The story of Inman's adventures intertwines with Ada's story. Ada is left alone to manage Black Cove Farm following her father's death. She is bereft and has no idea where she belongs or how she should earn a living. When she visits the Swangers, her neighbors, Ada looks into a well to foretell her future. She sees a man walking through the woods on a journey but does not know what this vision means. The next day, Sally Swanger sends a local girl named Ruby to help out on the farm. Ruby and Ada become friends and establish a comfortable domestic routine.
Meanwhile, Inman's journey westward is fraught with danger and violence. He is pursued across the Cape Fear River, escaping with his life thanks to the skill of a girl paddling a dugout canoe. Inman intervenes when he finds a dissolute preacher, Solomon Veasey, attempting to murder his (the preacher's) pregnant lover. The preacher is exiled from his community, and Inman is forced to -continue part of his journey with Veasey. Inman has to intervene again when Veasey causes trouble in a store and at an inn. While Veasey spends the night with a prostitute called Big Tildy, the peddler Odell tells Inman a sad story about landowners' cruelty towards slaves.
The next day, Inman and Veasey help a man remove a dead bull from his stream. This man, Junior, invites them to his home to spend the night, and several strange things happen. Inman is drugged and forced to marry Junior's wife, who the author suggests may be a cannibal. Junior then hands Inman and Veasey over to the Home Guard, the military force that has been searching for Inman. Inman is forced to walk eastward, retracing his steps. The guards decide to shoot the men and bury them in a shallow grave. Although Inman escapes with a slight head wound, Veasey dies.
Ada's story resumes. The novel follows her adjustment to a life of labor in harmony with nature. Ada's friendship with Ruby blossoms as she begins to identify with the natural world. The female protagonist lays down roots at the farm and recalls memories of Inman and her father. Occasionally, she finds herself touched by events surrounding the war. A group of pilgrims forced into exile by Federal soldiers seeks shelter for a day at the farm. Ada recalls Blount, a soldier she met at a party in Charleston who later died in battle.
However, instead of allowing the corruption and grief of losing a significant figure in her life completely consume her, Leah embraces a new culture and turns to another male figure, her husband Anatole, for guidance. With new surrounding influences, Leah encounters various forms of separation, whether it be from her birthplace, father, or husband, and accepts all the drawbacks and loses that come along with the isolation. At the same time, Leah also challenges herself to overcome the loss and succumb to the loneliness that could potentially bring her closer to a new aspect of life never explored before. Through it all, Leah turns her experiences with exile into bittersweet memories sprinkled across the time span of her life for each rift allowed her to obtain a sense of self identity during periods of time free of human contact or, in Leah’s case,
Further, throughout the book, Sadie and Bessie continuously reminds the reader of the strong influence family life had on their entire lives. Their father and mother were college educated and their father was the first black Episcopal priest and vice principal at St. Augustine Co...
She then moves on to describe each of the characters, and in doing so, their surroundings and how they fit in: "He was cold and wet, and the best part of the day had been used up anyway. He wiped his hands on the grass and let the pinto horse take him toward home. There was little enough comfort there. The house crouched dumb and blind on the high bench in the rain. Jack's horse stood droop-necked and dismal inside the strand of rope fence, but there wasn't any smoke coming from the damned stove (28)."
In the book The Descent of Alette by Alice Notley, the book is a twist to what readers would expect. In the story, a girl name Alette is chosen for a certain mission and she goes in not knowing what to expect. Alette goes on these journey and face with challenges that she must overcome, but it is more about the destination then than the journey itself. One of the important theme throughout the book is transformation.
The book begins as a mystery novel with a goal of finding the killer of the neighbor's dog, Wellington. The mystery of the dog is solved mid-way through the book, and the story shifts towards the Boone family. We learn through a series of events that Christopher has been lied to the past two years of his life. Christopher's father told him that his mother had died in the hospital. In reality she moved to London to start a new life because she was unable to handle her demanding child. With this discovery, Christopher's world of absolutes is turned upside-down and his faith in his father is destroyed. Christopher, a child that has never traveled alone going any further than his school, leaves his home in order to travel across the country to find his mother who is living in London.
Now, as the family of four travels across the continent, the narrator is able to slough off all the obligations which society has dumped on her. Almost relieved, “we shed our house, the neighborhood, the city, and…our country” (378). On the road, she is no longer forced to hide from the friendly phone calls or household chores. The narrator has been freed on the highway to Ontario, Canada. The Prisoner of War, held under siege in her own home, is liberated to be “hopeful and lighthearted” (378). This trip becomes a break from the life that she’s is currently leading, a life which society thinks should make her content. With this new bit of freedom the narrator is able to form an identity for herself.
Hulga, or Joy as her mother calls her, is the protagonist of Good Country People. Being an atheist, having a doctorate in philosophy, and a wooden leg, is the outcast of her family, the dull diamond in both Mrs. Hopewell’s life and mind for she believes that Hulga shall never be up to her expectations. When a Bible salesman by the name of Manley Pointer visits the house, he woos the heart of Hulga to the point that she agrees to meet him the following day to take a walk down in the luscious fields of rural Georgia. Believing that Pointer is a good, Christian man, she strolls with him to a secluded barn to which they start getting comfortable. After many minutes of persuasion, Hulga removes her wooden leg, along with her glasses, to which she cannot she, nor can she walk. Oddly carrying his briefcase, he retrieves a hollowed out Bible containing condoms, cards, and a bottle of whiskey. Then, abruptly, he snatches her aiding wooden leg, and scurries away telling her that he name is not Manley Pointer, he collects prostheses, and that he is an atheist, similar to Hulga/Joy. This moment in the short story is her revelation, and it represents to her not only that people have more faults than those that are ap...
After Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny spent time together Skeeter was informed about information on her friends and how they were treating “the help”. Skeeter becomes very disgusted on how her white friends treat the maids and felt like she needed to help the maids. Skeeter submitted a draft of the book she wrote to Harper& Row. Her editor tells her she needs more stories from other maids to make the book successful. Skeeter Counted on Aibileen and Minny to help her get more stories and Skeeter confronted her own mother because Skeeter had a maid when she was little and once she came back from college the maid was gone. Minny believes the story will keep “The Help” safe from revenge. After getting more stories the book was done and successfully
The lady that appears after the first 100 pages of the book turns out to be Vivian, Grant’s secret lover. Grant and Vivian take a walk and after their walk they visit Grant’s aunt, aunt Emma. Aunt Emma and her friends are very fond of Vivian and they give her many compliments. Aunt Emma, and the reverend go to visit Jefferson and they find that Grant’s previous account of Jefferson’s recovery was lie; Jefferson still eats and behaves like a “hog';. Aunt Emma and the reverend confront Grant regarding his faulty account of Jefferson’s recovery. Once again, Grant visits Jefferson and tries to convince him that he is not a hog and he is a man. After a couple more visits from the ladies and Grant, the chapter ends off with the whole town watching a Christmas play on the birth of Jesus. After the play, Grant is tired of watching the same play and seeing the same people dressed in the same kinds of clothing year after year.
...this is after she figures out whom he is. The Misfit has all of the Grandmother’s family escorted into the woods and killed. And as the story ends he takes the Grandmothers life when she touches him on the shoulder.
While Addie lies dying on her corn-shuck mattress, Darl convinces Jewel to take a trip with him to pick up a load of lumber. Darl knows that Jewel is Addie's favorite child. The trip for lumber is a contrivance- Darl's way of keeping Jewel from his mother's bedside when she dies. A wheel breaks on the wagon, and before Darl and Jewel can replace it, bring the wagon home, and load Addie's body onto it for the trip to Jefferson, three days have passed. By this time, heavy rains have flooded the Yoknapatawpha River and washed out all the bridges that cross it. The river is vicious, and the Bundrens' mules drown. The wagon tips over, and. Jewel, on horseback, manages to keep the wagon and its load from drifting downstream, saving his mother’s decomposing body. When the family finally makes it through the ordeal, they spend the night at the Gillespies' farm. Darl sets fire to the barn where Addie's body is stored in an effort to spare his mother. However, Jewel once again saves her coffin with a heroic act.
Her parents meet at a social gathering in town and where married shortly thereafter. Marie’s name was chosen by her grandmother and mother, “because they loved to read the list was quite long with much debate over each name.” If she was a boy her name would have been Francis, so she is very happy to have born a girl. Marie’s great uncle was a physician and delivered her in the local hospital. Her mother, was a housewife, as was the norm in those days and her father ran his own business. Her mother was very close with her parents, two brothers, and two sisters. When her grandmother was diagnosed with asthma the family had to move. In those days a warm and dry climate was recommended, Arizona was the chosen state. Because her grandma could never quite leave home, KY, the family made many trips between the states. These trips back and forth dominated Marie’s childhood with her uncles and aunts being her childhood playmates.
Since Ma’s kidnapping, seven years prior, she has survived in the shed of her capturer’s backyard. This novel contains literary elements that are not only crucial to the story, but give significance as well. The point-of-view brings a powerful perspective for the audience, while the setting and atmosphere not only affect the characters but evokes emotion and gives the reader a mental picture of their lives, and the impacting theme along-side conflict, both internal and external, are shown throughout the novel. The author chooses to write the novel through the eyes of the main character and narrator, Jack. Jack’s perception of the world is confined to an eleven foot square room.
This story by O'Connor is about a woman named Joy who lost her leg in a shooting accident when she was young. Joy lives with her mother Mrs. Hopewell and their hired help Mrs.Freedman. Joy legally changed her name to Hulga because of her truly unhappy nature and it was the ugliest name she had come across. Then one day a Bible salesman named Pointer came to sell bibles to Mrs.Hopewell and later asked joy on a date. The date was at first very rushed and Pointer seemed to be pushing Joy into kissing him and saying that she loves him shortly after meeting him. Pointer proceeds to take off her fake leg in what seems at the time to be a caring matter. But he then changed his tone and confesses that he not only is not who he had said he was but is stealing joys leg and that there was nothing she could do. The overall theme that O'Connor portrays in this story is that things are not always how they appear.
In the beginning of the story we are introduced to a young girl and the setting for the story is laid out. It is through the setting and background information we can compare life to today and the way we live. The young girl is traveling through the woods with her grandmothers cow at dusk. “The woods were already filled with shadows one June evening, just before eight o'clock” (Jewet) The girl is about the age of nine and she is