The story of Summer, by David Updike, is set during that idyllic time in life when responsibility is the last word on anyone's mind. And yet, as with all human affairs, responsibility is an ever-present and ever-necessary aspect to life. What happens when the protagonist, Homer, loses his awareness of a certain personal responsibility to maintain self-control? Homer's actions increasingly make him act foolishly, internally and externally. Also, how does Homer return to a sense of sanity and responsibility? To a degree, I would say that he does.
At first, Homer's control over himself seems strong; he is only mildly aware of tempting situations. The reader begins to notice, however, that Homer's mind is still easily swayed by that most primitive of urges - sexual desire. The passage, "Homer looked up. Through the screen he watched Fred's sister Sandra as she came ambling down the path, stepping lightly between the stones in her bare feet," (293) is the first mild manifestation of Homer giving in to a loss of control to his sensual appetite.
The next case of Homer's decreasing ability to control himself takes place on a tennis court. Throughout the game, the reader gets the impression that Homer was trying to get Sandra's attention through talented athletics, "On the tennis court she was strangely indifferent to his heroics." (293) Towards the end of the tennis match, Homer's eyes, once again, follow her as she is leaving, which leads him to double fault. This is the first time his decreasing self-control manifests itself in a somewhat harmful manner: namely, having hurt his score.
Homer comes even closer to abandoning self-control during the night when he watches Sandra in bed. Homer's decreasing self-control is beginning t...
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...e of sanity and self-control. Given the chance to show Sandra his affectionate lust, Homer withdrew his chance as one reads in the passage, "But to touch her, or kiss her, seemed suddenly incongruous, absurd, contrary to something he could not put his finger on." (296) Here Homer is becoming quite aware of the insanity which has driven his previous actions.
Finally, Homer's inner turmoil is laid to rest and his sanity fully returns as his affection is returned. At the very end of the story, as Homer and Sandra are sitting on a couch together, her foot comes into contact with Homer's back. "But to Homer's surprise Sandra's foot remained, and he felt, in the faint sensation of exerted pressure, the passive emanation of its warmth, a distant signal of acquiescence." (296) Homer still had a desire for Sandra, but it would not consume him as it had in times before.
One Fat Summer by Robert Lipsyte, is a very good book for teenagers that feel insecure about themselves and have low self-esteem. In the book they will read about a young boy name, Bobby who overcomes his fears of being fat and being bullied by Willie, one that is much stronger then him physically, but not emotionally. The basic theme of this story is to stand up for yourself no matter the situation.
Homer, The Odyssey, The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, ed. Maynard Mack, Expanded Edition, (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995), pp. 219-503.
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. R. Fitzgerald. Bedford Anthology of World Literature Book. Ed. Davis, Paul et al. Vol. 1. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s. 2004. 487-579. Print.
Homer is the star of the show, set out to be the typical father, husband, and a depiction of today’s “everyman” (Source 1). His character can be seen as a doubled sided coin where he can be the best father in the world and the next the worst parent in the world. We can see Homer as our own gluttony, since he hungers for all the things he can’t have which leads him to plot devious adventures and schemes to get what he wants
This chapter of All Things Shining starts off with telling the story of the beautiful Helen of Troy leaving her husband and son to run away with the irresistible Paris. The story explains that she is compelled to do this by the goddess of love, Aphrodite. Welcoming her back with open arms, Menelaus knows that she was only following the goddesses’ directions and realized it wasn’t her fault, but Aphrodite’s. When Helen announces her fault of actions no one at the dinner party seems to be amused, but Homer’s feelings for his wife seem to be decreased. Later in the text we find out that Homer’s definition of a god is “a mood that attunes us to what matters most in a situation, allowing us to respond appropriately without thinking,” which explains why Homers’ reaction was’t as elaborate as we thought it would be. The Greeks counted on the gods to set their moods and to show them what matters most in situations.
Steiner, George, and Fagles, Robert, eds. Homer: A Collection of Critical Essays. Twentieth Century Views, ed. Maynard Mack. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall, 1962.
Provide significant details about the author (120-1): Homer was thought to be part of a traveling group of professional storytellers. They do say that he might have been blind, but this could be a metaphor.
Homer. ?The Odyssey,? World Masterpieces: Expanded Edition. Maynard Mack ed. Ed. Coptic St.: Prentice, 1995.
Homer. “The Odyssey”. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puncher. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. 475. Print.
In order to achieve this, the characters in the Penelopiad, particularly Penelope, are given “new outlook and voice” through the influence of contemporary attitudes (Irshad & Banerji 35). As such, Atwood is able to subvert the masculine focus while working within the Homeric source material. This includes frequent inclusion of asides in the text. Penelope, and the Twelve Maids, can then express their feelings, hidden in the original, in “imaginary space outside cultural constraints” (Khalid & Tabassum 19). This allows for women in Homeric culture to be finally “heard” as well as seen in the narrative (Nunes 238). As a result, the conventional faithful wife is replaced with a “woman with conflicting desires and impulses” (Neethling 127). This can be considered a challenge of one of the major cultural values of the text. Penelope’s fidelity allows her to become the “epic archetype of marital excellence” in the Odyssey (Skinner 47). Atwood challenges the foundation of this idea through deeper exploration of Penelope’s psyche. Homer must use “metaphor, simile, speech, and epithet” to construct Penelope, while Atwood can utilise “interior monologues” and “introspection” (Neethling 126). Due to this, Atwood’s Penelope can reject the idea that a woman can fully adhere to this expectation. Through narrative perspective, Atwood challenges the idea of the ever-faithful wife without any change in the plot of the
...eeds to come to terms with his self-created "sin," not just make up for it. Similarly, Mrs. Sandy spends so much energy worrying about the consequences of sin that she never really explores the definition of it.
Homer sees Sandra as more than friends, but does not know if he should express his feelings, which then leads him to lose an opportunity to take Sandra and his relationship to the next level. In Summer Homer notices Sandra, “ambling down the path, stepping lightly between the stones in her bare feet…” (164). As a young male, Homer noticing the little things that Sandra is doing, shows that she is not just a friend. Males usually do not pay attention to the little things that females do. If a male and female are just friends they usually just hang out and the male never looks beyond what is right in front of him. They don’t see the type of lipstick a female wears or if they went to get a new haircut, but Homer notices. He noticed that, “she
In the short story “Searching for Summer” by Joan Aiken, readers are given many times in which they are able to understand the character’s attitudes and motives through their actions. Aiken uses a lot of indirect characterization when trying to tell her audience who Tom, Lily and Mr. Noakes are. In other words, Aiken’s does not say “Mr. Noakes is a bad person”, but through his actions readers can understand that he is. Furthermore, Tom and Lily live in a world where a blue sky and sunlight is just as unusual as “ the grass [being] pink” ( ). Due to this dilemma, Tom and Lily both wanted to find the sun for good luck. Through their journey, they meet Mr. Noakes, the antagonist, who deliberately tries to tell them that he would turn a land
Homer is said to have been blind and told his stories orally. Because the facts of Homer’s life when he was born or died, where he lived, who he was- remain unknown and shall most likely never be known. Many scholars have doubted the existence of a “Homer” and point to his texts as the work of a collection of authors over a long period of time.
“Ring, Ring!” the school bell dismissed the students as a herd of kids sprint down the stairs like a stampede of wild animals. As Summer and her best friend Riley make their way through the staircase they begin discussing what to do for Summer’s poster as a runner for class President.