The Voyage of the Narwhal by Andrea Barrett
The voyage of the narwhal is a novel by Andrea Barrett, who reveals many aspects of the search for fame and glory, versus search for the truth. When the characters leave for the voyage with the same mission, it is the drive of their different motives for the expedition that separates their destiny on the trip. It was the commander that in blindness of fame led the expedition to tragedy and loss. Through out this novel the author reveals through the characters that the search for the truth is more important than the search of fame and wealth.
Barrett begins the novel with the crew loading the ship for the expedition, to search for the famous British explorer Sir John Franklin and his men, lost in the artic. It was said that any man to find him would have been assured of fame and glory. The expedition's youthful commander, Zachariah Voorhees also called Zeke, is determined to search for the men, lost now for nearly a decade. As being the captain of the merchant ship for years, he now is planning for a voyage through the Arctic and to discover places never seen before. The story is told from an omniscient point of view where different people's personal feelings and thoughts are revealed in many ways.
Erasmus Wells, a middle aged man is the Philadelphia naturalist. He joins the expedition partly because he hopes to make up for the miserable failure on an earlier expedition, then secondly because his sister Lavinia is engaged to marry Zeke, so he serves as a protégé, as he promises. He hopes that in this expedition, he could gather enough information from the regions natural history. He plans this time to bring something home from the trip. In Erasmus' earlier expedition of Wilkes he is not credited with any of his efforts, when Wilkes writes a book and doesn't even mention him there. Erasmus also fails after being engaged to his fiancé when shortly before marriage she dies of a heart disease. He grew up studying plants and animals with three older brothers and a younger sister. His mother passed away short time after the birth of Lavinia, And since being the youngest of three he was left to care for her. After so many failures in his life maybe this expedition was another chance for him to succeed.
The extend of most American’s knowledge of early America is of Columbus’ discovery of America for Europe in 1492 and the landing of the Mayflower in Plymouth in 1620. This was true of A Voyage Long and Strange author, Tony Horwitz. Horwitz felt as if there were pieces missing in his picture of early America and set out on a journey that spanned from Canada to the Dominican Republic. The novel starts out with a prologue of Horwitz talking about his own reasons for wanting to learn more of early America and then is broken into three sections Discovery, Conquest, and Settlement. Each section discusses another period in early American history starting with first contact in Vinland and ending with the landing in Plymouth.
Dante Alighieri once said, "Avarice, envy, pride, three fatal sparks, have set the hearts of all on Fire." In the short story "The Scarlet Ibis" by James Hurst, it shows how pride can be beneficial in some ways, and harmful in other ways. The story starts out as the narrator of the story has a recollection of his past when his younger brother Doodle was still alive. The narrator tells how everyone believed Doodle is crippled mentally and physically. However, Doodle is a normal human being mentally, but has some difficulties physically. The narrator wants Doodle to become a "normal" boy, so he teaches him to practically all the activities any boy Doodle's age would do. One day, Doodle and the narrator were playing in the fields. A large storm came and both had to run home before it became too hard to handle. Doodle started running after his brother, but couldn't withstand it, and eventually, his stamina died down and had to rest. The narrator felt ticked off by Doodle and deserted him. A few minutes later, the narrator discovered Doodle under a tree, blood trickling from his mouth, dead. In the short story "The Scarlet Ibis" by James Hurst, it shows how pride can be beneficial in some ways, and harmful in other ways.
Every individual has two lives, the life we live, and the life we live after that. Nobody is perfect, but if one works hard enough, he or she can stay away from failure. The Natural is a novel written by Bernard Malamud. It is Malamud’s first novel that initially received mixed reactions but afterwards, it was regarded as an outstanding piece of literature. It is a story about Roy Hobbs who after making mistakes in his life, he returns the bribery money and is left with self-hatred for mistakes he has done. Hobbs was a baseball player who aspired to be famous, but because of his carnal and materialistic desire, his quest for heroism failed, as he was left with nothing. In the modern world, the quest for heroism is a difficult struggle, and this can be seen through the protagonist in The Natural.
“Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” At some point in life one is faced with a decision which will define the future, but only time will tell whether or not the choice was right or wrong. The Boat by Alistair MacLeod demonstrates that an individual should make their own decisions in life, be open to new experiences and changes, and that there is no way to obtain something, without sacrificing something else.
Cocaine made her a schizophrenic. In Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta, Kate Braverman writes about a cocaine addicted mother going through drug and alcohol counseling and rehab. She is a creative writing teacher and gains inspiration from her drug trips. The teacher is referred to as "she" throughout the story and fights her addictions that manifest into a scrappy looking man named Lenny. Through the voice of addiction, the change in Lenny's appearance and the role of colors, it is evident that a physical dependence on mind altering drugs cannot be escaped.
Overall, Turner does an excellent job of telling the epic story of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Turner’s rather rough dialogue jumps out of the page at you once you fully understand what she is trying to convey. Although Turner does not include maps, photographs, or even simple drawings, she still finds a way to express her ideas and still bring out the complete story. This well written, modern book can be read and interpreted by most any scholars and is one of the more fun books to read. Furthermore, any scholar looking for a good read on the epic voyage of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, look no further.
