Dubliners, The Sisters
How is ‘The Sisters’ an ideal story with which to open ‘Dubliners’?
How is it less than ideal?
James Joyce sets all his work in the Dublin city. Dublin itself is
almost like a character in these stories; due to the great use of
slang, “there was something uncanny about him” and “while my aunt was
ladling”. ‘The Sisters’ along with the next two stories are taken from
Joyce’s personal memories. In the first three stories Joyce emphasises
on certain themes, in which the stories deal with childhood, the
central character is ‘I’, who is also the narrator of the stories (he
tells the story). However the ‘I’ is an important factor in Dubliners
as the forth story changes to ‘she’. The ‘I’ talks about significant
experiences in his childhood.
The first story is an ideal opening in ‘Dubliners’. ‘The Sisters’
deals with death, clearly Joyce’s intention of creating such
‘darkness’ and ‘sadness’ in the opening of this novel is to transmit
the experience of the reader to somebody else; the revealing truth of
life and death. However the emphasis is not so much on the plot but on
moments in time, that have impact and significance, and the thoughts
and feelings of the central character and little observations of human
behaviour. One of the reoccurring themes in this story is the way the
dead affect the living. For example, in ‘The Sisters’ what the dead
person may have said or thought or done continues to effect the
central character long after the person has gone.
‘The Sisters’ is about a young boy who has an experience in death of a
close friend; the priest. The plot revolves around his struggle to
deal with the death of an important figure whom he looks up to and
cherishes. The narrator admits he was uncomfortable around father
Flynn but Joyce never tells us the whole story, he only gives us
enough information to know that father Flynn is a malicious figure.
When analysing ‘The Sisters’ Joyce picks upon various languages and
themes; for example, the role of music, the themes of darkness and
death , and the use of contrast; ‘Persia’ meaning romance, something
beautiful contrasted to ‘the catacombs’, galleries with tombs.
Paralysis is a major theme in this first story. Many of the characters
are emotionally paralysed. The priest in ‘The Sisters’ has a stroke
and is physically paralysed. Joyce makes this as a symbol of
emotionalised paralysis of other characters. This paralysis is caused
by a combination of factors such as drink, poverty, the church etc.
When the priest goes mad in ‘The Sisters’, it is because he lost
Two young boys Andrej and Tomas are forced to live their life traveling from town to town scavenging for things to keep them alive whilst caring for their baby sister Wilma after soldiers tore them away from their family. Experiencing their family being ripped apart and loved ones murdered before their eyes the boys are left questioning what did they do to deserve this? The boys have learned to live
All siblings are cruel to one another in many different ways; but the story written by James Hurst called "The Scarlet Ibis" takes the idea to a whole new level.
The poignant novel, Crow Lake, is written by Canadian author, Mary Lawson. The novel is narrated by Kate Morrison, who is the second child in the Morrison family. Seven-year-old Kate, her one and half year old sister, Bo, and her two older brothers Luke and Matt, are left orphans after their parents die in a car accident. Kate Morrison shares her past and present interactions with her siblings, as she is now an adult. From the beginning of the novel, the author illustrates that there will be conflict in Kate and Matt’s relationship, since in the prologue, Kate says, “what took place between Matt and me can’t be explained.” (Pg. 3) The novel shows that siblings are closer with each other when they are younger. Also, breakdowns of previous relationships affect new relationships that appear in people’s lives. Finally, the novel shows that when
Since Sister was affected the most by certain actions of the family, Welty narrated this short story through Sister’s point of view to show how the function of the family declined through these actions. Sister was greatly affected when her sister broke the bonds of sisterhood by stealing her boyfriend and marrying him. Secondly, Sister was affected by the favoritism shown by her family towards her younger sister. Since her sister was favored more than her, this caused her to be jealous of her sister. For example, Sister shows a lot of jealousy by the tone she uses when describing what Stella-Rondo did with the bracelet that their grandfather gave her. Sister’s description was, “She’d always had anything in the world she wanted and then she’d throw it away. Papa-Daddy gave her this gorgeous Add-a-Pearl necklace when sh...
His sister is a typical sixteen-year-old. She constantly fights with her parents, rebels against everything and practises self-mutilation- “Real careful she takes the smoke out of her mouth and looks at the hot end and put it in one of her tits and shivers”- (ok, maybe that last part isn’t typical but she is a teenager living in the bush with nowhere to go and no chance to have friends or get out of the bush so I, as a teenager, can justify why she would do something like that).
Experiencing a tragedy at a young age causes many problems as that individual grows up. The most common effects are changes in usual behavior, episodes of crying or sadness, and suicidal thoughts. In The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, and The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D Salinger, the death of a close sibling causes two characters to act out and experience these effects.
