The 1946 novel, “The Street” by Ann Petry establishes a struggling relationship between the main character; Lutie Johnson, and her new surroundings. Lutie seeks, her overall objective in finding a safe refuge to live, however; the description of 116th street seems less than an ideal home. Petry uses decrepit imagery and forceful personification showing a battle between Lutie, the town, and the wind. The combination of the destructive town, and the winds haunting figure creates an overall feeling of caution within this gloomy road, making the goal seem near impossible. The wind becomes almost human like from its physically described features-- such as its hands-- that seemingly reach out to others as they pass by. Violently blowing through the street, the winds actions are given strong diction, such as “pried,” …show more content…
Connected to the somber image of the town, The house is described with harsh diction such as “streaked with rust”, depicting the years of neglect. Affected by abuse, Petry describes the house as stained with “blood” in the form of rust. Despite the harsh outer layer, Lutie is drawn to it as her figurative and literal “sign”of refuge. A town that had been nothing but cold to her is finally seen as warm from the words on the sign; describing the house as “Reasonable” and open to “respectable tenants”. Showing the challenging differences between Lutie and her surroundings, Petry uses a style of decrepit imagery and violent personification to emphasize the negative mood surrounding this excerpt. Fighting against the wind and the town, Lutie strides forward to find a new home. Petry’s overall message is meant to show that, even in darkness, there can be a small sliver of light in the distance. It's all a battle of will and strength to reach that
The author illustrates the “dim, rundown apartment complex,” she walks in, hand and hand with her girlfriend. Using the terms “dim,” and “rundown” portrays the apartment complex as an unsafe, unclean environment; such an environment augments the violence the author anticipates. Continuing to develop a perilous backdrop for the narrative, the author describes the night sky “as the perfect glow that surrounded [them] moments before faded into dark blues and blacks, silently watching.” Descriptions of the dark, watching sky expand upon the eerie setting of the apartment complex by using personification to give the sky a looming, ominous quality. Such a foreboding sky, as well as the dingy apartment complex portrayed by the author, amplify the narrator’s fear of violence due to her sexuality and drive her terror throughout the climax of the
Not many people in those days of slavery knew the truth of what was really going on. And if they did, just pretended like they didn’t, spreading the false ideas that slaves were happy and well treated. The “peephole” or “loophole”, through which the women of Stowe and Jacobs’ narratives are able to look out onto the town or the plantation, becomes their links to the outside world. Although they have been completely cut off and isolated from society and almost everyone they love, they still find a way to stay connected. Stowe imagines this link as a haunting, where they literally are able to control and manipulate the situation. Jacobs on the other hand uses the peephole as a means of exposing the truth. She “haunts” the town of Edenton, North Carolina in a very different way. Linda Brent is able to look down upon the town and reveal all its secrets. Jacobs and Stowe use their stories of the oppressed women, and their haunting link between confinement and truth, as another link to the public. Using it as means of getting their messages out there for the public to...
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” we are walked through the journal of a women who has been diagnosed, by her husband, with what he believes is merely, “temporary nervous depression” (Gilman 216). Since the protagonist’s husband, John, believes the only way she will get better is through moderate exercise, and lots of rest, they rent a house where she can have tranquility and rest until she is better (Gilman 216). At first glance “The Yellow Wallpaper” seems like a simple story of a women trying to get better in a house that she doesn’t particularly like. However, through further analysis it can be seen that through the use of symbolism Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a critique on the role of women in nineteenth-century American society.
Roald Dahl’s short story “The Landlady” takes place in Bath, United Kingdom on a wide dark street. The main character Billy Weaver has to find lodging in Bath for the night. He arrives at a Bed and Breakfast just a little farther down the street where he meets “The Landlady”. By using foreshadowing and point of view the author shows that the theme is to always be aware of your surroundings.
...courage to survive in the world. On the other hand, her portrayal of marriage and the black family appears to be negative. Marriage is seen as a convenient thing—as something that is expected, but not worth having when times get rough. At least this is what Lutie’s and Jim’s marriage became. The moral attributes that go along with marriage do not seem to be prevalent. As a result, because marriage and the black family are seen as the core of the black community, blacks become more divided and begin to work against themselves—reinforcing among themselves the white male supremacy. Instead of being oppressed by another race or community, blacks oppress themselves. Petry critiques these issues in the black community and makes them more applicable to our lives today. These issues still exist, but we fail to realize them because of our advancement in society today.
