There are certain ‘big questions’, questions on purpose and meaning, questions on life and death, that constantly hang over humanity. Some people go on with their day to day lives either blissfully unaware or choosing to hide in naivety. But for others, these questions can become a consuming struggle, something that drives their every moment. Murakami, in After the Quake, writes stories about the second kind of people. These questions that Murakami has his characters struggle with are hard to tackle in such brief, condensed works as short stories, but by giving the elements of the story several layers of meaning and interpretation he is able to unpack the idea more fully and set the reader on the right track to begin unpacking the stories …show more content…
He does this primarily by blurring the line between reality and fantastic. Often, the same tangible thing that stands for an intangible emotion, also suggests a magical interpretation. In “Landscape with Flatiron,” Miyake’s comment that “Premonitions can stand for something else sometimes. And the thing they stand for can be a lot more intense that reality,” invites the question of what he really means by premonitions (42). This first suggestion in “Landscape with Flatiron” of a possible element of magical realism shifts the readers perspective of the events and elements. In “UFO in Kushiro,” Komura has a sudden realization: “I was supposed to be holding this when I got off the plane. That’s how they were going to recognize me. How did they know who I was?” (11). This also suggest a sense of fantastic happening, but doesn’t confirm it. There are reasonable explanations but it invites the interpretation of something unrealistic happening as well. The line is so frequently blurred in After the Quake, that when Murakami does truly cross over into magical realism he blatantly states it. This is seen in “Superfrog Saves Tokyo”, where Frog tells Katagiri that he is “a product neither of metaphor nor allusion” (94). This blurring of reality can be seen as a form of duplicity itself. Things that are real stand in for things that are not, and vice versa. Constantly having to be alert to shifts in reality creates a sense of instability within the
The author wrote this story in response to a magazine company, and eventually published it into a book. He used many styles and techniques to describe the life and death of McCandless. The mood throughout the novel constantly varies with the excitement of McCandless’s adventures and the emotions caused by his disappearance. Krakauer’s ability to engage multiple senses of a reader truly makes his novel special.
...lly, however, he begins to fight back against this loss of identity and struggles to regain himself, realizing that “stealing memories was stealing time... forget the end of the world, I was ready to reclaim my whole self.” (Murakami, 239) As he sits back in his car and waits for his world to end he gives himself the tools to fight this loss of identity, telling himself t“Now I can reclaim all I’d lost. What’s lost never perishes.” (Murakami, 396) Although his identity has crumbled almost past recognition, the Narrator and the Dreamreader hold the key to retrieving it– memories and the unrelenting search for identity. Even though the identity of the Japanese culture has been undermined by globalization and internationalization, Murakami believes that it will be found again when the culture receives the proper stimulus– when they begin to read the dreams of unicorns.
The complexity of the plot starts when the reader is introduced to a man lost in a cave and his source of light goes out and continues when the man realizes that “starving would prove [his] ultimate fate” (1). Readers get a sense of hopelessness the man is feeling, and this is where the tensions begins to build. Alt...
In the early twentieth century, San Francisco, a bustling city full of people with diverse cultures, stood in the midst of the Second Industrial Revolution. At this time, the brilliant inventions of airplanes, automobiles, and radios were changing the everyday lives of many. San Francisco had just recovered from the four-year burden of the bubonic plague (“Bubonic”). However, right when things were getting back to normal, a destructive earthquake hit the city on April 18, 1906. Although the shaking lasted for less than a minute, the devastated city had crumbled buildings and a substantial loss of lives. The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 had a lasting effect on the city and its people, and it proved to be one of the most catastrophic disasters in history.
The San Francisco earthquake that took place in 1906 is fairly well-known because of its damage and intensity that would affect many lives. The online exhibit of The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire shows how much was lost during this natural disaster, and how the city was before. Many would wonder what is the purpose of documenting how it was before, and after the earthquake, but the fact that no one was expecting one so big impacted countless lives. Also, at the time San Francisco was becoming the most popular city, therefore it would appear in the headlines how a well-known place that most people loved would become damaged (The Bancroft Library, 2006). Overall, this virtual field trip shows the cause and effect of the earthquake that would change San Francisco in numerous ways.
