You can tell a lot about a story by its title. Some might say that this is judging a book by its cover, however a title is basically an overview of the entire story, summarized in less than ten words. Flannery O’Connor’s (1925-1964) story, The Life you save May be Your Own, has a gargantuan title. From this title, you can infer that the ending of this story is a life changing one. This story has a very grotesque theme. However, it takes place in a very well light area, which shows a lot of contrast to the dark theme. In this story, its starts off with a man who has had an exciting past meet with a family who has most certainly not. He seems nice, but throughout the story, the characters show their true colors. By the end, the story takes a sharp turn from blissful to outrageous. There are three reasons why the title of Flannery O’ Connor’s story, The Life You Save May be Your Own, relates so well to the text.
In Flannery O’Connor’s story, the title shows that a person will always find there way by the end. One of the last characters that Mr. Shirftlet runs into is a yo...
...aith and suggests rational thought processes of the time were no match to moral thought beginning in love and compassion. Whether or not this story occurred is unimportant, as O’Brien said, “happeningness is irrelevant.” The important factor is that a lesson is displayed. O’Connor, through her fiction, exposes significant flaws in humanity, using the waiting room as a mirror for who we are. Mrs. Turpin is a mimesis of mankind; just as all good literature should do, our downfalls are displayed in order to teach and improve. As Flannery O’Connor said, “In Good Fiction, certain of the details will tend to accumulate meaning from the action of the story itself, and when this happens they become symbolic in the way they work.” (487) Though her story is more happeningness than true, it was strategically written in order to reveal God’s grace to all believers in the end.
The first narrative is Virginia Woolf, the famous author. She is one of the main women in this complex story. Woolf has a troublesome life. She has multiple thoughts of suicide and death. She is anorexic and caught in a marriage that is doomed. The first chapter by Cunningham tells of Woolf's suicide drowning in 1941. Cunningham tells of the demons within Woolf's head and the consequently her fatal death from listening to these voices. The novel then moves to the stories of two modern American women who are trying to make rewarding lives for themselves.
This title stuck out for me. Instinctively I knew that the title foreshadows the events of the novel. By the end of the chapter I found the symbols that Foster had so greatly stressed in his novel. One symbol that I considered important is the fact that Liu Lang doesn’t seem to remember Precious Auntie’s name. This seems to pose a question and mystery about Precious Auntie’s identity and is the start of the journey towards Ruth gaining the answers. In the chapter Truth Liu Lang placed Precious Auntie’s name in the “trunk of best things” (Tan 8). This indicates that Precious Auntie is important, cherished, and crucial to the plot; through such foreshadows, I learned the plot of the novel was a journey of remembering Precious Auntie’s name, and the theme was of revelations and realizations. For this reason I consider the main protagonist to be Precious Auntie because it’s through her that the plot and theme are
The theme of this novel is to look at the good you do in life and how it carries over after your death. The moral of the book is; "People can make changes in their lives whenever they really want to, even right up to the end."
The Grandmother, the unnamed but central character of Flannery’O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, is introduced preparing for a trip to Florida with her family. During the preparations she smuggles in her cat, Pitty Sing, to join them on the trip despite the wishes of her son Bailey. Briefly remarked on by Grandma is also the recent escape of the famed outlaw calling himself The Misfit, whom she expresses concern about meeting on the road. During their trip they stop briefly at a restaurant known as The Tower, where she strikes a brief kinship with the owner, Red Sam. Briefly, they commiserate over their mutual agreement that the world has degraded morally since earlier times.
This story had no fluff. It had no happy ending. It was in no way uplifting. It was a book about hopelessness, and how tragic life can be. None of the characters find happiness. No one is rescued from their misery. What makes this book powerful is that sometimes that is the way life is. Sometimes there is no happy ending, and sometimes there is no hope. It would be nice if that were not true, but it is. And this book shows the gritty side of life, the sad reality. Sometimes things do not work out the way we would like them to, and sometimes there is nothing we can do about it. As depressing as this may be as a theme, it is important to realize that it is true. While optimism is usually admirable, too much may be ignorant. Hopelessness exists. It can certainly be seen in real life, and it can certainly be seen in this book.
