In “Christmas 1910,” Robert Olen Butler uses descriptive setting to suggest that a disturbance to one’s isolation can spark the need to seek new possibilities. To develop the theme, Butler familiarizes the reader with the geographical location and time of the story. The period is 1910, and Abba lives on a South Dakotan homestead where there is “flatland to the west and to the north.” The expansive farmland means that there are several miles between Abba’s family and her neighbor, and an even greater distance to a town. With the lack of rapid transportation, Abba is stranded on the farm where the scenery is flat, and she is unable to expand her social life. In addition, Abba’s commitment to the family farm impedes her from pursuing
The Jump-Off Creek introduces the reader to the unforgiving Blue Mountains and the harsh pioneer lifestyle with the tale of Lydia Sanderson, a widow who moves west from Pennsylvania to take up residence in a rundown homestead. She and other characters battle nature, finances, and even each other on occasion in a fight for survival in the harsh Oregon wilderness. Although the story is vividly expressed through the use of precise detail and 1800s slang, it failed to give me a reason to care because the characters are depicted as emotionally inhibited.
In “Christmas 1910” Robert Olen Butler uses plot to illustrate that sometimes the things a person thinks they need, they already have. In the beginning the protagonist Abigail is shown as being lonely. The only thing she has in her life is her horse, Sam. She spends all her time with the horse, the horse is her only companion in life at this point. Abigail loves Sam, yet she longs for something more. Robert Olen Butler uses the plot to illistrate how lonely Abigail feels, and how she longs for someone in her life to love and spend time with.
This extract emphasises the lonely, outworld feeling that would have been felt living in such settings. This puts into perspective the feeling that will be felt during the coarse of the plot development.
Our first introduction to these competing sets of values begins when we meet Sylvia. She is a young girl from a crowded manufacturing town who has recently come to stay with her grandmother on a farm. We see Sylvia's move from the industrial world to a rural one as a beneficial change for the girl, especially from the passage, "Everybody said that it was a good change for a little maid who had tried to grow for eight years in a crowded manufacturing town, but, as for Sylvia herself, it seemed as if she never had been alive at the all before she came to live at the farm"(133). The new values that are central to Sylvia's feelings of life are her opportunities to plays games with the cow. Most visibly, Sylvia becomes so alive in the rural world that she begins to think compassionately about her neighbor's geraniums (133). We begin to see that Sylvia values are strikingly different from the industrial and materialistic notions of controlling nature. Additionally, Sylvia is alive in nature because she learns to respect the natural forces of this l...
Sylvia and Abner have both experienced a life full of hardships. Abner has a history of commiting crimes for a living, such as the time he spent stealing horses during the civil war. Though from a completely different time frame and setting, Sylvia has also spent her life barely scraping by. When Miss Moore takes the children to the toy store, Sylvia's complete befuddlement at the idea of owning something that isn't useful vividly exemplifies how unfamiliar she is with wealth. Bad experiences in both Sylvia and Abner's lives with upper class people also plays into their uncivility twards anyone not as poor as they are. Due to Abners history as a sharecropper and criminal, it is quite likely that he has had many unpleasant experiences with wealthy people. In his story, Faulkner implies that Abner is no stranger to commiting crimes against his employers. In at least one instance, when he is shot while stealing a horse, Abner is physically punished for his lawlessness. Sylvia's distaste for anyone who might be considered better that her is evidenced by her dislike of Miss Moore. Miss Moore's education alienates her from Sylvia, who is disconcerted by her "nappy hair and proper speech and no makeup." Miss Moore's condescending aditude twards Sylvia lends itself...
you did not life was very tough. It is not a place where, I feel,
Modeled after the post-civil war era of the American south, Falkner transports the reader to the fictitious town of Jefferson and into the home of Miss Emily Grierson, a mysterious figure and longtime resident of Yoknapatawpha County. While the story begins with the death of Miss Emily, Faulkner invites the reader to step backwards through time where one is acquainted with Emily’s struggle to find a love and happiness in an emerging modern society. Faulkner then returns to Emily’s death, revealing a dark secret found in the shape of the decomposed corpse of Homer Barron, Emily’s one love interest who was thought to have abandoned her many years earlier. Throughout the story, Faulkner ties common objects such as a rose, a house, a watch on a gold chain, rat poison, and even the character Homer himself to other elements of the story. It is through these associations, the reader finds deeper understanding and perhaps hidden meaning.
