In the short story “No One Is a Mystery” by Elizabeth Tallent the reader is introduced to a nameless female character. Throughout the story there are various descriptions that has great subtext to the relationship between the narrator and her lover Jack. One of the best descriptions in the short story is when the narrator is staring at Jack’s boot. The description Tallent uses makes the reader use one of their five senses, she makes the reader focus on the sense of touch. Tallent writes of boot’s frayed thread and scuffed toes. Another good description of the sense was muddy manure. The last part of the description is when the narrator gives a telling detail about the relationship between the two. She mentions that Jack has been wearing the …show more content…
Subtext is the underlying theme within the story. Subtext in this story comes from the character of Arnold Fiend who tries to convince Connie to leave with him. An example of dialogue with subtext is “Honey," he said, talking right through her voice, "Honey, I’m not coming in there but you are coming out here. You know why?" (Oates 7). What is being said here is a clear threat however he is not outright saying so. By Arnold telling her although he will not be entering the house sooner or later she will be going with him whether she likes it or not. Summarized dialogue also appears in the text. Summarized dialogue is when the Author wants to avoid unnecessary dialogue and holds dull material. An example of this type of dialogue is “You don 't want them to get hurt," Arnold Friend went on. "Now, get up, honey. Get up all by yourself” (Oates 9). Arnold does not have to explain to Connie that if she does go with him that he will kill her family and ruin her life. I think the reason the author summarized this part is because Oates wanted to establish the conniving techniques that Arnold showed in the beginning of the story. Arnold did not have to say that he was going to murder Connie’s family his simply threat was enough. Doing this also adds an element of mystery and suspense to make the reader wonder. He did not confirm that he was going to kill but do …show more content…
An unreliable narrator is when the character unconsciously doesn’t tell the entire story as we are seeing it from one pair of eyes. Although one could say that it’s an unreliable first person point of view. Yunior does not show any sign of trying to make himself appear better instead he is unreliable in the sense of how he is telling the story. “She has big stupid lips and a sad moon face and the driest skin” (Diaz 145). Yunior description of Nilda is exaggerating because he does in fact like her but does not want to admit it. By describing her in such a manner it reveals that he does not want the world to know he liked her. Additional example of the unreliable first person point of view. The focus of the story should be on Nilda but it is a way for Yunior to deal with the grief of losing his brother Rafa. By speaking about Nilda he is remembering of his brother through the time she spent with Rafa. There are a few examples to demonstrated this within the text to show Yunior unreliability. “It was only one summer and she was nobody special, so what’s the point of all this? He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone” (Diaz 150). Yunior for a split second shows the connection between the two people in his life. Although the first part of the sentence is about Nilda he connects it to the loss of his brother. That line establish Yunior’s unreliable story
I think in some strange way Arnold becomes to Connie the way to escape into her fantasy. When she learns his true intentions she is scared to death at first but eventually that fear gives way to "an emptiness." Connie thinks, "I'm not going to see my mother again... I'm not going to sleep in my bed again.
In the opening sentence of this paragraph, two workers at the newspaper office are described. They are not, however, described as people though, they are instead said to be solely “two pairs of legs” (Porter 271). By describing solely this part of the people, Porter is drawing attention to a part of the body seemingly unrelated to newspaper writing. This gives the reader the impression that these two writers are either unskilled in the area or writing, or unimportant to the speaker. Interestingly, the legs are also described as, “dangling,” which paints the picture of a lifeless body. This could be perhaps indicating that these people are dead to her; both unimportant and unwanted. Porter then goes on to describe the legs as being “stuffed thickly into funnels of dark expensive-looking material.” The way in which this is described seems to imply that the fabric itself is strangling these legs that have now become representative of the speaker’s time at the newspaper. By describing the material as “dark” and “expensive looking,” Porter makes the writers at the newspaper appear to be both evil and fake. As Porter continues her description of the two writers, she notes how one of then was “oldish” and the other “youngish.” The vagueness in this description goes along with the feeling of universality in the writers that Porter has achieved by having them represented by a mere body part. Also, by having one writer be old, and the other young, the writers are closer to representing every man.
She’s just so weak. If she would stand up for herself, no one would bother her. It’s her own fault that people pick on her, she needs to toughen up. “Shape of a Girl” by Joan MacLeod, introduces us to a group of girls trying to “fit in” in their own culture, “school.” This story goes into detail about what girls will do to feel accepted and powerful, and the way they deal with everyday occurrences in their “world.” Most of the story is through the eyes of one particular character, we learn about her inner struggles and how she deals with her own morals. This story uses verisimilitude, and irony to help us understand the strife of children just wanting to fit in and feel normal in schools today.
The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is a story of science, religion and the life of the Henrietta Lacks herself. It has won many awards and was on the New York Best Seller list for over three years. To summarize it briefly, the book is based on the cells of Henrietta Lacks who died of cervical cancer in 1951. Sometime before she died, some of her tissue was sampled and used for research without her permission. They used the cells form her body to experiment on which led to many breakthrough discoveries in the scientific world. The cells were later named HeLa cells. No one in her family knew about this until years after her death, so they felt like she was just being used as an experiment from which they got nothing. When looking at the book as a whole, it is easy to see why so many people hold it in such high regards; however it appealed to me in a different way.
