The Beast Of Bar Harbor My heart lay paralyzed by fear for those first moments. Families huddled around the radio like timber to a fire, herded and branded mentally by the stark news of the foreign object had been found, narrowly missing this very home. Not twenty miles off the coast of my little town, Bar Harbor, a terrible asteroid hurdled into the ground. At first it was a month before we heard from it again. A story which can only be told from the beginning. It was six PM sharp when I heard the soft think of the newspaper hitting my door. I was always privy to the happenings within and around my small town, as news of the outside world scarcely reached Bar Harbor, without the aid of a television, a luxury nobody in this rural fishing community …show more content…
The subtle pit-patter of rain hitting the weary metal of the car-roof. The lights of the carnival flickered along the distance, at the edge of Great Cranberry Island. I’d paused as I pulled into the lot. A completely vacant piece of land. Lines painted along the gravel were now washed away by the fierce rain which often pounded Bar Harbor. Approaching the lone ticket stand, outside the lone tent, in the parking lot of which I had owned the lone car, seemed almost set-up-ish. The man at the counter seemed to be the very man of which I had seen in the newspaper that morning, yet his face seemed oddly obscure and distant, no matter how close I had …show more content…
Now I sat, the ringing of my ears soothing as I listened to the cheering grow louder and louder with every second. Ecstatic praise and applause constant in my drums as my mind had gone numb with though. The piercing cries of children and families filling my ears as my eyes focused in along the body of the beast. It’s face had construed into a large smile, teeth jagged and crossed, spilling out of the creatures mouth with a wicked grin. It’s eyes, though black in entirety, gazed directly onto me. Through the blackness you could barely make something out. Small grey squiggles within the wringed and milky black of the pools. I could almost read it. The bare lines forming abstract messages and ideas. My thoughts were then subverted by the loud voice which came yelling from a podium, hidden behind thick metal
She looked back and saw that the bull, his head lowered, was racing toward her. She remained perfectly still, not in fright, but in a freezing unbelief. She stared at the violent black streak bounding toward her as if she had no sense of distance, as if she could not decide at once what his intention was, and the bull had buried his head in her lap, like a wild tormented lover, before her expression changed. One of his horns sank until it pierced her heart and the other curved around her side and held her in an unbreakable grip.
Before the Revolutionary War with Great Britain, U.S. trade ships enjoyed the safety that the British Royal Navy provided. When the new nation won their independence however, the British wasted no time with informing the Barbary Pirates that the US ships were open for attack again. The Barbary pirates, who had been marauding off the coast of Africa for centuries, encountered a new enemy in the early 19th century: the young United States Navy (McNamara, 2016). The North African pirates had been a menace for so long that by the late 1700s most nations paid tribute to ensure that merchant shipping could proceed without being violently attacked. In the early years of the 19th century, the United States, at the direction of President Thomas Jefferson, decided to halt the payment of tribute (Jefferson, 2008). A war between the small and scrappy American Navy and the Barbary pirates ensued.
...hew Banks looked around for the creature belonging to the voice and found her sitting lazily on a rickety cane backed chair behind the counter with a long filtered cigarette dangling loosely from her lips. She stood up with an audible effort. She was dressed in a large, flowered sleeveless smock that long ago had seen better days. The raw boned woman reminded him of the pictures he’d seen of Appalachian type families although right now he couldn’t recall whether it was in the Ozark Mountains or somewhere in Kentucky. Her deeply weathered skin clearly got that way from spending her youth in the blazing Texas sun. Matt credited the coarseness in her voice to untold packs of cigarettes she had smoked, and with more than just a nip or two of cheap whiskey. Wrinkles covered her face like a creased old buckskin coat tossed in a pile on the closet floor for too long.
I heard a blood-curdling scream and I jumped. I felt silent tears running down my heavily scarred face, but they weren’t out of sadness. Mostly. They were a mixture of pain and fear. I ran into the eerie, blood-splattered room and screamed as I felt cold fingers grab my neck.
Here are two persons in an open, empty space. Bound by walls, they are its contents. Now they exit, walking down corridor after corridor, filling and emptying rooms as they go. Four feet strike the floor in steps: two beat regularly, forming measures, and two more land off the beat, sounding irregularly, introducing syncopation; but when the steps intersect-as they now do-there is diaphony, which displaces our memory of the sounds that preceded it. A difficult rest follows, only to be broken by the falling of an uncertain limb, which thuds and drags, thuds then drags . . . . The music stops; we hear silence and presume stillness. The sound of laughter forces our eyes open. We see that two men stand side by side, facing a common wall. Standing behind them, we ourselves behold their object, a painting, and our eyes enter its frame. Here a knight has plunged a spear, a foreign object, into a small dragon's neck, as a fair woman looks on. The faces of the knight and the woman make no clear expression, but the dragon bears its fangs. One among the three has been invaded, and only one has sensed the invasion; only the dragon opens its jaw and, at this frozen moment, one sound alone is signified.
