In Richard Yates’ fictional novel Revolutionary Road, April Wheeler, Frank Wheeler, and John Givings all seek escape from their current captive situations in suburbia; however, while April and Frank employ concrete methods of escape, the mentally unstable John Givings has no solid plan of escape. Foremost, April Wheeler is a young woman seeking freedom and independence, which also means getting away from her suburban life. She first attempts her escape when she joins the Laurel Players in a production of The Petrified Forest. Full of hope, April dreams of something different and exciting. Her dreams are crushed when the play crashes and burns. Her face that she puts on for the stage, bright, glowing, and covered with makeup, represents her dreams for something bigger. Once she fails, she retreats back to suburbia, removing her makeup and revealing a “graceless, suffering creature” with a “constricted” appearance and a “false” smile (Yates 13). The more April tries to conceal her disappointment, the more her anger builds. Soon, she snaps, declaring that her husband Frank has pu...
Although set in the 1930s, Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust ironically resembles contemporary Hollywood. Within the glamorous setting of Hollywood, West’s characters take on multiple roles instead of assuming individual personalities. They put on and remove these imaginary personality masks, similar to those in the Commedia dell’Arte, to exhibit a range of emotions that only their character type would exhibit. Consequently, West’s characters are trapped in this restrictive atmosphere, especially at the end of the novel when they become part of a collective mob. In these manners, the characters in The Day of the Locust exhibit qualities akin to modern actors, proving that they are nothing more than a cast of personages rather than individuals.
In conclusion, David Hackett Fischer effectively tells the story of Paul Revere's ride in a way that completely and accurately depicts the events. By developing many of the historical figures that are not as well known as Paul Revere, Hackett Fischer gives the reader a more distinctive understanding of these particular historical events. Paul Revere's Ride also personalizes these events by providing numerous first hand accounts that strengthen the imagery. As a whole, the novel is an effective and interesting historical account that accurately tells the famed story of Paul Revere's midnight ride.
Throughout a lifetime, one can run through many different personalities that transform constantly due to experience and growing maturity, whether he or she becomes the quiet, brooding type, or tries out being the wild, party maniac. Richard Yates examines acting and role-playing—recurring themes throughout the ages—in his fictional novel Revolutionary Road. Frank and April Wheeler, a young couple living miserably in suburbia, experience relationship difficulties as their desire to escape grows. Despite their search for something different, the couple’s lack of communication causes their planned move to Europe to fall through. Frank and April Wheeler play roles not only in their individual searches for identity, but also in their search for a healthy couple identity; however, the more the Wheelers hide behind their desired roles, the more they lose sense of their true selves as individuals and as a pair.
John Givings has a mental issue, but one of his best qualities is his brutal honesty. The Wheeler’s present John with April’s idea to leave for Paris so they can pursue a happy life. Unlike everyone else John agrees with the idea, expressing how it takes real courage to see the hopelessness and emptiness that everyone else seems to overlook and ignore. John’s approval of the decision to leave is based on the courage to strive for a better existence, to not just conform to what everyone else has done and to not pretend that the life everyone around them is living is a good life. John is honest about both the good and the bad things in life. He doesn’t accept the small talk and artificial happiness presented by his mother. John also doesn’t accept Frank being a coward after the Wheelers decide against pursuing April’s idea of leaving for Paris. In a world as unjust, as portrayed in the film Revolutionary Road, having the approval of the outcast, John Givings is a sign that April is doing the correct
Eugenia Collier’s “Marigolds” is a memoir of a colored girl living in the Great Depression. The story does not focus on the troubles society presents to the narrator (Elizabeth), but rather is focused on the conflict within her. Collier uses marigolds to show that the changes from childhood to adulthood cause fear in Elizabeth, which is the enemy of compassion and hope.
Like Esther, Joan Gilling grew up in the same small town; she also won the writing competition and was sent to New York to work for the same magazine. Joan was also very conscious about how the world identified her as an individual. She didn’t want to conform to what society sa...
