Crow Lake Essay In Crow Lake, Mary Lawson portrays a family who experience a great tragedy when Mr. and Mrs. Morrison are killed in a car accident. This tragedy changes the lifestyles of the seven years old protagonist Kate Morrison and her siblings Matt, Luke and Bo. The settings are very important in this novel. Though there are limited numbers of settings, the settings used are highly effective. Without effective use of themes in this novel, the reader would not have been able to connect with the characters and be sympathetic. Lawson uses an exceptionally high degree of literary devices to develop each character in this novel. The element of setting is used to create a definite atmosphere, and therefore, helping to create a desired mood .In Kate’s childhood, she and Matt visited the ponds regularly. They used to go “through the woods with their luxuriant growth of poison ivy, along the tracks, past the dusty boxcars lines up receive their loads of sugar beets, down the steep sandy path to the ponds themselves” (Lawson 4). Lawson has used powerful imagery to further describe the ponds. The settings of the ponds are a central part of the story. The ponds are a symbol of the tight relationship between Matt and Kate. They had spent “hundreds of hours there” (Lawson 15). Ponds were like a home to her. In the prologue, Kate stated that “there is no image of my childhood that I carry with me more clearly than that” (Lawson 4). The ponds also symbolizes Kate’s childhood. Matt and Kate were able to overcome the tragedy of their parent’s death by visiting the ponds, but however, they did not survive Matt’s “disloyalty”. The ponds later developed into the scene of the crime. Kate mentions in the book “By the following September the ponds themselves would have been desecrated twice over, as far as I was concerned, and for some years after that I did not visit them at all” (Lawson 218). Therefore, the ponds are of great significance in Crow Lake. The setting has developed from a warm, sweet, memorable place to a scene of crime in crow Lake. The theme of isolation is established and developed through the setting of Crow Lake. Located against the deserted territory of Northern Ontario, Crow Lake is a diffident farming settlement that is “... linked to the outside world by one dusty road and the railroad tracks” (Lawson 9).
Crow Lake is Canadian author Mary Lawson's first novel，which is narrated by Kate Morrison, the second child in the Morrison family. A serious car accident left seven-year-old Kate, her one and half year old sister, Bo, and her two older brothers, Luke and Matt, orphans. Rather than live with relatives separately, they chose to live together and grow up. Luke and Matt made many sacrifices to support their family and they also got many helps from their community. The story took place in Crow Lake, a remote small farming community in northen Ontario.
The lake itself plays a major role throughout the story, as it mirrors the characters almost exactly. For example, the lake is described as being “fetid and murky, the mud banks glittering with broken glass and strewn with beer cans” (125). The characters are also described as being “greasy” or “dangerous” several times, which ties the lake and the characters together through their similarities. The narrator explains, “We were bad. At night we went up to Greasy Lake” (124). This demonstrates the importance that the surroundings in which the main characters’ choose to be in is extremely important to the image that they reflect. At the beginning of the story, these characters’ images and specifically being “bad” is essentially all that mattered to them. “We wore torn up leather jackets…drank gin and grape juice…sniffed glue and ether and what somebody claimed was cocaine” (124). They went out of their ...
...nment. In Stage 2, the girls realize that must put forth a great effort to adjust to the new surroundings and culture, which causes some to feel alone, uncomfortable, and even depressed. Stage 3 is when the girls start to wonder why people in this new culture live the way do and may believe that their own culture is far better than the new one. The girls become more comfortable in their new environment at last in Stage 4, as they understand it better. Finally, the girls find it simple to be able to be a part of both cultures in Stage 5. All of these stages in the story represent some of the different phases in an immigrant’s life. By writing “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, the author, Karen Russell, puts the readers in perspective of immigrants, helping them to further understand and comprehend how challenging life can be when moving to a new place.
The Jump-Off Creek introduces the reader to the unforgiving Blue Mountains and the harsh pioneer lifestyle with the tale of Lydia Sanderson, a widow who moves west from Pennsylvania to take up residence in a rundown homestead. She and other characters battle nature, finances, and even each other on occasion in a fight for survival in the harsh Oregon wilderness. Although the story is vividly expressed through the use of precise detail and 1800s slang, it failed to give me a reason to care because the characters are depicted as emotionally inhibited.
