Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury chronicles the story of twelve-year-old Douglas Spaulding and the residents of Green Town, Illinois during the summer of 1928. The book explores a variety of subjects, including happiness and death. These topics are connected to the overarching theme of handling with loss. Through this idea, Dandelion Wine has many correlations with the Greek myth “Orpheus and Eurydice”. Douglas goes through many losses, including Green Town’s Green Trolley and his best friend John. Douglas experiences different emotions in regards to each situation. When he discovers that the Green Trolley is shutting down, he cries “‘Last day?’…‘They can’t do that!’” (Bradbury 98). Douglas’ reaction is of one who is in denial. After John and …show more content…
One notable character who does this is Mrs. Bentley, an old woman who saves old memorabilia, including “tickets, old theatre programs…all the tags and tokens of existence” to preserve evidence of the past and her life (Bradbury 68). In the chapter devoted to her, she meets a group of young children. When Mrs. Bentley describes to the children how she was once as young as they were, they accuse her of lying and run off. She later uses her collection in an attempt to prove that the past existed. After the children run off with her some of her childhood items and accuse her of lying once more, Mrs. Bentley becomes more desperate to prove her past. Orpheus comparably cannot get over Eurydice’s death, so he decides to retrieve her from the depths of Hades …show more content…
The first way that Douglas comes to terms with is loss is that he realizes that nothing lasts forever, and he writes in his summer journal “SOME DAY, I, DOUGLAS SPAULDING, MUST DIE” (Bradbury 190). After he accepts that fact, he becomes more content. Afterwards, when summer is about to end, Douglas has a discussion with his grandfather about the eponymous dandelion wine. Grandpa describes that with dandelion wine, “‘you get to live the summer over for a minute or two…when the bottles are empty the summer’s gone for good and no regrets and no sentimental trash lying around’” (Bradbury 236). With this idea, Douglas realizes that he can still recall the past, but dwelling on it too much causes pain. Similarly, Mrs. Bentley recalls a discussion she had with her late husband, who told her that her habit of saving things will only hurt her in the long run and how Mrs. Bentley can either be “‘in a young now or and old now, but there is no other now to be seen’” (Bradbury 75) Afterwards, Mrs. Bentley throws out all of her old things and accepts her identity as an old woman. In “Orpheus and Eurydice”, Orpheus is allowed to bring Eurydice back from the dead, but he cannot look back towards her during the journey back to the surface, or else Eurydice will return to Hades once more. When Orpheus almost succeeds in this task, he looks back towards Eurydice moments before they
For example, Corrigan said, “Sometimes he claimed the scar along his thigh indicated he was actually the biblical figure of Jacob. Jacob, the brother of Esau? Jacob, who wrestled God’s angel and lived” (80). Corrigan, in this excerpt from the novel, alluded to the bible story in Genesis. One who knows the story of Jacob and Esau would be able to make connections between those from that story and the characters in the book. This biblical allusion caused some readers to be able to make deeper connections in the novel but yet does not hinder the understanding of someone who does not recognize the reference. Corrigan also wrote, “You so easily remember the times I was Eurydice, when the ward’s locked door slid closed between us. Do not forget I also have been Orpheus, on my knees in the boat, asking all the devils for your face in the trees” (100). This allusion to Greek mythology aided the reader in understanding one of Corrigan’s central themes in her novel. In the story Orpheus was a poet who was able to entrance enemies with his singing and lyre playing. After his wife, Eurydice, was killed, he traveled to the underworld to rescue her. Corrigan writes that she and Danny took turns being both Eurydice and Orpheus in that one was doing the rescuing and one was being rescued. They were there for each other through their troubles and
“I thought she would die right along with him,” (Flagg, 37). How would it feel to lose a sibling or close friend? Would one feel depressed and keep to themselves or would they emerge as a stronger person? In Tears of a Tiger, the author, Sharon Draper, exposes Andy as a depressed teenager who lost his best friend, Robert, in a car accident with the use of alcohol. The author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café, Fannie Flagg, exhibits withdrawal through her character, Idgie, after she loses her brother, Buddy, in a train accident. Following the death of two people very close to Andy and Idgie, in two separate novels, the authors depict the two characters comparably.
