In “Total Eclipse,” by Annie Dillard, Dillard contrasts the emerging ring of light around the sun to an old silver wedding band or a morsel of bone in order to juxtapose the different feelings the eclipse raises as well as portray the lasting impression the total eclipse had on people. A worn wedding band insinuates the notion of the eclipse’s beauty and excitement in suspense of it, just as a marriage; moreover, a marriage lasts forever much like the imprinting the eclipse leaves on people. Dillard, for example, become attached to it and recounts it as lingering in her memory forever; so much so that she could write about it two years later in exceptional detail. Dillard belies the wedding band with a morsel of a bone, which serves as a symbol…
Everyone around us wears masks to hide who they truly are. For example , politicians wear masks to get the majority of votes to win. Not only in real life but in literature, characters wear masks as shown in "Hopfrog" by Edgar Allen Poe and "The Devil and Tom Walker" by Washington Irving. The King and the Seven ministers and Tom walker wear masks in these two stories. Regardless of how hard one tries to conceal his/her darker traits and/or motives, the truth always comes out in the end.…
My weekly wonder is about the actress and environmentalist Shailene Woodley. Earlier in October, Woodley was arrested for trespassing and protesting against a planned oil pipeline. Because of this and her passion for the environment, Woodley was honored by the Environmental Media Association. Woodley gave a speech that persuades people to “Live a more compassionate life, because the ripple effect of that is what is going to save our oceans, our planet, and our race.” After the speech, Nikki Reed stated, “I love what she stands for. I hope she brings some much needed attention to what is going on right now.”…
How Can The Lesson Learned From This Book Today: The lesson of leadership and independence can easily be used in everything you do on a day to day bases especially as a Marine. Every day you are assigned multiple tasks to do and being able to accomplish these tasks on your own will begin to get you recognition from your superiors. You will also use leadership if you are giving a task to supervise and make sure it gets done correctly by ensuring your fellow Marines know what the mission is and how to accomplish it.…
Alice Walker, the author of “Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self”, describes to us a point in time in which an “accident” distorted her perception of her beauty. Growing up Walker would receive comments such as “isn’t she the cutest thing”, she believed she was beautiful. After she was involved in a BB gun incident her eye was injured, everything changed, she let this small flaw affect the way she viewed herself. She was blinded, she believed this incident had changed her, but in reality everyone saw her the same “You did not change…” they would tell her. Walker eventually had a daughter, Rebecca, she allowed her other to open her eyes, to accept that she was still beautiful. There is a popular phrase that states “beauty is in the eyes…
Coming from an average suburban upbringing, the protagonist of the story displays identity confusion based on his own background and the actions and influences of his peers as well as the media of the time. In a setting as quiet as the town, sheer lack of excitement was enough incentive to go out and get into mischief for him and his peers. The “nature” of their actions were, to him, human nature in the…
R.J Palacio’s novel Wonder explores the adventure of the protagonist August Pullman, who contracted a very rare genetic deformity. The disease is called Mandibulofacialdiysastosis, which causes a major facial deformity. The story is about accepting people’s differences. This novel is written in a multiple first person view, which means that it’s written from a lot of different perspectives. I will be discussing Jack, Summer’s and Via’s perspective, which gave us a great understanding about August and his struggle for social acceptance.…
“Even a feeble-minded man wants to be like other men” (pg.199). In the novel, Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes expresses the lifelong changes of Charlie Gordon. Charlie Gordon is thirty two years old, he’s a sweet kindhearted loving man who just wants to be accepted for the person that he is, while having the mindset and characteristics of a six year old. In this novel Charlie Gordon, a dynamic character, is inspired to changes with his personality and intelligence, to his lifestyle, and his final passing.…
“He brought the wide world with him” Anna Frith admires George Viccars for being well-travelled but does not realise that he has brought not only his knowledge of the world but also the perils of disease with him. Silhouetted against the sepulchral backdrop of the blighted Eyam, Geraldine Brooks depicts a community caught in extraordinary times in her historical novel “Year of Wonder”. The novel conveys the complications and ramifications of human nature and human actions, interwoven with the cultural value of religion and beliefs in addition to the social value of trust. Brooks illustrates that the nature suspect and distrust has stemmed from the…
