Confucius once said “Study the past if you would define the future”. In this quote he implies that in order to understand what the future possibly holds, one has to study the past. This also holds true when examining the present as well. If one does not fully understand the significance of certain past events, it can be difficult to understand what is going on now in the present. The Faming of the Bones is a book by Edwidge Danticat based on the real life Parsley Massacre that occurred in the Dominican Republic in 1937. Danticat tells the story of a young Haitian domestic worker named Amabelle who works in the Dominican Republic during dictator Rafael Trujillo’s presidency. The book tells of Amabelle’s hardships and struggle to survive during…
Among this chaos of twisted iron and splintered timber and shapeless earth are the fleshless, blackened bones of simple men who poured out…
The book The Farming of Bones is a constant reminder of loss and regret shared by almost all of the characters. The story is a tragic event in itself but the character’s pain doesn’t start with the massacre. Throughout the story, water is a reoccurring entity not always shown in a positive light. This is what makes the ending scene difficult to interpret and the significance varies between readers. In the ending scene, Amabelle is laying naked in the river “waiting for a new dawn” not really hinting if this new dawn is in heaven or still on earth. Personally, I believe Danticat is insinuating Amabelle is preparing herself for death from the way he uses water in other situations that do not turn out well for the characters.…
In considering “The Faithful Preacher: Recapturing the Vision of Three Pioneering African- American Pastors.” I will assign this book two strengths.…
Montross describes the first day, when she gets the bone box. She thinks while she is walking with the box; “This used to be a person. I am carrying parts of a person in this box, and no one knows it. On the street, girls compliment one another’s shoes, and a man in his twenties sings Dylan n the curb for quarters.” (9) Montross has begun her journey to becoming a doctor. She first needs to learn about all the different bones in the body. I feel that as I read this passage about the bone box and all the bones, I could really picture all the bones in front of me.…
Since its original publication in 1930, the novel As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner has drawn much exploration and critique. Though this analysis is very far reaching and broad in topic, one interesting route of investigation is the novel 's connection to the Old Testament. One does not have to be a Christian to study the similarities in theme; there are very many occurrences of biblical subject matter and correlation, these having been studied by student and scholar alike. The Old Testament is known commonly as the more historical part of the Bible; it sets up the background knowledge to the New Testament and gives readers an idea of the nature of the times. Many general themes of the Old Testament are reflected in the Bible as a whole, as well as each book having its own plot and theme. Such Old Testament themes such as original sin and ideas corresponding to that of the Book of Job can be found inherently in As I Lay Dying.…
I enjoy reading Fae Myenne Ng 's Bone. I find her novel easy to read and understand. Although she included some phrases the Chinese use, I find no difficulty in understanding them, as I 'm Chinese myself. The novel Bone is written in a circular narrative form, in which the story doesn 't follow the linear format where the suspense slowly builds up and finally reaches a climax stage. Rather the story 's time sequence is thrown back and forth. I find this format of writing brings greater suspense and mystery to the reader. When I read the book, my mind was always wondering what reasons or causes made Ona commit suicide, and this made me want to continue reading the book to know the outcome. The happenings in the story do portray reality of the lives of Chinese immigrants in America, their hardship and difficulty in adapting American lifestyle and culture. For the younger generations, adapting the American culture and lifestyle is much easier than for the older generations. This is shown in the book and it also happens in reality, which is another reason why I like this book. This is a fiction novel, but the story told is like a non-fiction book; giving readers a sense of realism. As a Chinese reading Bone, I understand the narrator 's feelings and predicaments. Although she is an Asian, her thinking lies more on the American side. Leila wants to move out to stay with Mason but yet she fears leaving her mother alone and also of what her mother might say in regards to a girl staying with a man before marriage. In Asian culture, cohabitation is not popular and widely accepted. In the book 's narrative hierarchy, I find the narrator placed herself at the top, always wanting or hoping that things were done her way or that she should know everything of what 's going on. Mason is placed second, while her mother is placed third. I don 't blame her for placing Mason above her mother. It is quite natural because once you 've found a mate to be with for life,…
You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy, for your dew is as the dew of the dawn, And the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.” (New American Bible) In this scripture it is stated that the dead will live again and the corpses will be resurrected. The dead will be awoken once more and will be singing and celebrating. “The words, though they imply a belief more or less distinct in a resurrection.” (Bible Hub) Once again resurrection is not mentioned directly but implied. The once dead will no longer be…
Matthew 5:27-32 is part of the Sermon on the Mount discourse, which is one of the five discourses of the Gospel of Matthew (5-7, 10, 13, 18, and 23-25). This passage locates relatively earlier in the Sermon. Professor Dallas Willard (1998), in his book The Divine Conspiracy, claims that “The later parts of the Discourse presuppose the earlier parts and simply cannot be understood unless their dependence upon the earlier parts is clearly seen” (p. 138). If the sequential order in the discourse is important, then the earlier parts are more foundational than the later parts. That is the first reason I chose to memorize this passage rather than other passages of the Sermon on the Mount discourse. The second reason I choose this passage because…
Is Hinduism monotheistic, or polytheistic? Polytheism is the belief in, and worship of more than one god. In monotheism, there is belief in and worship of only one god that is a separate entity. I have come to the conclusion that Hinduism is neither, but monistic. On a lower level of truth, there are many different gods and goddesses that are distinct in Hinduism. However, on a higher level of truth, Hindu’s believe “you and I and God [are] all one-and-the-same in the end” (Course Reader, p. 17). Therefore, in the highest level of truth, Hinduism is monistic—believing that All is One.…
The English language is full of nondescript, emotionless words that fail to convey any meaningful feelings. To get around this shortcoming many old English writers like the one that wrote Beowulf use kennings to create an emotionally evocative word with the meaning of the emotionless word. In Beowulf the author uses the kenning, “It would keep the bone-cage of his body safe” to provide a more descript and emotionally charged description than the word skeleton would create if used in the sentence (ln. 1446). The term bone-cage is used to show how the body was simply viewed as the carrying case of sorts for the soul, whereas skeleton describes more a sense of death and time which does not fit the Christian message trying to be construed.…
As I understand, you have all read ‘The Lovely Bones’ by Alice Sebold. Today we are going to examine her novel with particular emphasis on her purpose in writing a novel such as this and we will also look at how she conveyed her intentions. This is an interesting undertaking when you consider the way she delivers the story. There is plenty of material to get through so if you will all ensure that your mobile phones are turned off, I will begin.…
The Sermon on the Mount is the radical doctrine of the kingdom of God. Although many people today who call themselves Christians do not practice the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. If we talk about the kingdom manifesto, I think we interpreted it as the radical world changing manifesto.…
Once two women came before Solomon. "My lord," the first woman said, "this woman and I were living alone in the same house when I gave birth to a baby boy. Three days later she also had a baby boy. That night both of us went to sleep holding our babies. But this woman fell asleep on top of her baby, and the poor child died. At midnight she woke up and saw that her baby was not breathing. She crept into my room, quietly took my baby away from me, and put her dead baby in my bed."…
It starts of by Ezekiel explaining how the scorpion had come in because of the heavy rain and hidden under a sack of rice, “…steady rain had driven him…