In the short story “A Rose for Emily” death plays a major role in developing the story. It also shows how the death of one person can change a city as a whole. However, if you compare this story to the life of the author, William Faulkner, you can see how death in his life can contribute to why he wrote the story the way he did. The death of the people is used to add to the meaning of the work altogether. William Faulkner’s experiences add meaning to his work, “A Rose for Emily,” through several deaths and Emily’s ultimate demise.
Veronica Roth’s book demonstrates, in a few key ways, how great literature must include life lessons. The story teaches readers to never give up and to push on even in hard and rough times of struggle. Beatrice prior (Tris), the protagonist in the book, leaves her home to live with the danger seeking “Dauntless”. During the evil plot set by the antagonist, Beatrice’s mother gets fatally wounded by a gun shot. Tris watches this horrible moment unfold right next to her as her mother lifelessly crumbles to the ground. Beatrice loves her mother very much and doesn’t want to leave her body there, but knows she has to uncover the strength to move onwards. Not only was Beatrice brave after witnessing the death of her mother but her mother was also brave. Beatrice’s mother was also brave, having to die like that for her people, sacrificing herself for her daughter and family. Beatrice shows how she feels about her mother’s braver when she says,” My mother’s death was brave. I remember how calm she was, how determined. It isn’t just that she died for me; it is brave that she did it without announcing it, wi...
He is being led on throughout the poem until he comes to a dead end.
Joyce Carol Oates uses loss of control to show the effects of trauma caused from death. The trauma is later turned into the permanent characteristic of being violent. Being “one of the most prolific and versatile contemporary writes” Joyce Carol Oates creates amazing works related to loss of control, murder, suicide, loss of identity that catch the reader’s attention. (ENOTES) Little Bird of Heaven and The Falls are novels mainly focused on characters that are greatly impacted by murders of family members or someone close to them.
Oates surprised many readers when she wrote from a man’s perspective, but she still wrote a great story. In What I Lived For her main focus was conflict. The reader was hooked from the beginning and kept interest as the scandalous story developed. These conflicts contributed to, not only the reader’s interest, but also the novel’s plot and theme.
Names represent a kind of social identity, and Oates' main interest here is in exploring what might happen when her character's social framework and the comfortably predictable life that goes with it are suddenly, and irrevocably, taken away. This, of course, is precisely what happens. What then, Oates seems to be asking, would be left? The answer, which is feverishly detailed in the remaining thirteen pages of this sixteen page story, is something this woman would never have asked for nor anticipated.
The irony at the end of this story is very interesting. O’ Connor forces the reader to wonder which characters are “Good Men”, perhaps by the end of the story she is trying to convey two points: first, that a discerning “Good Man” can be very difficult, second that a manipulative, self centered, and hollow character: The Grandmother is a devastating way to be, both for a person individually and for everyone else around them. The reader is at least left wondering if some or all of the clues to irony I provided apply in some way to the outcome of this story.
...e grandmother and her family. Although O’Connor uses foreshadowing from the beginning of the story, she never directly reveals the story’s ending. By understanding O’Connor’s usage of foreshadowing, the reader can further understand the development leading toward the story’s climax.
The Life You Save May Be Your Own is an interesting title because of the fact that he chose to save his own life and ditch a person he brought into the outside world. The entire story revolves around the character that has never lived a life that involved him being tied down in the world. He even tells Mrs. Crater that he has worked several types of jobs in the past, and the fact that he was only twenty-eight years old should have worried her. It was interesting to see how fixed on one person just because of how desperate someone could be. Mr. Shiftlet felt pressured into marrying Lucynell and did so to satisfy Mrs. Crater. In the end of the story Mr. Shiftlet ended up running away from the girl that he had just married, the only reason why he did was because he felt depressed for tying himself down when he wasn’t ready for it. The Life You Save May Be Your Own is a fitting title, and even pops up on the road Mr. Shiftlet is driving on; it fits by showing how he did save his own life by choosing his own fate, leaving the girl to find her own fate, and how life will never turn out the...