By choosing the newsroom to manipulate in “12 O’Clock News,” Bishop draws attention to the relationship between the news and the public. Bishop never directly admits that it is a newsroom with which she has defamiliarized us. One indication of the setting being a newsroom is the format in which she presents the information. Along the left margin, Bishop includes a title or subject matter for each stanza, similar to the inclusion of a headline for each news story. These titles serve as clues to the reality of what she is presenting, allowing or urging us to relate the two or to keep in mind that although the objects she presents seem foreign, they are actually common and known to us. Comparing the two creates a clouding of perception; although the truth or...
McKibben, Bill. “TV, Freedom, and the Loss of Community.” Colombo, Cullen and Lisle, ed. Rereading America. Boston: Bedford Books, 1995: 712-23.
The child’s game had ended. After I nearly ran Kurtz over, we stood facing each other. He was unsteady on his feet, swaying like the trees that surrounded us. What stood before me was a ghost. Each layer of him had been carved away by the jungle, until nothing remained. Despite this, his strength still exceeded that of my own. With the tribal fires burning so close, one shout from him would unleash his natives on me. But in that same realization, I felt my own strength kindle inside me. I could just as easily muffle his command and overtake him. The scene flashed past my eyes as though I was remembering not imagining. The stick that lay two feet from me was beating down on the ghost, as my bloodied hand strangled his cries. My mind abruptly reeled backwards as I realized what unspeakable dark thoughts I had let in. Kurtz seemed to understand where my mind had wandered; it was as though the jungle’s wind has whispered my internal struggles to him. His face twisted into a smile. He seemed to gloat and enjoy standing by to watch my soul begin to destroy itself.
In literature, motifs are used constantly to provide a separate meaning to an idea, which ultimately results in a better comprehension of the text and the themes. Charles Dickens illustrates this by manipulating a strong force of nature to portray the events that created a large turning point in the history of France- the French Revolution. In A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens creates the descriptive motif of the sea to describe the widespread anger and destruction of the revolutionaries, and to portray a large feeling of anticipation leading up to the event.
Imagine. Boston Harbor, December 16, 1773. You are on a boat that is getting ready to set sail. You shiver as a gust of wind slaps at your bare hands. Your hands are curled around a box of tea. You hear a whistle signaling that the ship is about to move. Everyone is at the sides of the ship, their boxes ready to take a swim. Standing with them, you feel like you are part of something in this new world as the box hits the water. //togetherism
Seney exists as the wasteland, having been ravaged and destroyed by fire to the point of complete desolation. The town is described by what it is lacking as a contrast to what Nick had remembered to have been there, yet Nick does not display any sensation of loss. He had merely “expected to find” the town as it was before the fire, but when he does not, he simply goes to the river to watch the trout. It the trout that s...
for the reader of the town and residents of this town on a normal summer morning.
The perfect place in the city is one that is incredibly versatile – it may be bustling with activity one minute and nearly deserted the next. The city dock has been a mainstay of the city for as long as anyone can remember, and it has a different effect on everyone. Everyone can appreciate the dock for his or her own reasons.
Victor was aware of their stares upon his magnificent creature and he didn’t hesitate to stop them and boast about his creation. “I have created life outside of the womb and I name myself father of this beautiful creature,” exclaimed Victor. With the crowd forming, Victor instructed the creature to perform basic activities. Although the creature did not possess language he was able to perform activities by following subtle cues given by Victor. Victor ended the show with a flash of the creature’s smile and the crowd cheered loudly. Never had they seen such a gigantic figure appear so affable— a human that size was typically frightening. Victor noticed how much his creature intrigued ones passing by. Their feedback on the small show put on in the middle of the street gave Victor an idea. He noticed the crowds interest in beings who appeared different and began pondering the idea of how he could showcase his creation along with other monstrosities.
It was a beautiful night. It was perfect for a walk. As I strolled further into the park a figure approached me. It was as dark as pitch so I couldn’t make out who it was. It was late; you wouldn’t usually see anyone at this time. My heart was beating faster and faster. The strange thing was I wasn’t frightened; it was just my heart beating rapidly. As the masculine figure approached, I began to walk slower. That was when I heard the voice.