In Cormac McCarthy's 2006 play, The Sunset Limited, McCarthy gives the reader very vague information about the setting and surroundings of the conversation that is occurring throughout the entire work. In the opening stage directions, an essential prop to the play is the "door [is] fitted with a bizarre collection of locks and bars" (3). The image of the locks is referenced a multitude of times within the duration of the play, as the two men, Black and White, sit at a table and debate the ways of the world. This conversation stems from Black saving White from committing suicide the previous morning and ineffectively tries to keep White from leaving to end his life. Throughout The Sunset Limited, the locks and bars of the door represent the overarching …show more content…
themes of isolation and rigid worldview, both of which are individual to White and Black’s personal experiences. In his article “After Saving a Jumper, The Chat That Ensues” Mike Haile outlines the fact that “a subway jumper, White, and the man who saved him, Black,” are “locked (symbolically, at least)” in a room with Cormac McCarthy, which he describes as “claustrophobia.” This claustrophobic encounter leads to an argument in which there is no victorious party.
In the beginning, both White and Black seem to be locked in the way that they each personally view the world, the human condition and God himself; this is not the case at the end of the play. White is smuggled by his life and a world that he describes as “a forced labor camp from which the workers-perfectly innocent-are led forth by lottery, a few each day, to be executed” (122). He believes that due to himself feeling trapped in life, the only choice he has is his own death, and since he has given up on humanity “the one thing [he] won’t give up is giving up” (130). By choosing death as a way out, White succumbs to the only way to free himself from these locks that bind him to this world. He chooses The Sunset Limited as his freedom. The locks are the only thing standing between White and his “terminal [commute]” on The Sunset Limited, finishing what he started
(85). The locks symbolize both men being locked in their beliefs as well as in their physical, geographic, ways of living. White asks Black many times “Why are you here? What do you get out of this?” (55). White believes that Black chooses to stay where he lives, without thinking that he is locked in this situation by socioeconomic status or educational disadvantages. White cannot comprehend these issues due to his inability to relate with situations he has never experienced. White’s problem is a very different one; his education “makes the world personal” and this remains his excuse for pondering to take his own life (26). Both character's physical restrictions as prisoners in different times of their life are highlighted in the same manner. Black outlines his time as a prisoner through his jailhouse stories in order to keep White from leaving. The locks on the apartment door protect Black from the junkies and thieves in what White calls the "moral leper colony" (75). However, they also keep White in. When Black refuses to allow White to leave. White realizes that he is trapped and poses the question "so what am I, a prisoner here?" (31). Black responds with, “you was a prisoner fore you got here. Death Row prisoner” which references the fact that White is a prisoner in his own life (31). The same locks that protect them from the outside world are trapping them in the room together. Black holds the keys in his pocket and there is the only one way out of the room. The locks physically hold them in this conversation and force them to talk. Even when White tries to leave multiple times, he can't because as much as the locks are protecting them from the outside world, they are forcing him to remain and criticize the world view of Black that “you are your brother’s keeper” (77). The locks symbolize isolation: Black's confinement from the world while incarcerated and his current isolation from the modern world as well as White’s choice to severe ties between himself and the entire world. Black is isolated from the modern world because the junkies will steal anything. Black tells how he doesn’t lock the junkies out because he wants to help them even though they don’t realize they are in grave need of his assistance. White says, “I don’t see how you can live here. I don’t see how you can feel safe” (75). This directly references the physical purpose of safety provided by locks. However, Black doesn’t allow the “bizarre collection of locks and bars" to keep the junkies out; he says that he wants to get a good lock for his bedroom door in order for him to have things that he misses like music (3). The locks also represent White's isolation from society and its members. He admits that he has no friends, and he "loathes" the other professors that he works with (82). He admits to cursing random people on the subway for no real reason. White admits to denying visiting his father on his death bed; he isolated himself from his family for an unknown reason. He says that he “yearn[s] for the darkness [and] pray[s] for death” because it would be “the ultimate horror” to “meet people [he’s] known in life” in death (135). This proves just how disconnected White is from everyone he has ever known. It also forces the audience to realize just how serious his suicidal thoughts have become. At the end of the play, White’s words force Black to remove the binds and open the door. Black removes the bizarre locks, and “they rattle to the floor" (141). The physical removal of the locks shows that White broke down Black. He altered Black’s world view that he was locked in for so long. He was set in his views, and he thought the world was black and white. White slowly took control of the conversation and proved him otherwise. White wins the argument and allows him to leave the apartment. Black is left kneeling alone in the open doorway pleading with God. It is not explicitly stated whether or not White finishes his previously failed plan. There are no locks that lock Black in his beliefs, and there are no locks keeping White from taking a "terminal commute" on The Sunset Limited (85).
