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Odour of chrysanthemums by Lawrence
odour of chrysanthemums literary criticism
odour of chrysanthemums short story
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Recommended: Odour of chrysanthemums by Lawrence
Love exiles the heart from the being, sometimes begrudgingly, and at other times in the full light of day. It’s masterful in a myriad of ways; transfixing, then transforming the lover, completely removing them from anything previously palpable and familiar. Bewitchingly, love alters the conscience and authors its decisions. It is the facilitator of exile from oneself, and is brilliantly woven into the lives of the characters in D.H. Lawrence’s Odour of Chrysanthemums and Carlos Fuentes’s Aura; albeit sometimes in antagonistic ways.
I identified with the characters in these dramas as their secrets were strewn across the pages. I was amazed at the similarities between their world and mine; the rancor that was stirred within me when my tears matched those of Elizabeth’s in Odour of Chrysanthemums, and the echo of my not-too-distant past fomented by the hallucinations of the tormented Felipe Montero in Aura. It became apparent to me that with the audacity of God himself, Lawrence simply ripped a page from the story of my life eighty-five years before it was written; that Fuentes had peered into my eyes before they were conceived. Obviously they never knew me, but we share one commonality between their stories and my existence; surrender to exile from oneself because of love.
In Odour of Chrysanthemums, Elizabeth Bates is the ingénue wife in a loveless marriage disguised in family and convention. She had fostered a world around her husband’s addiction, but it was a world that was deep set in a shaky truth, not in reality. Her life was concrete in the truth that her make-shift love had fostered, isolating her from what an agape love would have revealed. Lawrence paints Elizabeth as a stern mother and angry wife, who, night after ...
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... are usually welcome, but are often nonetheless apparent. It becomes insolent and presumptuous, forcing uncertainty and sallow heartbreak on those who dare to reach into its depths, leaving a residual taste that is bittersweet in reflection. Like Elizabeth and Felipe, I too have felt the smarting prick and warming sensation of the truth fluttering to light. I am a Lazarus of love’s epic and have felt the bane of its desire; surviving to reflect upon my exile in these pages, which I believe to be my correspondence in the air.
Works Cited
Fuentes, Carlos. "Aura." Magical Realist Fiction An Anthology. Ed. David Young and Keith Holloman. New York, N.Y.: Longman, Inc., 1984. 393-417. Print.
Lawrence, D. H.. "Odour of Chrysanthemums." Magical Realist Fiction An Anthology. Ed. David Young and Keith Holloman. New York, N.Y.: Longman, Inc., 1984. 99-115. Print.
Amidst all the pain in John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids, there is love. This powerful human emotion has survived in the oppressing society of Waknuk. Wyndham portrays love among hardships to remind us that there is always hope for humanity, despite obstacles it may encounter. Through the Wenders’ sacrificial, unresentful devotion to their mutant daughter, through David’s discovery of reassurance and affection in his uncle amidst fear and uncertainty, and through the telepaths’ undying love for one another despite persecution, The Chrysalids shows us that while Tribulation erased many of society’s aspects, it was unable to extinguish the human quality called love.
Renner, Stanley. “The Real Woman Inside the Fence in ‘The Chrysanthemums’.” Modern Fiction Studies. Vol. 31. No.2. (Summer 1985). 305-317. print; reprinted in Short Story Criticisms. Vol.37. eds. Anja Barnard and Anna Sheets Nesbitt (Farmington Hills: The Gale Group, 2000). 333-339. print.
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A great writer once wrote: “The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they 're brought out.” Boundless things -- ideas, concepts, memories -- are all torn apart when we speak about them. They get cut up into little pieces, so that we may chew on them and digest them without choking. We end up turning these immeasurable things into literary defecation. Love, for instance, has been constant subject among writers and philosophers for eons. Everyone from E.L James to Plato has written on love and attempted to explore it with language. In Plato’s Symposium, love is discussed
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Love is just one of those things that can’t be explained. Since scientists truly can’t find out the meaning of it or why it happens, it allows authors like D.H. Lawrence to create intense and dramatic scenes that keep the reader on the edge of their seat. In this story, Lawrence’s character Mabel finds love at a time where she least expects it. Mabel was one of two girls in a family of five children. Her brothers, all of which were older than her, didn’t think much of Mabel and really didn’t have too much respect for her. When she was fourteen, her mother had passed away, which left Mabel heartbroken and depressed. Her father, whom she had loved very much, remarried to another women and left Mabel with the feeling of insecurity. He also eventually passed away leaving the family in debt. It was all of these events that lead to her deep depression, whi...
Chrysanthemum is a flower that’s symbolizes grief and lamentation in East Asia, and a flower only utilized during funeral services in many European countries to signify death. However, in the United States it has a positive meaning associated with truth and cheerfulness. I used the double meaning this flower holds to describe the death of Andrew’s child victims, specifically Tran, since they were often young, pure children. The last line of the poem again links to Andrew’s power and his ability to survive, which we discussed in class as well. Throughout the novel we are taken through the eyes of Andrew, as he “kills” himself to escape prison and has unprotected sex during multiple occasions. Although most characters end in death or with HIV/AIDS, Andrew appears to be the all-knowing human being who plays with fire, but never gets
There exists no power as inexplicable as that of love. Love cannot be described in a traditional fashion; it is something that must be experienced in order for one to truly grasp its full enormity. It is the one emotion that can lead human beings to perform acts they are not usually capable of and to make sacrifices with no thought of the outcome or repercussions. Though love is full of unanswered questions and indescribable emotions, one of the most mystifying aspects of love is its timeless nature. Love is the one emotion, unlike superficial sentiments such as lust or jealousy, which can survive for years, or even generations. In the novel The Gargoyle, the author, Andrew Davidson, explores the idea of eternal love between two people, a union that spans over centuries spent both together and apart. Davidson, through the use of flashbacks, intricate plot development and foreshadowing, and dynamic characterization, creates a story that challenges the reader’s preconceived notions regarding whether eternal love can survive even when time’s inevitable grasp separates the individuals in question.
The novel would not have been what it is if it wasn’t for the language. It is concise, but shows a strong command of tone over the course of less than 150 pages, creating a sharp, hauntingly brief coming-of-age tale. Torres uses a passionate and energized tone with blatant crude brutality that express his deep dark stories in a whim of realism. The title of the book is a metaphor in itself, giving away a crude sense to the readers and the following content is composed as a series of brief chapters moving chronologically through a span of more than half-a-dozen years. The chapters are each self-contained short stories, described in simple language that often rises to an enjoyable lyricism: Paps teaching his wife and youngest boy to swim by abandoning them in deep water; Ma receding into catatonic despair when her husband disappears for a few days; the family making a hysterical attempt at escape when Ma shoves the boys into ...
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