Narrative- My Suppressed Wild Side
Ten years old: 1975, still in my boy body, my boy mind. Solid and strong with the endurance to play all day moving from the tangled, viney “jungle” on the far side of the pond to the secret play house in the damp dark basement of my best friend David’s house, to the high speed heroics played out on our banana-seated bikes. I was not a boy of course, but wanted to be.
I climb trees, even ones sticky with sap. The smell of pine hangs on me as I lie in bed at night. I ride up the hill on Saturday, find David and set to digging a big hole in the dirt. We collect old pans and buckets from his mom’s messy kitchen and create a “hooey booey stew.” We are hobos having our meal by the tracks; we are Davy Crockett or Daniel Boone eating by the fire deep in the wilderness. The meal over, David and I pour our concoctions into the deep hole, add dirt and more water – he yells, “Get the hose!” – and then rolling up our “tuff jeans,” we stand in the muddy mix of grass and water and dirt, stomping up and down, giggling and falling over. What pleases me is to feel it between my toes and to feel the tightness of mud drying on my shins as we catch our breath lying by the hole – sun-baked. Afterwards, bellies to the ground, David and I crawl under the prickly, holly branches to get to our secret fort. It pleases me to taste the salty sweet of blood from a scrape that I refuse to get a band-aid for. Later, I ride my bike home from David’s full speed down the hill, but not fast enough to appease my full bladder. “Wonder what it would feel like to just pee as I ride my bike?” So I pee my pants and the sensation is a wonderful release – a naughty rule-breaking. And in the summer I jump with my brothers and sisters off a 25 foot high cliff down into the river where my dad waits for us. Oh…the force of the cold water on my skin and the strength of my father’s big hand as he guides each of us towards the rock to climb out. Summer nights I lie on the dewy grass, watch for shooting stars and try to the name the constellations as my dad has taught me.
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.
Lefkowitz believes that the Iliad wouldn't be complete without the role of women. In comparison, Michael Murphy, author of Vows, Boasts and Taunts, And the Role Of Women In So...
The drive to cross the Kentucky border had taken hours and hours of strenuous patience to finally arrive in another state. The view was by far country like as hints of cow manure could be smelled far from a distance. We drive through small towns, half the size of our hometown of Glen Ellyn had been the biggest town we've seen if not smaller. The scenery had overwhelmed us, as lumps of Earth from a great distance turned to perfectly molded hills, but as we got closer and closer to our destination the hills no longer were hills anymore, instead the hills had transformed to massive mountains of various sizes. These mountains surrounded our every view as if we had sunken into a great big deep hole of green pastures. Our path of direction was seen, as the trails of our road that had followed for numerous hours ended up winding up the mountainous mountains in a corkscrew dizzy-like matter.
Homer. The Iliad. World Literature Anthology Through the Renaissance. Ed. Linda Silva. Vol. 1. Charles Town, West Virginia: APUS ePress. 2011. 127–93. Ebook.
when we’d finally arrived in Mt. Harrison, and I have to say I couldn’t have been happier to finally arrive. I wasn’t just excited about seeing the new house that we’d be living in (By that point my mama had told me a little about the house she’d grown up in and of the village of Mt. Harrison. From what I had taken from it was that the place was enormous, the house that is. Well, at the very least it was a hell-of-a-lot bigger than the two-bedroom ranch we’d been forced to live in back in Alabama. She had also mentioned to me that it sat atop of six acres of our own land. That the property also flanked more than thirty square miles of state forest which was part of Letchworth State Park.) but I could have screamed if I had to spend even one more minute folded up in that backseat. My ass had grown thoroughly numb more than seventy miles back, and I had to pee. Besides that, by the end of the trip, my Step Daddy Cade had started smelling like a stale, rank fart wrapped in a rotten skunk anus because he had decided to skip a shower at the prestigious Trail-blazer Motor
Epilepsy is a condition characterized by recurrent seizures which are unprovoked by any immediately identifiable cause (Hopkins & Shorvon, 1995). It is also known as a seizure disorder. A wide range of links and risk factors are associated with the condition, but most of the time the cause is unknown. Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders, affecting approximately two and half million people in the US and about 50 million worldwide. Though seizures can occur at any age, epilepsy is most commonly seen in children and the elderly. Most respond well to treatment and can control their seizures, but for some it is a chronic illness. A clinical diagnosis is the first step to finding a potential cure for the disorder.
As I inched my way toward the cliff, my legs were shaking uncontrollably. I could feel the coldness of the rock beneath my feet when my toes curled around the edge in one last futile attempt at survival. My heart was racing like a trapped bird, desperate to escape. Gazing down the sheer drop, I nearly fainted; my entire life flashed before my eyes. I could hear stones breaking free and fiercely tumbling down the hillside, plummeting into the dark abyss of the forbidding black water. The trees began to rapidly close in around me in a suffocating clench, and the piercing screams from my friends did little to ease the pain. The cool breeze felt like needles upon my bare skin, leaving a trail of goose bumps. The threatening mountains surrounding me seemed to grow more sinister with each passing moment, I felt myself fighting for air. The hot summer sun began to blacken while misty clouds loomed overhead. Trembling with anxiety, I shut my eyes, murmuring one last pathetic prayer. I gathered my last breath, hoping it would last a lifetime, took a step back and plun...
