“Miss… uh, Phuong. We need to know everything about your relationships with both Mr. Thomas Fowler and Mr. Alden Pyle”
“I remember the first night I had met Alden Pyle. It was a bitter sweet memory. I thought I was so in love with Fowler, but from that night, I had a hard time not thinking about Pyle. It was early in the evening, the night air was crisp. It was a nice night, despite the war and everything going on outside the safe boundaries. I had arrived early to the Chalet, so I grabbed a tale near the edge of the almost empty dancefloor. While I waited for fowler and his friend, I listened to the music, it was soothing. I watched as the few couples on the dance floor swayed together, wishing that Fowler would dance with me more often. He disliked dancing, and to be truthful, he wasn’t very good at it either. But I loved to dance.
“Phuong, C’ est impadonable”, a voice apologised for being late. His French was very bad. It was Fowler’s friend, Pyle, I think his name was. He then
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I even noticed that Fowler would glance at me every so often, before continuing his conversation. Pyle had attempted to grab my attention, but his voice was like a whisper compared to the noise surrounding us. He’d come up to me and said “Phut-on avoir I’honneur,”, he was asking me to dance. Despite the fact that I wanted it so badly to be Fowler to be the one asking me, I nodded my head and agreed anyway. The next thing I knew, he had taken a hold of my hand and led me to the floor. When we danced, Pyle held me so far away from him, almost like he thought it was a sin to touch a woman. His dancing was horrible. It was even worse than Fowlers. I laughed at this thought. Pyle looked nervous. He began to tell me about himself and he mentioned someone, York Harding, I think his name was. He told me that he was his favourite author, and recommended some of his
Alyss meets an orphan named Quigly Gaffer, who is, in Alyss’s eye, “the nicest in the band of homeless orphans and runaways of which he was a part” (Beddor 101). He gave Alyss and t...
Two versions of the story told by two people present at the skating party share insight into the versions they believe to be true, except one story teller has a few secrets that has laid guilt on his mind for over thirty years. Merna Summers’ The Skating Party holds a lesson in love and life; Nathan and Winnie Singleton’s stories are different, Winnie believes Nathan tragically lost his ‘wife to be’ in a skating accident, when in reality Nathan loses a love, no one else but him knows of. Nathan’s thoughts on the mood of the night, and his indirect statement referring to his tragic episode will reveal why the narrator considered it peculiar that Uncle Nathan had never married and who he was really in love with.
The descriptions of Quoyle provide us with a character who has so many flaws and struggles, that he is unable to live a normal life like those around him. Quoyle’s problems started at childhood, and the narrator provides us with vivid images of his childhood. “Raised in a shuffle of dreary upstate towns” and “survived childhood” show us that it was not easy for young Quoyle. With these descriptions we get an image of how his childhood was harsh through Quoyle moving around through different towns in bad areas. The narrator continues on to Quoyle’s later life and shows through repetition the amou...
When Stephen tries to recapture Kate, in the scene in the primary school, he too is overwhelmed by childhood. Without thinking he is drawn into a lesson and becomes a stereotyped student until he is able to break out of this strange reality and return to ...
1. In “Feather’s,” the somewhat silent and solemn dinner the two couples share impacts Jack and Fran’s lives, as that night transpires into an attempted “change” within their marriage. While Fran pinpoints that evening as an immediate shift, Jack believes the change came later, after their child was born. Jack recalls, “The change came later—and when it came, it was like something that happened to other people, not something that could have happened to us” (Carver). Throughout the dinner, the author parallels Jack and Fran to Bud and Olla. Together, Bud and Olla exhibit characteristics that Jack and Fran’s relationship lacks: love, affection and the family they have created with Joey and Harold. Jack and Fran strive for this type of bond, and although they attempt to achieve it after being given a glimpse at the dinner, they fall short. As much as Jack and Fran want to aspire to be like Bud and Olla, they never reach that next level. They are never able to utilize the peacock feathers.
He knew that most young men made nothing at all of giving a pretty girl a kiss, and he remembered the night before, when he had put his arm about Mattie, and she had not resisted. But that had been out-of-doors, under the open, irresponsible night. Now, in the warm lamp-lit room, with all its ancient implications of conformity and order, she seemed infinitely farther away from him and more unapproachable (Wharton 81).
The story explores many vital concepts accompanied by beautiful illustrations. I felt a strong sense of cultural understanding, spirituality and connection to family and land as though I was on this journey too. I could sense an underlying meaning in each dance, holding great importance to Bertie’s family and a strong connection to their culture. Pryor has attempted to fuse the then and now, by speaking of changes in the land, from a once spiritual gathering place, to a now busy town street where through food, they keep the culture alive (Pryor, 2010).
