Am I ever going to get out of this?
Elijah Blaser anticipates the wagon approaching him, wishing that it would stop for him and bring him to anywhere, but he realizes that it’s nearly impossible that a person would stop for him. He is wearing a suit, but it’s sullied. The soot makes him want to scream, dance and tremble.
He does not want to think of it. It makes his heart beat wildly and his insides grow as frozen as a bleak winter morning. Sitting beside the road is the reason why he is here. To remind him that he has nothing to live for. Though he would do it again easily, as easily as it is to blink.
The wagon advances closer to him. He wants it to stop. He wishes it would stop. He wants to change. Be a better person. After all, he has nothing to live for. What is in the past is in the past and now it is time for him to move on. He stands up and reaches his arm out, in hopes that the wagon will notice his plea.
But the wagon does not stop. It is the third wagon to pass him up. He knows it is the way he looks. He looks like a person that isn’t worth anything. Sighing, Elijah looked at his only possession in the world. His gasoline container, a constant reminder—a sort of siren call. He must push the thoughts away. He’s trying to change, to become a better person than before. He wasn’t going to let Laura and his son Joseph down, but they are gone. They wanted to leave and leave him in the dust. It is why he acted the way he did in the first place. Out of anger. His frustration always gets the better of him.
He supposes sitting here is defeating the purpose of becoming a better man. He stands up and looks at the sky as the sweltering sun beats down on his ruddy face. Squinting to see ahead, he knows that the unknown lie...
... middle of paper ...
...It’s impossible.
“I’m leaving Birmingham behind, Mr. Hayes.”
Elijah wants nothing more to say to this man, but the older man’s penetrating gaze makes it impossible to leave. Perhaps this man is the reason why Elijah feels drawn to staying in Pickford. After all those issues from his past, he knows that Samuel Hayes is the first person that will aid him in finding a nice place to live. Even though Samuel Hayes knows everything about his past. He knows that they are just beating around the bush. Elijah can tell by the way he is looking at him that he is afraid of him to some extent. There is fear present in those wise gray eyes. Perhaps of the unknown—dread of what Elijah could do in Birmingham. It doesn’t matter now because that is not him anymore.
“And your wife?”
How can he tell him? They are not coming back.
“They are not coming. She’s divorcing me.”
Cousins and beat me up.”) This brings Elijah to want more revenge and want to fight against the Bushwackers that killed his father. This brought him real reason to fight with Mr. Montgomery as a Jayhawker. He wanted his revenge and this convinced him to become a spy for the Jayhawkers. He wanted to do this because he wanted to honor his father because that’s what his father did. The war killed his Elijah’s father and he did it for him.
The main character says, “Look under the seat for my flashlight, boy” (Pancake 87). The narrator then notes, “He bends forward, grabbing under the seat, and his head is turned for me. But I am way too tired now, and I don’t want to clean the seat” (Pancake 87). From the context you can observe that he starts his process in killing the hitchhiker but decides against it. As he has gotten to know the hitchhiker throughout the ride he sees that he no longer wants to kill him. Then, the main character comments, “He hops to the ground, and I watch him walking backward, thumbing” (Pancake 87-88). You can conclude that he finally comes to the realization that these hitchhikers deserve to live despite his recent losses. In sum, this is the major turning point in the story because this is when he finally overcomes his obsession of murdering the
of the dangerous plans that are being designed to take his life this day. Mid-morning arrives and
Throughout “Ethan Frome,” Edith Wharton renders the idea that freedom is just out of reach from the protagonist, Ethan Frome. The presence of a doomed love affair and an unforgiving love triangle forces Ethan to choose between his duty and his personal desire. Wharton’s use of archetypes in the novella emphasizes how Ethan will make choices that will ultimately lead to his downfall. In Edith Wharton’s, “Ethan Frome.” Ethan is wedged between his duty as a husband and his desire for happiness; however, rather than choosing one or the other, Ethan’s indecisiveness makes not only himself, but Mattie and Zeena miserable.
When the man and boy meet people on the road, the boy has sympathy for them, but his father is more concerned with keeping them both alive. The boy is able to get his father to show kindness to the strangers (McCarthy), however reluctantly the kindness is given. The boy’s main concern is to be a good guy. Being the good guy is one of the major reasons the boy has for continuing down the road with his father. He does not see there is much of a point to life if he is not helping other people. The boy wants to be sure he and his father help people and continue to carry the fire. The boy is the man’s strength and therefore courage, but the man does not know how the boy worries about him how the boy’s will to live depends so much on his
The use of suspense in “The Hitchhiker,” keeps the audience in a state of panic, wondering what the outcome will be. The protagonist looks back upon the torturous six days, remembering his protective mother, and the commonplace traveler. Fear mixed with suspicion, he identifies the hitchhiker on the most inappropriate hitchhiking roads, set on terminating the foreboding individual. Leaving the audience at the climax, Adams believes the hitchhiker must be mortal, and therefore able to hinder, yet the fact of Adams’ unknown identity and his total isolation, prevent his ability to take
*the narrator is looking back on what he has once witnessed long ago, and it's haunting him, makes him feel guilty and ashamed.
