Comparison of Once More to the Lake and The Grave
Authors often use details that evoke a response in readers to produce an effective description. Their aim is not simply to tell readers what something looks like but to show them. Katherine Anne Porter’s “The Grave” and E.B. White’s “Once More to the Lake” are essays that use subjective language to illustrate the principles of effective description. Porter’s “The Grave” describes a childish afternoon of rabbit hunting that brings death close enough to be seen and understood, while White’s “Once More tot he Lake” is a classic essay of persona; reminiscence in which he recreates the lakeside camp he visited with his son.
One of the first things readers notice when they read Katherine Anne Porter’s “The Grave” was her use of vivid details. Miranda’s clothes are described in specific details: She was wearing her summer roughing outfit: “dark blue overalls, a light blue shirt, a hired man’s hat, and thick brown sandals.” Through her use of detail, Porter creates her dominant impression about Miranda’s feelings on female decorum as shameful. Porter describes Mirandas meeting with “old women. . . who smoked corn-cob pipes” she met along the road:
“They slanted their gummy old eyes side-ways at the granddaughter
and said, “Ain’t you ashamed of yoself, Missy? It’s aginst the
Scriptures to dress like that. Whut yo Pappy thinkin’ about?”
By describing Miranda’s reaction to the old women’s’ questioning, Porter conveys the sense of embarrassment Miranda felt. She describes Miranda’s reaction by using a simile: “with her powerful social sense, which was like a fine set of antennae radiating from every pore of her skin . . . “ Miranda is ashamed because she knew it was rude and ill-bred to shock anyone although she had faith in her father’s judgment and was perfectly comfortable in the clothes.
Another example of Porter’s use of specific details is how she describes the dead rabbit. As
Miranda’s brother Paul stripped the skin away from the dead animal the “flayed flesh emerged dark
scarlet, sleek, firm.” He slit thin flesh from the center of the ribs to the flanks, and a scarlet bag”
appeared. He slit the bag open to find a bundle of baby rabbits, each wrapped in a “scarlet thin
veil.” Paul pulled them off to reveal their true appearance: “dark grey, their wet down lying in
John Riquelme’s essay For Whom the Snow Taps: Style and Repetition in “The Dead” proposes two possible interpretations of the story. The essay describes the variations of meaning behind the recurring thematic purpose of the story, but even more so, points out the repetition of the symbol of snow. Focusing mainly on the celebrated last passage of the story, Riquelme harps on the transformat...
Similarly, in The Jilting Of Granny Weatherall, Porter discusses the regrets of an old woman revealed by her reactions to her being left at the altar and her slow death sixty years later.
Even from the first paragraph, Hurst's use of vocabulary evokes an emotional response to the story line. His word choice as the narrator describes his surrounding and hints to a fatal event that awaits the reader's attention. Hurst uses words and phrases such as “dead autumn,” “rotting brown magnolia,” “graveyard flowers.” The last sentence, “...speaking softly the names of our dead” adds one final melancholy statement (91). The imagery throughout the paragraph helps to imagine an eerie swamp land surrounded by death and depressing memories. This melancholy setting foresha...
To further demonstrate that An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge offers example both for and against the definitions of literary realism, this paper will be broken up into three main sections. The first section will define realism in two different ways. The second section will show evidence supporting the fact that An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is an example of literary realism. The third section will show evidence against this story being an example of literary realism. These sections will be followed by a work cited page and images of the literary works used as a reference in this paper.
The writing style of Edgar Allan Poe shows the writer to be of a dark nature. In this story, he focuses on his fascination of being buried alive. He quotes, “To be buried alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of these [ghastly] extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality.” page 58 paragraph 3. The dark nature is reflected in this quote, showing the supernatural side of Poe which is reflected in his writing and is also a characteristic of Romanticism. Poe uses much detail, as shown in this passage, “The face assumed the usual pinched and sunken outline. The lips were of the usual marble pallor. The eyes were lusterless. There was no warmth. Pulsation had ceased. For three days the body was preserved unburied, during which it had acquired a stony rigidity.” page 59 paragraph 2. The descriptive nature of this writing paints a vivid picture that intrigues the reader to use their imagination and visualize the scene presented in the text. This use of imagery ties with aspects of Romanticism because of the nature of the descriptions Poe uses. Describing the physical features of one who seems dead is a horrifying perspective as not many people thing about the aspects of death.
