Bittersweet is defined as something both pleasant and painful or regretful. It can be anything from falling off you bike after successfully riding it by yourself for the first time or reuniting with your family in another country after going away for college. It is something most people experience at least once in their life. In Saroo Brierley’s “A Long Way Home,” the passage of this man is constantly bittersweet, with many moments of joy and happiness that are also shrouded with bits of regret and melancholy. It seems that during his journey for almost every positive thing that happened in his life, something undesirable did as well and vice versa. At five years old and on the streets of Calcutta, Saroo encountered a person who changed his life completely. It was a teenager, around his older brother Guddu’s age, who took Saroo in and looked after him for a few days before taking him to someone who could really help Saroo—the police. This was a crucial moment in Saroo’s life, where he states, “I …show more content…
By doing this, he would be abandoning the life he knew during his first five years of childhood in India and accepting the fact that he was never going home. However, he would be given a life that he could not ever imagine having in India, one that involved a seemingly endless food supply and a father who owned a car. He said that, “Getting used to the idea of living with a new family in a foreign land was an overwhelming experience.” He had lost his family and they were gone at this moment, but he had the chance to have a new family. Therefore, by choosing to be adopted, he was giving up on a life with his Indian family and saying goodbye to the life to which he had grown accustomed, but choosing to have a better life that led him to many opportunities he would have never had
On page 53, four paragraphs down the author states that the boy’s choice in moving away improved his academic life. His father only lived a mile and a half down the road, like the old saying so close but so far away. At the end of page 53, the author talks about him and his Aunt going on trips. She taught him all about Indian culture on these trips. They even traveled to the imitation Stonehenge Monument. On this trip his Aunt had begun to talk to the main character about what he wants to be in life. The boy answers “I want to be like you,” and she had told him to think about following in his father footstep’s considering the fact many Indian boy’s do.
Encountering struggles in life defines one’s character and speaks volumes about their strength, ambition, and flexibility. Through struggles, sacrifice, and tragedy, Junior in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, adapts to survive difficult situations and faces his problems head-on. As he makes life changing decisions, adapts to an unfamiliar culture, and finds himself amongst misery and heartbreak, Junior demonstrates resilience to overcome adversity and struggles.
A five year old boy traveled across the vast country of India on a train and thrown into the streets of Calcutta with millions of people and survived. In A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley, Saroo experienced several life-threatening trials as a child and miraculously ended up in an affluent area in Australia following adoption. After growing up in Australia, Saroo set on a journey to find his birth family in India. Saroo’s journey begins simply to fulfill his own self-interest, though turned into something greater than himself which defines him as a true hero. Saroo Brierley experienced separation, initiation, and return throughout his life which develops his naval, making him a modern mythological hero as defined by Joseph Campbell.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian showed all of the problems that arose in Junior’s journey. From poverty and alcoholism to bulimic semi-girlfriends, he had so many excuses to stop, but the passion of his dreams pushed him forward. Like a hero, Junior continued, determined to do well and build a greater future for himself. An example that showed Junior’s passion for education and desire to achieve his goals was when he threw an old geometry textbook at his teacher: “My school and my tribe are so poor and sad that we have to study from the same dang books our parents studied from. That is absolutely the saddest thing in the world…My hopes and dreams floated up in a mushroom cloud” (Alexie, 31). Junior clearly understood his disadvantaged education and he was very upset about it. He longed for a better education. Junior was passionate about education, because it would allow him to achieve his goals and break the depressing pattern he was trapped in. Bravery and determination are caused by passion, and heroes are very passionate about their actions. Passion clearly drove Junior when he walked to school, since he said, “Getting to school was always an adventure…Three times I had to walk all the way home. Twenty-two miles. I got blisters each time” (Alexie, 87). Putting all of this effort into simply going to school, Junior must have had
Sharon Begley, author of “Happiness: Enough Already,” proclaims that dejection is not an unacceptable state of mind and there are experts that endorses gloomy feelings. This reading explicates that even though every-one should be happy there is no need to ignore sadness, as both emotions share key parts in everyone’s life. Sharon Begley and her team of specialists provides the information on why sadness is supplemental to a person’s life.
...somewhat cryptic language. He simply had his mind elsewhere, which is probably why he ended up in India.
names to the humor of his family, tells us that he will not be telling us his downfall, for that is his Indian secret. Saying how he must “work hard to keep secrets from hunger”. white folks,” immediately giving the impression that his nationality is going to shape the person he is and how he regales his audience with his hero’s journey.... ... middle of paper ... ...