Haze’s character is similar of many people who are raised in a religious household and feel as if God abandoned them. Additionally, the struggles that Haze encounters may relate back to modern society. Haze had one main goal throughout the majority of the story; he wanted to start up a Church without Christ, but he was unsuccessful for many reasons. The Essex, Haze’s beat up car, prevented him from doing many things in his life because it would constantly stall or stop working. The car is a symbol for the events that hold someone back from achieving their goals. Although, most people tend to blame obstacles for their lack of success, Haze believed his car would better him. The other characters in the story apply to many people as well. Haze met a “blind” preacher who supposedly blinded himself in the name of God. After finding out that the preacher lied about blinding himself, Haze became more frustrated with followers of a religion. The preacher was not strong enough in his faith to blind himself for it which angered Haze who felt that religion was seemingly unnecessary if it only revolved around blind followers. Some readers may be able to relate because they personally know blind followers of
The narrator was accused of being a threat to the Brotherhood. He was given the choice of either becoming inactive in the Brotherhood completely or lecturing on the "woman question" in another neighborhood until an investigation into his loyalty was conducted. The narrator was rewarded with an important insight into his character. Many women believe that he would understand them and their needs, because of his talks about women and their place in society. The narrator is able to realize that these girls are seeing him only as they want to see him instead of how he really is. This was an important realization for the narrator to make, but the discovery of his true self was still unfound
Stories have an opportunity to leave the reader with many different impressions. When you look a different characters within the stories the ones that leave the greatest impressions are the ones that tend to scare us. The figures in Bob Dylar’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have you been?”, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”, and Stephen King’s “The Man in the Black Suite” all instill a bit of fear in the reader. They are symbols that represent the devil or devil like attributes in people and the uncertainties of human nature.
...n a man is tremendous. Brown feels so overwhelmed by learning of the sins that alleged pious leaders commit, that he forgets his own sins. Lastly, Hawthorne’s description of Browns quest, epitomizes the amount of change one goes through when discovering the truth. It is seen that while at first he is able to withstand the temptations of the devil, the realization that others around him have fallen victim to the devil’s plots, just sends Brown over the edge. He comes out of his quest a more educated man, with a completely different mindset. He finds that all people are hypocrites of who they say they want to be, and cannot be trusted in anything they say. It gives a more Calvinist view that all people deserve hell, and cannot do anything to escape it. However, if Brown had not gone on his journey, how long would it have taken to escape his previously clouded mindset?
... narrator urges him not to give up because eventually, he will be able to reach his goal and write a ‘Proper Villanelle.’ Moreover, the perseverance will help enhance his life now by giving him reason to continue living.
The narrator wrestles with conflicting feelings of responsibility to the old man and feelings of ridding his life of the man's "Evil Eye" (34). Although afflicted with overriding fear and derangement, the narrator still acts with quasi-allegiance toward the old man; however, his kindness may stem more from protecting himself from suspicion of watching the old man every night than from genuine compassion for the old man.
Robert has the narrator draw a cathedral while they hold the pencil together. Through this experience the narrator finally realizes the difference between seeing and looking. As the narrator is drawing the cathedral Robert tells him to close his eyes. After he finishes the drawing Robert tells the narrator to look at his creation but the narrator is amazed at his new gift, his ability to see. Instead of opening his eyes the narrator says, “But I had my eyes closed. I thought I’d keep them that way for a little longer. I thought it was something I ought to do.” At this point, the narrator understands the importance of understanding other people, our lives, and the world. The narrator now realizes that he has simply looked at things for too long and wants to begin to
If he looked deep inside himself, he might have found memories of his youth, where he first met the apple of the Tree of Knowledge. All that time ago, when he was an adolescent in a big city, and how he strayed from his friends just long enough to be forced into an alley. If he focused, he might have recalled that there had been snow on the ground, and that it had sparkled like the still illuminated, yet charred coals of the meteor that now paralyzed him. He might have seen the tuque on the offender’s bald head, or the generally unpleasant lo...