“It was a large, beautiful room, rich and picturesque in the soft, dim light which the maid had turned low. She went and stood at an open window and looked out upon the deep tangle of the garden below. All the mystery and witchery of the night seemed to have gathered there amid the perfumes and the dusky and tortuous outlines of flowers and foliage. She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet half-darkness which met her moods. But the voices were not soothing that came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars. They jeered and sounded mourning notes without promise, devoid even of hope. She turned back into the room and began to walk to and fro, down its whole length, without stopping, without resting. She carried in her hands a thin handkerchief, which she tore into ribbons, rolled into a ball, and flung from her. Once she stopped, and taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet. When she saw it lying there she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it. But her small boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark upon the glittering circlet.
“The Little Heidelberg” is the story of a small dance hall. The customers of The Little Heidelberg are typically older men and women, many of whom are foreigners who cannot speak English. One of these is El Capitán, a retired Finnish sea captain, who has been dancing with niña Eloísa, a lovely Russian woman, weekly for forty years. They have never spoken to each other because of language barriers. One day some Scandinavian tourists come to the Heidelberg. El Capitán hears them speaking his language and asks them to translate to Eloísa for him. In this scene it is the first time that anyone has ever heard him speak. Eloísa learns that El Capitán wants to marry her, and she says yes. The couple begin a celebratory dance, and as they start twirling Eloísa begins to turn “to lace, to froth, to mist” until she is first a shadow and then completely disappears (Allende, 179). In the magic of the scene, she twirls out of existence. Her disappearance seems to reflect the dreamscape nature of the scene.
At year's end, Meg confidently and excitedly attended a fashionable New Year's dance. She talked Jo into accompanying her, but Jo didn't care much for "girls or girlish gossip," and felt as much out of place as a "colt in a flower garden." Running from a prospective dance-mate, Jo hid behind a curtain. ...
She would go home after school and play in her yard with her friends. They always played the same game Karen and her friends. The yard was a magical dance school and her friends were all little ballerinas. They would dance until the sunset behind the trees and sit on her mother’s porch, sad that the day was through. Karen had always wanted to have a tutu. She had dreamed about dressing in white and swirling on a stage in front of thousands of people. But her family were not that rich. And Karen had no other choice but to dream.
The clouds grew darker to cover the sight of the worrying moon and the air tasted bitter, all signs that we shouldn’t have been there that night. Michael was in need of some fast cash. His parents were getting a divorce and unsatisfied with life, he had just recently taken up a drug addiction that possessed him and demonized him, making him hungry and angry. The drugs controlled him where he had almost lost his mind and lost all sense of perspective. He thought it would be easy to rob the man behind the petrol station counter, and forced me into helping him.
Clarissa’s memories of Bourton, of her youth, are brought back to her vividly by just the “squeak of the hinges”. . . [and] she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air” (3). The intensity of these memories is what makes them so much a part of what she is– everything in life reminds her of Bourton, of Sally Seton, of Peter Walsh. Peter and Sally were her best friends as a girl, and “with the two of them”. . . she shared her past.... ...
She recited the title quietly into the frigid night air, so still, the fog freezing her words lingered in front of her lips long enough her to walk through and dissipate over her shoulder. Though bundled in her formal coat, with the fur muffler and hand-knitted cap that looked so pretty with the crab stitching along the cuff, she didn’t feel the cold any more, she was too old. She hobbled and relied on a cane. Age added a pronounced limp to her gait. Bone rubbing on the bones of once shapely hips that held the knack to switch and bump as she slowly walked, all the while quite aware he stood in the back watching. He existed in her memory. Yet, in her recalling the curious way he crossed his arms and dropped his chin to hide a chuckle as he watched her saunter past, he still caused her to smile.
It was April 1st 2002, a pretty boring day in world history, if you ask me. I remember quite clearly that it was a Monday, too. A terribly horrible, horrible Monday spent in Ames Public High, studying arithmetic and counting down the minutes until the bell would finally sound and I would be free to leave. I know that as soon as the bell had gone I dashed down the main corridor, the first ever iPod gripped in my sweaty palms and my rucksack flapping away on my back as I made my way to the park. Joey had said he would meet me at the Peter’s Park bench with his father’s car at 4pm, and then we would drive to Suzanne’s house. I still wasn’t sure what he planned on doing once we arrived, but my stomach was already knotted in anticipation of riding in a car without an adult, let alone getting somewhere in it! Let alone getting to Suzanne’s.