This week I read the short article on Alan Locke’s, “Enter the New Negro”. This article is discussing the Negro problem in depth. “By shedding the chrysalis of the Negro problem, we are achieving something like spiritual emancipation”. Locke believes that if we get rid of whatever is holding us back we would gain something renewing and beautiful.
... on foot and that alone is hard as it is. Eudora Welty shows her theme that with an adequate amount of determination and confidence we can tackle any problem or obstacle that is thrown our way and go the extra mile to reach our objective that we had set. Of course being restrained by time and age, Phoenix still fights and steps forward to a goal which is very significant to her heart; she doesn’t allow any barrier get in her way. Phoenix Jackson being the main character of “A Worn Path” is clear
“In A Good Man Is Hard To Find “ Flannery O’Connor utilizes symbolism to give more meaning to her short story. O’Connor describes a story about the Grandmother vs. the Misfit, or in other words good vs. evil. This story is about a family that is on there way to Florida, but unfortunately that takes a wrong turn down a dirt road, which ends up causing them to get in an accident, and is caught by the Misfit. This confront prevented the family from ever arriving in Florida, because the Misfit just ends up killing every last single one of them. O’Connor uses symbolism by creating a story with a lot of meaning to sky, trees, roads, grandmother, and other necessities to depict the continuous battle between good vs. evil.
in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" Flannery O' Connor uses symbolism to give more meaning to her short story. O'Connor writes a story of a Grandmother versus a Misfit, or good versus evil. This short story is about a family going to Florida, who takes a turn down a dirt road, which only causes them to get in an accident, and be found by the Misfit. This encounter prevented them from ever arriving Florida, because the Misfit ends their lives. Using symbolism, O'Connor creates a story with much meaning to the Grandmother, nature, sky, woods, their surroundings, roads, and cars to portray the constant battle between good and evil.
"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor is a short story that depicts a family's vacation to Florida that turned into an abysmal tragedy when they met with the Misfit, a convict who escaped from prison. This story is meant to be interpreted as a parable, whereby O'Connor made skilful use of symbolism to bring about messages such as the class-consciousness and the lack of spiritual faith that exist amongst human.
The idiosyncratic development of the novel can be interpreted as an example of the ways in which existentialist values ought to be instantiated through unique individual experience. However, blackness, or any racial identity, is not an existential structure because it is not universal. Rather, existentialist requirements for good faith can be applied to racialized situations by both whites and blacks. American traditions and institutions perpetuate the disadvantaged positions of nonwhites in ways that black people have experienced as personal in particular situations. This importance of race in public and private life, as well as subjective experiences of racism, have drawn to existentialism both black and white philosophers who address racial issues.
Her race wants him to win and overcome the pain and sufferance they had till then. The description of the men staying away from the walls, and the women clenching onto their babies, showed fear. No one could breathe, or blink as it was the moment of suspense which could go in either way was a turning point where black people felt it was all over.
2. Doors often symbolize new opportunities or as a bridge between two worlds. In “A Rose for Emily” the door dividing the townspeople and Emily marks the disconnect between rumor and the truth. This is most obvious when the people enter her home after the funeral and discover her only companion, Homer. In “All Summer in a Day’ the
In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author presents three symbols that all reinforce the main idea of the novel. The main idea that reoccurred throughout the novel is that people don’t have to let their mistakes or circumstances determine who they are or what they become; it’s all in how one interprets life. Many symbols may seem as just an ordinary character or coincidental object to some readers, but the symbols have a deeper, underlying meaning. Although there are many symbols in this book, there are three that really help support the main idea: Hester Prynne’s scarlet letter, the meteor, and Hester’s daughter Pearl.
