Isaura, awakening from her unpleasant and bitter thoughts, took her little sewing basket and started to leave the parlor, resolved to disappear into the most hidden nook of the house, or find a secluded niche in the orchard. She hoped to avoid the repetition of the embarrassing and indecent scenes that had experienced. She barely took the first step before being detained by a wandering grotesque figure, that entering the parlor came to place himself in front of her. It was a misshapen figure resembling human form; a small man oddly shaped, with a huge head, diminutive chest, short legs bent outward, hairy as a bear, and ugly as a monkey. He was like a deformed clown, that embodied the indispensable part of the retinue of any great king of the Middle Ages, to entertain him and his courtiers. Nature forgot to give him a neck, and the large head sprouted from the center of a formidable hump. However, the face was neither deformed, nor repugnant, and expressed cordiality, servility, and benevolence. Isaura would have screamed in fear, had she not been familiar with that strange figure, because it was no other than Mr. Belchior, faithful and exemplary islander, that had for many years exercised in that estate with dignity and conscientiousness, regardless of his deformity and simplicity, the position of gardener. It seems that flowers, the natural symbol of everything beautiful, pure, and delicate, should have a less deformed and hideous caretaker. However, luck or the whim of the homeowner chose such a contradiction, perhaps to contrast the beauty of one at the expense of the ugliness of the other. Belchior had in one of his hands a large straw hat, that he dragged on the ground, and with the other hand gras... ... middle of paper ... ...instead of in the company of that cad." "Just as well that you witnessed with your own eyes what I couldn't tell you myself. Now, what's your plan?" "What's my plan? ... Please, go this instant and find where he is in the house.... Have you seen him anywhere?" "If I'm not mistaken, I saw someone in the parlor reclining on the sofa." "Very well, Henrique, please come with me." "Why don't you go alone? Save me the aggravation of confronting him ..." "No, no; I need you to go with me; I've waited for your return for that reason. I need you to support and encourage me. I am afraid of him." "Ah! I understand now; you want me to be your bodyguard, so you can scold that cad. "Very well, I willingly place myself at your service, and we'll see if that scoundrel has the audacity to disrespect you. Come!"
Under the orders of her husband, the narrator is moved to a house far from society in the country, where she is locked into an upstairs room. This environment serves not as an inspiration for mental health, but as an element of repression. The locked door and barred windows serve to physically restrain her: “the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.” The narrator is affected not only by the physical restraints but also by being exposed to the room’s yellow wallpaper which is dreadful and fosters only negative creativity. “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.”
“No, you rip those boys right off him. You can’t always defend yourself. You’ll have to be willing to fight for things you love.”
Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is, at first glance, a novel about a young, handsome man’s demise as he travels into a world of self- indulgence, immorality, and evil. Though the predominant motif of beauty versus ugliness is the main take-away point, Wilde’s use of symbols, particularly flowers cannot go unnoticed. From characterization to depicting religious allusions, flowers are frequently used in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Clearly, the novel’s use of roses, orchids, lilacs, and the like has an underlying meaning, which will be explored and analyzed in this essay.
In this passage, The Flowers by Alice Walker employs several literary devices that serve as elements that correspond with the innocence of a child and her adventure to peripeteia that builds into an impactful allegorical short story. With the intricate style of the writer and through the uses of diction, tone, imagery, and symbolism; Alice accentuates her symbolic definition of the term "the flowers" and adequately prepares readers for a horrid conclusion of the novel.
"Why didn't you tell me where you were going, Tegan? I couldn't find you in the house and I was worried."
English Instructor at Adrian College in Adrian, Michigan, Cynthia Bily in her article “The Chrysanthemums” (2002) argues that in a male-dominated or practical-minded society, Elisa is oppressed and her chrysanthemums are compensation for what she is missing in her life. She supports her claim by first explaining ecofeminism and how women and nature are connected, the shows how Elisa is limited by her husband and the tinker telling her what she cannot do, then discussing the strength Elisa gets from being one and connecting with the plants, and finally sharing examples of how every man in the story subdues and disrespects nature instead. Bily’s purpose is to show the various connections between Elisa, the men, the plants, and the society in
I stumbled onto the porch and hear the decrepit wooden planks creak beneath my feet. The cabin had aged and had succumb to the power of the prime mover in its neglected state. Kudzu vines ran along the structure, strangling the the cedar pillars that held the roof above the porch. One side of the debacle had been defeated by the ensnarement and slouched toward the earth. However, the somber structure survives in spite. It contests sanguine in the grip of the strangling savage. But the master shall prevail and the slave will fall. It will one day be devoured and its remains, buried by its master, never to be unearthed, misinterpreted as a ridge rather than a
King Richard III was the last Plantagenet king and is doubtlessly one of the most controversial British rulers of the Middle Ages. His reign marked the end of the Wars of the Roses between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians and the beginning of a new myth based not only on his physical appearance but also on this moral. He is depicted as a deformed human being; he is believed to have had a hunchback and his physical description is one of a monster, of a deformed creature. However, this allegation most likely lies on the grounds that he has been an inhumanly cruel and wicked person; a ruthless tyrant who is thought to have murdered and bastardised his two young nephews in the Tower of London, one of which had been crowned to the throne. In order to provide evidence to the accusations levelled at Richard III, archaeologists have conducted numerous excavations to find out whether this portrait of Richard III was real or a mere metaphor to describe his actions. It is just conceivably that this physical representation is based on the Tudor Myth -a myth that initially started by Tudor’s historians such as Polydore Vergir and Sir Thomas More, and perpetuated by Shakespreare’s play Richard III, in which he is also described as an abnormal King.
"Hold your hand Soldier. He's the bravest lad I've ever seen and I'll not have him whipped." He paused for a moment. " At least not until I've spoken with him and see what this is all about."
"Ha Ha Ha, you're funny. Do you think I will just go away and not take with me that sword of yours?"
“At least I don’t need a personal bodyguard,” Bruce mumbled as he walked away down the carpeted hallway
She had a thin awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark lank hair, and strong features; - so much for her person; - and not less unpropitious for heroism seemed her mind. She was fond of all boys’ plays, and greatly preferred cricket not merely to dolls, but to the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush. Indeed she had no taste for the garden; and if she gathered flowers at all, it was chiefly for the pleasure of mischief – at least so it was conjectured from her always preferring those which she was forbidden to take (I.i).
In Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady, Captain Daniel Forrester is a gardener at heart. His lifetime is spent encouraging growth, whether of railroads, personal lives or flowers. His philosophy is to dream “because a thing that is dreamed of in the way I mean is already an accomplished fact” (44). Close friends described the Captain as clearly looking like “… pictures of Grover Cleveland. His clumsy dignity covered a deep nature, and a conscience that had never been juggled with” (39). Because of his clear conscience Captain Forrester became a rich soil for many around him to take root in. As this soil, he could always be in the background and many never noticed how important he was until he was missed. Once the Captain’s career outside his home ended he truly opens up to the peacefulness of nature, including his flowers, which eventually illustrate the phases of his life.
In a deep gravely voice “Fine, your job is to stay behind and guard the base with your life, do I make my self clear!?”