A Perfect Day for Bananafish
Picture walking into a hotel room and finding a man dead on a bed. Upon closer inspection it becomes obvious that he has supposedly taken his own life with the gun that lay beside him. In talking to his wife who was asleep on the bed next to him when this incident occurred, it is learned that he just walked in the door and shot himself late the previous night. Out of the many questions that could be asked from this story, I believe that it is probably extremely important to consider why the main character, Seymour Glass, decided to commit suicide.
What I believe to be the reason for Seymour’s suicide has two basic components: the spiritual depravity of the world around him, and his struggle with his own spiritual shortcomings. The spiritual problem of the outside world is mostly a matter of material greed, especially in the west, and materialism. On the other hand, his own spiritual problem is more a matter of intellectual greed and true spiritualism.
In addressing the suicide, the difference should be distinguished between the "See More Glass" that we see through little Sybil’s eyes, and the Seymour Glass that we see through the eyes of the adult world. Even though these two characters are in theory the same man, they are slightly different in some ways. You could also say that they are the same character in different stages of development. Whatever the case may be, the "reasons" for the suicide shift slightly in emphasis as the character changes.
"A Perfect Day for Bananafish" attempts to symbolize that the bananas in
See More Glass’s story represent all of the things which are taken in along the journey to adulthood. If pursued with too much zeal, these bananas can prevent spiritual development and lead to a greater materialistic development. See-More has realized that he cannot get rid of enough bananas to make any further spiritual progress in this life, so, rather than waste time, he commits suicide. This is slightly obvious when he is taking the elevator back
up to his room on the night of the suicide. His fixation upon his feet, which do not resemble the childlike feet that he desires to have, and the woman in the elevator’s scorn towards Seymour’s accusing her of staring at his feet, drive him to dislike the adult world even more.
Brigadier General Charles W. Sweeney was born in Lowell, Mass., in 1919. He graduated from North Quincy High School (Mass.) in 1937. After graduating from high school, he attended evening classes at Boston University and also at Purdue University.
After feeling ostracised by the township, the alienated Brennan family are driven to leave the town of Mumbilli at 4:30am. With hardly any peer support, Tom begins to lose his sense of security, resulting in his transformation into an unconfident teen who is afraid of public opinion. It is no wonder that Tom is unable to move on in his new town as he is being held back in fear of revealing his past. Burke tactfully illustrates Tom’s emotional kaleidoscope through phrases such as “I felt the knot snap” and “my guts landing at my feet” (Burke, pg 172) when reflecting on the accident. On the contrary, with encouragement from family members, Tom begins to step out of his comfort zone and face the future that is to come.
During seventeenth century flogging was a popular punishment for convicted people among Boston's Puritans. Fortunately, those times have passed and brutal and inhuman flogging was replaced by imprisonment. Columnist for the Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby in his essay "Bring back flogging" asserts that flogging is superior to imprisonment and advocates flogging as an excellent means of punishment. He is convinced that flogging of offenders after their first conviction can prevent them from going into professional criminal career and has more educational value than imprisonment. He also argues that being imprisoned is more dangerous than being whipped, because the risk of being beaten, raped, or murdered in prison is terrifying high. Unfortunately, Jeff Jacoby made some faulty assumptions and his article "Bring back flogging" is filled with misconceptions.
the end of the novel when Finny dies, he feels like a part of him dies and that it’s his own funeral
American Psycho is a savage account of a wealthy investment banker in the late 80s that commits heinous acts of murder, rape, and torture. Although on the surface, American Psycho seems as though it is just another horror story, it actually has a much deeper message. This story is a harsh critique of a superficial Wall Street society in the late 80s that was rampant with materialism and greed. This is the society in which the main character Patrick Bateman lives–where appearance, material possessions, and status define a person. This superficial existence leaves him hollow and dead inside and turns him into a psychopathic killer. A society such as this, devoid of any morality, inevitably creates psychopaths such as Bateman. The film shows an excellent portrayal of a vacant, nihilistic killer with no feelings or emotions. However, there is something more to the story that the film did not quite capture. The book seems to not only be a satirical take on this society, but a tragedy as well. Recreating the dinner scene with his secretary Jean shows that underneath the surface Patrick Bateman is, indeed, a human being with real feelings and emotions, and that it is a great tragedy that this superficial society has turned him into a monster.
your good hands." In other words, clap so that the sails of the boats his
When being questioned on the identity of her child’s father, Hester unflinchingly refuses to give him up, shouting “I will not speak!…my child must seek a heavenly Father; she shall never know an earthly one!” (47). Hester takes on the full brunt of adultery, allowing Dimmesdale to continue on with his life and frees him from the public ridicule the magistrates force upon her. She then stands on the scaffold for three hours, subject to the townspeople’s disdain and condescending remarks. However, Hester bears it all “with glazed eyed, and an air of weary indifference.” (48). Hester does not break down and cry, or wail, or beg for forgiveness, or confess who she sinned with; she stands defiantly strong in the face of the harsh Puritan law and answers to her crime. After, when Hester must put the pieces of her life back together, she continues to show her iron backbone and sheer determination by using her marvelous talent with needle work “to supply food for her thriving infant and herself.” (56). Some of her clients relish in making snide remarks and lewd commends towards Hester while she works, yet Hester never gives them the satisfaction of her reaction.
