But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Sole. For as they walk through the cobblestone streets, they whisper their goodbye to the great gardens and the uniform but inviting homes. There are no mansions or palaces because, to the people of Sole, all who dwell there live in mansions. The city itself, a palace. They enter the grand courtyard and slowly pass the fruit trees with the golden leaves shimmering in the moist breeze. The voice of wind blows in from the ocean on the Eastern shore of the city. Pacified by the slumber of the city they approach the perimeter of Sole, hesitant and unsure of what is beyond the walls of coloured rock. Vines curl around the base and climb the walls in a spidery fashion, weaving their green tapestry like a time-line accented with flowers that mirror the colour of the night sky.
Similar in hue to those flowers but not speckled white, was the Great Gate of Sole. Soaring high above the wall and arched majestically, the Gate stood closed as if to mark the end of the promised land and the beginning of some place where milk and honey no longer flowed freely. It was not erected for the purpose of war or destruction, hate or segregation. The Gate was built to hide those who lie in their death bed without a visitor, one teetering step away from vanishing into the dark; to hide pain and tragedy was it's purpose. Those who lived there knew the price that must be paid to keep their city free from wretchedness but they were also wise to the fact that they could not remove all wretchedness from the world. The wall of Sole is there to serve as a backdrop in place of the bleak landscape that lies beyond, not a wall to keep things out but to enshrine that which was within. And ...
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... ferociousness. Somewhere in the distance I can hear the murder replying with blood thirsty caws. I chose to settle here for the night, deciding that a destination doesn't have to be where you end up but where you've come. With that in mind, I drift slowly into a calm, dreamless sleep. Waking up, I set out again, rejoining the road with a happiness usually reserved for an old friend. Forging on, the sun set in the distance in a glorious firework display of oranges, reds, and purples. A canopy of stars decorated the night sky and the moon shone brightly, almost happily. As I stared down the beaten road, I saw for just one moment the tunnel of black stretching on for eternity. It was then that I realized that I was at my destination, I had found my calling. There is nothing known about where I travel but I faithfully march onwards, bound to walk the road into the dark.
The night was tempestuous and my emotions were subtle, like the flame upon a torch. They blew out at the same time that my sense of tranquility dispersed, as if the winds had simply come and gone. The shrill scream of a young girl ricocheted off the walls and for a few brief seconds, it was the only sound that I could hear. It was then that the waves of turmoil commenced to crash upon me. It seemed as though every last one of my senses were succumbed to disperse from my reach completely. As everything blurred, I could just barely make out the slam of a door from somewhere alongside me and soon, the only thing that was left in its place was an ominous silence.
Not only were the streets not paved in gold, but immigrants were often required to pave the roads themselves. Long after the island closed, workmen found an inscription on the wall written by an immigrant. “Why should I fear the fires of Hell?” I read. “I’ve been to Ellis Island.”..
Soledad in Spanish means more than our word "solitude," although it means that too. It suggests loneliness, the sense of being apart from others. Although ultimately each human being is alone, because there are parts of our experience we cannot share, some people are more solitary than others. The really solitary figures in this novel are those who deliberately cut themselves off from other humans. They are contrasted with characters who combat their solitude, by making strenuous efforts to reach out to others.
The novel, Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, is literally about Marlow’s journey into the Belgian Congo, but symbolically about the discovery of his heart and soul during his journey, only to find that it is consumed by darkness. He realizes that the man he admired and respected most, is really demonic and that he may be just like him. He is able to come to this realization however, before it takes the best of him.
is an exposure of Belgian methods in the Congo, which at least for a good
Whether God exists or not, the importance of God in a human life, the values of religions... have been a controversial and abstract enigma of man’s spiritual life. On the way to find the truth, many people seem to lose their initial purpose as well as their beliefs. Throughout his Christian novel, This Present Darkness, Frank E. Peretti calls attention, mostly from the Christians, to the importance of prayer and faith in God in a Christian’s life.
