Preview

Death by Landscape

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
719 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Death by Landscape
The Existence of Two Egos in "Death by Landscape"
0369012
Mi Sung Park

The short story "Death by Landscape" well describes the psychology of Lois, the heroine of the story. One incident that occurred to her when she was 13 years old, affects her whole life. As a thirteen year old, she looses her best friend, Lucy, on a canoeing trip in a summer camp. While Lucy was going to the bathroom behind a tree on the edge of a cliff overlooking a river and Lois waiting where she wasn't able to see her, Lucy disappeared without a trace. The story's setting and characters shows the existence of two egos in one person's life. Lois was sent to a summer camp ever since she was 9 years old. In the story, the setting, Camp Manitou is shown from Lois' point of view. The description of the camp might be implying that the camp is a symbol of a typical society. Lois is going through a social life in a typical society. For example, ‘there were many things that Lois didn't like about the Camp Manitou, at first,' but ‘by the time she was thirteen she liked it 'and‘ she was an old hand by then.' It's very similar to what one goes through in a new society. When one first enters a society, there are many things that are uncomfortable. However, as time goes by one gets used to the environment and gets to even enjoy it. When one reaches this state, he/she is a veteran in that field. Sometimes as one goes through the social life, times occur when one isn't sure of oneself. That's when two egos in one exist. The two egos in "Death by Landscape" could be the two main characters, Lois and Lucy. They are summer best friends. Lucy is almost the opposite of Lois. They don't have much in common. For example, ‘Lucy did not care about the things she didn't know, whereas Lois did.' Also as time went by Lucy changed so much but Lois didn't have big changes. Lois is the watchminder whereas Lucy is careless of time. Furthermore, in a way, Lois envies what Lucy has. As an illustration, Lois had to

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    McCarthy tells the story using narrative voice in this section of the text. He contrasts the third person extradiegetic narrator with the man’s interior monologue in order to convey multiple perspectives to the reader. “He’d left the cart in the bracken beyond the dunes and they’d taken blankets with them and sat wrapped in them in the wind-shade of a great driftwood log.” Here, McCarthy constructs the lexis of the third person narrator using what some critics have called a limited linguistic palette. The polysyndeton creates a steady rhythm, which parallels the rhythm of the journey the man and boy are on, which is, like the sentence, seemingly never-ending. Here the narrator presents the reader with a practical account of the man and boy’s response to the disappointment of the beach, detailing their movements with unelaborated, unemotional language. The pared back language poignantly conveys the sense that the bleakness of the beach was inevitable. In contrast, the tricolon: “Cold. Desolate. Birdless”, is clearly the man’s interior monologue. The three adjectives highlight the extent to which the reality of the beach does not live up to the characters’ expectations of it. Where they had hoped for warmth when heading south, instead they found “cold”. Where they had hoped for a more habitable climate, they found a “desolate” environment. Where they had hoped for life, they had found a “birdless” environment. Thus, the tricolon convey’s the man’s disappointment to the reader. McCarthy utilizes stream of consciousness in order to enable the reader to understand the man’s emotional response. The narrator is typically unemotive, presenting a pared back account of events and it is thus these…

    • 645 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In a competition between man and nature, nature more often claims victory. Pitted against tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions, nothing man made is permanent. In an excerpt taken from Ann Petry's novel, The Street, the main character Lutie Johnson is antagonized by the tumultuous winds that inhabit the town, along with the frigid cold. Using such literary elements as dark imagery, descriptive selection to detail and appalling personification, Petry successfully captures Johnson's relationship with the urban setting.…

    • 439 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Often times, we endure problems within ourselves that can either be solved or left alone to embrace. Whether it is mental or physical, many of us find it natural to undergo inner-conflict. In the two passages, “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man” and “Quicksand,” the authors provide the audience with a theme that connects them both. After uncovering their internal conflict, they eventually decided to unknowingly distract themselves from the issue. This includes the way the authors utilized the setting and characters to convey their theme. When dealing with inner-conflict, the theme is developed by expressing personal past issues, discovering new people, and ultimately uncovering a sudden romance.…

    • 827 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The outdoors contains many wonders that a child explores throughout the early years of life; therefore, a person’s childhood tends to position his path for the future. As a result, occurrences seen on an average day sitting at school, exploring in the woods, or examining the stars have the potential to be life changing. An American Childhood (Dillard), “Two Views of a River” (Twain), and “Listening” (Welty) all allocate this thought, yet the works juxtapose each other with different morals.…

    • 852 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    1. Annie Dillard in the first part of the book have talked about growing up in pittsburgh on 1950s. She focuses on her family life, her childhood activities, and her experiences with nature and how it have left a mark in her life. The american childhood is about the moments she lived in her childhood and how she immersed into being an adult. Having been lived in Pittsburg in 19th century, she talks about how it felt to live in the society full of upper class people. In addition, she talks about the experiences she had with nature and how it had greater significance in her life than anything else. She had a spiritual relationship with the geography such as digging a hole, starting to be alert of the world she existed as soon as she woke up. Thus, she believes that the more one experience nature during their childhood, the more story one has to talk about nature in future.…

    • 1230 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Lewis and Clark

    • 2091 Words
    • 9 Pages

    * Content Standards 1.2- Students access, synthesize, and evaluate information communicate and apply social studies knowledge to real world situations.…

    • 2091 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lake Holcombe, nestled between maples and pine trees, is a perfect place to find a person’s real self, hangout with family, and gain mental and physical strength. As the years passed, the girl found less and less time to visit her magnificent view that soaked up her stress. Still, she was known to be a strong and independent women, and she gave all the credit to the lake and her family. She knew who she was and who she wanted to be. Her life was impacted enormously because of that small…

