The older I grow, the more I realize that my mother has always done so much for me. Her love was patient and forgiving in times when I pushed her to her limits as a child. I love my mother, Hester, with all my heart. I remember as a child, being fascinated with the letter A on her bosom. When I was young I was confused about the situation between my parents. I lashed out in anger towards my mother my throwing prickly burrs at her bosom. In doing so, I added to her already thriving pain and guilt. As I grew up and moved away, my mother decided to continue to live in her tiny cottage in Massachusetts. I sent her gifts from England so she can live in luxury as well. I loved her, and she knew she would always be welcome to come live with me in England at any point throughout her life.…
Set in the Australian summer of 1967, Michael Gow’s Away is an elaborate play which explores the ideas of self- discovery and change. Through the war affected nation, three families, each from different social classes, depart on an iconic Australian holiday to the beach. In the play, Gow utilises the characters to demonstrate that going away physically is intrinsically linked to their mental developments. With the help of references to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer night’s Dream, Away uses Gwen and Coral to show the significant psychological changes made by the characters during holidays to the coast. Tom throughout the play acts as a catalyst for the change in other characters and is associated with Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.…
The poem “Last Night” by Sharon Olds is a short poem about a fear of sex without…
“To understand your parents' love you must raise children yourself.” Amy Tan illustrates the process of recognizing parent’s love in her short…
How can someone pursue a personal desire if they spent their life trying to conform? Alden Nowlan’s short story, “The Glass Roses” explores this through the protagonist, Stephen. Stephen’s personal desire to feel accepted conflicts with his feeling of having to become like the pulp cutters because he is not mentally or physically ready to fit in with grown men. This results in Chris finding a way to become his own person. Stephen’s journey to pursue his personal desire is shown through setting, character development, and symbolism.…
narrator reacts by smiling at the children because she knows that this is neither the first nor the last time this will happen, while the mother of the children reacts by slapping their hands to make them stop touching the woman.…
Throughout the book "Flowers for Algernon" Charlie, a retarded person goes through a whole process in which he becomes a genius and then regresses, which results in him being retarded again. In this work I will try to show that the process Charlie goes through (becoming a genius and the regression back to being retarded), is much like the human life, and compare his development to that of a child, and his regression to that of an old man.…
In the poem, “To This Day” By Shane koyczan he shows a bibliography about bullying and how it affects people. And how he got bullied as a kid. People need to understand that what they say doesn't just go one ear out the other. People can be extremely hurtful without knowing it. One thing that kids said from the poem is, “kids used to say she looks like a wrong answer that someone tried to erase but couldn’t quite get the job done”. That is just one of the many things kids said. The quote shows that even if people think i can't get worse that is usually when it does. But the problem is that people dont understand the scar that they leave when they do those…
Robert Davies' essay, The Pleasures of Love is about what can be improved on, Or what can be done to obtain the pleasures of love. He shows that we should not follow the same footsteps as Othello and Desdomona, or Romeo and Juliet. Davies believed that Othello was a man that had too much passion, and his jealously eventually led to a miscommunication between himself and Desdomona, Othello did not even bother discussing the situation with Desdomona. With Romeo and Juliet, the Star-crossed lovers' relationship would not have lasted because they were both so young, unable to mature individually let alone together as a couple. Their lack of communication also led to a misunderstanding since it was dangerous for the two to be seen together because of their family feud, and resulted in the death of Romeo. The pleasures of love can only be felt most completely in marriage, or through time. When the couple has gotten to know each other personally through the time they have spent together.…
The novel Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes brings our reader’s attention immediately to the main character Charlie Gordon. Charlie is a 32 year old mentally challenged man. Charlie attends night school at the Beekman College Center for Retarded Adults. His teacher and mentor throughout the novel is named Alice Kinnian. Alice recommends Charlie to a team of scientists to undergo an experimental surgery that will hopefully help Charlie’s intelligence grow drastically.…
I remember my mother reading Love You Forever to me when I was a young child. I also remember being puzzled as to why she undoubtedly always ended the book with tears in her eyes. Now that I have the opportunity to revisit Robert Munsch's touching story, I understand why it meant so much to my mother. The illustrations done by Sheila McGraw were always what captured my wavering attention when I was younger. The images are bright, comical, and entertaining. My guess is this book is intended for readers in grades 2 through 3. However, while this is certainly a children's book, Munsch conjured a story that reaches past the elementary audience and into the hearts of adults as well. From this story children see the concept of maturing into adulthood,…
Leslie Bell’s “Hard to Get”, Barbara Fredrickson’s “Love 2.0”, and Daniel Gilbert’s “Immune to Reality” all focus on a central theme of the unconscious while touching on the subject uniquely. Bell touches on the subject of the unconscious through the idea of splitting, Fredrickson focuses on the unconscious in terms of the body’s perspective on love, and Gilbert expresses his views on the unconscious through his idea of “cooking the facts (Gilbert 131).” Each author expresses the importance of the unconscious thought and the influence it can have on our interactions and behaviors, and to what degree. Fredrickson believes making the unconscious conscious in more positively influential, whereas Bell and Gilbert believe making the unconscious…
A long time ago the difference between perception and reality was defined as the act of understanding in contrast to the act of being real. Reality could be tricky; most of us including myself depending on scenarios of our lives tend to give in to ideas which are not applicable to reality as a whole. The best example of this is written in the short story “All Over” by Guy de Maupassant. In which his main character Lormerin is very self conscious and narcissistic also Lise de Vance, a former old love plays a big role in hurting Lormerin ego and opening his eyes by showing him, his real self. Many would say that when reality knocks it could be harsh and confusing. In the next couple of paragraphs I want to show how my understanding of reality can be applied to the short story previously mentioned. Every day life brings so many unexpected moments of which we dream of but never really happen, this is where we draw the line for reality and perception of a perfect to be situation. Reality is in the eyes of the beholder and no one can really change that, all of us are born dreamers. When things get out of hand and reality hits, this is where people suffer. Why do we suffer? We suffer because we give too much or expect too much and not everyone has the same ideals when returning the favor. Also, some events might be trifling to some but extremely important to others.…
In the novel Keeper 'n Me by Richard Wagamese, he shows the importance of family and culture as a healing process in self-knowledge. The development of self-discovery is based on the world around, what is seen, heard, experienced etc. Learning about one’s self is about individual experiences, it is not something that a book teaches. Pursuing life first hand is the only way to learn about self-discovery. Garnet being alone for so long, leaves him unhappy and feeling meaningless, not having anyone to connect to. Every foster home Garnet’s been to never feels like home, he is always shut out or made fun of. He could not discover who he is as an individual being surrounded by negative energy. Being thrown in jail was a turning point in Garnet’s…
If I Stay by Gayle Forman, is an heart wrenching story about seventeen year old Mia and the power of her internal choices. The conflict being, Mia suffers a horrible car accident; resulting in her having a out of body experience. Mia witnesses the aftermath of the crash and events in the hospital. Mia shares detailed anecdotes about her family and her love story with a guitar player named Adam. Mia then has to make the decision whether to stay and live, or leave and die.…