain she later discovers he had been. Happiness is a relative term, and not a life long emotion everyone is able to achieve, let alone those who are escaping their own traumas, but rituals have been ways of moving beyond. Sometimes in moving past trauma, choices regarding life and death must be considered. The responses to pain and trauma in these novels has been overwhelmingly linked to active choices in ending the pain permanently, rebuilding the pain as something else entirely, or transferring the pain to another. Life is not permanent, but the choices Oscar, Nadine, and Ka’s father have made are when considering death. Those such as Beatrice, Ka, or Yunior, who continue their life with trauma, make semi-permanent choices to live. Building healing out of rituals is a beautiful way to continue a life worth living, or find a way to make peace with the pain that cannot be lost, and these characters have all found ways to heal, through life or…
Another is the idea that intense experiences remove us from our normal lives, offering something unusual to look at that can be hard to resist, much like a car wreck on the side of the…
A person’s perception of anything is always influenced by their experiences. Alice Walker, the writer of “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self”, is no different in regards to her perception of beauty. Walker uses various stylistic elements throughout her writing to convey her shifting outlook toward her own beauty. She also employs various rhetorical strategies in order to deliver a clear and luring story that keeps the reader engaged as she describes her life as a flashback. Walker uses the accident that happens during her childhood to prove that one’s mindset can be altered because of a profound experience and how her attitude completely transforms from a…