Although at face value the poem “dandelion” by Julie Lechevsky may appear to just be about dandelions, after taking a closer look at the metaphors, personifications, and other literary devices that are used, it is clear that the poem is about how attention isn’t always a good thing. Lechevsky does this by showing how dandelions are well known but not in a good way, and how her parents give her too much attention.
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In the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, the two get married but Eurydice quickly perishes. Overcome with grief Orpheus convinces Hades to let him bring back Eurydice to the world of the living. He agrees but on one condition; Eurydice has to walk behind Orpheus and he cannot look back to see if she's following. Orpheus agrees, but when the couple are just about to leave Erebus, Orpheus looks back to see his lover. With a final "Farewell" Eurydice
Smith, Gary. "Once Upon a Midnight Dreary: Cognac, Roses, and Edgar Allan Poe: A Graveyard Mystery." Life July 1990: 48-54
There is a destructive nature of man is shown in Daniel Keyes’ Flowers for Algernon through the absence of family. Sci...
In the excerpt from A Few Notes For Orpheus, the narrator experiences an distant relationship with his father due to his father’s lack of attention and care for him in the past. Because of his father’s lack of understanding of his own son, the narrator had not visited his father in two years and as a result, had “forgotten what he looked like.” This infers that the narrator has not forgotten his past conflict with his father, causing him to be unwilling to reconcile with his father. As a result of his lack of communication and association with his father, this further deteriorates their relationship, emphasizing the increasing isolation between his father and him. Upon visiting his father with his daughter Cathy, the narrator attempts to have a quiet, peaceful conversation with his father. However, his efforts are instantly downgraded by his father upon as his father spoke in an abrupt, callous manner with him while taking Cathy and the both “walked away, him holding her hand and talking.” This illustrates the extreme severity of the lack of closeness
Throughout this novel, the reader is left with the task of putting the pieces together to a highly complex puzzle. While solving this puzzle, the reader learns valuable information about Mrs. Ross’s harsh past, which greatly influences her entire life. The root of Mrs. Ross’s troubles ultimately lies within the shocking death of “Mrs. Ross’s only brother, a boy called Monty Miles who had been killed while walking home…A wayward trolley left the tracks to strike him down” ( ). According to the narrator “The mourning had gone on for years”() and this event truly traumatized Mrs. Ross as “the world was full of trolley cars and Mrs. Ross ...
Although imagery and symbolism does little to help prepare an expected ending in “The Flowers” by Alice Walker, setting is the singular element that clearly reasons out an ending that correlates with the predominant theme of how innocence disappears as a result of facing a grim realism from the cruel world. Despite the joyous atmosphere of an apparently beautiful world of abundant corn and cotton, death and hatred lies on in the woods just beyond the sharecropper cabin. Myop’s flowers are laid down as she blooms into maturity in the face of her fallen kinsman, and the life of summer dies along with her innocence. Grim realism has never been so cruel to the innocent children.
A flowering garden in the spring crafts conceptions of fertility, beauty, and bliss. Certain people are similar to plants: some are functional, others radiate beauty, while the worst are those that kill. Not all plants are welcome such as the purple flowers from the Judas tree that should be kept at bay from the hearts of the tender because of their morbid connotation. The symbolic flowers represent death or betray in literature, as is the example of the character Engino in “Flowering Judas”. Laura in “Flowering Judas” by Anne Kathrine Porter is the seemingly sweet character, but on a deeper analysis, the true intentions of this dynamic character are exposed. Porter conceived the ideas in “Flowering Judas” from her time in Mexico during the
... Orpheus thinks that a trick is being played on him and turns around, causing Eurydice to be lost forever. This leads the viewer to believe that Orpheus was not really in the underworld and that this was just a fake journey into a nonexistent underworld. It seems quite odd that anyone can walk down a spiral staircase and be placed at the gates of Hades. This is the main reason the journey into the underworld appears to be a false one.
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. "Orpheus (Greek Mythology)." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.