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Significance of symbolism in literature
Eudora welty one writer's beginnings uses what rhetorical elements
Significance of symbolism in literature
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Welty’s use of the natural world in “A Curtain of Green” provides rich symbolism for this story. In Casey Kayser’s review “Eudora Welty's World: Words on Nature” he discusses the vivid descriptions Welty provides of the natural world and places them into different categories: trees, flowers, birds, creatures, the seasons, time of day, the sky, and places (Kayser 72). In her fiction, Welty uses the world around her and that quality found in her photographs of white and black southerners in Mississippi during the time of the Great Depression, to provide her with interesting and meaningful short stories. Welty seemed to be deeply accustomed to the natural world as she affirms this connection with her autobiography, One Writer’s Beginnings: “the outside world is the vital component of my inner life…My imagination takes its strength and guides its direction from what I see and hear and learn and feel and remember of my living world” (Kayser 73). Being a southern writer, critics examine how Welty depicts people’s relationships with their land, or consider the sense of place she creates in her …show more content…
Welty’s detail begins with her title by including the term “curtain,” which suggests early on that something in this story will be hidden, shielded, or shut-out. Symbolism is strongly present from the first word in the story all the way to the last. Welty’s strong use of symbolism is so well linked to the overall major themes, and when carefully analyzing each of these elements, enhances the quality of the story drastically. Welty is known for her attention to detail, as she provides readers with an interesting experience as pictures unfold on every page, and messages are conveyed to her readers. “A Curtain of Green” is such a simple story, but is written so beautifully, as it is filled with such vivid descriptive imagery, symbolism, and deep
The award-winning book of poems, Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson, is an eye-opening story. Told in first person with memories from the author’s own life, it depicts the differences between South Carolina and New York City in the 1960s as understood by a child. The book begins in Ohio, but soon progresses to South Carolina where the author spends a considerable amount of her childhood. She and her older siblings, Hope and Odella (Dell), spend much of their pupilage with their grandparents and absorb the southern way of life before their mother (and new baby brother) whisk them away to New York, where there were more opportunities for people of color in the ‘60s. The conflict here is really more of an internal one, where Jacqueline struggles with the fact that it’s dangerous to be a part of the change, but she can’t subdue the fact that she wants to. She also wrestles with the issue of where she belongs, “The city is settling around me….(but) my eyes fill up with the missing of everything and everyone I’ve ever known” (Woodson 184). The conflict is never explicitly resolved, but the author makes it clear towards the end
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, is a first-person narrative written in the style of a journal. It takes place during the nineteenth century and depicts the narrator’s time in a temporary home her husband has taken her to in hopes of providing a place to rest and recover from her “nervous depression”. Throughout the story, the narrator’s “nervous condition” worsens. She begins to obsess over the yellow wallpaper in her room to the point of insanity. She imagines a woman trapped within the patterns of the paper and spends her time watching and trying to free her. Gilman uses various literary elements throughout this piece, such as irony and symbolism, to portray it’s central themes of restrictive social norms
The humanity that Millay is privy to in the understandings she obtains from the observation of earth, sky, season, and the cycle of existence is the paramount essence of her writing. The poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay is the poetry of evaluation of that which is shared and experienced. In each of her writings above, Millay has reconfigured the notion of nature and humanity, not as separate things existing in the same world, but rather two forces occupying each other’s space long enough that there is an indelible reference to each in the existence of the other.
Eudora Welty’s short story, “Petrified Man”, is an electrifying story that captivates the reader from its opening lines. The opening of a story often times determines the success of a story because if the the reader’s attention is not grabbed from the beginning, the reader is not likely to continue reading and the story will not succeed. Welty has mastered the art of having captivating opening lines. From the start of the story, the reader is transported back to a time and place not too far gone. Even if the reader has never been to a beauty salon in the south, Welty has crafted the scene so expertly that one cannot help but feel as if they are in a familiar place. From the dialect of the characters to the vivid visuals of lavender everything
Tate, Allen. “A Southern Mode of the Imagination.” In Essays of Four Decades. Chicago: Swallow Press, 1968; (Third Edition) Wilmington, De: ISI Press, 1999.
Noelle M. “Symbolism in Eudora Welty’s ‘A Worn Path’” Study mode N.P., Oct 2012. Web. 17 Mar 2014.
