All Hail the King
“Who wears the pants in their relationship?” someone may ask about a
couple. In the short story “By the River” by Jack Hodgins, Jim Styan
is definitely the one wearing the pants and is in charge of most, if
not all, matters regarding him and his wife’s life. In essence, Jim is
the King of the jungle, or more appropriately put, he is the King of
the Canadian wilderness. The balance of power in some relationships
isn’t always an even fifty-fifty split. Sometimes, one of the partners
has most, if not complete, control of the relationship. Unfortunately,
Jim and Crystal Styan’s relationship is a prime example of the
presence of ill balanced relationships around the world.
In the relationship of Jim and Crystal Styan, it is extremely apparent
that Jim is the dominate one. Jim decides that the best place for the
two of them to live is “in the mountains with the river and the moose
and the railroad” instead of living in the city (pg 130). He decides
for the both of them that contact with others are not important. Jim
even goes as far as to suggest to Crystal that they “don’t need any of
them” to survive in the wilderness (pg 130). Even though Jim doesn’t
think the outside world and contact with other people is important, he
has traveled into town by the train on several different occasions.
Jim decides, without consulting Crystal that they’ll be “farmers” for
the rest of their lives (pg 130). He also suggests that they will farm
their “hundred and sixty acres” of land by themselves and “make their
own world” (pg 131). What's more, he is so dominating that he even
goes as far as to buy “six chickens” and a “sway-back old Jersey” cow
without consulting Crystal at all (pg 131, 132). Whereas Jim...
... middle of paper ...
...er dreams and
future into the fire, and Jim, being the insatiable fire, keeps
demanding for more and more.
All in all, this ill-balance of power is extremely evident in Jim and
Crystal Styan’s relationship. Jim Styan, who also acts like he’s the
King of the Canadian wilderness, completely dominates the relationship
and is extremely disloyal and exceptionally selfish. Whereas Crystal,
the supposedly “other half” of the relationship, although
realistically, she probably makes up merely five percent of the
relationship, is dreadfully passive, unbelievably loyal and
exceedingly giving. As sad as it may seem, this type of ill-balanced
relationship such as Crystal and Jim’s are present all over the world.
Who knows, perhaps right now, there is a couple just like Jim and
Crystal chasing a “sway-backed old Jersey” cow all over the Canadian
wilderness (pg 133).
“I now walk into the wild” (3). It was April 1992 a young man from a rather wealthy family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness. His name was Christopher McCandless. He gave all of his savings to a charity, abandoned his car in the desert, left all his possessions, burned his money and wallet, and invented an alter ego all to shun society. Four months after his adventure, his decomposing body was found in bus 142 by a moose hunter. Into the Wild is a riveting novel about one man’s journey to find himself and live as an individual. Although, Chris McCandless may come as an ill-prepared idiot, his reasons for leaving society are rational. He wanted to leave the conformist society and blossom into his own person, he wanted to create his own story not have his story written for him, and he wanted to be happy not the world’s form of happiness.
As he slouches in bed, a description of the bare trees and an old woman gathering coal are given to convey to the reader an idea of the times and the author's situation. "All groves are bare," and "unmarried women (are) sorting slate from arthracite." This image operates to tell the reader that it is a time of poverty, or a "yellow-bearded winter of depression." No one in the town has much to live for during this time. "Cold trees" along with deadness, through the image of "graves," help illustrate the author's impression of winter. Wright seems to be hibernating from this hard time of winter, "dreaming of green butterflies searching for diamonds in coal seams." This conveys a more colorful and happy image showing what he wishes was happening; however he knows that diamonds are not in coal seams and is brought back to the reality of winter. He talks of "hills of fresh graves" while dreaming, relating back to the reality of what is "beyond the streaked trees of (his) window," a dreary, povern-strucken, and cold winter.
of the American Dream. They travel west hoping to escape less than perfect lives and pursue success in
B.B. King was a blues singer and guitarist. His full name is Riley B. King. He was born September 16, 1925, near Indianola, Mississippi. An important aspect in King's life was, of course, when he was first exposed to the blues. 'I guess the earliest sound of the blues that I can rremember was in the fields while people would be pickin' cotton or choppin' or somethin,' " he told Living Blues . " When I sing and play now I can hear those same sounds that I used to hear then as a kid."