A dialectic is the process of synthesizing truth by holding contradictory ideas in tension. Since Richard Wright’s short story “Long Black Song” and Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat” have opposing arguments they must engage in a dialectic. Both stories examine the oppression of the African American race, but they find different sources for its difficulties and demise. In “Long Black Song”, Silas, while expressing his frustration for the superiority of the white men, articulates that the black woman is the source of African American difficulties. In “Sweat”, Sykes’s encounter with death reveals that the African American man’s arrogance is the cause of the demise of the African American race. Wright’s short story “Long Black Song” and Hurston’s short story “Sweat” engage in a dialectic, in which “Sweat” repudiates “Long Black Song”, and produce the truth that one’s hubris that is the source of the difficulties of one’s race and the demise of oneself.
“The Scarlet Letter is often regarded as the first novel to be published in the United States that used symbolism”(Voshell Study Guide). Author Nathaniel Hawthorne expressed symbolism in and all throughout The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne uses symbolism for two different reasons. One of the reasons is that the use of symbolism creates a more enlightened effect, and giving the story more of a memorable sense with the images of the darkness and light, the good and the bad/evil, nature and society, and freedom and oppression. The first symbol is the forest and the wilderness which is a symbol for free, wild place, shelter, safe haven, evil and horror. The forest is expressed is different symbols throughout the novel.
Symbolism plays an important role in the Scarlet Letter. The scarlet "A" is used to represent sin and anguish along with happiness. The "A" has different meanings to people other than what was originally intended. The scaffold is used as a place of repentance and judgment by God. Pearl is another major symbol used as a reminder of the scarlet letter.
In Sunset Limited, Black conveys Kierkegaard’s philosophy through his own life and words. In the beginning of the play, Black and White argue over the meaning of life—the former loving it, the latter trying to end it. Early on, Black tries to identify with White’s suicidal argument by noting that “Suffering and human destiny are the same thing” (55). Of course, Black’s admittance does not mean he believes in White’s argument, but instead that he understands White’s pain. Likewise, Kierkegaard’s description of life is similar to Black’s reasoning. In his writing, Kierkegaard recounts both the painful way a person is brought into the world and then taken out of it, saying, “[…] and then tell me whether something that begins and ends thus could be intended for enjoyment.” But the undertone of both Black and Kierkegaard’s statements cannot go unquestioned, and White replies, “You’re not making any sense” (55). White fails to understand that everything is common sense for Black, who has not only suffered more than White could ever imagine, but also believes in a force outside White’s wildest dreams. Originally a convict, Black turns his life around after a near-death experience, believing God chose him of all people to talk to. He lives in hopes of delivering God’s message and love to those bereft of it, for what pain can someone experience if God is on the other side? Comparatively, Kierkegaard’s detailed analysis of despair calls the obvious solution faith alone. Somehow, Black evinces Kierkegaard’s belief through becoming a productive member of society. After believing to have heard the Savior in his sleep, Black leaves his former friends and refrains from various forms of pleasure so he can help those less fortunate than himself. I...
The play, the Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy, is talking about a two people Black and White. White is a professor who thinks that his life is full of darkness he decides to jump off the railroad to end his life. While Black used to be in jail and he used to live in the darkness. But later he read the Bible and he start to believe in God. Black save White's life and bring him to Black’s house and try to tell use Bible and his experience White that life is full of meaning and hope. But because of White thinks that he has read more book and more has more knowledge than Black and he is trying to deny Black that the life is full of darkness. Black fail to convince White not to suicide. Because of that , Black feels his life fall back into the
One of the main themes throughout the book is the title of the book “Night”. There are references from Eliezer about night during the book, which are full of symbolism. The word “night” is used repeatedly, and Eliezer recounts every dusk, night and dawn through the entire book. For instance, Night could be a metaphor for the Holocaust—submerge the family and thousands of Jewish families in the darkness and misery of the concentration camps.