According to American academy and adolescent psychiatry, about 120,000 children are adopted in the United States alone. That is a lot of children that need to find a new home to stay in. Not only do adoptions affect the child after they are adopted, no matter the age; but adoption also affects the parents giving their child up for adoption. There are many types of adoptions. Along with that, there are many reasons for giving the child up for adoption. There are three main perspectives that I will be talking about. One function would be the structural functionalism. How society cooperates. The second would be the conflict perspective. The third would be symbolic interactionism approach. There are many different aspects of adoption, making it
In life all humanity faces a struggle or heartbreak that seems almost impossible to make it through. In the poem Everybody Has a Heartache the author Joy Harjo discusses and introduces the opinion that everyone faces a heartache or blues. The author goes into detail about the different kinds of heartbreak that goes on in a variety of peoples’ everyday life. This poem was very interesting to me because the author chose very diverse and out of the normal heartbreaks for her characters to face rather than the normal heartbreaks that everyone can see. The author used several literary devices to establish an emotional connection with the readers.
In the story “The Beginnings of grief” Adam Haslett’s protagonist demonstrate the power that grief can have in a person 's life, and one may find comfort in pain and violent encounters with another human being while one is gathering the strength to survive.
Creating feelings within a work will make it more interesting to the reader. “And sorry I could not travel both and be one Traveler, long I stand” (Frost, line 2-3). In these lines Frost creates a sad feeling. He longs to travel down both paths, but he must make the decision to travel down only one. He emphasizes how difficult decision making is and how long the process takes. “Oh, I marked the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back.” (Frost, lines 13-15). These three lines show that speaker is sorrowful, creating a sad feeling for the reader. The speaker is referring to not being able to return from the path he has chosen, so that he can walk down the other path. “I shall be telling this with a sigh” (Frost, line 16). This line gives the reader a sad sense because the speaker is telling end results with a sigh. When someone says something with a sigh, it is generally not good news. When creating a pathos, an appeal to feelings, frost successfully appealed to the reader’s feelings.
There are times when we should mourn. There are times for tears and sorrow. There are times when being appropriate means giving in to grief. When the world looks to see our reaction to loss, we must turn our faces grim and prove our love for what has gone. But in those moments of appropriate sadness, does there not exist any of the things that make us happy? Does the original loss color all things gray and remove the possibility for joy? No. The world remains the same, save for the void where once was the beloved thing. And joy can creep, seep into our thoughts without our intention and suddenly the sorrow is lifted. For a moment we act inappropriately; the world sighs, " it isn't right to be happy at a time like this," and we are covered in guilt at having forgotten our loss. In Wordsworth's "Surprised By Joy", he laments that he has disrespected his daughters memory by letting himself feel joy after she has gone. He asks himself how he could ever overcome the sorrow and make happiness appropriate. Should we wrap ourselves in sadness and avoid the luxuries and pleasantries of life when something profound is lost? And can we learn to accept life's pleasantries knowing that they must exist without the one who's gone? Happiness seems to be the ultimate goal of men. We aspire to be content, to have the things we want and want nothing that we do not have But in Wordsworth's case, happiness seems to be something he must avoid for a time. Until the feelings of loss are resolved, joy remains an unwanted intruder, a destroyer of homage, a thing existing just to tempt Wordsworth from his respectful grief.
In order to experience true sorrow one must feel true joy to see the beauty of melancholy. However, Keats’s poem is not all dark imagery, for interwoven into this poem is an emerging possibility of resurrection and the chance at a new life. The speaker in this poem starts by strongly advising against the actions and as the poem continues urges a person to take different actions. In this poem, the speaker tells of how to embrace life by needing the experience of melancholy to appreciate the true joy and beauty of
Marano, Hara Estroff. “The Season of SADness?” Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, LLC. Psychology Today, 1 July 2002. Web. 26 November 2011.
Emotions are evoked with the aim to free persons from disturbing emotions. In instances of pity and fear persons tend to accumulate these feelings, which is harmful to the soul. In tragedy, however, whatever sufferings witnessed are not in our control and these emotions are easily released thereby relieve the excess in our souls. Tragedy transforms these distressing emotions into “calm of mind”, thus, the emotional appeal of poetry leads to pleasure. In addition, esthetic emotion in poetry translates to pleasure. The reader and the listener of the poem are prompted through figurative language to visualize what is in the real world. The vividness of the imaginary world that is experienced by the reader, poet and listener generates to a new spiritual knowledge or understanding which gives pleasure (Berlant, p.189). To add on, melancholy as an aesthetic emotion is a source of pleasure. Melancholy involves a variety of emotions; a yearning, sadness, feeling uplifted and even an elusive excitement. It has both pleasure and displeasure aspects. The displeasure aspect lies in the feeling of grief, fear of the unknown, loneliness and emptiness. The pleasurable aspect is entirely about reflecting on elaborate illusion and happy memories. Melancholy is therefore deliberately pursued by finding seclusion. In seclusion reflection is deepened which in turn prolongs the pleasure. Dylan in his poem reveals instances of melancholy Gale, Cengage Learning,