Reinhold Niebuhr once said “Forgiveness is the final form of love.” When someone wrongs a person how would they feel? In the novel A Parchment of Leaves by Silas House a Cherokee girl named Vine marries an Irish man named Saul. Saul’s brother Aaron who vine saved when he was bitten by a snake ends up liking Vine which turns into an obsession. Throughout the book Aaron becomes increasingly obsessed with Vine to the point that he asks her to run away with him and while drunk rapes her. This leads to her killing Aaron. Vine has to fight to redeem herself and also forgive herself for what she has done. Forgiving someone is one thing but letting them redeem themselves is another. Redemption allows the person to do something to earn forgiveness to themselves and others which is what many of the characters in the novel do.…
Sometimes, life appears backwards. Loving, caring people have terrible things happen to them, while others practice wickedness and seem to get away with it. In his novel The Chosen, Chaim Potok provides such a character: a sweet, innocent boy named Billy who has a sad story. Throughout his small part in the book, Billy demonstrates joy in the midst of blindness and a rough family situation. While recovering from his injury in the hospital, the young boy makes a lasting impression on Reuven, the main character, with his kind heart and sunny personality. Even though he could choose to turn angry or bitter over the sad events of his life, Billy decides to display kindness, optimism, and innocence during his stay in the hospital.…
In the book The Demon’s Covenant, it takes place in Modern Day England. This book is filled with action, excitement, and a little romance. Mavis, who goes by the name of Mae, is a tough and sassy heroine, who wants an ordinary life, and is nowhere near the grasp of being normal. Mae has no special power or fighting ability. Mae has always had her own identity, but can she, a normal girl without fighting talent or magical capability, hold her own against magicians and demons to protect the ones she loves? Her brother Jamie is a magician who hasn’t reached the full potential of his abilities quite yet. With the power Jamie has, he still doesn’t use it to defend himself from Seb, a jock type who torments Jamie, and the fourth spoke in Mae’s love polygon. However, as the story unfolds, two things are discovered; that Seb is a magician himself, and that he has more feelings towards Jamie than Mae. Further in the book, they once again encounter Gerald, a magician more powerful then Jamie who is opening the door to a much more unrestrained strength. Mae needs the help from two brothers, Nick and Alan to keep the dark magician away and talk some sense into Jamie. Alan is a very intellectual guy who is in love with Mae. His “brother” Nick is a quiet, unemotional, and fearless guy, who is unsurprisingly, a demon. Mae is overwhelmed by these two brothers and has a welter of mixed feelings for the both of them. She sets her thoughts out-of-the-way in order to save her brother. As you would have thought, this doesn’t last very long. Mae meets up with Sin again at the Goblin Market, a Mezentius House, a hospital and prison for bodies possessed by demons. The Goblin Market is where Mae made her first summoning circle as well as where she danced to call upon a demon. There are numerous themes in this book; What it means to love, how far you will go for love, and whether it’s heroic, or self-destructive,…
Within the pages of the novel Deadly Unna by Phillip Gwynne we are taken on a journey to a highly racist and bigoted town. Through the eyes of a young teenage boy, we see the world how he does and we experience the division and racism in this corrupt town.…
Since he originally had intentions on bettering himself it was disappointing to see his morals pushed aside. However, I was able to relate to him since his pain and anger was so understandable. Another character I found interesting was Dr. Miller. He had become educated and wealthy and even respected by some, however he is still treated unequally and still longs to be considered an equal among both whites and blacks. Even though Josh and Dr. Miller were both inspiring and heroic to me, the mulatto character of Janet was the most moral and determined throughout the book. She endures the shame of being outcast from the family heritage that she was entitled to, is repeatedly rejected by her white stepsister, and eventually loses her only child as a result of the savage acts of the whites. Regardless of this, she overlooks it all and acts purely on a moral level of what is the right the thing to do for humanity. She disregards the issues…
Analysis: For years Tom Walker deceived countless distressed and innocent people for their money. However, after many years Tom Walker becomes guilty and paranoid of the potential consequences for his acquisitive nature. Tom attempts to compensate for actions by regularly attending church and religiously carrying a bible out of all times out of paranoia. Despite his efforts to slightly better is depravities, Tom Walker is still overtaken by fear and ultimately seized by the devil never to return…
“With ever watchful eyes and bearing scars, visible and invisible, I headed North, full of a hazy notion that life could be lived with dignity, that the personalities of others should not be violated, that men should be able to confront other mean without fear or shame, and that if men were lucky in their living on earth they might win some redeeming meaning for their having struggled and suffered here beneath the stars.” (285)gggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggnce Richard is "no longer set apart for being sinful," his family leaves him alone. Chapter 5, pg. 123…
How to Hang a Witch by Adriana Mather does not necessarily relate to my personal life but, it does relate to American society today. Samantha Mather is a teenage girl, who is a direct descendant of Cotton Mather, the original accuser from the Salem Witch trials. Her stepmom and her move to Salem after her dad falls ill because is was cheaper to live in Salem rather than New York. Odd events, that impact all of the direct descendants of the Witch trials, begin to happen right after the Mathers arrive in Salem. Samantha’s goal is to find out the cause of these events. Many of Samantha’s experiences relate to experiences adolescents have today.Samantha always has had trouble making new friend because she believes no one likes her but, eventually…
