In the short story "The Moose and the Sparrow" by Hugh Garner, Moose Maddon is a cruel bully, with no regard for those he hurts. Soon after Cecil arriving at the camp, the gangs of Moose Maddon were making jokes on him, which having no effects, but the rage of Moose is developing more cruel ones. One night the friend of Moose and himself “carried the sleeping Cecil, mattress and all, down to the river and threw him in. The kid almost drowned.” (Garner 1) Moose is finding pleasure in making others feel bad and Cecil is an attraction for all the brutal jokes of his, is leading to the jokes turning more violent and threatening towards Cecil. Furthermore, Moose, a 4th Grade dropout finds out that Cecil is a college boy his anger turns
Michael Patrick MacDonald lived a frightening life. To turn the book over and read the back cover, one might picture a decidedly idyllic existence. At times frightening, at times splendid, but always full of love. But to open this book is to open the door to Southie's ugly truth, to MacDonald's ugly truth, to take it in for all it's worth, to draw our own conclusions. One boy's hell is another boy's playground. Ma MacDonald is a palm tree in a hurricane, bending and swaying in the violent winds of Southie's interior, even as things are flying at her head, she crouches down to protect her children, to keep them out of harms way. We grew up watching Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow and Peanuts. Michael Patrick MacDonald grew up watching violence, sadness and death.
The book, Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier is a story of tragedy and the overcoming of adversity set during the American Civil War. W.P. Inman is a confederate soldier, who like many confederate soldiers is reconsidering the “cause” and whether or not his sacrifice was warranted. We learn that when he ventures away from Cold Mountain, his home in North Carolina, for the first time he see the persecution of blacks in way he had not before. This compounded with the longing for his love, Ada Monroe, and the death that surrounded him compels him to risk death and desert the army and to return home to his love. I've always found this scenario Shakespearean but it also reminded me of the Roseanna McCoy and Johnse Hatfield love story that is so familiar to Appalachian culture.
"The Bull Moose" is a poem by one of the great Canadian poets, Alden Nowlan. It is a finely crafted poem by a very talented poet. It reminds us how far away from Nature the lives of ordinary men and women have strayed. This is something common to all of us who live so much our lives in buildings and who so rarely experience Nature in its raw form. Nowlan creates powerful layers of images, and contrasts them in a way to make us feel just how damaging to our minds and souls this separation from Nature has been. His poem is Romantic in the way it tries to remind us of how far we have fallen and how hollow our idea of progress is. Indeed, Nowlan suggests that we may be more of a beast than the moose.
In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck there are many events in the plot of the story that occur that prove that when man is cruel to man, some peoples lives are negatively affected. One instance in where this is proven true is when the men on the ranch and Curley's wife are cruel and discriminative against Crooks causing him to be the one to mourn. An example of how the men are discriminative towards Crooks is that he is forced to live in a shack away from the bunkhouse and also Crooks says that "They play cards in there, but I can't play because I'm black. They say I stink" and "I ain't wanted in the bunkhouse." An example of when Curley's Wife is critical towards Crooks is when she looks into his room to see what Lennie and Crooks are doing and then she states, shaking her head, that they left the weak ones behind. Also, she threatens to have Crooks hung because a black man should never talk to a white woman the way he just had. As a result of all of these discriminatory acts against him, Crooks feels unwanted and lonely because of his color and placement on the farm. Also those examples are part of the theme of the novel, people need to accept and understand those different from themselves, which also helps to prove the interpretation of the quote. Another example in this novel that proves that when man is cruel to man, the lives of people are negatively affected is when Curley picks on and tries to hurt Lennie. Curley chooses to fight Lennie because he thinks he won't fight back but because George gets angry and tells Lennie to fight back, he does. George being angry is not the only negative effect that Curley's teasing had on man, but also now Lennie is angry and in danger of getting in trouble and Curley himself gets hurt.