The novel, The Sisters Brothers, written by Patrick deWitt is the story of two adventurous brothers named Eli and Charlie who travel from Oregon to San Francisco during the gold rush in the 1850s. The brothers are hired to find and kill a man named Hermann Warm. They run into a wide range of tough situations and sketchy characters such a rich businessman named Mayfield who runs his own town. The brothers have two very different characters which affect how they are to react to these situations. Eli is sweet, caring and chivalrous while Charlie is a quiet, angry man who was forced as a child to kill his father to protect his mother. Deep down they are both violent, cold blooded killers. Along their journey to San Francisco, Eli has an internal conflict to decide wether he wants to keep living the killer’s life or settle down and start a shop with his brother. When they arrived in San Francisco, they become exposed to the “gold fever” which was caused by the gold rush. Instead of killing their target they befriend Warm and search the rivers for gold to become rich. Sadly, Warm tragically dies from the chemicals and Charlie is burned and forced to have his hand cut off which leads to the brothers returning home to their mother as changed men.
...pared because of the infidelity and betrayal to their loved ones, and contrasted because of the different emotions that each of the main characters from feeling regretful and very indifferent.
In the early 1900’s, women and African Americans did not have any rights. When standing up for their rights they were sometimes punished for their views. It was also undesirable for women to speak in public. However, that did not stop Sarah and Angelina Grimke, because they believed in their rights and that they could change these social statuses. They were the first prominent female abolitionists. They faced hardships like sexism and traitors because they were both women and against slavery.
While she might think that her plans are working, they only lead her down a path of destruction. She lands in a boarding house, when child services find her, she goes to jail, becomes pregnant by a man who she believed was rich. Also she becomes sentenced to 15 years in prison, over a street fight with a former friend she double crossed. In the end, she is still serving time and was freed by the warden to go to her mother’s funeral. To only discover that her two sisters were adopted by the man she once loved, her sister is with the man who impregnated her, and the younger sister has become just like her. She wants to warn her sister, but she realizes if she is just like her there is no use in giving her advice. She just decides that her sister must figure it out by
Have you ever stood in front of a mirror with tears in your eyes? Have you ever wished you could change something about yourself? Have you ever hated the person staring back at you? If you answered yes to any of these questions, The Cimorelli sisters are here to help. The Cimorelli sisters help everyone who are experiencing tough times in life and act as a social media support system.
Have you ever thought about murdering one of your siblings, or close family members? Brother took it all the way in “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst. Doodle, Brother’s younger sibling, was expected to die since birth; he was a premature child. The family didn’t name him for three months because they were afraid that he was going to die any second. Doodle learned how to talk way before he could walk, forcing the narrator to pull him around in a gocart everywhere he went. Brother became embarrassed of Doodle and taught him to walk. Doodle dies at age six, and Brother is responsible for his death. The narrator is responsible, because he knew about Doodle’s undeveloped organs, and over-worked him. Brother’s only motivation to teach Doodle to run, swim, climb and walk was the fact that he was embarrassed to have a crippled sibling. Finally, he was aware that Doodle was afraid of being alone and left him to die.
At the outset, Atwood gives the reader an exceedingly basic outline of a story with characters John and Mary in plotline A. As we move along to the subsequent plots she adds more detail and depth to the characters and their stories, although she refers back with “If you want a happy ending, try A” (p.327), while alluding that other endings may not be as happy, although possibly not as dull and foreseeable as they were in plot A. Each successive plot is a new telling of the same basic story line; labeled alphabetically A-F; the different plots describe how the character’s lives are lived with all stories ending as they did in A. The stories tell of love gained or of love lost; love given but not reciprocated. The characters experience heartache, suicide, sadness, humiliation, crimes of passion, even happiness; ultimately all ending in death regardless of “the stretch in between”. (p.329)
The coming of age novel, Atonement by Ian McEwan, discusses guilt, forgiveness, and the complicated nature of love through the struggles of growing up. The novel begins in England during World War II, where 13-year-old Briony Tallis is part of a family with dysfunctional dynamics. Her older sister, Cecilia, experiences true love with the family’s gardener, who is the son of their housekeeper, but their relationship is riddled with many obstacles. Most troubling is that Briony naively imagines their intimacy as something more aggressive towards her sister. Her innocence and shielded view of the world causes an unfortunate series of events that tears the family apart and alters the course of the rest of Briony’s life. In Atonement, McEwan demonstrates the maturation of love and how prosperous, yet destructive love can be between lovers and family alike.
father is old, and his sister is very young. As it turns out though, in