During the time period of the “Salem Witch Trials” in 1692, there were believes that the devil was present in the small village. The main cause of this outbreak begin with Abigail Williams, a girl with has an “Endless capacity for dissembling” (Bonnet) out of a lust for John Proctor and jealousy for his wife Elizabeth Proctor. Witchcraft in Salem started when Abigail and a group of girls were caught dancing in the woods bye Reverend Parris the minister of the church. Abigail wasn’t only caught dancing but drinking blood to kill Elizabeth Proctor. In fear of rumors and being punished for their actions the girls denied everything, some even acted sick. When accused of their actions they said the devil made them and that they saw other people in the village with the devil. The outbreak begins, in a puritan religion this would not be accepted nor tolerated. Something had to be done, and the way to relieve these problems was to hang people guilty. Witchcraft in Salem didn’t just involve a couple people but it involved a whole town. It was more than the accusations of the devil being present in the village but “A long overdue opportunity for everyone so inclined to express publicity” (Miller). This could finally express there long held hatred for their neighbors and take vengeance on them.…
The grandmother and her family encounter The Misfit and the grandmother immediately starts sweet talking him to attempt to save herself. The grandmother says “I know you’re a good man… I know you must come from nice people,” trying to manipulate him to not kill her. She stays true to her southern class and never stoops down to The Misfits level. On the other hand, Brown falls into the trap of evil. Before being summoned to the dark side, Brown was told “evil must be your only happiness. Welcome, again, my children, to the communion of your race!” Brown did not take a stand against evil, punishing himself into a lifetime of misery. Despite the grandmother’s and Brown’s similarities, one major difference is how they handle evil when it is presented to them.…
Cathy’s inner evil is revealed at birth, and, at a young age, she discovers that she holds powers that can be used to manipulate others. From birth Cathy is foreshadowed to be pure evil, and she “learned when she was very young that sexuality with all its attendant yearnings and pains, jealousies and taboos, is the most…
In 1692 nineteen men and women and two dogs were convicted and hanged for witchcraft in a small village in eastern Massachusetts. By the standards of our own time, if not of that, it was a minor event, a spasm of judicial violence that was concluded within a matter of months. The bodies were buried in shallow graves or not at all, as a further indication that the convicted had not only forfeited participation in the community of man in this life, but in the community of saints in the next. Just how shallow those graves were, however, is evident from the fact that the people buried there were not eradicated from history: their names remain with us to this day, not least because of Arthur Miller, for whom past events and present realities have always been pressed together by a moral logic. In his hands the ghosts of those who died have proved real enough even if the witches they were presumed to be were little more than fantasies conjured by a mixture of fear, ambition, frustration, jealousy, and perverted pride.…
As individuals seek to belong, personal wants are disregarded in the face of societal expectations. This is evident in the novel The Crucible, where characters in the Salem community such as the flat character Parris, forsake personal desires to feel a sense of belonging. Through Miller's use of emotive language "I have fought here three long years to bend these stiff-necked people to me" highlighting to audiences, to belong, one must conform. Another member of the Salem community which further explores the concept is Tituba. Through Tituba’s idiomatic language “She beg me conjure! She beg me make charm” Miller symbolizes Tituba as the outsider with contrast to the archaic language of the others. Revealing to audiences, that to belong we must be what society expects of us. Through the disparity of Tituba’s character through the use of repetition “Bless him. Bless him... Bless God” Miller emphasizes to the audience how the once isolated and different Tituba, now feels the need to belong and does so by conforming to a religion she does not believe…
To an extent The Gathering portrays the dark side of human nature. A dark side of a human is the side that tells that human to do evil and bad things. The Gathering is a novel written by Isobelle Carmody. When the main character Nathanial and his mother move to a new town called Cheshunt he realises that something is terribly wrong. He soon finds himself in a group with four other people called the chain, fighting the dark, ancient evil that bruised Cheshunt a long time ago. A long time ago Cheshunt was bruised by an ancient evil which caused bad things to happen there. In Cheshunt, there were people with power over others and their power corrupted them. Mr Karle, a teacher and the leader of the school youth group tried to manipulate people by using their fears against them. Even though The Gathering shows the dark side of humans it also displays the good side of humans.…
VILLAINY or LACK: Brida is the protagonist and at the same time, antagonist of this story. When she went to Wicca, a Teacher of the Tradition of the Moon, what she learned in school about tarot cards was given confusion. Wicca’s ways was far different from what she was taught. When Wicca told her to spend an hour of her choosing to lay down the tarot cards and just let them show her what she needs to know at the moment, she was at first, excited. But when she noticed that it was only her imagination working and not magic. She…