Throughout T. C. Boyle’s work, “Greasy Lake”, a young man’s intrepid night leads him to discover how close death is to life. This realization causes a sombre awakening for the narrator as he falls in the midst of fatality; and practically becomes a casualty himself. Following each traumatic event, the narrator’s innocence disappears and morality is called into question. When death fast approaches, and the grim reaper is breathing down his neck, the narrator subsequently realizes his mistakes, but not before it’s almost too late.
Sensory details are an important aspect of writing. In the short story, “The Masque of the Red Death,” by Edgar Allen Poe, many sensory details are used to enhance the mood and tone of the story. Sensory details are when an author uses our senses, sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound, to make us feel as if we are beside the characters. In this essay, we will examine, “The Masque of the Red Death,” to see if we can pick out sensory details in the abbey, the rooms, and in the Red Death.
The fear of reading literature and not being able to comprehend the ideas presented forces readers to create a deeper meaning through annotations, as expressed through Billy Collins’ use of comparative imagery and aggressive diction in “Marginalia” and “Introduction to Poetry.” Collins’ choice to
E. B. White's story "Once More to the Lake" is about a man who revisits a lake from his childhood to discover that his life has lost placidity. The man remembers his childhood as he remembers the lake; peaceful and still. Spending time at the lake as an adult has made the man realize that his life has become unsettling and restless, like the tides of the ocean. Having brought his son to this place of the past with him, the man makes inevitable comparisons between his own son and his childhood self, and between himself as an adult and the way he remembers his father from his childhood perspective. The man's experience at the lake with his son is the moment he discovers his own mortality.
Marie, who is a product of an abusive family, is influenced by her past, as she perceives the relationship between Callie and her son, Bo. Saunders writes, describing Marie’s childhood experiences, “At least she’d [Marie] never locked on of them [her children] in a closet while entertaining a literal gravedigger in the parlor” (174). Marie’s mother did not embody the traditional traits of a maternal fig...
Death can both be a painful and serious topic, but in the hands of the right poet it can be so natural and eloquently put together. This is the case in The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe, as tackles the topic of death in an uncanny way. This poem is important, because it may be about the poet’s feelings towards his mother’s death, as well as a person who is coming to terms with a loved ones passing. In the poem, Poe presents a speaker who uses various literary devices such as couplet, end-stopped line, alliteration, image, consonance, and apostrophe to dramatize coming to terms with the death of a loved one.
In literature, themes shape and characterize an author’s writing making each work unique as different points of view are expressed within a writing’s words and sentences. This is the case, for example, of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee” and Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death.” Both poems focus on the same theme of death, but while Poe’s poem reflects that death is an atrocious event because of the suffering and struggle that it provokes, Dickinson’s poem reflects that death is humane and that it should not be feared as it is inevitable. The two poems have both similarities and differences, and the themes and characteristics of each poem can be explained by the author’s influences and lives.
The novella "The Dead" by James Joyce tells the tale of early twentieth century upper class society in the Irish city of Dublin. The story tells of the characters' entrapment, and the tragic lives they lead, hiding behind the conventions of their society. Joyce uses the symbolism to draw a parallel between the natural way in which the snow covers the land and the way in which the characters use their culture unnatural to cover reality. This story comes together, not only to tell of the individual tragedy of these peoples lives, but to tell the tragic story of all of Ireland, as it's true problems become obscured in so many ways.
This play portrays the women as fragile and pathetic beings. When Miranda is speaking to Ferdinand she is allowing him to see her as quite vulnerable, which will allow him to view here exactly as that.“At mind unworthiness, that dare not offer/What I desire to give, and much less take”(3.2.77-78). She goes on to say, “If not, I’ll die your maid. To be your fellow/You may deny me, but I’ll be your servant/Whether you will or no”(3.2.83-86). This play is portraying Miranda as a pathetic woman who would rather be a servant to a man that won’t marry her; she would rather be his maid than live without him.
In William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, characterization, specifically through the multitude of narrators, transforms an otherwise pedestrian plot into a complex pilgrimage to the truth. As I Lay Dying is told from the perspective of fifteen different characters in 59 chapters (Tuck 35). Nearly half (7) of the characters from whose perspective the story is narrated are members of the same family, the Bundrens. The other characters are onlookers of the Bundrens’ journey to bury their mother, Addie. Each character responds to the events that are unfolding in a unique way and his or her reactions help to characterize themselves and others.