“My nearest neighbor is a mile distant, and no house is visible from any place but the hill-tops within half a mile of my own. I have my horizon bounded by woods all to myself; a distant view of the railroad where it touches the pond on the one hand, and of the fence which skirts the woodland road on the other. But for the most part it is as solitary where I live as on the prairies. It is as much Asia or Africa as New England.”
The story is being told from Mama’s point of view. The story gains a look at how children leave home and come back with different values and morals that the parents didn’t teach.
The husband describes the moment by saying, "I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn't feel like I was inside anything" (357). The previous information of how he saw the world to be and how he sees it now gives him a feeling of a connection with a higher being, more than just Robert. Yet he describes himself being separated (unconnected) from his body, free from this cage that has him materialistic and prejudice to the not-normal. The husband finally sees the world in a more liberal way than what he thought it to be, than what the stereotypes of society told him it was.
We might find ourselves in a room full of admirable people, with wonderful lighting, a wife and home, feeling as if we’re nothing but a wasted bit of human flesh. Regardless of what is going on around us, the way we feel on the inside will ultimately be determined by our own self. Ernest Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” are prime precedents for this feeling of isolation when one seems to have everything he could ever need to sense comfort. In both stories, these men seem to have enough to keep a smile on their faces whether that’s money, a family, a clean café in which to enjoy a drink, or a bed to come
The point of view of the story is seen by Aibileen, who is telling part of the story but also by Skeeter Phelan. Aibileen is a black maid in the 1960’s who works for a white family and helps a young girl write a book about what it is like to be a maid in Jackson, Mississippi. Skeeter is a young white girl who just finished college. Aibileen’s perspective affects the novel because it gives a sense of what it was like to live in this age in time as a maid. Looking at Skeeter’s point of view, it is a look at what the rest of the world was doing. By giving both perspectives of both the characters, the novel can be seen from different angles and receive a whole new perspective.
Literary elements are demonstrated throughout the story and further improve our understanding of the central idea. The setting is important to the central idea because it shows the reader the type of society being described in the story. The language is also important to the central idea because it contains metaphors which further prove that the people are afraid of going against tradition because they are scared of being the target of violence. The conflict contributes to the central idea as well, because there are many examples of the society going against character, Mrs. Hutchinson, for not respecting the traditions put in place. The central idea is important to our understanding of the story because it sums up the main objective and furthers our
The wind whistles through the open door, dusting the living room with fresh, glistening, white snow. Inside there is an elegant Christmas tree, twinkling in the corner of the room, adorned with unique ornaments, reminiscent of trips shared between a man and his wife. On top of the tree is a lone star devoid of any light. The charming, little, one-story farmhouse is not vacant, though it is so silent that it seemed like a Charlie Chaplin film. An elderly man, George, snoozes in his tattered old rocking chair next to the warm, crackling fireplace. George abruptly awakens, noticing the chill sneaking into the house. He groans and shuffles toward the door in his threadbare robe and raggedy slippers. As he is about to close the door, George peers out at the drifting snow. The white storm brings him back to a memory precisely fifty years ago.
The theme of isolation is used throughout English literature to form principal characters and provide insight on fundamental aspects within a story. This particular theme is shown in many works, however, most significantly this theme can be found in Margret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaids Tale, as well as Alfred, Lord Tennyson poem, The Lady of Shalott. Within these two literary works, there are numerous underlying themes. However, the theme of isolation plays a most significant role when it comes to shaping the setting and environment the characters within the novels inhabit.