In “The Dead” by James Joyce, the author uses many strategies in order to understand the character of Gabriel. Some of the strategies he used were: symbolism, allusion, and personification.
One of the techniques that James Joyce uses is symbolism. He uses symbolism throughout the whole story. An example could be “A petticoat string dangled to the floor” in this sentence i feel that the feelings he had for his wife are changing, they are not the same anymore, they are going away. “One boot stood up right”, almost all of the symbolism he uses is to describe his feelings and emotions. “The blinds would be drawn down” how it all ends, everything in life comes to an end and maybe this was his time. Another device he uses is allusion, a implied or
In Alistair McLeod’s collection of short stories the Lost Salt Gift of Blood; death seems to be a constant companion. Death is important and perhaps even symbolic in this collection of short stories. It is important because it has the power to affect people and relationships, invokes freedom and even predetermines ones future, through the death of animal’s people and the impending death of others.
There are many writers like James Joyce, Patrick Kananach and Thomas Moore who use symbolism to convey and support indirect meaning in their writings. J.D. Salinger and F. Scott Fitzgerald both use symbolism in similar ways. In both “The Catcher In The Rye” and “The Great Gatsby”, the authors used symbolism to convey emotions and reality.
Metaphors and Similes are often used in this story, so the reader has a better image of the setting, this is something, and I find Connell did incredibly well, for instance when he refers to the darkness of the night like moist black velvet, the sea was as flat as a plate-glass and it was like trying to see through a blanket.
The most prominent example of this is the imagery of the wallpaper and the way the narrator’s opinion on the wallpaper slowly changes throughout the story; this directly reflects what is happening within the narrator’s mind. At the beginning of the story, the narrator describes the wallpaper as “Repellent.revolting. a smoldering unclean yellow” (Gilman 377). As the story continues, the narrator starts to become obsessed with the wallpaper and her opinion of it has completely changed from the beginning. Symbolism plays a big part in “The Yellow Wallpaper” too.
Throughout the film, Stranger than Fiction, director, Marc Forster conveys idealistic concepts through the use of symbolism and imagery. Alluding to René Magritte's Son of Man, the green apple was a prevalent symbol in the film -- often being held or eaten by Harold Crick. It exemplified the idea that the beguiling sight of that which is hidden by what is visible was sought after by Harold. This motif is portrayed when Harold abruptly stopped everything in pursuit of determining how he would die after hearing the narrator express that a small act “ … would result in his imminent death” (Stranger than Fiction), therefore becoming enmeshed in his efforts to see what is hidden by what is visible. In doing so, Harold disregarded the miniscule feats that could potentially change his fate, and only focused on that which he had no control over. Forster
In Fitzgerald’s works one of the most important characteristic of his style is use of symbols. The beauty and liveliness of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s writing is more conspicuously pen down when it comes using colours for symbolism. Through Fitzgerald’s point of view colour symbolism mirrors the inside reality of 1920’s the Jazz Age. In Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and Damned, symbols play an integral part in the novel. This chapter of academic research will emphasize various colours used for symbolism in the novel. Samkanashvili states that Fitzgerald works like a painter and makes his writing very visual she adds that using colours gives a clearer picture into characters and their experiences (31).
Since symbolism first began to be used in the English language, Light has always represented a theme of hope and optimism. The phrase “Light at the end of the tunnel” best encompasses this, implying an opportunity or relief after difficulty or chaos. In the same way, Darkness has represented confusion or despair. James Joyce expands on the traditional connotations of Light and Darkness in his short story “Araby”. The narrative follows a young boy on his futile quest to find love with a girl much older than himself whom he hardly knows. Joyce uses Light to represent not only hope, but unrealistic idealism and illusion. In the same way, Darkness, in addition to despair, represents the reality and truth in the narrator's predicament. Joyce uses Light and Darkness as a symbol for the clash between fantasy and reality that takes place within the narrator.