The Street exemplifies an unyielding, and captivating society jumbled with multiple roles that distract the reader from honing in on one person. Hughes regards the majority of Balthus’s themes to be defined within a meticulous and peculiar setting (Marks 49). In accordance to the order of the stanzas, the reader is introduced to the central figure within Balthus’ painting. The carpenter’s stark white clothing, ironically contradicts the story Dobyns infers. The blue collared wo...
After reading the story I found that there is a shift in the atmosphere from the introduction to the conclusion of the story where the mood transitioned from genial, cozy, and snug to depressing, eerie, and frightful. In the beginning of the story, the speaker and her family move into a "beautiful place, quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village"(page 4). John is “very careful and loving, and hardly lets [her] stir without special direction” (page 4) The shift of mood initiate when the speaker begins observing the “repellent, almost revolting unclean yellow”(page 7) wall
The short story, “The Landlady” By Roald Dahl, uses specific diction cleverly which significantly affects the suspenseful tone throughout the story. Roald Dahl writes with a positive flow, but incorporates suspenseful and negative twists to keep that tone.The story flows with an emphasis to details of a negative tone and foreshadows clues which forboded a tragic ending .
In an excerpt of The Street, Ann Petry illustrates Lutie Johnson's determination against the formidable wind and offers a perspective that sheds light on its underestimated consequences. Through personification and selection of detail, the narrator effectively characterizes the wind and its unrelenting "fingers" as an unwelcoming and obtrusive force that is capable of uncovering society's filth.
The reader feels a certain morbid curiosity in the state of the house, and wonders what sort of person might be living there to let it go in such a way. The disturbed thoughts of the narrator and the nervous, outlandish disposition of Usher also contribute to the mood. His hysteria, manner of speaking, and constant nervousness rub off on the reader as “a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually characterized his utterance”(425). The narrator serves as the perfect vessel through which the story comes, bending it to his interpretation so that the reader is almost forced to think of Usher by his fixed perspective, unable to distinguish their own feelings from those of the narrator.
The slums of the city are nothing like the shining red and golden buildings of the marketplace and the ports. There were toppled towers and caved in houses all around the place. Shadows lurked everywhere. I kept my gun in my hand at all times, and did not dare to take the horse into that wretched place. Instead, she waited for me at the hotel. The home of the thief was nothing but a tent being held up by several wooden poles, situated by a dirty sewer stream.
The journey begins on the heels of “Wind,” which lays the foundation for this spirit to rise, really, from the routine activity of a night at dinner—akin to the way an idea just hits the writer, and lingers until it has been completed. On this foundation, the spirit begins to move, with the driving vowel sounds of, “This evening rough winds blow the surface of the river,” and, “...all that answered / the water’s slow passing was the swish of wildflowers / in the long prairie grasses.”
The “Fall of the House of Usher” can be portrayed as a comprehensive account of the confusion and dissipation of a person’s personality. Beyond that, the story of the Fall of House of Usher is full of symbols. The first symbol is the House of Usher or the Mansion which manifests the deterioration or decline of the Usher family health and the disintegrating house reflects the actual fall of the Usher family. Roderick represents the mind or the intellect, whereas the portion of personality, the senses is represented by Madeline. Roderick wrote to an old classmate and friend and spoke of “acute bodily illness ---of mental disorder which oppressed him” (Poe 1). In addition to the fissure, the house is infested with fungi. “The belief, however, was connected with the gray stones of the home of his forefathers. The conditions of the sentience had been here, he imagined, fulfilled in the method of collocation of these stones --in the order of their arrangement, as well as in that of the many fungi which overspread them, and of the decayed trees which stood around --above
Similarly, the furniture in the house is as sullen as the house itself. What little furniture is in the house is beaten-up; this is a symbol of the dark setting. The oak bed is the most important p...
It’s a street like every other street in the world but somehow it’s different, it’s kind of creepy and this feeling of horror is in the air. Darkness is hanging from the houses and lying on the floor, the light of the lanterns is shining fiercely red and the clouds are darkened and grey. All the trees lost their leaves a long time ago and they get older, the fields are blank and the flowers are dead. The colors of the houses got dirty and they lost their beauty, rats are running from house to house to find something to eat, flies assemble around rooted food that they find in the house. The only thing you can hear is the wind blowing through the dying trees and from time to time the sound of crushing windows or doors. Even the sun or the moon never shine here anymore, the clouds never leave. The life went out of this street.