“Unbroken” by Laura Hillenbrand is a capturing, inspiring, and unforgettable tale. Hillenbrand excels in narrative storytelling, expressing feelings and experiences that are difficult to capture in this style of writing. In this book, Hillenbrand provides a balance between facts and the story itself; she portrays the story by stopping at intervals and going more into depth about different facts that will help the reader to understand. The combination of the two create a story that’s both informative and emotionally capturing. Hillenbrand seizes the readers emotions through the use of morals and themes.
In the short story, Connie is a young, naïve, sassy, little girl who hates her mom and sister. According to Oates, “Connie wished her mother was dead” (324). Connie enjoys going out with her friends and going to a drive-in restaurant where the older kids hang out. Connie is innocent, but thinks about love and sex. She is desperate to appeal to boys and succeeds at it when a boy with shaggy black hair says to her, “Gonna get you, baby” (325). Her encounter with this boy will change her life forever, because he is the antagonist that influences Connie’s loss of innocence. On a Sunday afternoon, the boy, Arnold Friend, visits Connie and asks her to come for a ride, which she declines. But, Arnold Friend won’t take “no” for an answer and threatens to go in the house. For example when Connie says she will call the cops, Arnold says “Soon as you touch the phone I don’t need to keep my promise and come inside”
Humans are curious people, knowing how things work and knowing how things fit together has always interested our minds. When we are presented with an idea that we don’t know we want to solve it. That is exactly the purpose of mystery and detective stories. Mystery stories capture our attention and makes us strive to find out and understand the story and this is why we keep coming back to them.
The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas is a short story written by Ursula Le Guin. In her story, Le Guin creates a model Utilitarian society in which the majority of its citizens are devoid of suffering; allowing them to become an expressive, artistic population. Le Guin’s unrelenting pursuit of making the reader imagine a rich, happy and festival abundant society mushrooms and ultimately climaxes with the introduction of the outlet for all of Omelas’ avoided misfortune. Le Guin then introduces a coming of age ritual in which innocent adolescents of the city are made aware of the byproduct of their happiness. She advances with a scenario where most of these adolescents are extremely burdened at first but later devise a rationalization for the “wretched one’s” situation. Le Guin has imagined a possible contemporary Utilitarian society with the goal to maximize the welfare of the greatest number of people. On the contrary, Kant would argue that using the child as a mere means is wrong and argue that the living conditions of the child are not universalizable. The citizens of Omelas must face this moral dilemma for all of their lives or instead choose to silently escape the city altogether.
The functioning of the average human mind has intrigued and plagued philosophers and thinkers over centuries, one of the most curious and fascinating studies have been made into personages with dual personalities, schizophrenia being one of the factors. Similarly, in the book, The Strange Case, as well as in the film, Psycho, the books are taken place in late Victorian London, but Psycho is in late 60’s in the USA. The respective authors in these two texts portray that duality of human nature exists in society and humanity through the use of characterization and setting.
In order to completely grasp exactly how the old maid appears to the woman on the sidewalk and the love she feels for the man walking with her, Sara Teasdale uses personification to describe the characters in the poem. One would be, “Her soul was frozen in the dark/ Unwarmed forever by love’s flame.” Obviously, a person’s soul cannot be frozen, but the meaning is that the old maid had never felt a heated intensity between herself and someone special to her which could give her a cold outlook on life. Another time the poet uses personification is when the speaker states, “His eyes were magic to defy”. Eyes cannot be magic. By saying that his eyes were magic the reader can get the notion that when the speaker looks into the eyes of her lover she feels awed, happy, or even entranced. Sara Teasdale also uses a metaphor in her work, “Her body was a thing growing thin,” In that line the speaker is comparing the old maid’s draining body to something that can get thinner. The poet uses a rhyme scheme of rhyming the second with the fourth line and there are four lines in every stanza. Finally, in this narrative poem there are eight syllables per line of the poem.
In Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast, Generous Orthodoxy, he explains what generous orthodoxy is. The generous part of generous orthodoxy amounts to being open to making changes and seeing change as positive, and the orthodoxy points to a more traditional stance on values. Combined, these two concepts are ironic, because generally traditions aren’t changed easily, and the changes made aren’t always accepted by the community that stands behind those traditions. Gladwell also explains that to make a positive change in a tradition, the body that you are trying to change must be respected.
Alexander Stowe is a twin, his brother is Aaron Stowe. Alex is an Unwanted, Aaron is a Wanted, and their parents are Necessaries. Alex is creative in a world where you can’t even see the entire sky, and military is the dream job for everyone and anyone. He should have been eliminated, just like all the unwanteds should have been. He instead comes upon Artimè, where he trains as a magical warrior- after a while. When he was still in basic training, and his friends were not, he got upset, he wants to be the leader, the one everyone looks up to.
Ann Rinaldi has written many books for young teenagers, she is an Award winning author who writes stories of American history and makes them become real to the readers. She has written many other books such as A Break with Charity, A Ride into Morning, and Cast two Shadows, etc. She was born in New York City on August 27, 1934. In 1979, at the age of 45, she finished her first book.
Elizabeth Gaskell's Nineteenth Century novel, Mary Barton, is an example of social realism in its depiction of the inhumanities suffered by the impoverished weavers of Manchester, England.
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...