“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.” (Martin Luther King, Jr) “Thank You Ma'am” by Langston Hughes and “The Christmas Memory” by Truman Capote are very similar as they both show Trust, Friendship, and Love. “Thank You Ma'am” is a short story is about a young man and a woman. The young man tries to steal the lady's purse but fails and the old lady takes him to her house. The two soon become friends. “ The Christmas Memory” is a short story about a young boy and a sixty year old woman. They are best friends until death brings them apart. The first thing that is similar between the two stories is that they both show love. . An example from “ Yes Ma'am” is on page 3, “She heated some lima beans and ham she had in the …show more content…
Both of the stories show sadness towards the end of the story. An example of sadness in “ Thank You Ma'am” is, “The boy wanted to say something else other than “Thank you, m’am” to Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones, but he couldn’t do so as he turned at the barren stoop and looked back at the large woman in the door. He barely managed to say “Thank you” before she shut the door. And he never saw her again.” This shows sadness because it says that he never saw the old woman again. The woman had helped him and showed him kindness, and then they never saw each other again. An example of sadness in “ The Christmas Memory” is at the end of the story when the elderly woman dies. In the text it states, “And when that happens, I know it. A message saying so merely confirms a piece of news some secret vein had already received, severing from me an irreplaceable part of myself, letting it loose like a kite on a broken string. That is why, walking across a school campus on this particular December morning, I keep searching the sky. As if I expected to see, rather like hearts, a lost pair of kites hurrying toward heaven.” This is sad because we can imply that the elderly lady has passed
The mother and daughter have a very distant relationship because her mother is ill and not capable to be there, the mother wishes she could be but is physically unable. “I only remember my mother walking one time. She walked me to kindergarten." (Fein). The daughter’s point of view of her mother changes by having a child herself. In the short story the son has a mother that is willing to be helpful and there for him, but he does not take the time to care and listen to his mother, and the mother begins to get fed up with how Alfred behaves. "Be quiet don't speak to me, you've disgraced me again and again."(Callaghan). Another difference is the maturity level the son is a teenager that left school and is a trouble maker. The daughter is an adult who is reflecting back on her childhood by the feeling of being cheated in life, but sees in the end her mother was the one who was truly being cheated. “I may never understand why some of us are cheated in life. I only know, from this perspective, that I am not the one who was.” (Fein). The differences in the essay and short story show how the children do not realize how much their mothers care and love
First of all, the speaker starts her poem personifying death as a kind gentleman who comes to pick her up for her death journey. It is obvious if the reader looks at “He kindly stopped for me” (2). T...
This memory stays with me because it served as a guide throughout my childhood until I learned how to bike properly, and the same thing applies to the story. She remembers that winter because it was a time in her life where she was living her ideal life, but eventually everything came crashing down and made her realise how wrong and stupid it was. That specific winter holds much more significance and value to her because she realised what went wrong and how to prevent it from ever happening again in the future. In the story she also writes how her lover had completely different memories of the winter that were more baren and less dramatic. I think that this is important to the overall theme because it shows that the winter was truly an important step in her life, whereas he brushes it off and makes it seem like just another relationship.
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens is a tale of the morality changes of a man. The uncharitable, cold heart of the main character, Ebenezer Scrooge, melts with ardent love as he receives visitations from three Christmas spirits who enlighten his soul with wise lessons and bring a warm change to his heart. In the beginning of the novel, Scrooge expresses his vices of greed and cold heartedness by his words and actions, but as the story unfolds, his life is renewed by these Spirits who shed light and truth upon him, resulting in making him become a better man, portraying the virtue of charity.
Both poems are set in the past, and both fathers are manual labourers, which the poets admired as a child. Both poems indicate intense change in their fathers lives, that affected the poet in a drastic way. Role reversal between father and son is evident, and a change of emotion is present. These are some of the re-occurring themes in both poems. Both poems in effect deal with the loss of a loved one; whether it be physically or mentally.
... overall themes, and the use of flashbacks. Both of the boys in these two poems reminisce on a past experience that they remember with their fathers. With both poems possessing strong sentimental tones, readers are shown how much of an impact a father can have on a child’s life. Clearly the two main characters experience very different past relationships with their fathers, but in the end they both come to realize the importance of having a father figure in their lives and how their experiences have impacted their futures.
A slum neighborhood located in “Yes, Ma’m” and a brilliant train carriage in “The Storyteller” create the setting for this compare and contrast essay. These short stories are similar in that their themes both focus on negative objects, but play them into a positive light. However, their suggested themes are different in that “Yes Ma’m” tells the reader to not believe in people by where they live, but “The Storyteller” communicates to not judge something based on its formality. Langston Hughes’s “Yes Ma’m” has an implied theme found anywhere, “nice people can be found even in the lowest places on the planet.” Another true theme belonging to Saki’s “The Storyteller,” reads, “Sometimes the most improper story is the best one.” Both main messages are true, and provide a very keen focal point for the reader to enjoy.
