Everyone has insecurities and sometimes it makes them hate themselves. When you are insecure and your soul is dying, you shouldn’t hide it to yourself. Seek help, ask for help, turn to get help and find someone who will always be there to help you. Don’t let your insecurities control you and make you forget who you really are and what you can accomplish. In 145th Street Short Stories , the author Walter Dean Myers explores the theme of insecurity using literary techniques such as conflict and flashbacks in the short stories, “Fighter” and “Kitty and Mack: A Love Story.”
In “Fighter,” Billy is insecure because of his failures in life. He believes that he is not able to accomplish anything because he is a failure. His insecurity holds him back,
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He loses his mind and tries to commit suicide. He goes on the roof to which his father pleads him to come down. His father asks him “Why, son, why?” and he replies with “I’m not your son.” He tells his father “Your son was a ballplayer, wasn’t he? He didn’t have any missing parts, did he?” Mack sits on the edge of the roof as “The pain sat between them even as the rain beat down.” This demonstrates that Mack doesn’t think that he’ll ever heal and become the person he was before. Mack believes that he had let everyone down by not being the successful person he was before. He feels as if he will never reach people’s expectations of him now because of the tragedy.
In conclusion, the author of 145th Street Short Stories by Walter Dean Myers uses conflict, flashbacks and irony to develop the theme of insecurity in “Fighter” and “Kitty and Mack: A Love Story.” Billy and Mack both suffer from internal conflicts that caused them to be insecure. Billy lets his failures in life to control him and hold him back in accomplishing things. Meanwhile Mack loathes himself because he believes that he won’t be able to be the man he once was. Myers is trying to demonstrate that people should beware that some people are deeply hurt and insecure insecure and should try to help them overcome it. However, insecure people should also help themselves and not let their insecurities control their life and make them forget who they can really be and
Pride is a very relevant issue in almost everyone's lives. Only when a person is forced to face his pride can he begin to overcome it. Through the similar themes of her short stories, Flannery O'Connor attempts to make her characters realize their pride and overcome it.
Individuals are prone to fear regardless of whether it relates to something as minute as choosing between clothes, or it can be something life altering, such as making a bold decision to leave home in search of a better life. In the memoir, “The Iron Road”, Al Purdy describes his fear as it relates to his future in his younger days. Al Purdy describes his life when he was just a seventeen year old boy wanting to leave home in search of a Job. He was quick in his decision to leave his parents, rather judicially so in terms of his confidence to climb aboard a train without the consent of his parents. The reader can feel sympathetic for a teen who is unaware of the potential hardships of life, when
One evening at dinner, momma begins to yell at Arnie for repeating the phrase, “Dads dead!” He begins to plug his ears, yelling the phrase louder, and smacking himself in the head. The next day Arnie attempts to climb the water tower again. This time however, his sister Ellen, attacks him. She pushes him to the ground, kicks him, and pulls his hair trying to force him up off the ground and away from the tower. Gil...
finally realizes that his son loves him and in a way holds him as number one,
Near the end, when he walks into his room he falls to his hands and knees and looks
Insecurity and low self-confidence can be influential and very determining factors in shortening an individual’s life span; especially if you are an individual who is marry and has jealousy issues. In Robert Olen Butler’s short story “Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot Analysis.” We can appreciate the perfect example of how trust issues and not been able to exercise strong communication skills can make you a coward, a miserable, and pathetic low life human being; having such characteristics will eventually deteriorate and liquidate your relationships with your loved ones. In this essay we will analyze the different elements that Robert Olen Butler uses in order to educate
Both of these stories are vivid examples of how overconfidence can feed one's psyche with such intoxicating effects that their self-absorbed sense of superiority will eventually be their own undoing.
Conflict is an important part of any short story. The short story, “On the Sidewalk Bleeding,” contains three major conflicts: man vs. man, man vs. nature, and man vs. himself. In this essay, I intend to explain, prove, and analyze these three struggles.
As Claire was expressing her feelings about poverty and the unfairness in the world to Mack, Simon was expressing his concern about his nephew to Mack. Mack started to realize things are unfair and that he wanted to help. Mack told Simon about a place near his house for sale so he could move his family to a better neighborhood. Claire expresses how she wants to adopt the baby and how it was meant for her to find the baby just like it was meant for Simon to show up at the right
In many short stories, characters face binding situations in their lives that make them realize more about themselves when they finally overcome such factors. These lively binding factors can result based on the instructions imposed by culture, custom, or society. They are able to over come these situations be realizing a greater potential for themselves outside of the normality of their lives. Characters find such realizations through certain hardships such as tragedy and insanity.
In James Hurst's short story “The Scarlet Ibis” the author describes the life of Doodle and the relationship he shares with his brother. During the story he has some happy moments with his brother, but his brother is also very selfish. Doodle pushes himself to his limits to try to please his brother. Doodle’s brother lets his pride get the best of him and forgets about the wellbeing and feelings of Doodle. (Summary) Throughout the entire story the central message is, Pride can lead people to do terrible as well as wonderful things.(thesis)
Weisel-Barth, J 2014 ‘Review of “The Stories We Tell”’, International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology, Vol.9(2), p.162-166, DOI: 10.1080/15551024.2014.884526
Individuals may or may not go through a situation where they would enjoy nothing more than to yell, scream, or even fight another person for something that he or she said or did. It is challenging to hold back such intense emotions, but it is the wise thing to do in order to avoid further conflict. In Carolyn Kizer’s “Bitch”, the speaker demonstrates holding back her emotions in front of her ex-lover. It was tough for her to do so because she wanted him to understand how she felt. Overall, Kizer establishes the importance of being the better person by holding back one’s feelings in order to avoid further consequences. She illustrates this through portraying the speaker’s true emotions, revealing information of her ex-lover, and showing how the speaker carries herself on the outside.
Shortly after giving up his power, the father realizes that he is nothing without it and appears to be slowly becoming insane. In both instances, the father, in a crazed moment, wanders off and puts himself in a life-threatening situation. In the end the youngest daughter comes to the fathers' rescue.
In the mid 1800’s America was in full swing of the romanticism movement. During this time readers were entertained by the fresh new writing styles of the latest authors. There were several famous authors in this era such as: Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, and William Cullen Bryant. One innovative author from this movement however, added a new dynamic writing style that still intrigues many readers today. Edgar Allen Poe, through his invention of detective stories, has become a house hold name to many. In his short stories “The Tell Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat,” Poe describes two heinous crimes committed by men whose motives can only be traced back to their deranged perception of reality, domestic relationships, and a soul whose thirst can only be quenched through violence.