In the early twentieth century, San Francisco, a bustling city full of people from diverse cultures, stood in the midst of the Second Industrial Revolution. At this time, the brilliant inventions of airplanes, automobiles, and radios were changing the everyday lives of many. San Francisco had just recovered from the four-year burden of the bubonic plague (“Bubonic”). However, right when things were going back to normal, a destructive earthquake hit the city on April 18, 1906. Although the shaking lasted for less than a minute, the devastated city had crumbled buildings and a substantial loss of lives. The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 consisted not only of earthquakes, but also of even more destructive fires; it had a scarring effect on the city and its people, yet it gave much of the knowledge that seismologists have today and allowed San Francisco to stand as a place of intriguing buildings and structures.
Hazards pose risk to everyone. Our acceptance of the risks associated with hazards dictates where and how we live. As humans, we accept a certain amount of risk when choosing to live our daily lives. From time to time, a hazard becomes an emergent situation. Tornadoes in the Midwest, hurricanes along the Gulf Coast or earthquakes in California are all hazards that residents in those regions accept and live with. This paper will examine one hazard that caused a disaster requiring a response from emergency management personnel. Specifically, the hazard more closely examined here is an earthquake. With the recent twenty year anniversary covered by many media outlets, the January 17, 1994, Northridge, California earthquake to date is the most expensive earthquake in American history.
The effects caused by earthquakes are devastating. They cause loss of human life and have effects on infrastructure and economy. Earthquakes can happen at any time anywhere. In January 12, 2010 an earthquake of a magnitude of 7.0 hit the nation of Haiti. An estimation of 316,000 people were killed, and more than 1.3 million Haitians were left homeless (Earthquake Information for 2010). Haiti was in a terrified chaos. After the earthquake, families were separated because many of the members were killed. Homes, schools, and hospitals were demolished. People lost their most valuable belongings. It will take time for the country to recover from this terrible disaster. The long damages are economic issues, health-state, and environmental issues that effect in the beautiful island of Haiti.
On the night of April 18, 1906, the whole town was woken by erratic shaking. Although the earthquake lasted under a measly minute, it caused significant damage. Many fires started all throughout the city; San Francisco burned in turmoil.
The characters in Things Fall Apart are not black and white: they are flawed, redeemed, frustrated, assertive, violent, reasonable, and genuine. These traits are determined by perspective, and the a...
The conditions of the earthquake depicts an image of hell. The images of collapsing buildings and the chaos of destruction associates with the fires and chaos of hell. Jeronomo’s experience of the earthquake represents the earthquake as creating hell on earth by the amount of casualties. For example, “there the flame, flashing in clouds of smoke curled out, of every gable and drove him, terrified, into another street” (Kleist, 124). The image of flames and clouds of smoke in this piece relates to the image of the fires of hell in apocalyptic literature. The flames from the earthquake presents this sense of the end of the world. Jeronimo's experience of the obstacles of smoke and fire illustrates a common perception of fires association wi...
Arundhati Roy’s novel, titled The God of Small Things, can be deemed as what Roy would describe as a “great story,” one in which does not “deceive you with thrills and trick endings,” where “you know how they end, yet you listen as though they don’t”(Roy 218). Though this definition of a “great story” is true, it fails to include that every “great story” should feature a learning opportunity for the reader. In The God of Small Things, the trauma of Sophie Mol’s death is hinted at throughout the novel, and finally introduced at the end. It can be seen, by examining Elizabeth Outka’s article titled Trauma and Temporal Hybridity in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and Sarah Winter’s article titled Disembodied Liberalism, Embodied Human Rights, that Roy structures her novel in a way that educates the audience on the effects of trauma by recreating the memories that Estha and Rahel possess and placing them into the book. By describing the memories in the way that the twins remember the event, Roy invites the reader to experience the trauma of Sophie Mol’s death as though they were living through the trauma.
An important theme in Potiki is the enduring idea that creating and sharing stories as a central part of being human is important. It is a significant theme because the novel is heavily imbued with Maori culture, in which the stories and spoken teachings are given prominence, and also because it is a popular belief that people need narratives to give meaning, structure and value to their lives. This theme is displayed resolutely and poignantly in Potiki’s plot, characters, setting and symbolism, as the people of a small rural New Zealand community rediscover themselves through stories spoken and found in Maori carvings. The idea that humans need narratives is the core theme in Potiki, and it is used also to link other themes and aspects of the novel; it is in this way that we know the idea of storytelling is an intrinsic part of the novel’s structure.
Beyond the shield of civilization and into the depths of a primitive, untamed frontier lies the true face of the human soul. It is in the midst of this savagery and unrelenting danger that mankind confronts the brooding nature of his inner self.
When trying to understand these particular characters’ experiences, it is very important to consider their worldviews, which promote “[th...