He writes of the dark reality in hiding people’s individuality. For example, “They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in” (Vonnegut). Using masks and handicap harnesses as concealment stresses the flaw in an ideal equal society thought of by Americans instead of a truly moral society. A principled society focuses on equal rights, and not identical appearances or talents. On the other hand, freedom is no longer a value in the story because everyone must stay within their limits to continue as “normal” like the rest of…
This dehumanizes a person and gives them more of a mechanical persona. “And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron’s fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away. It was tragic alright, but George and Hazel couldn’t think about it very hard” (Vonnegut 38). George and Hazel’s son are forcibly taken from them and placed in prison. Most parents would become distraught and fight for their child to be returned to them safely. George and Hazel, however, cannot because they aren’t allowed to think in-depth about anything which directly correlates to their raw emotions. In the narrative, Hazel sees her son murdered by the Handicapper General and begins to sob, as any sympathetic mother would. George questions why she is upset to which she responds “I forgot…something real sad on television.” George asks what it was, but Hazel can’t formulate a clear answer as to what she saw. So George tells her to “forget sad things,” to which she responds with, “I always do” (Vonnegut 44). The government has completely robbed its citizens of emotions, leaving them immensely passive even when a person was just murdered by their own head of government before their own eyes. When you take away the more imperfect and painful moments in a person’s life, there cannot be any of the wonderful ones. Without their emotions and deeper…
A certain maturity, understanding and acceptance usually develop in people as they age and learn through life experiences. Depending on those life experiences, an individual can progress far in their understanding and acceptances or be held in stagnate and prejudiced position. In the story “A&P” by John Updike, the reader is taken through a mundane shopping experience seen through the eyes of a teenager boy named Sammy. By using specific symbols and this particular point of view, the reader is able to see Sammy developing life experience through observing the shopping girls in comparison to how the older characters in the story such as Sammy’s boss react to the same customers.…
The laughing eyes are quieted, as all focus now belongs on me. I am conscious of my clothes, showing no signs of wear, in a dark contrast to threadbare coverings, draped loosely over bony shoulders. My bracelets jingle. As earrings bob from my ears, the polished silver reflects the dusty streets and empty stares. I am ashamed of the sparkle, as new sandals protect my lily petal feet from the heat of the sun beaten ground. My feet are kept cool, as the breeze gently tickles. This same playful breeze does nothing for my burning face, as it is warmed by the army of stares.…
In Invisible Man, the narrator is in a continuous search for his own identity as he passes from one section of society to another, taking on different roles within each as he questions his place to find his own true self. He is forced to make a choice of whether he will go against society to find himself, or if he will stay obedient to that society, in conforming to the stereotypes that he is given and go with the expectations of him in society. The narrator portrays many qualities of outward conformity while at the same time is inwardly questioning his own actions as he searches for his identity and place within society. However the main character presents these ideas in unique ways through the main character’s awareness of the standards he is conforming to. The narrator from Invisible Man is not aware of his conformity or his rebelling against it until the end of the novel.…
The late 1600s bridged a time in the New World where religion was highly valued and superstitions, established from a previous time, ran rampant. Over several centuries ago, from the 1300s-1600s, England was experiencing its own type of witchcraft craze as it went through the process of executing thousands of people for their supposed misdeeds. After putting into place, appealing, reformatting and reenacting various acts all of which, in their own manner, banned supernatural acts and resulted in the death of many, England had finally seemed to move past this elongated obsession, just in time to pass it onto their fellow Englishmen in the New World. Due to the past exposures of hysteria and the already traumatic events occurring in the area,…