As Lindsay Wagner once said, “When we shift our perception, our experience changes.” (Lindsay Wagner) Similarly, in the “The Funeral” by Gordon Parks, the speaker matures, realizing the beauteous environment he once saw is nothing more than a couple streams, hills, and dirt roads. As a child, he remembers being in awe while looking upon the stunning world around him. He saw everything through an elegant eye valuing it almost more than life itself. However, when the speaker returns home “after many snows,” (Parks, line 1) his surroundings didn’t have nearly the same effect on him. The magical place that brings elation to his childhood no longer exists. In its place, the speaker now sees gently trickling streams where raging rivers once were,
In Funeral Rites, Heaney portrays various attitudes towards death, which are amplified in North as a collection, through its distinct, tri-partite structure. In the first section, Heaney concentrates on his admiration of the ceremony he experienced attending funerals in the past.The transition from past tense to present is confirmed by the strong adverb ‘Now’, and lines 33-39 focus on The Troubles plaguing Northern Ireland since the 1960s. Future tense beginning on line 40 addresses Heaney’s hope for the future, emphasizing the current lack of ritual.
The Stranger, by Albert Camus, depicts a man who is going through life with an existential viewpoint on things that he does. The protagonist, Meursault, insists on going through life as if nothing in his life matters at all, and the point of his existence continues to escape him on many different levels. Through the death of his mother; the relationship with Maria, and the killing of an Arab; Meursault still finds that the meaning of his life escapes him. While many people believe that Camus uses symbolism with the weather and various other devices, I believe he uses a different approach. In The Stranger, Camus shows through symbolism that the true meaning of life is found when facing one’s own death.
James Joyce centers a lot of his narratives on the frivolity of childhood. In both of his stories Araby and the Dead, he evolves around the theme of childhood romance and the lost love. Looking at both of the stories, one can inference that both stories are irreparably connected, however, there are some very subtle differences.
In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, she speaks much about tradition in a small town in which many have been lost over the years. The black box, which Shirley speaks about in the beginning of the story, is of great importance. The black box represents the entrapment of tradition and the change over time. It is the trapping of tradition because now that it is worn and ragged they still do not want to change it because it is tradition. Along with the box changing many people’s views on The Lottery, it also lets the town’s people stand strong by themselves. Shirley Jackson in “The Lottery” uses symbolism and irony to foreshadow death.
in Dublin still want to forget the problem and enjoy at least on New Years
James Joyce and William Butler Yeats are perhaps the two most prominent modernist writers of the twentieth century, and both have left their unique stylistic legacies to English literature. Though these fellow Irishmen wrote at the same time, their drastically different styles reveal distinctions in their characters and standpoints, and comparing them provides intriguing glimpses into two deeply individual minds. One area in which an obvious difference in approach exists is the way each uses symbolism; whereas Yeats often uses a heavy symbolism placed in the foreground of his works to reveal broader truths and ideological beliefs, Joyce chooses a subtler method in which less visible symbols are woven into the fabric of the prose. Joyce’s closing story in the collection Dubliners, “The Dead,” is exemplary of his approach to symbolic imagery. Joyce repeatedly mentions the falling snow in an understated manner at carefully selected moments, slowly working its presence into the consciousness of the reader. In the final paragraphs, the snow is revealed as a symbol of significance, though still one of elusive meaning to a certain extent. Yeats’ poem “Byzantium” makes an interesting counterpart to “The Dead” because of not only the noticeable difference in style but also some ironic parallels between the two works.
The Theme of Death in Poetry Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson are two Modern American Poets who consistently wrote about the theme of death. While there are some comparisons between the two poets, when it comes to death as a theme, their writing styles were quite different. Robert Frost’s poem, “Home Burial,” and Emily Dickinson’s poems, “I felt a Funeral in my Brain,” and “I died for Beauty,” are three poems concerning death. While the theme is constant there are differences as well as similarities between the poets and their poems. The obvious comparison between the three poems is the theme of death.