‘The Sea’ followed a different people and it also gave the reader some back story on things and people that were brought up through the book.
The Neandertals lived between 30,000 and 150,000 years ago in Europe, the Near and Middle East, and in Western Asia. Compared to our other human ancestors, much more is known about Neandertals due to a larger fossil record, of which several hundred fossils have been found. Despite this, the question of how the Neandertals met their end is still prominent in their field of paleoanthropology today. In Twilight of the Neandertals by Kate Wong, several theories of how the Neandertals might have met their end are addressed, and the role of the early Homo sapiens in the demise of the Neandertals is speculated.
His adept style of writing washes skillfully through the book as the adventures of Norman Felskin, Betsy Poldosky and Julio Velasquez progresses. Albeit, while the book does not have the expected flow, like other books of fiction, his words do flow with ease and paint vivid images that stimulate the reader's curiosity as well as the
I have chosen a story called “Ship Fever” for my written essay. Ship fever was written by an American writer and author, Andrea Barrett. This book discusses an event known as the great famine which had taken place in the middle 1800's, in Ireland. The great famine affected potato harvests across all of Ireland and as a result, more than one and a half million Irish people suffered from hunger, starvation and subsequent loss of life. The potato was a major staple in the diet of many of the underprivileged population of Ireland. Many of the Irish people gathered up their belongings and their families and boarded ships to immigrate to North America and start a new life. So nearly 1,300,000 Irish people set sail for several north eastern US cities, such as New York City, Philadelphia and Boston. These Irish immigrants had left behind a famine never seen by their country before. They had left with hope of a bright future only to find themselves coming down with a parasitic disease known as Typhus. It
Our journey starts in the year 1853 with four Scandinavian indentured servants who are very much slaves at the cold and gloomy headquarters of the Russian-American fur-trading company in Sitka, Alaska. The story follows these characters on their tortuous journey to attempt to make it to the cost of Astoria, Oregon. Our list of characters consists of Melander, who is very much the brains of the operation as he plans the daring escape from the Russians. Next to join the team was Karlson, who was chosen by Melander because he is a skilled canoeman and knows how to survive in the unforgiving landscape of the Pacific Northwest. Third was Braaf, he was chosen because of his ability to steal and hide things, which made him a very valuable asset to the teams escape. Last to join our team is Wennberg who we know is a skilled blacksmith who happens to hear about their plan and forces himself into the equation.
Each narrator encounters an actual physical trial. The new captain in The Shadow Line finds, when at sea and with a crew afflicted by tropical fevers, that the "mad" fo...
In the story, The Natural, certain characters and events are portrayed in a distinctive way that makes this story unique to other books and shows the typical writing style of the narrator. The author uses a repetitive writing technique that is impossible to overlook. The writer of this book is able to catch the reader’s eye with his concept of the importance of beautiful description. The Natural, by Bernard Malamud, uses great imagery that makes the story appealing.
In his first voyage in 1492, when Christopher Columbus set out to search for Asia, he ended up landing in America on a small island in the Caribbean Sea, which he confidently thought was Asia. He then made several other voyages to the New World in search for riches, thinking that he was exploring an already explored land, but he had found the greatest riches of them all, undiscovered land, America. This shows that when one sets out on a mission, they face different challenges on the journey but in the end, achieve more than what they planned on achieving. The novel The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, and the novel Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, both describe two journeys where the characters achieve more when they learn about life, survival and patience, by understanding religion, tackling their fears, associating with nature, and encountering other characters from whom they learn something. The former is about a young shepherd named Santiago, who has a recurring dream of a treasure in Egypt, for which he makes a journey to achieve his “Personal Legend” by the help of a man who claims to be...
In the story "The Open Boat," by Stephen Crane, Crane uses many literary techniques to convey the stories overall theme. The story is centered on four men: a cook, a correspondent, Billie, an oiler who is the only character named in the story, and a captain. They are stranded in a lifeboat in stormy seas just off the coast of Florida, just after their ship has sunk. Although they can eventually see the shore, the waves are so big that it is too dangerous to try to take the boat in to land. Instead, the men are forced to take the boat further out to sea, where the waves are not quite as big and dangerous. They spend the night in the lifeboat and take turns rowing and then resting. In the morning, the men are weak and exhausted. The captain decides that they must try to take the lifeboat as close to shore as possible and then be ready to swim when the surf inevitably turns the boat over and throws the men into the cold sea. As they get closer to land a big wave comes and all the men are thrown into the sea. The lifeboat turns over and the four men must swim into shore. There are rescuers waiting on shore who help the men out of the water. Strangely, as the cook, captain and correspondent reach the shore safely and are helped out of the water, they discover that, somehow, the oiler has drowned after being smashed in the surf by a huge wave. (255-270) “The Open Boat’s” main theme deals with a character’s seemingly insignificant life struggle against nature’s indifference. Crane expresses this theme through a suspenseful tone, creative point of view, and a mix of irony.