Essay #2 Have you ever experienced a day where nothing goes right? The story “A&P” written by John Updike is one of a teenage boy named Sammy who quits his job in hope of impressing some girls --- only to find they neither cared nor listened. “Miss Brill” written by Katherine Mansfield is a story about an elderly woman named Miss Brill who goes to the park to observe people; her evening is ruined when some kids make fun of the way she 's dressed. Miss Brill and Sammy started their day motivated, as the stories went on their moods shifted because their actions were affected by other people 's opinions. But sad endings don 't always have to be sad, there 's a lot a reader can learn from them. Sad endings are more memorable than other endings because there is a feeling of uneasiness left for the reader. It is also more realistic that people don’t have a perfect day or the hero gets what they wanted. Updike and Mansfield use sad endings to further the theme of disappointment. ”On her way home she usually bought a slice of honey cake at the baker’s. It was her Sunday treat. But today she passed the baker’s boy, climbed the stairs, went into the little dark room -- her room like a cupboard --- and sat down on the red eiderdown”(103). As you can see the impact of what the young teens …show more content…
The idea that the guy gets the girl in the end is something that people have trouble relating to because people struggle daily to get what they want and they usually want to see that happen to someone else so they know they aren 't the only one. Although it would be cool to see Sammy get the girls and be the hero in the end, it 's not something that would happen in real life. If anything the girls might say thank you awkwardly. Other than that it still would be awkward because he doesn 't even know them and they could even have taken it as creepy. Disappointment is a much more believable
In conclusion, the story describes that life changes, and nothing stays the same throughout it. It is in the hands of the people to decide that how they want their life to be. They can make it as beautiful as they want to and they can also make it worse than it has ever been
After a long day of hard labor, Emily would gather her three children from Pete’s tent, and would march them to the boxcar outside of the carnival gates, which served as their home. Seldomly, after a long day of work, Emily would sometimes come and stand beside the piano Josh played, and listen to Josh’s music. Most of the times, Emily would smile and say nothing, but one particular night, Emily leaned forward and whispered to Josh, “You have a gift. Don’t let these hard times make you lose sight of it.” These encouraging words reassured Josh, a reassurance he desperately needed.The first couple of weeks working at the carnival, Josh slept restlessly. After Lonnie
The ending of the novel was inspiring. The author suggests the reader to look into great novels, and even supplies a list of novels a personally suggests. He ended with a very ...
Under the orders of her husband, the narrator is moved to a house far from society in the country, where she is locked into an upstairs room. This environment serves not as an inspiration for mental health, but as an element of repression. The locked door and barred windows serve to physically restrain her: “the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.” The narrator is affected not only by the physical restraints but also by being exposed to the room’s yellow wallpaper which is dreadful and fosters only negative creativity. “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.”
The critics who perceived this book's central theme to be teen-age angst miss the deep underlying theme of grief and bereavement. Ambrosio asks the question, "Is silence for a writer tantamount to suicide? Why does the wr...
Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby makes the reader feel almost depressed. Fitzgerald describes things that are usually viewed as pleasant and beautiful in dull, grim ways. The story line itself is grim, and Fitzgerald truly conveys that through his descriptions, which set the tone of futility. When reading the book, one understands right away that the story isn’t going to be a happy one. A description of Tom Buc...
Bad choices are made every day by everybody. Those bad choices could lead to consequences that are going to bother a person for a long time. Even more, that person may try various ways to correct that error. The intention is good, but things can go even worse if the effort is based on unrealistic fantasies. This effort is presented as a part of modernist ideas. Modernist writers dramatize this effort through the tragic outcomes of the characters. Three modernist pieces, A Street Car Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, The Great Gatsby, all of them sent out a message to the audience, the loss of past and how it cannot be recovered. Each piece features a character who lost hope, strived to recover the hope, and ended with a tragic outcome. A Street Car Named Desire featured Blanche; Blanche spent her whole life trying to get some attentions. Death of a Salesman featured Willy; Willy spent his whole life trying to apply the idea “Be Well Liked.” The Great Gatsby featured Jay Gatsby; Gatsby spent his whole life trying to win back Daisy. All of those characters ended with tragic outcome. Blanche was sent to asylum by her own sister. Willy committed suicide after felt humiliated by his sons. Gatsby was murdered with a gunshot planned by Tom Buchanan. Blanche, Willy, and Gatsby’s tragic fates are caused by their false beliefs about life, which are proven wrong by the contradictions between the reality and the illusion.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Diary of a Young Girl.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2003. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.
...’ family is in deep alcoholism, depriving children the benefits of a proper upbringing. The Johnsons are also chaotic and tyrannical. Jimmie and his ilk of brawling youths epitomize the violence that rocked the society. In the middle of this violence is pursuit of vanity. Children are fighting viciously to establish the superior one. Adults are watching on indifferently. Maggie gets into prostitution because of pursuing an elegant life. She lacks appreciation of her beauty and persona. In the end, the question to ponder is whether human beings have the capacity to make personal choices in midst of immense social circumstances. Regrettably, Johnsons share the blame for the kind of person that their children turned out. The society too has remained passive in the midst of great social trepidation. Maggie and Jimmie share the blame for pursuit of vainglorious vanity.
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)
During the process of growing up, we are taught to believe that life is relatively colorful and rich; however, if this view is right, how can we explain why literature illustrates the negative and painful feeling of life? Thus, sorrow is inescapable; as it increase one cannot hide it. From the moment we are born into the world, people suffer from different kinds of sorrow. Even though we believe there are so many happy things around us, these things are heartbreaking. The poems “Tips from My Father” by Carol Ann Davis, “Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith, and “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop convey the sorrow about growing up, about sorrowful pretending, and even about life itself.
It is commonly believed that the only way to overcome difficult situations is by taking initiative in making a positive change, although this is not always the case. The theme of the memoir the Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is that the changes made in children’s lives when living under desperate circumstances do not always yield positive results. In the book, Jeannette desperately tries to improve her life and her family’s life as a child, but she is unable to do so despite her best efforts. This theme is portrayed through three significant literary devices in the book: irony, symbolism and allusion.
Last but not least, O’Connor confirms that even a short story is a multi-layer compound that on the surface may deter even the most enthusiastic reader, but when handled with more care, it conveys universal truths by means of straightforward or violent situations. She herself wished her message to appeal to the readers who, if careful enough, “(…)will come to see it as something more than an account of a family murdered on the way to Florida.”
Grief played a large role in the lives of the Boatwright sisters and Lily Owens. They each encountered death, injustice, and sadness. Grief impacted and left an imprint on each of them. Grief proved fatal for May. August knew that grief was just another aspect of life; that it had to be accepted and then left in the past. June and Lily learned to not let grief rule their lives. Life is not inherently good or bad – events not solely joyful or grievous – it is glorious in its perfect imperfection.
Edgar Allan Poe once said, “The boundaries which divide Life and Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends and the other begins?”(1). Death and its effects, as well as the mechanics of writing, are depicted in many of Atwood’s works, deeply influenced by her passion for Edgar Allan Poe’s works in literature. Death for Atwood in “Happy Endings” is not simply another macabre literary experiment. Atwood demonstrates that through death, beginnings and endings share a meaning that is one and the same and it resonates throughout the structure, narrative, reader interpretation, and overall tone of this piece of