The novel begins with Kate, twenty years after the death of her parents, with a career as
The novel begins with Kate, twenty years after the death of her parents, with a career as
leaves her home to live with her aunt. She is challenged with the life of Puritans. Kit is doing…
The novel Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward tell us a story about a 15-year-old African American girl named Esch. She lives with her father and 3 brothers in small bayou town called Bois Sauvage in Mississippi. Unfortunately, Esch is living an unhappy and poor family. Her father has problems with alcohol, and her mother died after her last pregnancy when Esch was only 8 years old. Even though Esch’s mother is dead, her presence is obvious from the very beginning of the story, and she stays present throughout the whole book. Esch constantly compares the present with the past, when her mother was alive. Mama is the only woman that Esch can refer to about feminine issues, among all males surrounding her. Therefore, the most tender memories that Esch keeps in her head are connected with her mother. Mama is an invisible guardian whose lessons still continue to guide and protect all of her children.…
The book starts off in the late 1990’s in New York. A girl by the name of Kate Moran,…
In the novel As I Lay Dying, author William Faulkner formulates major differences in the narrations of brothers Jewel and Darl to convey and enhance several of the novel’s central themes. Jewel and Darl arguably represent different viewpoints regarding the ephemerality and importance of one’s existence and identity—a main theme in the novel that also highlights the essence of the fundamental differences between these two characters. Another important theme in the novel is the dissidence between thoughts and words and the way in which each concept is represented by Jewel and Darl, as well as the way these concepts affect the relationship of the two brothers. A third theme explores the isolation between the members of the Bundren family and how Darl and Jewel’s isolation from one another and from the rest of the Bundrens contributes largely to the extreme dysfunction seen within the family. Faulkner uses tools such as the words and language that Darl and Jewel use and the frequency with which each brother is visited as a narrator to help compare and contrast Jewel and Darl as characters. The contrasts between the brothers are of particular importance in Faulkner’s attempt to relate to the reader what he is trying to prove regarding the tragic and ironic human existence. The misfortunes suffered by Jewel and Darl physically, mentally, through their sibling rivalry, and through their isolation from their family and one another are all results of living their lives in a way that Faulkner wants his audience to avoid.…
The book begins with Marion Blumenthal, a young girl sleeping on her mother’s arm in a concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen, a town northwest of Berlin. Their fellow inmates are dying by the dozen. Marion vividly describes the horrors she experienced in the camp. Daily she found herself stepping over dead bodies that were just left strewn about. One of the worst torments was the daily roll call. They would stand in the below zero temperatures for hours on end with barely a layer of clothing to protect them from the frost. There was one good part of her day however; Marion and her mom would spot her father and brother Albert, and for a few short moments they got to be a family. Albert and dad always brought “surprises”. They brought what “extra” food they had saved from the previous day. Marion would bring along her secret treasure; four perfect pebbles. Marion’s pebbles gave her a sense of purpose, and belief that it would keep her family together.…
Arriving home from school, being picked up by his neighbors, “At two o’ clock our neighbors drove me home”(3). He heard the devastating news that someone died in his family. Upon arriving home, “In the porch I met my crying father”(4), showed how death can causes so much trauma and confusion. His father crying,…
Through her novel, Thursday’s Child, Sonya Hartnett explores the themes of endurance, maturity and suffering. The story has an emphasis on the Flute family losing its ability to function throughout the novel. Some of the reasons of this dysfunctionality are the Great Depression and the harsh Australian outback, which create tension within the family. However, whilst the Flute family’s ability to function is affected by the landscape and time, other factors also contribute to the Flute family’s loss of the ability to function properly.…
Jess Walter’s writing was definitely an interesting read and I felt like it was unlike any of the other readings that we have read thus far. It kept me interested in the story and I felt that was partly because of the mystery that came with it. The end of the story was a little suspenseful, not exactly knowing how the story was going to continue until you kept reading. Overall, it was a good short read.…