    • 444 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “In the Lake of the Woods” is a non-linear novel by Tim O’ Brien that consists of the themes trauma and insecurity. The protagonist of the text, John Wade is driven into insanity due to his fear of losing the love of his life, Kathy. Throughout the novel, john Wade’s secrets are exposed to the world, this being the reason that ended his career as a politician, which was the final push towards his madness. Wade was not only affected by his shattering moment in his career, but his childhood and experiences of war in Vietnam left him traumatized and feeling unworthy of love. John begins to crave love at an early stage I his life, after he meets Kathy he develops an obsession for her and becomes dependent on her love. He faces many issues with Kathy, trust being the main one; this could potentially be the reason for John’s breakdown of sanity. Although Kathy played a large role in his life and downfall, there was a whole other range of factors that took part in his fall to insanity.…

    • 1132 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “I felt the starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on me, and for the second time in my life I thought of running away” expresses Scout’s distaste for dresses. The metaphor of a dress to a penitentiary helps the reader understand the oppression Scout felt while wearing one. These experiences helped give a negative connotation to being a girl in Scout’s mind. “It’s time you started bein’ a girl and acting right! I burst into tears and fled to Calpurnia”, was a statement Jem made to Scout, which completely contradicts his earlier statements. This hurts Scout emotionally because she always wanted Jem’s approval and was always being told how she should conform to the traditional expectations of women at the time. Scout’s stereotype of being a tomboy and the constant critique that her character endured reflected the apparent sexism that women in the 1930s were subjected to in Maycomb.…

    • 885 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Countryside Environmental

    • 1062 Words
    • 5 Pages

    • Staff have resigned, and others are about to because of Gwen’s uncontrollable and demeaning nature, compounded with being bossy and power hungry…

    • 1062 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Charlotte Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wall-Paper” and Margaret Atwood story, “Death by Landscape” depicts the mental health of two women. Although the stories represent different points of origin, both the wife and Lois demonstrate common themes of depression. While the wife in “the Yellow Wall-Paper” seems to have no certainty of an illness or cause for such disorder, she is subjected to isolation and false treatment by her husband to cure her anxieties. Lois on the other hand, has experienced a traumatic loss in her childhood, ultimately shaping her characters mental state in the story. The common theme of mental health has caused the main characters to become obsessed with visual representations; essentially, causing them to become…

    • 1183 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Judith Wright’s poem, ‘Legend’ is an example of a journey that involves new experiences and personal growth. This poem is about a boy who starts off his journey with his rifle, a black dog and his hat and aims to get the rainbow. Throughout the poem we realize that all his possession have abandoned and turned against him. Near the end of the poem we can see how the persona has accomplished his mission and aim without his possessions. From this we can how the persona at first thought he needed his possessions to help him but through his experience of losing them he realized he didn’t and accomplished what he aimed in the first place. The persona has achieves something he might possibly not realized he could without his possessions and this is an example of personal growth. ‘This Time Alone’ is another example where the persona faces new experiences. In the poem, the persona talks about her companions death and how she has struggled with it. The poet quotes “this time alone. This time alone.” The next stanza begins with “I turn and set that world alight”. Through these two stanzas we can see how the persona emphasizes her loneliness and her struggle to be alone and in the next stanza we see that her struggles might have to the point where she can’t take it anymore so she burns that world with her husband. Through these stanzas we can see how the persona is facing a new experience of death of her…

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The speakers speaks of nature throughout the entire poem. He uses metaphors and similes to compare Jane to living things as an attempt to give her new life through nature…

    • 307 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Rtm305 extra credit

    • 1297 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the vast sierra wilderness, for me, without this class and this chance to read book” last season for extra credit, I will never know about one guy who tried to change people’s idea toward wilderness. Randy Morgenson, from when he was 8 year old, with the existence of his father who love slow life style, he could have the many chance to touch nature. As we know, the experience and acquisition in the young age affects to people when they form their character. I think that Randy’s storong devotion to protecting the wilderness is from his circumstance of childhood. While he was living in the Yosemite valley with family, he used all space around him as a place to learn something. As he was just feeling the flower scent, he realized that how the small flower could bear and survive in harsh environment. I think that like the book says, his father named Dana Morgenson affects to his son greatly. Dana, as giving up his good job as a banker, he was trying to find his romantic life in the nature with his wife. I think this is not easy selection for everyone. In that time, I think that many people might have found their job and life in the city not in the wilderness. Under those circumstance, Randy are spending his teenage life reparing bicycle and helping traveler teaching them to direction near the Yosemite park. In the book, this Randy’s character are depicted that unlike the small-town kid who wants to go and discover big city, Randy wanted to venture deeper and deeper into the wilderness. I think this is great phrase for explaining why Randy had a strong belief to wilderness. While he attended to Arizona state college in Flagstaff after graduationg high school, he couldn't get settle down well in there. because his mind always was in the wilderness.…

    • 1297 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “Death by Landscape” Lois’ isolation is from the fact she is left with no family. Her sons have grown up and left home and she is a widow. This leaves her with no one to support or care for her. “While Rob was alive, while the boys were growing up, she could pretend she didn’t hear it, this empty space in sound. But now there is nothing much left to distract her.” (p. 35) Lois is tormented by her past rather than her present, the traumatic experience of a childhood friend disappearing has remained with her for a years.…

    • 703 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays