The Twist in Lucille Fletcher’s The Hitchhiker Sometimes life can twist a person. It can make him go from feeling perfectly normal to feeling utterly confused. In Lucille Fletcher’s The Hitchhiker the main character wonders if the hitchhiker is a figure of the imagination or, in the end, a symbol of death. The plot of the story shows that Lucille Fletcher used it to throw twists and turns with the exposition and rising action, climax, and the falling action and resolution. The twists in the plot start with the exposition and rising action in the short story. Ronald adams is traveling from Brooklyn to California, and he’s even “I know at this moment i am perfectly sane” (1001)This here clearly should raise red flags like right from …show more content…
Adam seeing the hitchhiker repeatedly as he traveled down the road was just weird and creepy. WHAT IS EVEN WEIRDER IS HE JUST SAW THE GUY A WAYS BACK DOWN THE ROAD AND ALMOST HIT HIM.How did he get further ahead of me? AND WHAT IS HE DOING? “I would have forgotten him completely, except that just an hour later, while crossing the Pulaski skyway over the jersey flats I saw him again at least, he looked like the same person He was just standing now”(1002).The next day as Adam gets into Ohio he really starts to lose it “Hour after hour went by. The fields, the town ticked off, one by one. the light changed. i knew now that i was going to see him again. And though I dreaded the sight , I caught myself searching the side of the road, waiting for him to …show more content…
Whitney She told him his mother was in the hospital “Mrs. Adams is not at home. she is still in the hospital”(1011). His mother had lost it for five days “She’s been prostrated for five days.Nervous breakdown” (1011), but he was still wondering why she was having nervous break downs then he found out she had her oldest son “The death of her oldest son, Ronald” (1011) Then she tells him that he died six days ago “It’s all been very sudden. He was killed just six days ago in an automobile accident on the Brooklyn Bridge”(1011), and as he sits there he was just trying to swallow the fact that he was really dead “And so I am sitting here in this deserted auto camp in Gallup, New Mexico. I am trying to think. I am trying to get hold of
Diane Urban, for instance, was one of the many people who were trapped inside this horror. She “was comforting a woman propped against a wall, her legs virtually amputated” (96). Flynn and Dwyer appeal to the reader’s ethical conscience and emotions by providing a story of a victim who went through many tragedies. Causing readers to feel empathy for the victims. In addition, you began to put yourself in their shoes and wonder what you would do.
The main character says, “Look under the seat for my flashlight, boy” (Pancake 87). The narrator then notes, “He bends forward, grabbing under the seat, and his head is turned for me. But I am way too tired now, and I don’t want to clean the seat” (Pancake 87). From the context you can observe that he starts his process in killing the hitchhiker but decides against it. As he has gotten to know the hitchhiker throughout the ride he sees that he no longer wants to kill him. Then, the main character comments, “He hops to the ground, and I watch him walking backward, thumbing” (Pancake 87-88). You can conclude that he finally comes to the realization that these hitchhikers deserve to live despite his recent losses. In sum, this is the major turning point in the story because this is when he finally overcomes his obsession of murdering the
Robbins reflects that everything is interrelated, and how our societies denial of that fact is damaging. Julian displays the Western mentality of a free rider, when defining hitch hiking: "Hitchhiking is parasitic, no more than a reckless panhandling, as far as I can see. "(Cowgirls 45). Similarly, Sissy lives her life constantly focused on finding the next driver who will pick her up. She is consistently engaged with the rhythm of people on the move, but all Julian recognizes is that she is not a contributing part of the whole.
In conclusion, David Hackett Fischer effectively tells the story of Paul Revere's ride in a way that completely and accurately depicts the events. By developing many of the historical figures that are not as well known as Paul Revere, Hackett Fischer gives the reader a more distinctive understanding of these particular historical events. Paul Revere's Ride also personalizes these events by providing numerous first hand accounts that strengthen the imagery. As a whole, the novel is an effective and interesting historical account that accurately tells the famed story of Paul Revere's midnight ride.
Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981.
Flannery O’Connor once said, “…It is when the freak can be sensed as a figure for our essential displacement that he attains some depth in literature.” With this, O’Connor correctly uses the freak to symbolize her reoccurring theme of a grotesque viewpoint on the world, and such symbolism is used prominently in two of her short stories, ‘Everything That Rises Must Converge” and “Good Country People.” Within both stories, the freak awakens both the characters in the stories, and, in fact, the reader themselves, to the fact that they embody the same state as the freak.
We are born into this world with the realization that life is hard and that life is like a box of chocolates and it is hard to take it at face value. The majority of our time is spent trying to answer an endless stream of questions only to find the answers to be a complex path of even more questions. This film tells the story of Harold, a twenty year old lost in life and haunted by answerless questions. Harold is infatuated with death until he meets a good role model in Maude, an eighty year old woman that is obsessed with life and its avails. However, Maude does not answer all of Harold’s questions but she leads him to realize that there is a light at the end of everyone’s tunnel if you pursue it to utmost extremes by being whatever you want to be. Nevertheless, they are a highly unlikely match but they obviously help each other in many ways in the film.
In Amy Hempel’s Short Story “Going,” we take part in a journey with the narrator through loss, coping, memory, experience, and the duality of life. Throughout the story we see the narrator’s struggle through coping with the loss of his mother, and how he moves from a mixture of depression, denial, and anger, to a form of acceptance and revelation. The narrator has lost his mother to a fire three states away, and goes on a reckless journey through the desert, when he crashes his car and ends up hospitalized. Only his thoughts and the occasional nurse to keep him company. He then reaches a point of discovery and realizations that lead to a higher understanding of mortality, and all of the experiences that come with being alive.
Her ability to use incredibly graphic details poetically just enhance the experience for the reader. Her car ride is a solemn one, and readers are introduced to the disturbances inside of the car as well as outside. Olds is able to express to readers the issues her father has with drinking while associating it to the death outside of the car as well. She is able to bring readers into the dark car with her, witnessing the wreckage, the cars strewn over the highway, and most importantly the body of the woman. While the accident wasn’t any fault of the car she is riding in, she is up front with readers how her father is not quite sober, and just missed hitting someone himself. Olds is able to use the graphic imagery of the accident and the somber interior of the car to express the family struggles she endured as well. Sheltered by her mother from the scene outside, she is left reflecting on the life that is represented on the road. Readers can feel the dark turn of her thoughts as she compares the carnage on the road as “…glass, bone, metal, flesh, and the family” (Olds). It is this ending in which Olds allows readers to understand the complexity of feelings that were associated with the accident on the dark rain covered highway. Reflecting on the
...ary devices covered in this paper cannot even begin to cover the entirety of a great short story. The point of view, the symbolism, and the setting are just a few things that make these stories so memorable. The ability of Shirley Jackson to make a reader question the way society allows as normal with its traditions, families, and customs causes the reader to think that this can happen anywhere. Charlotte Perkins Gilman makes the reader wonder throughout the story is she crazy or is she possessed. The ability to make the reader sit white knuckled holding the book is amazing and the writing styles of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Shirley Jackson will forever go down in literary history.
Frankenstein is the story of an eccentric scientist whose masterful creation, a monster composed of sown together appendages of dead bodies, escapes and is now loose in the country. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelly’s diction enhances fear-provoking imagery in order to induce apprehension and suspense on the reader. Throughout this horrifying account, the reader is almost ‘told’ how to feel – generally a feeling of uneasiness or fright. The author’s diction makes the images throughout the story more vivid and dramatic, so dramatic that it can almost make you shudder.
Life is full of surprises, you never know when something bad is going to happen. In the short story “Catch” by Sarah Ellis, Rita experiences this problem. At first Rita is a happy girl who just got her driver’s license, but when her Aunt Darlene gets distracted by an old man, she begins to show the behaviors of a typical moody teenager; acting upset, selfish and angry. Rita is a dynamic character showing characteristics including; quick-tempered, devoted and impatient. Despite this, after a terrifying experience, she changes her worldview and way of thinking.
The exposition starts with a character named, Charlie Joe Jackson. He is in middle school and he hates reading. This all started when Charlie had to read a book for his language arts teacher; the book was called Billy’s Bargain. Billy’s Bargain was about the pitcher who throws a no hitter and made a bargain with the devil. Charlie does what he always does, and that was read the back of the book, the first chapter, the last chapter, and the inside flaps. Charlie always took shortcuts when it came to reading. In the rising action, Charlie has a friend named Timmy, and Timmy and Charlie have known each other for about two years. They have always made this deal if Charlie bought Timmy an ice cream sandwich, Timmy would tell Charlie what Billy’s Bargain was about. But one day Charlie see’s the look in Timmy’s eye’s, which was the look of blackmail. As he walked up he asked Timmy how was your day. He said, “Okay.” then he said, “ I’m really hungry today… I could eat one, or two, or three ice cream sandwiches.” Guess what Charlie had to do. He bought TImmy three ice cream sandwiches just so Timmy could tell Charlie about the book. This was the climax. The next day he went to the library and looked up the word blackmail. Under the word blackmail, Timmy’s picture was there. This was the falling action. He saw the librarian and she was an old friend of Charlie’s. In the first grade she tried over and over again to make him read but he didn’t. To Charlie she was evil because she was still librarian. The resolution is that, Charlie Joe has had a lot of devised ways to get out of reading. He has also made up a lot of tips, that can get you out of reading in a different way....
Wilson, M. & Clark, R. (n.d.). Analyzing the Short Story. [online] Retrieved from: https://www.limcollege.edu/Analyzing_the_Short_Story.pdf [Accessed: 12 Apr 2014].
...ch as time, dates, and the exact relationships between the different characters are is not spelled out. This active involvement of the viewer is necessary for the work of art to stand on its own. This takes the challenge thrown out by modernists to reject easy conventions and make new ones, and pushes it further to the point where conventions become a joke. Those who understand the references get the joke, and this creates a new kind of meaning beyond the surface meaning of the narrative.