Redness and blood is often connected to religious imagery. In All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, the spirituality of blood connects man with the landscape, horse, history, and his destiny. Thomas C. Foster’s How to read Literature Like a Professor makes reference to the bible in chapter 6. The Bible states that wine is often symbolized for the blood of Christ and is thought to be a spiritual cleanser. At the end of Part III, after John Grady had lost a lot of blood while staying in Saltillo Prison, he continues his journey back to Don Hector’s ranch after being spiritually cleansed. Chapter one sets the scene of the main character, John Grady Cole, attending his grandfather's funeral. In the evening, Grady notices that “the sun sat…
Claudia Rankine, author of the book Citizen features multiple artistic genres including: poetry, prose, images and videos that can be found online. She uses many images that strike readers as beautiful and intriguing to show the importance of understanding the message and main ideas of her book. On image she used in her book, which can be found on page 160 was created by Joseph Mallord William Turner. The Slave Ship was created in 1840, based on a poem that depicted a slave ship that was caught in a typhoon.…
All the Pretty Horses is the first volume of The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy and it is a tale about two cowboys who decide to leave their hometown in search of a new life in Mexico. The two young men, John Grady Cole and Lacey Rawlins, are close friends that live in San Angelo, Texas; they decide to travel south on horseback.…
Claudia Rankine, author of the book “Citizen” uncovers and interrogates what has been called our “post-race” society. The shortness of her style asks us to redefine our responsibilities (ethnic and otherwise) by examining the meanings of the insignificant citizen.” She urges, “to distinguish what you’ll sound like is worth noting” and surrender: “all importance departs the options of any kind of association as you understand that you cannot get anywhere without knowing where you were in the post race society. She compels us to question what it means to be American. Rankine expounds on the body before she does so on race.…
In the eighth grade, I auditioned for a youth production of “Once Upon a Mattress” at the Morgan-Wixson Theater. It was my first time auditioning for a show in which I wasn't guaranteed a role. Being certain of my abilities and craving a challenge, I auditioned and landed a role in the ensemble. A week into rehearsal one of the leads dropped out, and the director called back members of the ensemble to replace her. After performing just a quarter of the monologue I was recast as a lead character. However, I was oblivious to the stress this character would end up putting on my life. I had only ever played romantic leads who had sweet demeanors, and this character had anything but. The villain and antagonist of the story, Queen Aggravain is an…
She couldn’t think of the graceful woman before her feeling like she was describing. Then again, she couldn’t picture a lot of things six years ago. “They gave me a fork with my meals,” She started again. Her voice was emotionless and her eyes stared out at nothing. “I had to get out. I had to. The guard on duty came in the cell to gather my tray. I had left it on the bed beside me. He was just older than me, I almost felt guilty for what I was about to do. He grasped my chin in hand and made me look at him. He told me I was a pretty little thing even if I was a filthy mess. He wanted a kiss. He went down close enough to me and I jammed the fork deep in his neck, cutting through a majority artery. Then I…
The adolescent narrator has a thirst for the love of Raheem. An illustration of how much she loves Raheem is how she is always tolerant of the unfaithful things he does; she doesn’t deserve Raheem; wholeheartedly giving herself to her to Raheem and constantly doing everything for him; the narrator does all these things for him. She will literally do anything for him as long as he is her boyfriend. However he can’t even do as he is continuously unfaithful to her. To sum up, this narrator is a sadly truthful portrayal of a bad girl and her…
Priscilla attends a school kept under control by a kid named Monk Klutter and his Kobra Gang, they run a tight ship issuing overpriced bathroom passes and stealing kids’ lunch money. This short story titled Priscilla and the Wimps by Richard Peck is a high level comedy that evokes chuckles and smirks by using irony along with caricatures and one liners to develop the universal truth that you should treat others the way you wish to be treated. To start, the caricatures used in this story mainly revolve around describing Priscilla and Melvin’s size. Priscilla’s character was described as “hands down, the largest student in [this] particular institution of learning” while Marvin was described as the exact polar opposite, “one of the smallest…
Picture a beautiful, young, loving, smart girl with caring parents and one amazing boyfriend. Now picture that becoming all a lie. Picture a seventeen year old falling in love with a psychopath, and having no clue about the situation. Having your perfect world torn apart right in front of you with no control of stopping it. . Ask Natasha Kennedy just how that happened to her. She was in a picture-perfect relationship with Jayven Ray, her boyfriend of eight months. He gave her everything she could dream of, love, gifts, time, and always had the right words to say. She was infatuated with him, the perfect man was in her grasp and she was not letting go. After he knew just how head over heels she was for him, the loving, caring, perfect Jayven turned into her worse nightmare. He became abusive, controlling, and overbearing. She loved him, so of course she let the situation proceed. She was hoping the old Jayven would come back.…
In the story, “American History” by Judith Ortiz Cofer, a girl named Elena lived in Paterson, New Jersey in an apartment known as El Building. Her life consists of her getting bullied at school, loving to read, staring at the old Jewish people’s house, and especially having a huge crush on a boy named Eugene. Throughout the whole story all Elena thinks about is Eugene and how she wants to be with him forever. She then starts to have a mental relationship with him and his life and starts to create a dream world that consist of her a Eugene being together. But later in the story, Elena gets turned down by Eugene’s mom and she then basically losses everything she ever wanted which was Eugene. The lesson she learned was not to get attached to things because once it’s gone then a person’s life can change from good to worse.…
A Voice in the Dark, by Catherine Mackenzie, details the journey of Richard Wurmbrand, an inexperienced pastor, throughout the toils and tribulations he faces as a Christian under persecution in Communist Romania. The story begins by Richard Wurmbrand narrating how, one day, he goes from being a secret pastor of the underground church to being arrested by the secret police and thrown into prison. The narrator explains, saying, “His voice is a voice in the dark. An urgent whisper, a warning … That gets noticed. That is not ignored.…
A young lovers wish of having a boyfriend that treats her right becomes a part of a dream where the harsh truth is “dreams can come to reality”. While being fascinated with dreaming, Connie spent a lot of the time letting her mind slip over onto thoughts about the boy she had seen the night before. The thoughts were vivid about how nice he treated her and how this could potentially be all the time. ”Connie sat with her eyes closed in the sun, dreaming and dazed with the warmth about her as if this were a kind of love, the caresses of love, and her mind slipped over onto thoughts of the boy she had been with the night before and how nice he had been, how sweet it always was..” (Oates 2).…
She continues to seek him, yearning, “Peter dear, think of me, fix your thoughts on me, and save me. All the time you’re thinking “my glancing stream, my crystal girl,”(32). Estelle has no sense of self without her other half; when she does not have that other half, she is forced to reject her current situation and instead live in the past, exhibiting bad…
One of her coworkers, a nice swell well-groomed fellow, caught her eye at first sight. They immediately started talking and had similar hobbies, which turned into dates that turned into a potential relationship. This guy seemed so wonderful to her until she started realizing some strange activities going on with her credit card account. This prince charming was actually using her hard-earned cash to splurge on himself behind her back. She was hurt at first and did not think this would happen to her. She immediately confronted him; he admitted it and they ended their relationship. After a few months of getting back on her feet, Jade Kat was all about striving towards success. She was still working for the company for about 5 years. Her designs were being recognized by top fashionistas. Jade was so close to her dream, she could taste it.…
One day, there was a girl named Natalia who loved someone far away from her. She loved Ken so much. Their relationship was like a roller-coaster ride. They didn’t see each other always. Days have passed and Natalia met a new guy.…