In the book Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, she writes an excerpt, Shitty First Drafts, which is about the impact and importance of the first drafts of writing. Anne explains in the beginning of this excerpt that all writers write shitty first drafts and the drafts get better as you write more and work on the writing more. Lamott claims that “writing is not rapturous,” she explains that the only way that she can write anything well is to write a very bad first draft and just work on fixing that. She explains that sometimes you just have to type and get your ideas written out to be able to write a good piece of work. Once someone has been writing for so long, they have to have the ability to be able to just trust their writing process and understand that the first draft isn’t going to be perfect. Nothing is perfect on the first try, you have to keep working at it. Sometimes the first draft will be the worst thing someone thinks they have ever written, but they just have to go back to it and try to make it better and revise what is wrong. A writer has to start somewhere and they work from there. Just because the first draft is a bad draft doesn’t mean that the final work will be terrible. The first draft is the terrible draft, the second draft is the slightly better draft that has been picked through lightly to better, and the final draft is the “dental draft.” The dental draft is the draft that you really pick through and make sure that everything is perfect. In other words, the final product is checked “dentally” to make sure that it is “healthy” so that the final product is perfect. Lamott’s entire excerpt is just explaining that whether or not your first draft is perfect or not, the final product will definitely be better and more acceptable.…
Louie is a courageous man who survived the beatings of the war. He was a great runner who changed his life by enlisting in the war. He was stranded with his two bombardier mates on a raft until they were found by the Japanese and dehumanized. After the war has ended he lived a life of alcoholism until he found forgiveness. In the book Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand uses the life experiences of Louie Zamperini to show the traits of being courageous and determined.…
The protagonist in the book “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” is Greg. Greg is a senior in high school who does not have too many friends. He has one close friend named Earl who is also a senior in high school. They get along very well because they both really enjoy cinema and making films. Although besides that Greg does not have too many friends.…
This presentation will explore Violence, Trauma, and Knowledge as interlocking concepts in Octavia Butler’s Kindred. While it may be obvious that violence and trauma are integral parts of both the slave narrative and neo-slave narrative traditions, the part these concepts play in the slaves’, or their decedents, acquisition of knowledge may be more subversive. In Kindred, the protagonist, Dana, is somehow teleported to save her white male ancestor in slave era Maryland. During these times, she has to live as a slave in order to blend in, and she experiences the same violence and trauma as a slave during this era would. Throughout the novel, she is confront with the chose to let her white ancestor die, or to kill him or his father when they…
In Octavia Butler’s novel Parable of the Sower, Lauren, the protagonist, tells us that “God is Change”. What exactly does this mean in terms of science fiction? Perhaps religion and science fiction are not as opposing as many would traditionally believe. The traditional understanding of time, for example in terms of creation/apocalypse driven narratives, is that time moves in a forward linear motion; there is a beginning, and ultimately, an end. A linear timeline asserts the “cause and effect” concept, and gives our actions a sense of permanence and purpose. In terms of other sorts of science fiction narratives, the idea of time becomes so great that it may deviate from the traditional beliefs of always moving in one motion, and may find itself…
The cool fall air brought light goose bumps to my arms. Still a bit bothered by the cold, I took my long brown hair out of its usual ponytail and let it spread out across my back, warming my in the slightest. I rubbed my arms absentmindedly, looking around for Octavia. We always met here, on the metal bleachers, which rose above the green football field, waiting until the practice was over and Jake could drive us home. When I realized that she wasn’t anywhere near me, I turned my attention to the players on the field. The football team this year is supposed to be amazing, at least, from what I have been told and from what I have seen. Basically every student at Arrowsmith High School’s life revolved around football, or so it seemed. It…
In Gregory Orr’s essay, “Return to Hayneville”, published by The Virginia Quarterly Review, Orr revisited the place of his abduction by armed vigilantes in Alabama as a Civil Rights worker in 1965. Even though the events of this essay take place in 1965, for Orr it started with the death of his younger brother in a hunting accident when Orr was twelve. Holding the gun that killed his younger brother, Orr believed that if his life began at twelve with his brother’s death, then his end, “determined by the trajectory of that harsh beginning, could easily have taken place six years later” (125, 1). Orr visited the place that had hunted him as much of the death of his younger brother.…
Adrianna Rose is forced to move to a small town in California that's infested with Werewolves just because her parents are Werewolf Hunters. Adrianne's parents pressure her because they feel that it's her destiny because everyone in her family on both sides are Werewolf Hunters. She doesn't want to be a Werewolf Hunter but her parents want listen to her they keep on forcing the life they lived upon her.…
Throughout to kill a mockingbird, Harper Lee communicates on numerous occasions the importance of compassion, as taught to jem and scout through the book, empathy is one of the most critical traits in a respectable human being.…
The novel Fledgling by Octavia Butler analyses race relations and eugenics in society. Through the use of another intelligent species Butler lets the reader experience what happens when humans are not at the top of the food chain. While making the reader question the controversy over the use of eugenics and genetic engineering, Butler uses the story as a parallel of race relations in America.…
In the last half of the nineteenth century, Victorian ideals still hold sway in America. Women are subjected to a restrictive androcentric society that expect them to abide by the “codes of moral propriety” (Heilmann 88). Therefore, the role of maternal figure and obedient wife forced upon them leaves little or no room for female self-determination. Until 1978, as Ann Heilmann explains, the patriarchal order even deprives American women of legal rights over their own bodies (88). In other words, men literally own their wives’ body, and as such, there is no threat of legal actions hanging over…
In the extended written text ‘The Memory Keeper’s Daughter’ by Kim Edwards, we are presented with themes that contain issues which are related to the setting in a particular time and place. All elements of the extended written text work together to support the writer’s purpose in an integrated way; Setting, characters, relationships and style to full extent, support my agreement that as a reader living in the 21st century, we cannot understand the important themes of family relationships and society’s attitudes without a full grasp of the issues that unfold and develop in the plot that takes place in 1964 in Lexington, Kentucky, America.…
“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner introduces the story of Emily Grierson’s enigmatic life against the townspeople. Her southern identity exposes a personal conflict, which later reveals a solemn surprise. In “A Rose for Emily”, the protagonist’s empathetic emotions and abnormal behaviors reveal her distance between the townspeople, moreover, describing her mysterious figure.…
Miss Emily is an old-school southern belle trapped in a society bent on forcing her to stay in her role. She clings to the old ways even as she tries to break free. When she's not even forty, she's on a road that involves dying alone in a seemingly haunted house. At thirty-something she is already a murderer, which only adds to her outcast status.…
III. Place and Date of Publication: In 1994 in United States by Transedition Books, division of Andromeda oxford Limited,11-15 The Vineyard abindon, oxfordshire ox 14 3PX,England…