This is the story of a man born in battle and raised in pain. This is the story of Guts. A small band of travelling Mercenaries walked through a battlefield. The band was filled with mostly men, but also with some women. The battle has long since been finished. The men began looting the bodies of the corpses, when one heard a loud wailing coming from by a dead horse. He drew his sword and cautiously walked over to the noise. But what he found would change his life forever. There was a newly born baby still attached to its mother’s umbilical cord. The mother was clutching a dagger in her hand while a spear had been driven through her chest and a stab wound to her stomach. The baby was crying out in pain. The man raised his sword to put the
Throughout the life of an individual most people would agree that dealing with tough conflict is an important part in growing as a person. In “The Cellist of Sarajevo” all the characters experience a brutal war that makes each of them struggle albeit in different ways. Each of them have their own anxieties and rage that eventually makes them grow as characters at the end of the book. Steven Galloway’s novel “The Cellist of Sarajevo” exemplifies that when an individual goes through a difficult circumstance they will often struggle because of the anger and fear they have manifested over time. The conflict that the individual faces will force them to reinforce and strengthen their identity in order to survive.
First came the pride, an overwhelming sense of achievement, an accomplishment due to great ambition, but slowly and enduringly surged a world of guilt and confusion, the conscience which I once thought diminished, began to grow, soon defeating the title and its rewards. Slowly the unforgotten memories from that merciless night overcame me and I succumbed to the incessant and horrific images, the bloody dagger, a lifeless corpse. I wash, I scrub, I tear at the flesh on my hands, trying desperately to cleanse myself of the blood. But the filthy witness remains, stained, never to be removed.
However, at this time, the speaker was merely a newborn baby. This does not hinder the speaker’s ability to relate ideas and communicate though as the speaker authenticates her newborn self by claiming all babies are born with a sense of omniscience that they eventually lose. By telling the story through the perspective of an infant, the speaker incorporates a childish tone with war which is obviously not supposed to be childish. For example, the speaker relays, “In France the conscripted soldiers leapfrogged over the dead on the advance and littered the fields with limbs and hands, or drowned in the mud.” Through her description of soldiers “leapfrogging” over other dead soldiers, Spark characterizes the death and destruction of war as senseless. Also, by telling the story from the infant’s perspective, Spark juxtaposes the actions typical to a baby with the calamity of war. The speaker says, “On all the world’s fighting fronts the men killed in action or dead of wounds numbered 8,538,315 and the warriors wounded and maimed were 21,219,452. With these figures in mind I sat up in my high chair and banged my spoon on the table.” This juxtaposition downplays the significance of the destructiveness of war and conveys that war makes as much sense as the random actions of newborn
My counterattack swung him around and I pinned him down to the dirt by his chest. This was it, this was where he would meet his end. I grabbed my dagger, raised it high above my head, and brought it down with enough force to kill any man, but all that happened was a quiet ‘chink’ as the blade struck his armor. I looked at the blade, surprise and anger swelling up inside of me. It was rusty and blunt, there was no way this would hurt the soldier who was strong enough to kill my precious son.
Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “Tell-Tale Heart” focuses on the murder of an old man by an unknown narrator. The old man is said to have an “evil eye”, however, there is never an explanation for why the narrator believes this. The narrator then murders the old man and begins to describe why the murder is justifiable, and that he is not “mad”. A plausible theory for the death of the old man could be that the narrator suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and believes he needed to get rid of the “evil eye” for his own safety. The symptoms for paranoid schizophrenia include delusions, auditory hallucinations, anxiety, violence, and so on. These symptoms could explain certain quirks about the narrators hearing “...all things in the heaven and in the earth ...heard many things in hell.” (Kennedy 279) his violence “...I dismembered the corpse” (281) and the narrator constantly contemplating on their every action.
