“I learned, once the world became larger than Sandra Walker and me and Worcester, Massachusetts, that we are born with few tools with which to build our little shacks of life” (Jones). An unrequited love happened on a college boy called Edward P. Jones. Jones loves Sandra so much; he expresses his emotions to her by writing letter to her, but his love could not be satisfied. Jones used those letter as a “shack” to escape from the cruel present; a bridge between Worcester and Atlanta, so he can have a great moment with Sandra in his imaginary world to fill the hole in his heart, but he finally saw things clear by waking up from that dream.…
Chris McCandless was a young man from California who loved to be outdoors and was always very athletic. He always had the desire and ambition to do things on his own. However this was a positive and negative side to his personality because it would cost him his life by wanting to live this way. In school Chris was always a very smart student who had good grades and could have gone to college if he chose to. His parents wanted him to attend college but he felt it wasn’t for him so instead he chose to travel and hitchhike. This caused tension between the McCandless’s and adding gas to the fire, Chris’s father had an affair which angered him even more.…
veryone feels the need to escape once in a while. To escape means to try to get away from the everyday trauma’s that occur. In the story Horses of the Nigh” by Margaret Lawrence, the character Chris constantly escapes reality. The author is suggesting that the effect of escaping from the reality of life too a great extent, can lead to dire consequences. The need to escape reality is shown through symbols.…
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.…
Imagination limits reality. In “Horses of the Night”, Margaret Laurence suggests that attempts to live unconstrained by an uncontrollable circumstance using imagination as an escape can prove insufficient and detrimental. Chris, the protagonist, is born into the Great Depression, has a dream that cannot come true. Chris attempts to escape this circumstance to realize his dreams. These attempts at escape leave Chris in a broken psychological state.…
Maurice Kenny and Mary TallMountain led very similar lives, and both become writers. However, the way they became who they are today, took place on two very different parts of that path to become a writer. In Maurice Kenny’s “Waiting at the Edge: Words Towards a Life” and Mary TallMountain’s “You Can Go Home Again,” both authors illustrate their paths and at times they were inspired. Maurice Kenny’s past shows that he has a wandering personality, while Mary TallMountain is more driven toward her goals. These wandering and driven personalities are all expressed in both authors’ childhoods, their relationship with their fathers, and in their writing itself.…
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and “Young Goodman Brown” are two stories about men going through journeys, symbolism and have trouble with reality. In “Young Goodman Brown” he goes through a journey of good and evil, but after reading the story, there is a problem with reality and what truly happened. At the end of the story it felt like Goodman Brown woke up from a dream that felt so real he didn’t trust anyone anymore. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is also journey between imaging what is happening and what is real. Peyton Farquhar jumped in and out of reality in the story, he imagined escaping and getting back to his family. He imagined different realities, as the hanging started there was a pause in his mind that took him to a different place, but in the end reality became true and he died.…
In Gabrielle Roy’s short story, “The Move”, a young girl faces the reality of her dream of moving when she tags along and helps a family move across the city. The unfortunate image of the abandoned, frightened dog, left laying down on the edge of the big city watching as his caretakers disappear, represents the protagonist’s epiphany, and theme, about how the expectations of one’s idolised romanticised fantasies, and desires, can fall short from reality.…
Chris McCandless is a young man who chooses to alienate himself from society. After graduating college, Chris embarks on several journeys in the outdoors. Chris buys a car and departs to the West, eventually hoping to make a trip to Alaska. Modeling himself after Tolstoy ( a transcendentalist writer), Chris looks to be one with nature, yet neglects to see its danger. Naively, Chris seeks nature as a place of belonging and a site of adventure. Just as Chris is trying to overcome the dangers of nature, he is overcoming the doubts that he has within himself, which include his fears of developing close and personal relationships and his fear of being judged. The trip to Alaska pushes Chris to his limits and in the end he finally comes to identify with himself, comes to grips with his personality, and be driven all by himself, rather than by the needs or responsibilities of society or others. In addition to using nature as a way to find himself, Chris also uses nature as a method of avoiding his own realities, such as his relationship troubles with his parents. Chris refuses to confront his parents with the troubles of their relationship. In a letter to his sister Carine, Chris…