As I inched my way toward the cliff, my legs were shaking uncontrollably. I could feel the coldness of the rock beneath my feet when my toes curled around the edge in one last futile attempt at survival. My heart was racing like a trapped bird, desperate to escape. Gazing down the sheer drop, I nearly fainted; my entire life flashed before my eyes. I could hear stones breaking free and fiercely tumbling down the hillside, plummeting into the dark abyss of the forbidding black water. The trees began to rapidly close in around me in a suffocating clench, and the piercing screams from my friends did little to ease the pain. The cool breeze felt like needles upon my bare skin, leaving a trail of goose bumps. The threatening mountains surrounding me seemed to grow more sinister with each passing moment, I felt myself fighting for air. The hot summer sun began to blacken while misty clouds loomed overhead. Trembling with anxiety, I shut my eyes, murmuring one last pathetic prayer. I gathered my last breath, hoping it would last a lifetime, took a step back and plun...
When building walls, or choosing not to, personal experiences and knowledge should always be taken into consideration. In order to decipher when it’s appropriate to put up walls and when it is not, we must give ourselves time to not only think but to absorb what has occurred. Walls are put up for all different types of reasons. In some cases, they are necessary and in others, they tend to not make much sense. In Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall,” the wall built between the two properties makes complete sense to the neighbor, but to the narrator it is unreasonable and hard to decipher.
In "Darkness at Noon", Harold Krents vividly describes some of the everyday prejudices disabled citizens must face. Presented in an often humorous fashion, the author opens the reader’s eyes to the cruel ironies of society’s preconceived and inaccurate judgments, and their long reaching effects on his life.
The city and the monastery exist as two different entities with no way of knowing how the other operates. This is enforced by the large distance between the two and the barren land that separates them. “To reach the monastery from it, meant a journey of over seventy miles across the desert.” “It” being the city. To further underline: “Only men who despised life, who had renounced it, and who came to the monastery as to the grave, ventured to cross the desert.” This is meant to symbolize that the monastery and the city are completely independent of one another. Any idea or theory of how the city is, is determined purely by the imagination of the monks in the monastery. The same goes for the inhabitants of the city and what they know of the monastery. The physical setting of the story therefore shows a separation between city and monastery and city. There is then a symbolic separation between the c...
The silver moon suspends in the velvet sky, glowing dimly. Moonlight travels through the yellowish leaves and sheds on the land. I see the obscure, indistinct shadows of the trees are swaying on the floor letting me have the illusion of thousands of devils dancing slyly in the night, planning some evil trick. The hazy mist surrounds the street making it more mysterious and attractive, and the bright...
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Long Day's Journey into Night.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 6 Jan. 2014. .
Walking, there is no end in sight: stranded on a narrow country road for all eternity. It is almost dark now. The clouds having moved in secretively. When did that happen? I am so far away from all that is familiar. The trees are groaning against the wind’s fury: when did the wind start blowing? Have I been walking for so long that time hysterically slipped away! The leaves are rustling about swirling through the air like discarded post-it notes smashing, slapping against the trees and blacktop, “splat-snap”. Where did the sun go? It gave the impression only an instant ago, or had it been longer; that it was going to be a still and peaceful sunny day; has panic from hunger and walking so long finally crept in? Waking up this morning, had I been warned of the impending day, the highs and lows that I would soon face, and the unexpected twist of fate that awaited me, I would have stayed in bed.
I looked up at the black sky. I hadn't intended to be out this late. The sun had set, and the empty road ahead had no streetlights. I knew I was in for a dark journey home. I had decided that by traveling through the forest would be the quickest way home. Minutes passed, yet it seemed like hours and days. The farther I traveled into the forest, the darker it seemed to get. I was very had to even take a breath due to the stifling air. The only sound familiar to me was the quickening beat of my own heart, which felt as though it was about to come through my chest. I began to whistled to take my mind off the eerie noises I was hearing. In this kind of darkness I was in, it was hard for me to believe that I could be seeing these long finger shaped shadows that stretched out to me. I had this gut feeling as though something was following me, but I assured myself that I was the only one in the forest. At least I had hoped that I was.
feels like a jacket. I slide it up to my neck. I feel fabric: it's a