Sleep-over by Bonnie Jo Campbell is more than the usual teenager maturity story; between the lines, and behind the symbolism there is an underlying meaning. I believe the author is speaking from experience when telling this story. This story may be the authors depiction of the event of how she remembers it. From the title to the last sentence, Campbell expresses literary devices, natural languages, and involves her personal life into the story making it more than a teenage tale.
Bonnie Jo Campbell titled the short story with a hyphen in the word, Sleep-over. This was the first use of literary devices, foreshadowing. Normally the word is spelled without the use of a hyphen. By definition, hyphens are used to connect, or separate words. In this case, I believe Campbell used the conjoined meaning of the hyphen. The conjoining of the words, sleep and over, signifying that no sleep will be done, which supported by the text when pammy falls asleep, but the narrator is still awake. Campbell uses the literary device of symbolism plenty in this story. In writing authors use symbols for meaning, but also for emotions in the topic(Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia). Vanity, can be shown in this text, as in most, by comparing oneself to another character in terms of beauty (Greenfield Web). In Sleep-over the narrator compares her chest to that of Pammy’s being that hers is smaller. The author starts her symbolism with this comparison, and moves on to the parts of the body. She lists in order: mouth, throat, collarbone, pelvis, and tongue. The mouth and throat are used for the fundamentals of interaction of other beings. Bone in general often signifies eternity because they are the last part of the human body after death. As for the tongue...
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.... Web. http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=2e36cbfd-f496-4ee5-be9a-8b953318bd82%40sessionmgr198&vid=2&hid=128 Portas, Allison. "Dictionary of Symbolism." Ed. Eric Jaffe. University of Michigan: Fantasy and
Science Fiction. Webcrawler, 1997. Web. 19 Feb. 2014. http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/symbolismproject/symbolism.html/index.html Simley, Jane. "Bonnie Jo Campbell's Rural Michigan Gothic." Sunday Book Review. The New York Times Co., 22 July 2011. Web. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/books/review/once-upon-a-river-by-bonnie-jo-campbell-book-review.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1& "Symbol." Columbia Electriconic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition. (2013): 1. Literary Reference Center. Web.
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American Gothic and Rural Rehabilitation Client have similar focal points, a stern man and hardened woman posing in front of their home. Though both seem to have dressed in their best apparel, it is apparent that the two couples do not have access to equal resources. The man and...
With the scene of Nebraska prairie where the fresh, tender, wind blowing over the green fields; dew falls down from the leaves with the first golden ray of summer sunshine, children smiling under the blue sky as the wind tickling their face, I’m brought back to the old time that Jim Burden and his friends has spent in their childhood together. Willa Cather, the author of My Ántonia, makes this novel nostalgic because it reminisces the childhood life bound with different characters, life and the picture the midwest landscape.
Mighall, Dr. Robert. A Geography of Victorian Gothic Fiction: Mapping History’s Nightmares. Oxford University Press, 1999. 166-209.
Co-sleeping is an issue that is vital on different traditional and cultural influences. Due to modifications in socio-economic status, social ethics and values, there are variations of cultures amongst countries and regions viewing on co-sleeping (Huang & Wang, pg. 170). For example, in the United Kingdom, United States, Germany and several other industrialized countries, the predominant medical belief is that co-sleeping is to be depressed and discouraged, despite the lack of research that can validate and establish that co-sleeping is mostly dangerous, unsafe, and hazardous (Huang & Wang, pg. 170).
In Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” he portrays America’s dark age and the values its citizens evoke. During the Great, Depression Americans went back to their roots and focused on on the importance of home, work, and church to get through the tough time for the nation. Grant Wood illustrates this with details. The man portrays work, his faded overalls and strong hands grasping the pitchfork solidify his role. Mr. Wood purposely painted the red barn on his right side to continue to cement this idea. His overalls echo the design of the pitchfork directly connecting him to farm work. The woman is the home. She cares both for the house and the man. Being the caretaker is not easy, her stray hair fallen from her hard work. She does work hard but
Southern literature, specifically southern Gothic literature, is distinct with its perceptions and observations on the American South. Death, mental illness, and oppression are just some of the common themes found in Southern Gothic literature, making it quite different from other American literary texts. Two celebrated authors, Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner, put the themes of the Gothic South to great use. Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find, which tells about the quietus of a Southern family at the hands of a killer, and William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, an elderly woman found to have her lover’s body rotting in the bedroom, are both commendable examples and show the antiquated views on southern culture and expectations. A Good Man Is Hard to Find and A Rose for Emily share many views on the brainwashed mindsets of the south, southern archetypes, and morbid outcomes.