Sometimes a character may be pushed over the edge by our materialistic society to discover his/her true roots, which can only be found by going back to nature where monetary status was not important. Chris McCandless leaves all his possessions and begins a trek across the Western United States, which eventually brings him to the place of his demise-Alaska. Jon Krakauer makes you feel like you are with Chris on his journey and uses exerts from various authors such as Thoreau, London, and Tolstoy, as well as flashbacks and narrative pace and even is able to parallel the adventures of Chris to his own life as a young man in his novel Into the Wild. Krakauer educates himself of McCandless’ story by talking to the people that knew Chris the best. These people were not only his family but the people he met on the roads of his travels- they are the ones who became his road family.
Of Mice and Men and A Raisin in the Sun Dreams Make What Life Is
In Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream speech” and Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg address,” the two men employ rhetorical strategies in order to show the public the need for a better world. Two men from different backgrounds and different times both advocate for equality. Although Abraham wrote the Gettysburg Address way before Martin Luther King’s I have a dream speech, the two speeches are connected through semantics and rhetoric. King and Lincoln both use the same strategies in the making of their speeches. A hundred years and about three wars fall between the two speeches and yet they still are advocating for the same thing in a similar way.
"The Bull Moose" by Alden Nowlan is a finely crafted poem which reminds us of how far man has strayed from Nature. Through a carefully constructed series of contrasted images, Nowlan laments, in true Romantic fashion, man's separation from Nature.
God’s goodness and mercy far transcends the comprehension of the most brilliant human mind! He “who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth”(Psalm 113:6).Yet in His infinite love for us He stoops down to reveal Himself to us by a multitude of illustration, types, and shadows, so that we may learn to know him. This paper will describe what is meant by the Kingdom of God; examine the religious philosophy of the various sects of Judaism during the Second Temple period: Pharisee, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots, describe the religious philosophy and political philosophy of each sects, it will also describe how the Messianic expectation differ from the Messianic role that Jesus presented, and include an exegesis of the temptation of Jesus and how other sects defined the Messiah.
The poem concerns a bus traveling to Boston through the landscape and towns of New Brunswick. While driving through the woods, the bus stops because a moose has wandered onto the road. The appearance of the animal interrupts the peaceful hum of elderly passengers' voices. Their talk—resignedly revolving itself round such topics as recurrent human failure, sickness, and death—is silenced by the unexpected advent of the beast, which redirects their thoughts and imparts a "sweet sensation of joy" to their quite ordinary, provincial lives.
In the first stanza, the protagonist is merely walking in the woods when he stumbles across an alternate path. Using the first person point of view, Frost depicts a clear picture of yellow woods and a character that has a choice to make as he reaches the conflict in the story and comes across a fork in the road. As the character in the story examines the best road to travel he wishes he could take both roads. In the second stanza, the character realizes that both roads appear equal, and he will only reflect later on the decision he made as the road less traveled.
Stanza three explains what life was like at the farm he lived on, as the previous stanzas have. Line twenty describes the landscape and how beautiful it is. It describes it as Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air,” (20). Lines twenty one through twenty three use more imagery to describe the landscape. They use words such as “lovely and watery” (21) to show how pleasant it was to gaze upon the land. The word “And” is also repeated in the beginning of each of these lines which creates suspense. They also show repetition by repeating words such as “green” and it brings up the starry night again. Line twenty four talks about owls and how they are starting to come out. The day is starting to end and there is still beauty in everything. Now night has begun and all the things that made the day happy and carefree are starting to disappear. Lines twenty five through twenty seven use imagery to show that the moon is appearing and the horses and everything else is disappearing into the night. This begins to show that the youth the speaker is experiencing is starting to
Hochman, Jhan. "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening." Poetry for Students. Vol.1. Detroit: Gale Research, 1998.
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both”, (Frost line one & two). One possible
The persona had two roads to chose from and wonders what would have happened had he taken the other road. Frost’s title reflects this. The first three lines, "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / And sorry I could not travel both /And be one traveler, long I stood", tell us the speaker must choose between two roads he finds equally appealing. It is apparent the narrator has a difficult choice to make and is carefully considering his options.