Deconstruction of Thank You, Ma’am. & nbsp ; There are a million acts of kindness each day. Some young man gives a stranger a compliment, or a teacher brightens a students morning. But, in the world we live in today, these acts are rare to come by. In this short story Thank You, Ma’am, the boy, out of mysterious luck, gets taken in by the woman whom he was trying to steal a purse from. Her actions, following the incident towards the boy, may have seemed very as complicated as life is, there will not always be someone for you to lean on and depend on. The first and most foremost thing that would come to mind when reading this story is how caring Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones was, that she took in the boy and nurtured him; she tried to teach him between right and wrong. She gave him food, a nice conversation, and even a chance of escape, which he chose not to take, but these methods are still an immoral way of handling the situation. If a boy were to come up to an everyday woman on the streets, that victim would not be as sensitive as Mrs. the boy she caught. To teach a young man that if you steal and you are going to get special treatment is not an effective method of punishment. First of all, the boy told Mrs. Jones that he tried to steal her purse for one reason, to buy blue suede shoes for himself. She then replies, “Well you didn’t have to snatch my pocketbook to get some blue suede shoes.
In this Stave, Dickens shows the importance of kindness by showing Scrooge’s absence of it and the effects of his harmful indifference. Scrooge is taken into his own past and shown memories of when he was young. The Ghost shows him scenes of when he was small and alone on Christmas. This memory makes him regret his harshness towards a young caroler that had come to his door the previous day. He sees that he lacked kindness and wishes he gave something to the caroler. His indifference towards the caroler insured that Scrooge would remain alone. The Ghost also reminds Scrooge of his beloved sister, Fannie who had died and left only her son. “’Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered,’ said the Ghost. ‘But she had a large heart!’ ‘So she had,’ cried Scrooge. ‘You’re right. I will not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!’ ‘She died a woman,’ said the Ghost, ‘and had, as I think, children.’ ‘One child,’ Scrooge returned. ‘True,’ said the Ghost. ‘Your nephew!’ Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, ‘Yes.’” (pg. 33-34). Scrooge’s only connection to his kind and gentle sister is his nephew, who also shares Fannie’s sweet nature. Scrooge is then filled with regret because of his callous treatment and lack of relationship with his nephew, who only wanted to be kind and spread the joy of the season. Scrooge’s sheer indifference and lack of kindness towards his nephew prevented
Both stories stir empathy because when you read more into the stories, the characters show feelings towards for each other and a small bond. In “Thank You Ma’m”, after the boy
The grandchild “proudly” shows the grandmother the picture hoping to change the negative aura surrounding them. “With crayons the child draws a rigid house and a winding pathway.” (924) As already stated, “house” represents the grandmother. The winding pathway shows a new path opening up in her life. A look into who may be behind this emotional roller coaster is now featured. “Then the child puts in a man with buttons like tears…” (924) Tears to the child have an entirely different meaning than to the grandmother. The grandchild sees happiness in tears, showing that you can find something positive in anything that seems to be upsetting. The man symbolizes the loss the grandmother is feeling. The grandchild drew this picture to cheer up the grandmother. It is at the end of the pome do we find out what tears mean to the grandmother. The grandmother does not acknowledge the drawing and tries to hide her true feelings. While she is doing this, “secretly…the little moons fall down like tears from between the pages of the almanac into the flower bed the child carefully placed in the front of the house.” (924) The grandmother is coming to the realization that dwelling on the past brings will not make her loss return. Regardless of how much of an impact this loss had on her, pain is part of the grieving process. Only though pain
For instance the text states “Every man moves on...but there is no need to grieve. He leaves good things behind.” (MacLeod 305). This statement shows that although he stops believing in Santa Claus and moves on from his childhood years, his memories will always remain with him throughout his adulthood even though he knows that Santa Claus is fable. An example that supports this argument is when the narrator is describing his father's health, “He has “not been well” for over two years...he is most sympathetic of all concerning my extended hopes.” (MacLeod 302) .The main character realizes how ill his father is, he will have to soon replace his role as man of the house which requires him the move on from Santa Claus and become an adult. The last example supporting this argument is “The ones for my younger brothers say from Santa Claus but mine are not among them any more...It is as if I have suddenly moved into another room and heard the door click lastingly behind me.” (Alistair MacLeod 305) This shows that he is now an adult, the gift giving experience with Neil that Christmas. It shows his coming of age through his brother's gesture of letting his stay up at night to see the grownups in the family putting presents under the tree other that a jolly old man in a red
The poem “The Death of Santa Claus” by Charles Webb is about how sometimes the truth can hurt. By giving us a story on how Santa Claus dies and how the mom has to tell the kid the bad news that Santa Claus is not really real shows how most kids are hurt by the fact Santa Claus is not real. The first half of the poem gives us a story on how Santa Claus dies. Maybe the story on how Santa died his the kids imagination and feeling on when he found out that Santa Claus is not
Meeting the Ghost of Christmas Past begins the first stage of Scrooge’s transformation: regretting his actions. When Scrooge is shown his younger self alone in his classroom on Christmas, he regrets chasing a Christmas caroler away from his door. The Spirit skips ahead a few years to show him a happier time. His sweet little sister Fan arrives to take him home, and this is his first Christmas in a long time that is spent with family. Unfortunately, Scrooge doesn’t see it that way; seeing this scene makes him “uneasy in his mind” as he thinks about the way he treats his nephew Fred. Instead of treating him like his only family member, Scrooge denies invitations to Christmas dinner every year and is rude whenever Fred speaks to him. He doesn’t have time to dwell on this for long, however; Scrooge has many other important things to think...
Ved Verma Similarities and Differences There are always many similarities and differences in many different novels or stories. We see some similarities and differences in “Thank You Ma’am” and “Home”. “Thank You Ma’am”is about a young boy Roger trying to mug Ms. Louella for some blue suede shoes. After he tries to mug her, Ms. Louella takes Roger home and helps him out in many ways. She feeds him, cleans him up and also gives him money.