As Denver waited for Beloved, who waited for Sethe, she caught sight of the boxwood bushes through the window. The hideaway of her childhood was now covered underneath feet of snow. The sun long gone. The light of the moon was alive, dancing around the ice. Magical, Denver thought. Just like a dream. As her eyes dozed off, she was brought back to a time years ago. A time before Howard and Buglar left, before Baby Suggs died, before Beloved arrived. Denver was seven when her brother saved her. The winter was harsh. Snow covered everything in sight. Denver had gone to her secret room made up of five boxwood bushes when it happened. It was cold, but she didn’t care. Her kitchen was full of chaos. Food was thrown on the floor, plates were broken. It was hard sharing a house with a spirit. Denver had to find somewhere quiet and she knew just the spot. She crawled through the snow and under the branches to find the opening. The walls were insulated by the snow on the leaves, protecting her from the fierce winds. Here she was safe. Here she was able to think without being...
Beloved is a novel set in Ohio during 1873, several years after the Civil War. The book centers on characters that struggle to keep their painful recollections of the past at bay. The whole story revolves around issues of race, gender, family relationships and the supernatural, covering two generations and three decades up to the 19th century. Concentrating on events arising from the Fugitive Slave Act of 1856, it describes the consequences of an escape from slavery for Sethe, her children and Paul D. The narrative begins 18 years after Sethe's break for freedom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children...by 1873 Sethe and her daughter Denver were its only victims". The novel is divided into three parts. Each part opens with statements to indicate the progress of the haunting--from the poltergeist to the materialized spirit to the final freeing of both the spirit and Sethe. These parts reflect the progressive of a betrayed child and her desperate mother. Overall symbolizing the gradual acceptance of freedom and the enormous work and continuous struggle that would persist for the next 100 years. Events that occurred prior and during the 18 years of Sethe's freedom are slowly revealed and pieced together throughout the novel. Painfully, Sethe is in need of rebuilding her identity and remembering the past and her origins: "Some things just stay. I used to think it was my rememory. You know. Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it's not. Places, places, are still there.
Misery, trauma, and isolation all have connections to the war time settings in “The Thing in the Forest.” In the short story, A.S. Byatt depicts elements captured from both fairy tale and horror genres in war times. During World War II, the two young girls Penny and Primrose endure the 1940s Blitz together but in different psychological ways. In their childhood, they learn how to use gas masks and carry their belongings in oversized suitcases. Both Penny and Primrose suffer psychologically effects by being isolated from their families’ before and after the war. Byatt depicts haunting effects in her short story by placing graphic details on the girls’ childhood experiences. Maria Margaronis, an author of a critical essay entitled “Where the Wild Things Are,” states that “Byatt’s tales of the supernatural depend on an almost hallucinatory precision for their haunting effects.” The hallucinatory details Byatt displays in her story have an almost unbelievable psychological reality for the girls. Penny and Primrose endure the psychological consequences and horrifying times during the Blitz along with the magical ideas they encounter as children. As adults they must return to the forest of their childhood and as individuals and take separate paths to confront the Thing, acknowledge its significance in their childhoods, and release themselves from the grip of the psychological trauma of war.
In the short essay, “Let It Snow,” by David Sedaris, he recounts the memory of his three sisters and himself being locked out of the house by their drunken mother, on a cold, snowy day. The children are very antagonistic towards their mother, and are willing to do whatever it takes to get the attention they deserve. When is comes down to it, the children realize that no matter how bad they treat their loved ones, They will always have a place for family in their heart.
An example of the cycle followed by her father, his father, and his father before him is told when Blunt recalls a major blizzard in December 1964 that trapped the family and some neighbors in their small homestead. She unemotionally describes how her father simply proceeded to go through the motions of keeping the pipes from freezing, calmly accepting the fact that he could do nothing as the storm progressed and he could not prevent loss of a of their livestock. Or how when he first ventured out to check on the animals in their nearby barn and nearly lost his way back in whiteout conditions. Later, when the storm passed, she told of playing amongst the frozen corpses of the cattle, jumping from ribcage to ribcage, daring her older brother and sister to cut off pieces of the animals, all with the calm acceptance that this was so normal, nothing strange about it.
In his article, “Let it Snow,” David Sedaris takes us into a personal perspective of his life. He tells a childhood story in a way that makes his readers feel emotionally connected to some of his exciting turned difficult encounters as a child. By sharing a time of the past, Sedaris not only explains the thrill of the accumulating snow, but he unleashes the blatant issues beyond the snow. Sedaris describes a fun day in the snow with his siblings; however, they return home to his mother having a breakdown. Sedaris writes that their “presence had disrupted the secret life she led while we were at school, and when she could no longer take it she threw us out” (quoted in Faigley 421). Sedaris’s article unveiled a darkness that lied far beyond the constant snow, all while maintaining an upbeat mood of the piece throughout its entirety, helping to build the anticipation as the conflict approaches.