To begin with, Kate Morrison is plagued by the guilt of her bother, Matt’s broken dreams. As a consequence, the guilt causes many emotional problems in her life. For instance, the constant mental pressures of guilt causes Kate’s “crisis” during one of her zoology lectures. “Because if things had turned out differently, it would have been Matt standing in front of them” (Lawson, pg. 200). During a lecture, Kate has a flashback about a childhood visit to the ponds with Matt. It is clear that Kate feels guilty for leaving Matt, who was her idol as well as her brother, behind. He taught her not only to see nature but to observe and understand it; and Kate feels that it is injustice that she should be teaching others when Matt taught her “everything” she knows. Furthermore, Katie is always in an emotional battle with her own mind due to the guilt she felt for Matt’s situation. “I had betrayed him, that was how I felt” (Lawson, pg. 201). Even though she knows Matt had caused his own demise, deep inside her mind, she feels that it was her own fault. This feeling causes her to fight with herself. Her situation shows that Kate could never come to terms with what had happened to her family and what had become of the Morrison dream. Finally, Kate’s guilt causes her to lose communication with Matt, which hurts their relationship. “What are you actually researching Kate? I don’t think you’ve ever said” (Lawson, pg. 274). It is plainly obvious that Matt is interested in…
Grief, defined as a multifaceted response to loss can impact not only emotional helath but physical, behavioaral, and social aspects of a persons life as well. Grief is a response so strong if can change the way people view the world and the way people behave. This is the most prominent theme towards the second half of the book, The Poisonwood Bible (By Barabara Kingsolver), after the death of the youngest daughter Ruth May. We see memebers of the Price family approach this death in the many different ways and grieve the loss of their beloved sister/daughter differently.…
The author Wes had a father who died. Wes' father loved him. He gave Wes good advice and was there for Wes. Wes had good memories of his father and remembers his dad being there for him. Wes went through life with a loss, true, but he didn't have to deal with his father directly walking out on him.…
In Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward, the audience is introduced to the struggles of an African American family in Mississippi trying to get everything together before the terrible storm, Hurricane Katrina crashes onto the coast and wipes everything out. This heartfelt novel introduces to the audience the theme of parenthood/motherhood, the role that the absence of a mother/father had on the children, the role of basketball and the affect it had on the family, the role of dog fighting and how it related to the family, and the character analysis of Esche. The loss of a female figure in their lives has changed the family in order for them to replace that role and comfort each other.…
As seen by many different mothers in the novel Sula by author Toni Morrison, mothers play an important part in kid’s life, shaping how they view different beliefs in the world and setting up values in their child. Every individual’s life is shaped by personal relationships they have with others. The mother and child relationship greatly affects the identity development in the kid. As seen in the racist community in the novel, the mother and kid relationship is important in the sense that the mothers and children share understanding of the sexist oppression, intertwining their lives together even more than they already were. As seen in different mother and daughter relationships including, Eva and Hannah Peace, Sula and Hannah Peace, and Helene and Nel Wright, readers come to terms that mothers and their children represent the connection between future and past.…
Suffering and loss is a regular situation in the human life cycle, it is vital to learn how to deal with it so that it doesn’t affect the rest of our lives negatively. In Scott Russell Sanders’s Ten Reasons Why We’ll Always Need a Good Story he explains that one of the reasons is to help us deal and become aware of suffering, loss, and death. During our youth we often don’t consider the end of the life cycle. However, in life we will always encounter grieving from a loved one’s death. The first time we experience some sort of grieving it may be very hard to handle and may cause depression. Stories help us prepare for moments of suffering, loss, and death with fictional experiences which show us how to deal with these unfortunate events. In the three short stories we read at least one character in each story is forced to deal with suffering, loss, or death. In the short story Bluffing by Gail Helgason, Liam has an unfortunate accident and experiences physical pain as well as the emotional pain of his deteriorating relationship with Gabriella. In Two Words by Isabel Allende, Belisa Crepusculario is devastated by the death of her entire family due to their impoverished lifestyle and the love between her and the Colonel causes them to miss each other. In The Indisputable Weight of the Ocean by Darryl Berger, Edmund deals with not being able to see his father and deals with the suffering of moving to a suburban area.…
This book is incredible. It brings to life a topic that many people try to stay away from but the author does an incredible job of making it easy to read for younger readers. This book has no pictures besides the cover. This book is about a girl who is 13 years old who just lost her brother in a bicycle accident. The brother was named Mick Harte. He was not wearing a helmet and passed away a little bit after getting into the accident. The focus is the aftermath of a family member passing away. The author does not try to make the entire book about wearing a helmet, she uses “small moments” to explain the pain the family experiences after his death. One example is when the father comes home from the hospital and stares into Mick’s room. He slowly…