This extract emphasises the lonely, outworld feeling that would have been felt living in such settings. This puts into perspective the feeling that will be felt during the coarse of the plot development.
narrative focuses on a father and son, Grange and Brownfield Copeland, and illustrates how their respective demons and destructive tendencies affect the people around them. In the opening chapter of the novel, the reader is introduced to Grange as he exhibits abusive tendencies towards his wife, Margaret, while he is in a drunken state. ?Late Saturday night Grange would come home lurching drunk, threatening to kill his wife and Brownfield, he threatened Margaret and she ran and hid in the woods with Brownfield huddled at her feet? (Walker 14). Grange?s prolific consumption of alcohol seems to be a conscious effort to blunt the feeling inferiority he feels as marginalized citizen in southern society. Grange Copeland?s fits of violent anger seems to be misdirected at his family instead of the person whom he truly hates: Shipley.
Isolation happens all the time, whether it is someone staying home ignoring the populous or a teenager ignoring his family it isn’t something new. In the two novels we have read this past quarter The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye isolation is one topic that is continually brought up. Different themes and issues are used in each book as a way to bring up and show isolation. Even though both novels use this topic The Catcher in the Rye does a better job of getting the reader to understand isolation than The Great Gatsby.
Isolation is being taken away from everyone and anything. Because Max is a Jew he is having to hide, Anne Frank is a real person and she is experiencing the same things as Max (a fictional character), and Jaycee Dugard a little girl kidnapped at age 11. These characters or people all have isolation and thoughts of “death in common.
The lack of support and affection protagonists, Sula Peace and Nel Wright, causes them to construct their lives on their own without a motherly figure. Toni Morrison’s novel, Sula, displays the development of Sula and Nel through childhood into adulthood. Before Sula and Nel enter the story, Morrison describes the history of the Peace and Wright family. The Peace family live abnormally to their town of Medallion, Ohio. Whereas the Wrights have a conventional life style, living up to society’s expectations.The importance of a healthy mother-daughter relationship is shown through the interactions of Eva and Hannah Peace, Hannah and Sula, and between Helene Wright and Nel. When Sula and Nel become friends they realize the improper parenting they
Russell, Karen. “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”. Comp. John Schilb and John Clifford. Making Literature Matter. Print.
In a desperate attempt to discover his true identity, the narrator decides to go back to Wisconsin. He was finally breaking free from captivity. The narrator was filling excitement and joy on his journey back home. He remembers every town and every stop. Additionally, he admires the natural beauty that fills the scenery. In contrast to the “beauty of captivity” (320), he felt on campus, this felt like freedom. No doubt, that the narrator is more in touch with nature and his Native American roots than the white civilized culture. Nevertheless, as he gets closer to home he feels afraid of not being accepted, he says “… afraid of being looked on as a stranger by my own people” (323). He felt like he would have to prove himself all over again, only this time it was to his own people. The closer the narrator got to his home, the happier he was feeling. “Everything seems to say, “Be happy! You are home now—you are free” (323). Although he felt as though he had found his true identity, he questioned it once more on the way to the lodge. The narrator thought, “If I am white I will not believe that story; if I am Indian, I will know that there is an old woman under the ice” (323). The moment he believed, there was a woman under the ice; He realized he had found his true identity, it was Native American. At that moment nothing but that night mattered, “[he], try hard to forget school and white people, and be one of these—my people.” (323). He
Another Country is possibly the only novel of its time in which every character suffers from a feeling of isolation. All the main characters share in the feeling of isolation. Whether the character's isolation is a result of race, economic situation, or even sexual orientation, each character's life is affected. The feeling of isolation causes the characters to lose touch with reality.
Kathy's odd disappearance is haunting the reader all the way throughout the novel. Her husband?s unstable emotional being is somewhat a key to the mystery. We examine his inner thoughts and simultaneous occurrences, but we are still left guessing. There are various situations that lead to multiple possibilities of Kathy?s disappearance. Did John eat Kathy? Did she take the boat and vanish, or did John murder her, and hide her in the Lake of the Woods? These are all possible hypotheses that will be looked into and taken apart to find out what really happened to Kathy.
Upon reading the first paragraph, Shirley Jackson describes the town in general. The town is first mentioned in the opening paragraph where she sets the location in the town square. She puts in perspective the location of the square "between the post office and the bank" (196). This visualizes for the reader what a small town this is, since everything seems to be centralized at or near the town square. This is also key in that the town square is the location for the remaining part of the story. The town square is an important location for the setting since the ending of the story will be set in this location. Also, Shirley Jackson creates a comfortable atmosphere while describing the residents of the town. First, she describes the children gathering together and breaking into "boisterous play"(196). Also, the children are described as gathering rocks, which is an action of many normal children. She described the men as gathering together and talking about "planting and rain, tractors and taxes"(196). Finally, she describes the women of this community as "exchanging bits of gossip"(196) which is a common stereotype of women. She creates a mood for the reader of the town and residents of this town on a normal summer morning.
In this book review I represent and analyze the three themes I found the most significant in the novel.