In the novel, Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden, Niska, Xavier’s aunt, makes reference to a story during her youth. This story took place during the winter and highlighted periods of starvation among Niska’s tribe because of the lack of ideal food resources. As starvation became a prolonged condition and desperation levels heightened, the tribe’s hunters brought back a black bear. Niska’s father, the leader of her tribe was disturbed as he associated the bear as man’s “brother.”
Tobias Wolff is framing his story Hunters in the Snow, in the countryside near Spokane, Washington, where three friends with three different personalities, decided to take a trip to the woods for hunting in a cold, snowy weather. The whole story follows the hunting trip of these three friends. The reader can easily observe that the cold, hostile environment is an outward expression of how the men behave towards one another. Kenny, with a heart made of ice is rather hostile to Tub, while Frank is cold and indifferent to Tub and his pleas for help.The environment is matching the characters themselves, being cold and uncaring as the author described the two from truck when they laughed at the look of Tub: “You ought to see yourself,” the driver said. “He looks just like a beach ball with a hat on, doesn’t he? Doesn’t he, Frank?”(48). Near the beginning of the story the cold and the waiting surely creates an impact in the mood of the character. Tub is restless from the wait and the cold adds on to it. He complains about being cold and Kenny and Frank, his friends tell him to stop complaining, which seems to be very unfriendly. Wolff builds up the story on the platform of cold weather and the impact of the cold on each character slowly builds up.
Nowlan's sympathy for the moose and his disgust for mankind is forcefully expressed in a natural free verse. This poem calls us to rethink the arrogant self-righteousness we hold toward Nature. By fencing ourselves in, perhaps we shut ourselves away from those qualities necessary to make us truly human.
Survival and Love in Charles Frazier’s "Cold Mountain" I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.
It was the middle of October, and it was finally time for my long awaited moose hunt. I have waited ever since I was a little girl for this opportunity, and it was finally here. So, my father and I packed up our stuff and left the warmth of Phoenix. We were leaving the "Valley of the Sun" and headed for a place called Wyoming. After two days and fourteen long hours of driving, we made it to our hunting unit.
Burroughs, retells the story of when a counselor took the school boys outside by the campfire to tell them stories , when a badger appears too close to the young boys. The counselor quickly pulls out his gun to shoot at it, leading it to his dreadful death of the badger at the end of the stream. (Burroughs 14)
In The Call of the Wild, Buck is forced to deal with the cruel and unusual punishments of other humans and dogs which causes him to lose trust with anyone. Buck had to decipher the lesson of a club but not in a good way. He wasn’t happy with The Man in The Red Sweater so he
Is society too egotistical? In Hunters in the Snow, Tobias Wolfe gives an illustration of the selfishness and self-centeredness of humankind through the actions of his characters. The story opens up with three friends going on their habitual hunting routine; their names are Frank, Kenny, and Tub. In the course of the story, there are several moments of tension and arguments that, in essence, exposes the faults of each man: they are all narcissistic. Through his writing in Hunters in the Snow, Wolfe is conveying that the ultimate fault of mankind is egotism and the lack of consideration given to others.
The short story Hunters in the Snow by Tobias Wolff depicts three men that go on a hunting trip that changes the course of their lives. Each character lies to himself to accept his actions in his life. Kenny, Frank, and Tub need to successfully fool themselves before they can deceive anyone else. Each of the men are immature and selfish. They don't realize how their decisions impact other people's lives. They justify their lies with their own insecurities about their lifestyles. Their lies impact the situations they encounter and change their lives forever.
In the short story The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, Rainsford is a selfish man that thinks animals feel no pain and that they are only good for hunting. This is until he becomes the one that is being hunted within the story. In the short story, Connell uses the setting to add an eerie mood to the text. The use of imagery adds suspense within the settings of the yacht, the chateau, and the jungle.
Tobias Wolff’s “Hunters in the Snow” is a suspense type of story, with an unexpected turn in the end, while William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” could far into the horror genre, because of the baffling atmosphere. These two short stories have similar focuses on symbolism, foreshadowing, settings, atmosphere, and themes; with this in mind they also have many differences such as the writer’s style.