“If youth but had the knowledge and old age the strength,” (Proverb). Remember sitting on the porch swing with grandpa and listening to him rant and rave about what seemed utterly irrelevant? What about the time that you got backhanded for rolling your eyes at crazy Mrs. Roberts when she would preach ‘life lessons’ at you? However, with age, it has become more and more apparent that maybe Mrs. Roberts wasn’t that far off from what is really the problems most fail to see. In today’s generation, the elderly have often been put on the back burner when they shouldn’t be. Although at times it might seem like the young are utterly invincible, the harsh truth is that there is so much knowledge we are yet to possess, residing within our elders. In Rudolfo Anaya’s A Celebration of Grandfathers, we see just how important Grandpa’s extraneous rants actually were. In Anaya’s A Celebration of Grandfathers, abuelo shares with us the cold truth that the type of men has changed throughout time, whether we know it or not. In this particular section of the story Grandpa states, “They don’t make men like that …show more content…
In this story Anaya writes a multitude of messages hinting toward the fact that the elders hold understanding we are yet to know. While we are young, many like to look at life as if the only way to live it is to will everything to happen, but Grandfather sets it straight with the simple words of, “Know where you stand.” These four words are far from complex, yet many overlook them. Now, there is a well-known saying that, “A wise, old owl lived in an oak tree; the more he saw, the less he spoke; the less he spoke the more he heard; Why can’t we all be like that bird?” (Richards, Edward Hersey). Through the words of Grandfather, and Mr. Richards, it is obvious that the older you are, the more you understand and
“Abuelito Who” and “The Old Grandfather,” tell two different stories about two different grandfathers and their families, in two different forms of writing. The grandfathers’ family member(s) are present in both writings, whether they are the speaker themselves or just a character amidst the meaningful plot. These family members treat each grandfather in completely different ways, changing the writings entirely. The grandfather in the folktale is mistreated and abused, while the other in the poem is loved, but something happens and the poem turns somber as it goes on. If you somehow knew your future and figured out that you would not be cared for well when you could no longer care for yourself, what would
“I have lived every day of my life asking myself ‘is what I’m doing reflective of who I am? Or who I want to be?’ If not...”
"Life Quotes and Sayings, Thoughts on the Philosophy of Life." The Quote Garden - Quotes, Sayings, Quotations, Verses. Web. 22 Jan. 2010.
Ralph Waldo Emerson is also known for his powerful quotations, most of them motivational and philosophical. I was impressed by his simple but powerful thoughts about life: “It is not the length of life, but the depth.”...
In “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” O’Connor introduces the reader to a family who represents the juxtaposition between old and new Southern culture. The grandmother, in particular, represents the old South because she focuses on her appearance, manners, and other attributes that are considered the stereotypical image of femininity. She is a self proclaimed lady whose “collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace” and “at her neckline, she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet” (405-406). In fact, she yearned to dress ideally so that “in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead...
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"Men Quotes, Famous Men Quotes, Sayings about Man." Famous Quotes at AllGreatQuotes. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. .
In today’s society, what was once said to be true and taken as fact regarding older people is no longer the whole story. As Laslett states, “At all times before the middle of the twentieth century and all over the globe the greater part of human life potential has been wasted, by people dying before their allotted time was up.” (1989a), and to a great extent a lot
In “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, O’Connor introduces the reader to a family representative of the old and new Southern culture. The grandmother represents the old South by the way in which she focuses on her appearnace, manners, and gentile ladylike behavior. O’Connor writes “her collars and cuffs were organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady”(O’Connor 118). In this short story, “the wild diproportion of the terms, the vapid composure that summons up the ultimate violence only to treat it as a rare social opportuinty, and the cool irony with which O’Connor presents the sentence makes it both fearful and ludicrous”(Asals 132). The irony that O’Connor uses points out the appalling characteristics of the grandmother’s self-deception that her clothes make her a lady and turns it into a comic matter. Flannery O’Connor goes to great length to give the reader insight into the characters by describing their clothes and attitudes. The fact that the grandmother took so much time in preparing herself for the trip exemplifies the old Southern tradition of self-presentation and self-pride. The grandmother takes pride in the way she presents herself because she wants everyone to know that she is a “lady”.
"Volunteering Quotes :: Finest Quotes." Source for Famous Quotes, Inspirational Quotes & Sayings :: Finest Quotes. Web. 05 May 2015.
"A hundred years from now, it will not matter what kind of car I drove, what kind of house I lived in, how much money I had in the bank...but the world may be a better place because I made a difference in the life of a child.”
Younger people have tended to look towards the elderly for wisdom and guidance since the beginning of recorded history and beyond. Students to teachers, children to parents, ordinary people to royalty and politicians – generally those who have lived longer are not only believed, but expected to have garnered more knowledge in their longer lives. Abraham Lincoln once said, “I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday. Also, in 2008 the Australian newspaper published an article detailing a study undertaken by the University of Aarhus in Denmark, which disproved the theory that the mind is at its peak in the late teens to mid-twenties. But all this is not to say that older people should not sometimes listen to and heed advice from younger people.
"Life Quotes and Sayings, Thoughts on the Philosophy of Life." The Quote Garden - Quotes, Sayings, Quotations, Verses. Web. 22 Jan. 2010.
When I was with Grandpa, I could be a child and yet see things through grown-up eyes. "You see that tree, Cookie," he would say. "That tree was here before those houses. God put that tree there; man put the houses. Which is more beautiful?" If I climbed a tree, he didn't say, "Get down." He said, "Climb it right so you won't fall."
"James Williams Quotes." The Quote Garden - Quotes, Sayings, Quotations, Verses. Web. 15 July 2010. .