Jean Louise figured that if something like this could happen and her aunty could still be a lady then there is no reason she can’t be. She looked at how her aunt could act and figured that was the right thing and could do it…
A great deal of literary works are written with the purpose of telling story. A narrative poem simply tells a story from the perspective of a narrator who does not reveal their personal thoughts or feelings. A prime example of a narrative poem would be Out, out, by Robert Frost in which the story of a little boy losing his life with a detached narrator.…
The debate over whether adversity reveals hidden talents, which in peaceful situations will remain undiscovered, is a controversial topic. For instance, the poem, “The Proof of Worth” by Edgar Albert Guest explains how hardships display the true nature of a person. Similarly, Patrick Kohan highlights in his article, “The Importance of Adversity in Growth and Development,” how obstacles should not be removed to help a child succeed. Furthermore, Laura Hillenbrand’s novel, Unbroken, showcases the worst challenges elicit of one’s character. Ultimately, one should use adversity to discover hidden talents that once never existed, as well as change the perspective of a convoluted idea.…
Anne Rice uses immortality to give a message to modern humans that endless time can be empty and meaningless and thus, wasting valuable time and fearing what time can do is not the wisest idea. The author describes Louis’s life as a life “looked upon by no one, looking out at no one, illuminated by a light which [is] not a light” to intensify his loneliness and emptiness by using negative words such as no one and not. (Rice 141). The quote also proves that his life is hopeless by using a metaphor that means that there is light, meaning hope, but there is actually no light, showing that vampires basically has no hope. Rice also characterizes the vampires’ lives as “a silver clock ticking in a void” which means that time is endlessly going, but…
In the novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker the reader is immediately introduced to the harsh reality of Celie’s life, with the very first sentence being, “You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy.” From that point onwards the narrative follows young Celie from she raped and abused by the man she believes to be her father to becoming the wife of Mr._____ , with his decision being almost solely based on the fact that their consummation agreement includes both her and a cow. In the beginning of the novel Celie is portrayed as being a victim of oppression from all of the men in her life and doesn’t have control over what happens to her. However despite these terrible experiences, Celie manages to survive and grow due to…
In the short story "Everyday Use", by Alice Walker, tension between characters is evident. When Dee arrives home to visit Mama and Maggie, readers can see the differences in personality between the three characters. Dee has changed her name to "Wangero" to get closer to her so-called “culture” and is collecting many objects of her past that she did not want before. On her mother’s savings for her, Dee is able to go to college and therefore is more educated. However, she uses this new knowledge to look down on Maggie and Mama. One of the many objects of her past that Dee asks for is a quilt passed down to the females of the next generation. Instead, Mama wants Maggie to have the quilt being that she always used kept the quilt to remind herself of her family. Walker shows how important heritage is through conflict, irony, and symbol.…
In Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use,” Mama, the narrator of the story, is rather distant with her daughter Dee and dreams about reconciling with her on a television show. Specifically, she imagines Dee expressing gratitude for all that she has done for her, while embracing her (Mama) “with tears in her eyes (Walker 315).” It is obvious that Mama doesn’t understand her daughter’s life choice to adopt an African lifestyle and feels that Dee is rejecting her origins and family. Furthermore, the reader can see that Mama has a troublesome relationship with Dee by the amount of tension between them. This strained relationship becomes clear when Dee “went to the trunk at the foot of (Mama’s) bed and started rifling through it (Walker 320).” The narrator…
Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” is narrated by one of the story’s main characters, the mother of two very different daughters who are Dee and Maggie. The mother comes off as a trustworthy narrator. Undoubtedly, she does seem to have some hard feelings toward Dee, but these feelings seem understandable in light of the past and present events she describes. Nothing in the story submits that the mother is so full of dislike for Dee that she tells lies about her attractive daughter. The mother feels sympathy toward Maggie, her less gifted, less attractive, less sophisticated, and less educated daughter. Her sympathy for Maggie grows as the story develops, just as her distrust and dislike of Maggie also become more obvious as the tale approaches…
E. Walker’s state of mind identified in the following quote, shows her perspective on her life thus far; “Black women are called, in the folklore that so aptly identifies one’s status in society, the ‘mule of the world,’ because we have been handed the burdens that everyone else –everyone else- refused to carry.” (source # 1)…
An individual can lose all sense of self when denied the basic connections that life provides. In Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use,” a young woman named Dee struggles to find her foundation. Unfortunately, her identity begins to disintegrate as a result of her isolation. Through the utilization of character development, Alice Walker illustrates Dee’s distinct inability to connect with the people around her.…
Maggie has many internal and external conflicts within the story. A main internal conflict would be Maggie talking down to herself and not being positive. Maggie is a shy girl, keeps to herself, and try not to draw attention to herself. When Maggie was younger she was burned in a house fire. Maggie’s sister Dee, did not get burned because she was out of the house near the gum tree. Maggie was scarred all over her body and that makes her feel self conscious and think that she is ‘ugly’. Maggie feels “...ashamed of the burns scars down her arms and legs…” said Mama. Maggie has many external conflicts as well, one main external conflict would be Maggie not going to school. When Maggie was younger she was taken out of school for an unknown reason.…
This story takes place in Mama’s yard anticipating of Dee’s arrival. “It is like an extended living room. When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the house” (Walker, 1973,1). Dee arrives in her rural childhood home proudly sporting "[Her hair] stands straight up like the wool on a sheep" afro coupled with a decked out fashionable African dress and jewelry. Not to mention, an irony occurred when Dee’s Muslim boyfriend greeted “Assalamualaikum” to Mama mistaken it as his name. Dee have a new persona Wangero to participate in a cultural trend of the 1970’s. Dee explain to her…
Alice Walker has spent her adult life writing about gender and race. Walker’s achievements include the Pulitzer Prize, the first African-American woman recipient of the National Book Award, and numerous other literary awards in her life (Walker, 2009). She has spent her life’s career engaging in activism and helping to improve race relations in the United States and abroad. Walker has openly admitted to being discriminated based on her color and gender. Many of her short stories and novels deal with how race and discrimination affect the everyday lives of women of color (Barnett, 2001).…
In “Everyday Use”, Walker began to discuss principles of tradition and ancestry. When Dee was a child she hated her surroundings and culture. Mama indirectly says that Dee burned down the family’s old home. Dee also used to say that she hated her grandmothers’ handmade quilts. The irony in the story is that Dee arrives back home to take pictures of her family’s house and to retrieve back the old quilts that she supposedly hated. Walker is trying to tell the reader that one should embrace the past for good purposes instead of separating it from your family.…
“Love is blind, but marriage is a real eye opener”-Unknown. The story, “Miles City Montana” by Alice Munro, shows how a couple can fall out of love after knowing each other for a long period of time. “Carried Away” by Alice Munro on the other hand was a story of how you can fall in love with someone that you do not know at all. What the two stories have in common is a strong relationship between memory and imagination. Both stories are about information that is hidden deep within the main character’s memories and what they choose to reveal and repeal. In the stories “Miles City Montana” and “Carried Away”…