Miss Hancock, her personality and beliefs were contrasted entirely by her character foil, Charlotte’s mother, “this civilized, this clean, this disciplined woman.” All through Charlotte’s life, her mother dictated her every move. A “small child [was] a terrible test to that cool and orderly spirit.” Her mother was “lovely to look at, with her dark-blond hair, her flawless figure, her smooth hands. She never acted frazzled or rushed or angry, and her forehead was unmarked by age lines or worry. Even her appearance differed greatly to Miss Hancock, who she described as,” overdone, too much enthusiasm. Flamboyant. Orange hair.” The discrepancy between the characters couldn’t escape Charlotte’s writing, her metaphors. Her seemingly perfect mother was “a flawless, modern building, created of glass and the smoothest of pale concrete. Inside are business offices furnished with beige carpets and gleaming chromium. In every room there are machines – computers, typewriters, intricate copiers. They are buzzing and clicking way, absorbing and spitting out information with the speed of sound. Downstairs, at ground level, people walk in and out, tracking mud and dirt over the steel-grey tiles, marring the cool perfection of the building. There are no comfortable chairs in the lobby.” By description, her mother is fully based on ideals and manners, aloof, running her life with “sure and perfect control.” Miss
Atwood uses many emotional words and phrases to persuade her audience, and achieve her purpose. Atwood uses words and phrases that create emotions such as anger, but more importantly she creates a sense of reminiscing and missing the “good-ole-days” which is the emotion she uses to motivate her audience to take a stand and make a change for America. Atwood starts off her letter saying, “I’m no longer sure who you are… I thought I knew you” (Atwood). These statements make the readers sad as they come to the realization that America is changing since their childhood, which is what they consider, the good ole days. Atwood continues by listing some of her favorite memories from her childhood such as “the music [she] sang and danced to: the Andrew Sisters, Ella Fitzgerald, the Platters, Elvis” (Atwood). This makes America seem like it is “a ton of fun” (Atwood). The list of Atwood’s favorite music and other memories serves as pathos, because it makes people miss the way America used to be, and it also makes them mad about how America is now. The list causes the readers to realize how corrupt and different todays music, movies, books, and television shows are, which makes the reader sad about how much times are changing and this causes them to want to act so that today 's generation can know an America that is similar to the America that they have previously known. When describing America today Atwood describes her “embarrassment” (Atwood) for the country, she describes how the government is “gutting the Constitution” (Atwood) and “torching the American economy”(Atwood), she describes how the American people are “easily frightened”(Atwood) because of all of the new policies and changes in current day America. Americans are very prideful of their country so when Atwood describes feeling of embarrassment for America,
In ‘Paul’s Case’ Paul has created a fantasy world in which he becomes entranced, even to the point of lying to classmates about the tales of grandeur and close friendships that he had made with the members of the stock company. This fantasy falls apart around him as “the principle went to Paul’s father, and Paul was taken out of school and put to work. The manager at Carnegie Hall was told to get another usher in his stead; the doorkeeper at the theater was warned not to admit him to the house” (Cather 8). The fantasy fell apart further when the stories he had told his classmates reached the ears of the women of the stock company, who unlike their lavish descriptions from Paul were actually hardworking women supporting their families. Unable to cope with the reality of working for Denny & Carson, he stole the money he was supposed to deposit in the bank to live the life of luxury in New York. Only a person who felt backed into a corner would attempt something so unsound. After his eight days in paradise, he is again backed into a corner by the reality of his middle class upbringing, and the dwindling time he has before his father reaches New York to find him. The final way out for Paul is his suicide, for which an explanation would be “In the end, he fails to find his security, for it was his grandiose “picture making mechanism” that made his life so deardful.” (Saari). With all the securities of his fantasy life finally gone, his mental instability fully comes to light as he jumps in front of the train to end his
...ia heat. There are heavy hangovers to be slept off, liaisons, wacky mishaps, deaths both accidental and intentional, marital spats and racial tensions. We meet the lovelorn, the war torn, the evangelical, and the righteous. “Each character, in his-or-her-own way, searches for answers about life from the one man in town who can't articulate them. Talking to John Singer is as good as talking to your own ghost or your own God. Behind her words, you can feel McCullers living the kaleidoscopic movements of this town. You can feel her fall in love with her eclectic band of misfits, fashioned after people she knew as sure as she knew her own blood. For all their lonely hearts, you can't help but fall for them too.”(Oprah Winfrey)
One of the main symbols of the story is the setting. It takes place in a normal small town on a nice summer day. "The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full summer day; the flowers were blooming profusely and the grass was richly green." (Jackson 347).This tricks the reader into a disturbingly unaware state,
Wilson, M. & Clark, R. (n.d.). Analyzing the Short Story. [online] Retrieved from: https://www.limcollege.edu/Analyzing_the_Short_Story.pdf [Accessed: 12 Apr 2014].
Whether a person’s life is something experienced authentically, or factually written down as literature, there are more complexities faced then there are simplicities on a daily basis. This multifariousness causes constant bewilderment and hesitation before any sort of important decision a person must make in his or her life. When it comes to characters of the written words, as soon sensations of ambiguity, uncertainty, and paranoia form, the outlook and actions of these characters are what usually result in regrettable decisions and added anxiety for both that character as well as the reader. Examples of these themes affecting characters in the world of fiction are found in the novel The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon, and the play Glengarry Glen Ross written by David Mamet. Throughout both of these texts, characters such as Oedipa Maas who allows these emotions to guide her in her journey of self discovery, and Shelly Levene who is so overcome with these emotions that they become his downfall. For both of these characters, these constant emotional themes are what guide their most impulsive actions, which can generally also become regrettable decisions. Even though it is a distinguishing factor of human beings, when these characters are portrayed in print, it somehow seems to affect the reader more, because they are able to see the fictional repercussions, and also know how they could have been avoided.
Walker uses the positive imagery of “The Flowers” at the beginning of the novel to set up a naïve, sweet world in which a gruesome appearance of the lynched victim turns out to a reasonably unexpected, shocking event that robs Myop of her innocence. The first half of the text focuses on Myop’s childlike innocence with sweet kinesthetic imagery of Myop feeling “good and warm in the sun” to hit specifically on Myop’s childlike inhibitions. In the same case, sweet and gentle visual imagery continues to play in the first few paragraphs of a happy agricultural lifestyle where “each day a golden surprise” and a ten year old girl like Myop could “skip lightly from her house to pigpen” and bounce “this way and that way”. Myop’s joyful rapping of the stick that goes “tat-de-ta-ta-ta” enables auditory imagery to play on a merry sort of onomatopoeia that goes strongly with Myop’s innocence. Imagery had little direct prepa...
Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard were famous for the way in which they depicted the changing of cultures. Both plays act as a sort of social commentary during times of widespread liberation, and use the contortive nature of these seemingly stereotypical characters’ actions to speak about groups of people as a whole. Throughout the course of both plays, this subversion of how different groups of people were typically perceived created a distinct contrast which often shocked and appalled audiences of the time. However, the effects of these plays were felt long after they were presented.