Since a young age Barrett Browning had shown significant amounts of interest in poetry and literature. By the age of four she had began reading and writing verse. “She was educated at home, and learned classic Greek, Latin, and several modern languages” (Shilstone 646). For being self-educated, her devotion to poetry, literature, and classical studies was exceptional (EXPLORING Poetry). “Elizabeth could read Homer in the original at 8 years old” (Greer). “She completed an epic poem, ‘Battle of Marathon’. when she was thirteen, and her father had it privately printed” (Greer).
Homer, Iliad is the narration of the Trojan war. The Trojan war was one of the most important and significant wars of Greek mythology, Homer described how the war was triggered by the abduction of the most beautiful women known as Helen. This paper will argue how the traditional view of this poem is accurate because it indeed was Helens beauty and her selfishness that sparked the Trojan war. Although Helen was not happy about the outcomes of her mistakes. This paper will present how Helen faced many forms of self judgment, how she created many relationships with significant characters, such as Paris, Priam and Aphrodite. Homers portrayal of this significant women was remarkable as we were able to feel her pain and anguish, the readers were
Edwards, Mark. A Historical Introduction to the Iliad and the Odyssey. Newark, Del.: University of Delaware Press, 1981.
Sitting in the back seat between two towering piles of clothes and snacks we drive up the abandoned streets of Adell. I see vast open fields of corn and dense wooded forest filled with life, along with the occasional, towering grain house. We pull into a dry, dusty, driveway of rock and thriving, overgrown weeds. We come up to an aged log cabin with a massive crab apple tree with its sharp thorns like claws. The ancient weeping willow provides, with is huge sagging arms, shade from the intense rays of the sun. Near the back of the house there is a rotten, wobbly dock slowly rotting in the dark blue, cool water. Near that we store our old rusted canoes, to which the desperate frogs hop for shelter. When I venture out to the water I feel the thick gooey mud squish through my toes and the fish mindlessly try to escape but instead swim into my legs. On the lively river banks I see great blue herring and there attempt to catch a fish for their dinner. They gracefully fly with their beautiful wings arching in the sun to silvery points.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born on March 6, 1806 near Durham, England to Edward Barrett Moulton. Elizabeth’s family was from Jamaica. Her father’s health was derived from extensive sugar plantations in Jamaica; this was the proprietor of “Hope Island”. Her father began to suffer from financial losses, and could no longer afford to maintain the Hope Estate. She was the eldest of twelve children. Elizabeth was an English Poet who was known for her love poems. Elizabeth’s childhood nickname was “Ba”. She spent most of her childhood at a country house in MarrenHills, Worcestershire. At the age of four she composed verses. She began to write poetry at the age of six. Before Elizabeth was ten she read the histories of England, Greece, Rome, and several other Shakespeare plays. Elizabeth was educated at home. At the age of fifteen she was seriously ill as a result of a spinal injury and heart palpitations that plagued her permanently. Doctors treated her with morphine that she would have to take for the rest of her life. Elizabeth wrote her first book by the age of fifteen. Unlike her two sisters she immersed herself in the world of books. By the age of twenty she was offered to the public with no induction of au...
Richardson, Nicholas. The Iliad : A Commentary. Vol. VI: books 21-24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1993.
We all grabbed our lawn chairs and cozied up next to the roaring red fire. I always sat a little too close, enough to where the fire burnt a hole straight through my favorite pair of flip-flops, assuring me to never make that mistake again. S’mores was all of our favorite bed time snack time and a perfect way to end the night. Every time I would roast my marshmallow until it became slightly brown, mushy, and not too hot in the center; then I 'd put it between two graham crackers and extra pieces of chocolate. One too many s’mores and a belly like later I laid back in my chair and listened as Nancy told us stories. Before going to bed Nancy told us about her favorite past times here as a child and how just like the little girl we saw fishing, she was also afraid of fishing. She told us stories about how much the campground has evolved since she was a child and how every year she promises to take us here and to keep it a tradition. At bedtime Alicia and I crawl into our tents and snuggle up in our warm sleeping bags. We talked to each other about how sad we felt that it was almost the end of summer, and how nervous we felt to start our freshman year of high school. However, our conversations ended when Nancy yelled at as from the other tent to keep quiet and go to bed. I’d fallen asleep that night to the sound of the fire crackling out and the crickets chirping
Once upon a time, I saw the world like I thought everyone should see it, the way I thought the world should be. I saw a place where there were endless trials, where you could try again and again, to do the things that you really meant to do. But it was Jeffy that changed all of that for me. If you break a pencil in half, no matter how much tape you try to put on it, it'll never be the same pencil again. Second chances were always second chances. No matter what you did the next time, the first time would always be there, and you could never erase that. There were so many pencils that I never meant to break, so many things I wish I had never said, wish I had never done. Most of them were small, little things, things that you could try to glue back together, and that would be good enough. Some of them were different though, when you broke the pencil, the lead inside it fell out, and broke too, so that no matter which way you tried to arrange it, they would never fit together and become whole again. Jeff would have thought so too. For he was the one that made me see what the world really was. He made the world into a fairy tale, but only where your happy endings were what you had to make, what you had to become to write the words, happily ever after. But ever since I was three, I remember wishing I knew what the real story was.