“It was a large, beautiful room, rich and picturesque in the soft, dim light which the maid had turned low. She went and stood at an open window and looked out upon the deep tangle of the garden below. All the mystery and witchery of the night seemed to have gathered there amid the perfumes and the dusky and tortuous outlines of flowers and foliage. She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet half-darkness which met her moods. But the voices were not soothing that came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars. They jeered and sounded mourning notes without promise, devoid even of hope. She turned back into the room and began to walk to and fro, down its whole length, without stopping, without resting. She carried in her hands a thin handkerchief, which she tore into ribbons, rolled into a ball, and flung from her. Once she stopped, and taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet. When she saw it lying there she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it. But her small boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark upon the glittering circlet.
He was a U.S. Navy lieutenant and submariner. He became captain of the Trieste with Jacques Piccard. For two years the Trieste went through modifications and Piccard and Walsh took the Trieste for many dives near San Diego and Guam before the vehicle was ready to dive to the bottom of Challenger
...ttachment or emotion. Again, Heaney repeats the use of a discourse marker, to highlight how vividly he remembers the terrible time “Next morning, I went up into the room”. In contrast to the rest of the poem, Heaney finally writes more personally, beginning with the personal pronoun “I”. He describes his memory with an atmosphere that is soft and peaceful “Snowdrops and Candles soothed the bedside” as opposed to the harsh and angry adjectives previously used such as “stanched” and “crying”. With this, Heaney is becoming more and more intimate with his time alone with his brother’s body, and can finally get peace of mind about the death, but still finding the inevitable sadness one feels with the loss of a loved one “A four foot box, a foot for every year”, indirectly telling the reader how young his brother was, and describing that how unfortunate the death was.
In the first half of “Ghost House”, word choice is used to create a somber, unsettling tone. Even innocent words take on a bleak undertone. Phrases such as “daylight falls” exemplify this with the anxiousness that is evoked with the word “falls.” Even the word “copse” begins to sound like “corpse.” This word play is important in solidifying a foreboding mood.
Focusing first on the Shaolin monastery and how it became the famous Buddhist temple in the world and it’s not because of religion or its art treasures. We find out that neither the contribution to Chinese Buddhist evolution nor the art treasures that have been gathered together in the 15 thousand year history . Even the legends connecting the monastery with the mythic founder of Chan Buddhism/Zen, Bodhidharma, isn’t even the reason for the legend of the Shaolin monastery . A closer look shows us that the Shaolin monastery is famous around the world because of the connection and bond it has with Chinese martial arts .
Punishing the unlawful, undesirable and deviant members of society is an aspect of criminal justice that has experienced a variety of transformations throughout history. Although the concept of retribution has remained a constant (the idea that the law breaker must somehow pay his/her debt to society), the methods used to enforce and achieve that retribution has changed a great deal. The growth and development of society along with an underlying, perpetual fear of crime are heavily linked to the use of vastly different forms of punishment that have ranged from public executions, forced labor, penal welfarism and popular punitivism over the course of only a few hundred years.
Two weeks after her father’s funeral, our protagonist Annie sees his ghost in her bathroom. Knowing he is dead, they small talk about her boyfriend, their farm, their deceased family etc. until he suddenly vanishes. Her father makes occasional appearances after that. They keep talking about everyday life until one night at the Opera House, where she not only sees her father, but her brother and mother as well. Knowing where to find them, she takes her goodbye with her dead family.
Clowns and Jesters abound throughout the Shakespearean canon, and the Bard’s later plays are no exception. In this paper I plan to examine the later Shakespearean fool, particularly King Lear’s Fool and Cymbeline’s Cloten and how they represent various political and social ideas. First, I will examine the historical significance of both Fool and Cloten’s station, their historic relevance, and similarities to other socio-political archetypes. Next, I will look at how Lear’s Fool and Cloten reflect the idea of progress by revolutionary derailment of main characters inspiring monarchical overturn and progress. Third, I will examine the symbolism in their deaths and how it reflects the historic trend of the maligned lower class, post overthrow.