The Horsemen in the Sky by Ambrose Bierce Works Cited Missing "The Horseman in the Sky" by Ambrose Bierce has many meanings in the title that makes it such an intriguing story. The title can mean any of four things if not all of them: a silhouette of a horseman on a cliff, the actual falling of the horseman from the cliff, the hypothetical meaning of Mr. Druse falling from heaven, and the irony of how Carter just called his father a horseman. The last of the four is ironic because to Carter, his father in war is just another soldier. It seemed like he didn't even acknowledge that the horseman is his father. The hypothetical meaning is after Carter kills his dad, and the falling of his dad could have been like an angel coming down from heaven. Carter Druse lives in Virginia with his mom and dad. One day a Union regiment comes down, and Carter decides to join it. His father being a true Virginian, says, "go sir, and whatever may occur do what you conceive to be your duty. Virginia, to which you are a traitor, must get on without you. Should we both live to the end of the war, we will speak further of the matter."(28) The father just lets Carter go as if he doesn't care. Carter's mother has just a few weeks to live, so maybe this adds to Mr. Druse's disbelief. Carter is trying to hide his "breaking heart" by saluting his father and walking off to join the Uni... ... middle of paper ... ...has many meanings. From being just a silhouette looked up upon, the actual falling of the group, and how a son would refer his father as. The irony of how Carter refers to his dad as just a horseman shows in his thought which cleared his mind. He remembers how his dad told him to do what he conceived to be his duty. We won't know whether or not Carter would have shot his dad if this did not pop into his head. Carter's duty was to shoot the enemy spy, and that is what he did. The silhouette seems to be in the sky because of its location on the edge of a cliff. The actual falling of the group was perceived by Carter to be amazing and terrifying. When Carter returned to camp and had time to think about what he just did, he can be at ease now that he can look back upon his father as truly being "the horseman in the sky."
Hutch, the main character of The Big Field, has played baseball all of his life. He has always played shortstop, the same position that his father dreamed of playing as a professional. “Hutch, had always thought of himself as the captain of any infield he’d ever been a part of” (Lupica 1). Hutch finds himself being demoted to second base because there is another player, Darryl, on his new team that is expected to go pro and also plays shortstop. Hutch struggles because he does not want to play second base and his father does not support him because he does not want baseball to break Hutch’s dreams like it did his own. Hutch is betrayed by his father and Darryl when he finds them practicing together. Hutch has to learn to adjust and eventually becomes friends with Darryl, the up and coming shortstop. He understands that if he wants to win, then he needs to work together with Darryl. His father also comes around and finally gives Hutch his approval. Students should read this book in a high school English classroom because it demonstrates how relationships can be difficult, but teamwork can help to solve many issues.
Darryl’s life is worth fighting for. “You can’t buy what I’ve got.” ‘The Castle’ directed by Rob Sitch, about one man, his family and neighbours on the verge of being homeless. Darryl Kerrigan, the “backbone of the family” won’t stand for that. Of course no one can buy what he has. He’s spent almost his entire lifetime building what he has, why should he give it up? Darryl’s way of life is simple yet filled with family values. 3 Highview Crescent is the home to Darryl, his wife Sal and their 3 children: Wayne, Steve, Tracy and Dale. (Wayne currently being in jail.) The house is made up of love, and simple family values. Darryl’s also added bits and pieces to it. He’s added on so much to the house, his own personal touch. His neighbours, also in the same bout are almost family to the Kerrigans. Jack and Farouk are another reason why Darryl’s ready to take matters into his own hands.
The pair of twins sat down in their homeroom class. One was gentle and charming, and the other was intelligent and had a great future in store. Being twins one would think they were very alike but secretly they were different. Sitting in homeroom no classmate would think that they were sitting next to a new definition of evil. In The Devil in the White City by Erick Larson, he decides to include different styles of ambition and appearance vs. reality to illustrate, that ambition can break one or make one and everything is not what it seems. Larson’s style is to add to irreverent stories together so that the two major protagonists highlight each other’s traits, one trait is their ambition. Both Holmes and Burnham are ambitious but in two different ways, which shows that ambition can make one or break one. How do they have different ambitions? Take their jobs as an example Burnham is an architect and Holmes is a doctor. When one has different jobs one strives for different things. Burnham in the novel strived for the Chicago’s World’s Exposition be more striking that the Exposition in Paris, as expressed by him saying, “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will themselves not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die” (Larson 1). By him saying “no little plans” he is trying to explain that the Exposition could have no limits. His vision is to create a “White City” and was going to accomplished that no matter what. His great ambition was to surpass Paris and at the end he did but Holmes had different plans. Burnham thought that if he made a grand and huge exposition Chicago would always be remembered as a White City...
In the book “The Mad Among Us-A History of the Care of American’s Mentally Ill,” the author Gerald Grob, tells a very detailed accounting of how our mental health system in the United States has struggled to understand and treat the mentally ill population. It covers the many different approaches that leaders in the field of mental health at the time used but reading it was like trying to read a food label. It is regurgitated in a manner that while all of the facts are there, it lacks any sense humanity. While this may be more of a comment on the author or the style of the author, it also is telling of the method in which much of the policy and practice has come to be. It is hard to put together without some sense of a story to support the action.
The killer angels is a world acclaimed novel that was written by an author known as Michael Shaara. In the year 1975, it was granted the Pulitzer Prize for creative writing. It gives us in details the occurrences of the four days in the Battle of Gettysburg. This was during the American Civil War that occurred in the year 1863. At this time, troops that comprised of both the Union and Confederacy were at war in town called Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. This is a piece of story that is driven by disposition and narrated from the point of view of various heroes (Hartwig, 1996).