Colburn, Steven E. Anne Sexton: Telling the Tale. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 1988.
The feeling of my blade against the ice was bewitching. The rocky texture of the ice against the smooth blade of my skate dance together almost rhythmly. The freezing cold temperature of the ice rink brought frost bite to my bundled up body, the mixture of hot and cold sent my body into over drive as I tried to nail a perfect triple axel and failed miserably. Not wanting to accept defeat I got up and twirled again and missed; again I screamed at myself, now was not the time for mistakes. Pushing myself up I got in position, I raced around the rink trying to build up speed but instead I was slapped in the face with the slush my blade had created. I glided toward the end of the rink and lifted myself up as if I was a bird who just learn to spread her wing and fly. I landed on the tip of my toes and twirled then jump and jumped again. When I got down from my high I saw the mark of a perfect triple axel printed into the ice. A heavenly gasp left my lips as my brain came to accept the fact that I did it, I made a triple axel. The sound of sarcastic clapping brought ...
Shannon heard her stepfather coming up the stairs and quickly raced for the closet where she had already prepared her hiding place. Huddled under a pile of clothing, she listened as he came closer. He stopped as he entered the room and she knew he would be surprised to find her bed empty. He must be trying to figure out where to look next. Her heart pounded so hard she thought he must surely be able to hear it and she scarcely breathed as he stopped outside the closet door. Opening it slowly he looked inside but seemed unable to see her as he closed it and walked into another room. He called her name but she lay motionless until she heard him on the stairs. After a few more drinks he would pass out in front of the TV but afraid he might come back, she waited until she heard her mother come home from work. She slowly and quietly opened the closet door and tiptoed back to bed. Sleep did not come.
In James Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, Cora Munro is marginalized and forced to endure the violence that ensues from masculine struggles, while in Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, Katrina Von Tassel is reduced to being a mere commodity and means for Ichabond Crane to obtain success and wealth. Cora Munro and Katrina Von Tassel however, redefine their own roles in the American frontier by challenging conventional gender roles and expectations. Cora is characterized as being courageous in the face of danger, independent, and intelligent, which is a stark contrast with her sister, Alice, who is described as having a dependency that is akin
Tate, Allen. “A Southern Mode of the Imagination.” In Essays of Four Decades. Chicago: Swallow Press, 1968; (Third Edition) Wilmington, De: ISI Press, 1999.
I prop myself up on one elbow. There’s enough light in the bedroom to see them. My little sister, Prim, curled up on her side, cocooned in my mother’s body, their cheeks pressed together. In sleep, my mother looks younger, still worn but not so beaten-down. (Collins, 2008, p. 6)
When one looks for the elements such as the old, dusty castle, the mystery or intrigue, a domineering male, and clashing time periods, one will find these in abundance. As Louis Palmer notes, “By appropriating the Gothic, Faulkner attempted to write about the American South by way of an exotic genre” (Palmer, 122). After careful consideration of several of the motifs that make up the genre of Gothic stories, we find that Faulkner has indeed created a modern version of the particular genre.
To begin, when I recorded my sleep it was obvious that there was no pattern, no habits and that I have been sleeping very inconsistent. Sleep is like anything in life, it needs a routine. This is the reason that when I recorded how I felt for that day most of the time it was not refreshed. In college it is hard to set a bedtime and to wake up the same time every day, but one of the main things that I noticed while recording my sleep is that I went to bed at different times every night and woke up at different times every morning. From this information I concluded that my body was not in a rhythm and this is one of the main reasons for not being refreshed. Another thing that I do not do is take naps. It sounds silly to say that naps are needed,
When she entered her bedroom, and her back hit the wonderful soft bed, she mentally groaned. Why couldn’t she just stay in her bed all day long? She learned from this whole experience that you have to be careful with everybody. Be careful with what you say and or think. She did let out a noise the emitted from her throat. Which was a laugh. Her 3 children, 2 girls and a boy older than the 2 girls jumped on the bed. Craving for their mothers attention. After all that happened throughout the whole day, it wouldn’t hurt to give them a little attention? So that’s how her day began and