The arrival of winter was well on its way. Colorful leaves had turned to brown and fallen from the branches of the trees. The sky opened to a new brightness with the disappearance of the leaves. As John drove down the country road he was much more aware of all his surroundings. He grew up in this small town and knew he would live there forever. He knew every landmark in this area. This place is where he grew up and experienced many adventures. The new journey of his life was exciting, but then he also had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach of something not right.
In Julia Alvarez’s short story, “Snow,” an immigrant student, named Yolanda is learning the American way of doing things. She learns that there is ugly and hatful war going on in the world around her. Sister Zoe, Yolanda’s catholic school teacher, explains to her and her classmates what a bomb is; a mushroom shaped explosion with white specks of dust filling the air. However, when Yolanda sees actual winter snow for the first time, she confuses this snow as bomb dust. After Sister Zoe explains that this is snow that Yolanda is seeing, and not a bomb, Yolanda realizes that snow, unlike a bomb can be a beautiful thing to witness. Julia Alvarez’s last sentence of her short story epitomizes the true meaning of snow, and how it can represent human beings. Julia Alvarez writes, “Each flake was different, Sister Zoe had said, like a person, irreplaceable and beautiful.” Key words from this sentence are, “flake,” “different,” “person,” “irreplaceable,” and “beautiful.”
It was a pitch dark and blustery night in December 1926. The sky was starless and moonless, as dark as coal. The thunder rumbled and reverberated like a furious and wild tiger. The freezing wind was bitter, one could feel the cold biting through one’s skin, and etching every strand of nerve. It was the day she was born.
As Denver is awaiting transportation for her first day on the job as Bodwin's evening nurse, thirty neighborhood women pray and sing at the edge of the yard after hearing speculations from that the ghost of Sethe's dead daughter is causing the family to deteriorate. Sethe and Beloved intrigued by the music move to the porch. "Sethe was breaking a lump of ice into chunks.When the music entered the window she was wringing a cool cloth to put on Beloved's forehead.Sethe and she exchanged glances and started toward the window" (Morrison 261). As the Bodwin approaches in a cart with his horses to pick up Denver, Sethe is triggered by a flashback of when the schoolteacher and the slave catcher came to get her children 18 years ago. Racing towards the cart, Sethe releases the hand of Beloved and runs toward to crowd using the ice pick as an attachment of her hand to protect her Beloved. "He is coming into her yard and he is coming for her best thing..And if she thinks anything, it is no" (Morrison 262). The thirty community women whom Sethe was running toward stop her and Beloved neglected on the porch by herself disappears. "Sethe is running away from her, running, and she feels the emptiness in the hand Sethe has been holding. Now she is running into the faces of the people out there, joining them and leaving Beloved behind.
“Hide!” Lily shouted to her family, as they began searching for places to hide in that small house. Her father’s immediately and without hesitation hide under the small and cramp spaces under the bed along wither mother. While Lily’s brother already disappeared in the shadows of the shelves. Lily stood their frozen, her heart raced like the motor of the fastest car in the Indianapolis 500. She didn’t know where to hide in with parents or brother, or just give herself up.
It is untidy, grimy and cluttered with items. The children gradually learn to make the situation work and make the attic their garden to enjoy, for the sake of their younger siblings, Carrie and Cory. The aspect of setting in this novel is very affective and interesting because it shows readers the viewpoint of the children and actually makes readers feel as if they are in the attic and experiencing the hurt and suffering that the characters are facing in their teen years.
When I think back upon the memories of my childhood, I clearly recall a specific winter afternoon at my grandmother’s house. It is an especially cold day, I remember. I am dressed in two pairs of thick socks, two sweatshirts, a heavy winter coat, and my bright pink rain boots. I am nine years old, and to me, winter snow is pure magic.
Standing on the balcony, I gazed at the darkened and starry sky above. Silence surrounded me as I took a glimpse at the deserted park before me. Memories bombarded my mind. As a young girl, the park was my favourite place to go. One cold winter’s night just like tonight as I looked upon the dark sky, I had decided to go for a walk. Wrapped up in my elegant scarlet red winter coat with gleaming black buttons descending down the front keeping away the winter chill. Wearing thick leggings as black as coal, leather boots lined with fur which kept my feet cozy.
It is a cool Thursday evening in Oregon. The almost freezing temperature coupled with the biting breeze sting my face, somehow heightening the anticipation of reaching the front steps of my grandparents ' house, as we are already late. The frosty blue hues of the outside sky contrast with the rich, red, brick walls and beckoning, warm yellow light shining through the windows. Still bright, though muted by curtains, the light evokes a fleeting sense of otherness. It is as if, even for a few brief moments, we are stuck in between the desire to be let in, exacerbated by our surroundings and the strange intimidation by the unknown that arises from remaining in this limbo for too long. I glance towards my mother and younger sister, holding practically
On the cold morning of December twenty-third at about six-thirty I heard an extremely loud knocking noise at the door of my house. My mom awoke as startled as myself and reached the door shortly before I could. The big fake wood door swings open with a cold breeze to reveal Derek, my big brother who was accompanied by his girlfriend and daughter that had just made it into town from California. Kaydence, Derek’s daughter was extremely excited and started running making a kind of