David W. Blight's book Beyond the Battlefield: Race, Memory and the American Civil War, is an intriguing look back into the Civil War era which is very heavily studied but misunderstood according to Blight. Blight focuses on how memory shapes history Blight feels, while the Civil War accomplished it goal of abolishing slavery, it fell short of its ultimate potential to pave the way for equality. Blight attempts to prove that the Civil War does little to bring equality to blacks. This book is a composite of twelve essays which are spilt into three parts. The Preludes describe blacks during the era before the Civil War and their struggle to over come slavery and describes the causes, course and consequences of the war. Problems in Civil War memory describes black history and deals with how during and after the war Americans seemed to forget the true meaning of the war which was race. And the postludes describes some for the leaders of black society and how they are attempting to keep the memory and the real meaning of the Civil War alive and explains the purpose of studying historical memory.
mind was focused on other things other than his father. He thought that if he
This novel tells the story of a sixteen-year-old named Blake. One day, when Blake went to Six Flags with his two friends, Maggie (with whom Blake is in love with) and her boyfriend, Russ, and his brother, Quinn, Blake received an invitation to a carnival from a strange, gorgeous girl, Cassandra. Blake thought that the idea of going to the carnival is stupid, until he realized his brother stole the invitation. Blake convinced his two friends to tag along with him, so they could go find Quinn. As the characters entered the carnival, they learned that they have to survive seven deadly rides by dawn.
The book that I have read chose to review is Banner in the Sky by James Ramsey Ullman. James ramsey Ullman was born in New York City in 1907. His highest-honored book was Banner in the Sky, but four of his books, including this one, were made into major motion pictures.
The novel Good Omens is a satirical rendition of Armageddon in almost all aspects. The story begins with the coming of the Antichrist, brought into the world as a human infant though it is anything but. An angel and a demon, Aziraphale and Crowley respectively, and rather good friends considering their rather checkered past, have teamed up to ensure that The End is, in the very least, late. They take roles in molding the child to see both the sides of good and evil, trying to make it so that the boy will not be able to choose a side wholeheartedly when the time comes. However, when the boy is supposedly meant to start showing his powers, they realize that all their hard work had been wasted, and that this boy was an entirely normal human child. The genuine son of Satan was, in actuality, Adam Young, and was misplaced at birth into the care of two very normal parents in a very normal little hamlet in South East England. Adam grows up “not [as an] Evil Incarnate or Good Incarnate… [but] a human incarnate” (366). He is as human and innocent as an eleven year old can be; still finding himself and his three best friends provoking terror and irritation amongst their more elderly or respectable neighbours, though that is more excused as a preadolescent quirk rather than wicked. Wicked happens to be what Newton Pulsifer, a relatively newly dubbed Witchfinder Detective of Witchfinder Sargent Shadwell’s Witchfinder army, is looking for. He is given the task to search through newspapers and anything of the sort to find evidence of anything remotely witchy, which happens to be precisely what Anathema Device, actual self-proclaimed witch and descendant of the most accurate and useless psychic in history, can be found doing. Admittedly, she is ...
Hopkins, Ernest Jerome. The complete Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce. Nebraska: University of Nebraska, 1970. 305-319. Print.
Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose I. Authors Background Stephen Ambrose was born in 1936 and grew up in Whitewater, Wisconsin, a small town where his father received the M.D. At the University of Wisconsin, he started as a pre-med, but inspired by a great professor he changed his major to History. After getting his M.A. degree at Louisiana State University, he returned to the University of Wisconsin to complete a Ph.D. Ambrose began teaching at the University of New Orleans. He started as a Civil War historian but changed to political history after President Eisenhower asked him to become his biographer. Since then, Ambrose has written more than twenty books. Among his best sellers are D-Day, Citizen Soldiers, Band of Brothers, Undaunted Courage and Nothing Like It in the World.
The book, Into the wild, takes us into the world of a young man named Christopher Johnson McCandless. He travelled across the western United States from 1990 to 1992, and on April 28, 1992, he started his last adventure and walked into the wilds of Alaska. About 112 days later, he died of starvation. Unsurprisingly, public opinion polarized on his behavior. Some may admire his courage and noble ideals, though some regard him as an idiotic and arrogant narcissist. Although he died on his way to find the truth and back to nature, I believe that Chris McCandless should be considered as a hero, but I cannot completely approve of all his behaviors.
Louise Erdrich’s short story “American horse” is a literary piece written by an author whose works emphasize the American experience for a multitude of different people from a plethora of various ethnic backgrounds. While Erdrich utilizes a full arsenal of literary elements to better convey this particular story to the reader, perhaps the two most prominent are theme and point of view. At first glance this story seems to portray the struggle of a mother who has her son ripped from her arms by government authorities; however, if the reader simply steps back to analyze the larger picture, the theme becomes clear. It is important to understand the backgrounds of both the protagonist and antagonists when analyzing theme of this short story. Albetrine, who is the short story’s protagonist, is a Native American woman who characterizes her son Buddy as “the best thing that has ever happened to me”. The antagonist, are westerners who work on behalf of the United States Government. Given this dynamic, the stage is set for a clash between the two forces. The struggle between these two can be viewed as a microcosm for what has occurred throughout history between Native Americans and Caucasians. With all this in mind, the reader can see that the theme of this piece is the battle of Native Americans to maintain their culture and way of life as their homeland is invaded by Caucasians. In addition to the theme, Erdrich’s usage of the third person limited point of view helps the reader understand the short story from several different perspectives while allowing the story to maintain the ambiguity and mysteriousness that was felt by many Natives Americans as they endured similar struggles. These two literary elements help set an underlying atmos...
showed itself at moments, and I always was deeply upset knowing, his father could never do