The purpose of the speech provided by Chimamanda Adichie is to portray the various impacts a single story can have on both an individual and a society. This is because of the usage of stereotypes provided by the media which creates an overall image, that everyone believes to be true. This is prominent when she says “A single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.” Having a single story also confines the world to generalized outlooks on cultures, religions and nationalities. Due to this, individuals must seek for diversity and different perspectives, in which everyone should be able to see the world as it is, not just the aspect that the media portrays. Through
In Kelly Link’s two short stories, “The Summer People” and “Origin Story”, the plots revolve around two girls who are both young, that share one common characteristic: deceitfulness. In the end of each novel, both protagonists are revealed to be lying to other characters; however, though both lie, the two lies are completely different from one another. In the first story “The Summer People”, the lie told by the protagonist Fran is harmful and cruel, but in the second short story “Origin Story”, the lie told by the protagonist Bunnatine is meant to protect someone she cares about. In the end, Link creates two different perspectives for the reader as to whether lying is bad or good within her two short stories “Origin Story” and “The Summer People” by utilizing plot, character development, and imagery.
When I first started leaning to read words I was very enthusiastic and I was so proud of my self, I was a reader now but was I reading or just lifting words from the white paper full of dreams and hopes. I still remember the days sitting with my mom on the dining room table reading together. Reading with my mom from early days I realise that language is very much like a living organism. It cannot be put together from parts like a machine, and it is constantly fluctuating and evolving. Language is a living organism that grows, it exists only in interaction with others, in a social interdependence. Different cultures
It was some time before Louis Charles remembered the small lump protruding from his inner coat pocket. Moments before he and his mother had been separated, she had gifted him with a tiny, wooden soldier that she had kept for him to play with during their stay at the Temple. Its face was adorned with chipping paint, acrylic black eyes, and a splintered nose. A thin line was painted on for the mouth, and gave the appearance that the soldier was always heroically grimacing. Its body was composed of three cylindrical wood pieces, one intended for the head, one for the torso, and the last split in two for the legs. It was forever frozen in a position of solute, its right hand drawn to its forehead and left arm at its side, in respect of its commanding officer.
Description: Noble Alexander De Las Casas is pacing impatiently outside his bedroom. You can hear his wife’s screams from the inside. All of the sudden the his wife stops screaming and you can hear a baby’s cry. The doctor is walking out of the room with a grim expression on his face.
Abel is born in a forest in Poland. A young hunter, alert to the sound of screaming, rushes to the mother and child. Mother is dead and the hunter feels responsible for this child:
The detailed descriptions of the dead man’s body show the terrible costs of the war in a physical aspect. O’Brien’s guilt almost takes on its own rhythm in the repetition of ideas, phrases, and observations about the man’s body. Some of the ideas here, especially the notion of the victim being a “slim, young, dainty man,” help emphasize O’Brien’s fixation on the effects of his action—that he killed someone who was innocent and not meant to be fighting in the war. At the same time, his focus on these physical characteristics, rather than on his own feelings, betrays his attempt to keep some distance in order to dull the pain. The long, unending sentences force the reader to read the deta...
“The Story of an Hour” was a story set in a time dominated by men. During this time women were dependent on men, but they always dreamed of freedom. Most people still think that men should be dominant and in control. They think that without men, women can’t do anything and that they can’t be happy. Well this story has a twist.
As the contractions began to grip my stomach, I realized that my life would forever be changed. Knowing the old me had to die in order for me to become a new me. After being abandon at the age of five, I grew up feeling lonely and unloved. I was filled with so much anger, malice, hurt and unforgiveness that I held against others. I didn’t have the luxury of living in a stable environment, because growing up I was always living from home to home. I had no intentions to strive for better, I had begun to allow my upbringing to be my excuse. Years of disappointment resulted in me caring less in others desire. I couldn’t love anyone because love was never shown to me, but
In “The Story of an Hour”, Kate Chopin expresses many themes through her writing. The main themes of this short story are the joy independence brings, the oppression of marriage in nineteenth century America, and how fast life can change.