The Road to the Cemetery
The smell of cigarette smoke was strong; the leather couch reeked of it. Next to the couch was a nick-knack rack and on it were a little china girl, maybe Jill, and a little china boy, Jack; there was a glass wishing well near them too. Little glass dogs, a china cat, some shiny rocks, a little box, and a plastic Hawaii hula baby lived on the rack as well.
Grandma opened the doors and all of the windows; today we were to begin cleaning out Aunt Beth's house. I looked out the front door, saw clouds were coming, and in the distance, I saw lightning flash. Today was nothing like those days nearly two weeks ago when Aunt Beth had died, and was then laid to rest.
I remember the year my Great Great Aunt Beth died. Being little, people would speak quietly about her declining health and expect my cousins and I not to understand, thinking that they were sheltering us.
"She isn't doing well," someone would say.
"No She isn't," would be the reply, "and she refuses to take her oxygen when she goes out."
"I know, she won't even have it on when someone visits."
"It embarrasses her."
"It shouldn't lots of people have to have oxygen"
"She left it on when I went to visit her the other day, that proves that she's really not feeling very well at all."
Another time I was told straight out, "Honey, Aunt Beth doesn't feel well, I don't know if she'll ever get better." This statement was wrong I was sure, she was my Aunt Beth and she would get well.
I would look at her sometimes, trying to see why everyone thought she was unwell. She looked like she always had; maybe her back was a little more crooked she had Scoliosis. Her voice was just a little rough and perhaps she coughed a little more. She still gave me a sound hug when I saw her. Aunt Beth did not go on picnics with the family anymore, because she was to old Grandma said. I did know she did not feel well, but she never had felt well as long as I could remember.
She did not try to shelter her many nieces, nephews, great nieces and great nephews she knew we would find out sooner or latter. She used to say "My bones ache, my hands hurt, my back aches, I have trouble walking so I had to get me a cane, and I can't sleep for coughing.
World War I and World II are basically the same, right? If so, Araby, written around WWI by James Joyce, and The Flash, written around WWII by Italo Calvino, are also the same, no? Indeed, these short stories have many similarities. At the same time, both stories have many differences. Thus, it is difficult to compare both stories when considering all the details. If the subject of comparison is more specific, such as epiphany, then more emphasis and effort can be put into the comparison. In Araby, the protagonist falls in love with a girl, but love deceives him. In his moment of epiphany, “[g]azing up into the darkness [he] saw [himself] as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and [his] eyes burned with anguish and anger” (Joyce 1). In The Flash, the protagonist suddenly grasps a reality, but only for an instant: “[He] stopped, blinked: [He] understood nothing. Nothing, nothing about anything. [He] didn’t understand the reasons for things or for people, it was all senseless, absurd. And [he] started to laugh” (Calvino 1). The comparison between the epiphanies of both short stories reveals the relationship amongst the similarities and differences regarding theme, symbolism and setting.
On the contrary though, Granny sees this as a setback because she is not sick, even though she is on her deathbed, and feels the doctor should, "Get along and doctor your sick. Leave a well-off woman alone" (271). Granny also scolds Doctor Harry by saying, "Where were you forty years ago when I pulled through with milk-leg and double pneumonia?" ii. a. a. a. a. a. a. a. a. a. a. a. a. a. a. a. a. a. a While being aware of her condition before, I feel it is simpler to understand why she didn't want Cornelia around because she was such a nuisance.
Granny seems to be bitter about somethings, but not about the life and love she had with her husband. Granny says, “I wouldn’t exchange my husband for anybody except St. Micheal himself.” (Porter, 210) Though not ready for death, “I’m not going, Cornelia. I’m taken by surprise,” (Porter, 270) she seems to have a purpose brought by love even in death. She had a loved one that she wanted to go see. “Granny made the long journey outward, looking for Hapsy.”(Porter, 270) Her loving, though full of loss, seems a prime example of what it means to be a
Unattainable Love and Time Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" In the story "A Rose for Emily," the author, William Faulkner, recounts the life of a woman from an elite family in the Deep South. Emily Grierson is an eccentric spinster who goes through her life searching for love and security. Due to her relationship with her father, and the intrusiveness of the townspeople in her life, she is unable to get away from her past. Arising from a young woman's search for love, the use of symbolism profoundly develops the theme, therefore, bringing to light the issues of morality.
I looked around at everyone in the room and saw the sorrow in their eyes. My eyes first fell on my grandmother, usually the beacon of strength in our family. My grandmother looked as if she had been crying for a very long period of time. Her face looked more wrinkled than before underneath the wild, white hair atop her head. The face of this once youthful person now looked like a grape that had been dried in the sun to become a raisin. Her hair looked like it had not been brushed since the previous day as if created from high wispy clouds on a bright sunny day.
The narrator says “I am not sick” (Porter 77). Granny becomes angry as the doctor examines her because she thinks she is healthy when in actuality she on her death bed. The dreadful memories that Granny has been harboring in her mind for so long are contributing to her current mental state of scattered thoughts. The attitude Granny shows toward the doctor is hostile because of all the loss in her life. Granny keeps her faith although, but in her dying moment she asks for a sign from God. Granny kept her life in order but never has true devoutness towards God because of the guilt she felt and her incapability to forgive George. Memories that Granny represses impacts her negatively causing her not to live a life that she desired. Granny’s death at eighty years old was unexpected to her even though she been preparing for death since she was sixty. The amount of memories Granny still has to face keeps her drive alive to keep on living. Granny wants to live long enough to get over her humiliation and forgive
Let it take care of itself for now. When she was sixty she had felt very old, finished, and went around making farewell trips to see her children and grandchildren. ” In her final days she recalls about all the struggles she had to go through in life. This story shows
Eventually, both stories have similar endings where most of the characters regret an action that changed their life. As a result of bad choices, they end up in the wrong paths. We are building our future every day by the choices we make, but some of them might lead us to events that can change us in a good or bad way.
like her, her family did not like her, but when she died, everybody showed up to Miss
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)
Grandmothers are always there when we need them most. They are kind, loving and wise from their long living experience in this world. The worst thing that could happen sadly is when it is time for them to leave this world later on in life before your very own death. From old age, sickness or get shot countless times in the body from a crazy serial killer, grandmothers tend to leave this world before you know it. For example from the world of literature, two grandmothers have from two very different stories has met their maker either they like it or not. One of the grannies is good old Granny Weatherall from the short story “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Katherine Anne Porter and the other is the Grandmother from the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor. Both the grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” have to experience different lives, families and views of religion but soon experience death.
It was finally fall break. I was visiting my grandma for a few days. Well past dinnertime, I pulled up to the white stately home in northern rural Iowa. I parked my car, unloaded my bag and pillow, and crunched through the leaves to the front porch. The porch was just how I had seen it last; to the right, a small iron table and chairs, along with an old antique brass pole lamp, and on the left, a flowered glider that I have spent many a summer afternoon on, swaying back and forth, just thinking.
to the Pet cemetary. Louis answers her honestly and later Rachel and him have an
That was one of the worst rides of my life. Rachel and her mother told me my grandma had passed out at church. Rachel had tried to run and catch me before I left, but it was too late, I was already gone. A million thoughts raced through my mind such as was she hurt or would she have to stay in the hospital a while, but death never crossed my mind.
Even in these circumstances she always said, “ I love all my babies”. Those who truly cared for her well being felt it was best she move up north with my grandmother.