Sometimes life gets tough and gives us obstacles and challenges just to see how we overcome them. It only takes one mistake for someone’s life to be turned upside down. Watching people go through hardships and life challenges helps us get on the right path and succeed. The book The Other Wes Moore written by Wes Moore himself, is based on real life challenges that two boys ironically with the same name and hometown were faced with and how their decisions on overcoming them lead them to two completely different places. One living free and being able to experience things and the other living unfortunately behind bars. Wes Moore uses the rhetorical appeals ethos, logos, and pathos to engage the readers attention on how two boys with so many similarities can grow up and live two completely opposite lives.…
It is imperative that children find a sense of home. It can either be a place or a mindset that allows then to be free and safe or a physical place. To a child, home is a place where they are encouraged to be curious and creative. In Brown Girl Dreaming, Jackie finds her true home in her writing, from her earliest moment she can remember wanting to write. She finds control and happiness in just the simple act of writing her name. In the poem “mountain song”, Jackie says “I’ll be a writer. I’ll be able to hold on to each moment, each memory – everything” (Woodson 274). Eventually her mother and teachers begin to believe in her dream of being a writer. In these surrounding she flourishes wherever she goes, and everywhere is her home. Another…
-The line slowly, slowly horses of the night means Chris disappears into insanity and that he can't see day and night. Means the night must move slow for Chris and "Whether he had discovered at last a way for himself to make the necessary dream perpetual" (pg.24)…
When children are young, they are often asked what they want to be when they are older. The customary answers include president of the United States, clown, princess, astronaut or a doctor. However, children do not know that the application of these dreams is, in reality, extremely difficult and can oftentimes result in failure. When they grow up, kids begin to view the world in a new light, and realize that transforming a dream into reality requires money, time, social connections, and self-confidence. Therefore, having the courage and self-awareness to convert an idea into action is both impressive, but at the same time, risky. In Jeanette Winterson’s short story, “The World and Other Places,” the narrator embarks on a journey to discover himself. As a pilot, he travels the world and meets various individuals and learns about different lifestyles. Two of these individuals, a dress designer and a gambler, in their own way, both get lost in their fantasies. The narrator and his two acquaintances have what Alain de Botton describes in his essay, “On Habit”, as the “grid of interest”. De Botton explains that one can apply two types of mentalities when observing a location, an open-minded one or a narrow-minded one. The gambler and narrator struggle with their “grid of interests”, while the new, more modern approach to life is developed with the dress designer, as she embraces it. While some individuals regard getting lost in a dream as extremely harmful, others are convinced that living an illusion can be just as rewarding and fulfilling.…
Individuals live with both imagination and reality. Often, imagination is based on reality and rooted reality. They utilize their imagination to image something they have never seen to fulfill their curiosity or something they are eager to realize. In “The World and Other Places,” Jeanette Winterson depicts a boy, a fictional character, who imaged flying to many places in his childhood. When he grew up, he joined the Air Force and realized the reality was not as fantastic as he had imagined. In “Bumping into Mr. Ravioli,” Gopnik uses his daughter Olivia and her imaginary playmate Charlie Ravioli, who is always too busy to play with her, to reveal a deeper truth about New York. Gopnik explains how imagination can be beneficial in understanding reality. Gopnik and Winterson both confirm that imagination is beneficial because it can help individuals to develop their identity and to have fun. One the contrary Gopnik contradicts Winterson, suggesting that imagination can also let individuals feel disappointed when imagination can not match reality.…
This is a beautiful story about the struggles with tradition, about magic versus reality, about the status of our modern world with its racism and sad ecology.…