One might think, based on the cultural importance of individualism in the United States, that a person can lead a successful life without any companions or loved ones. However, in The Bean Trees, author Barbara Kingsolver shows otherwise. Through the development of a flowering plant motif in this novel, the world is shown to be a place where people need others who love and care for them to live a fulfilling life. The motif of flowering plants develops meaning through the author’s continued use. Kingsolver introduces this motif in the chapter “The Miracle of Dog Doo Park” when the wisteria blossoms out of the seemingly hostile environment of the polluted, parched park. The word “miracle”
Throughout history, culture is articulated in a plethora of manners: music, food, and literature, to name a few. Nonetheless, the novel has arguably proved to be the most excellent and effective vehicle for expressing culture, and this is certainly true when considering Appalachian culture. Novels such as Cold Mountain, Fair and Tender Ladies, Farewell, I’m Bound to Leave You, All Over but the Shoutin’, and Clay’s Quilt work to highlight a number of themes and aspects of Appalachian culture. However, perhaps the most indisputable recurring theme throughout these novels is the characters’ nostalgia for times past. This yearning manifests itself differently for each individual character, and on occasion, one character may experience many
Gilman, Charlotte P. "The Yellow Wallpaper." An Introduction to Literature. Ed. Sylvan Barnett, Morton Berman, and William Burton 10th ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1993. 178-91.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Booth, Alison and Kelly J. Mays, eds. The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: Norton, 2010. 354-65. Print.
Each one of these writers is a reflection naturally of their times but what causes their work to continue to resonate is the absolutely honest way the hardships of womanhood and colonial life inform our national demeanor. All three in their writing are trying to cope with the conditions in front of them, the perils of being a woman of their times. The heartbreak of watching their children and grandchildren die in front of them, starvation, the loss of livelihood and the ever evolving definition of having a homeland. For all three women death was a constant companion, as was God and a sense of duty to their ventures in their new lands, mostly though I see a deep kind of resilient love in their bodies of work. It is that resilient love and optimism that makes American writing, American writing.
Eudora Welty writes with feeling and her “Emphasis is on varying combinations of theme, character, and style.” (Kinc...
Eudora Welty presents the short story “A Worn Path” in a remarkable way, revealing a lot of symbolism. It travels around multiple themes throughout the story about an old aged woman walking through a grueling trail to a town to gather medicine for her grandson in Mississippi. This short story takes places in December on a “bright frozen day” where an old Negro woman arises by the name of Phoenix Jackson. I believe she signifies a struggle, but when looking at her a bit deeper, she mostly signifies willpower (Welty, 502). As she goes towards the town on the path, she appears to have walked numerous times before; she has to overcome many problems. What’s important is that with each move she takes it looks to be pretty sluggish, but yet a steady move in the direction of her goal. The story gives an understanding to the determination and confidence of Phoenix Jackson to point out the belief of people in identical lives of endless struggle. In “A Worn Path,” Eudora Welty reveals the idea that sometimes our lives can be a lot like an obstacles course, which are made up of difficulties that we have to overcome somehow.
“The integrity of impression made by manifold natural objects… in the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature” (Emerson). Rather than providing a technical, concrete definition of nature, Ralph Waldo Emerson brings a fresh take to how nature is defined. In fact, other authors and individuals have shaped their own definition of nature: what they believe it possesses in addition to what it encompasses. This theme has been widely discussed, with a peak in the nineteenth century. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau are responsible for the fixation of nature in literature, and Christopher McCandless plus Cheryl Strayed are answerable for bringing that fixation into a more recent time period. Nature was and is a prevalent theme in literature and society; however, every individual views it differently. While Emerson, Thoreau, McCandless, and Strayed all took similar approaches in interacting with nature, they differ in their belief of what nature offers individuals.
Woolf, therefore, takes advantage of the lyrical short stories’ structure to create a liminal space that both breaks through barriers to form a unified, impressionistic world and to emphasize the imposing negative aspects of such a transitory structure. As a result, Woolf prompts the reader to question whether the liminal space created within the short story is positive in its ability to unite nature and human or negative in its apparent unsustainability. Regardless, the form and structure of the short story are pivotal in Kew Gardens. Without the liminal space of the short story, it is questionable if Woolf could have succeeded in creating the unstable, yet peaceful, world in Kew Gardens.