One of the main themes in the novel, Unwind by Neal Shusterman, is that all life, in whatever form it takes, has intrinsic value and should be cherished to the greatest extent. In the passage, the Admiral signs an order for Harlan, his son, to be unwound because he was caught stealing but later changes his mind, however it was too late. This novel is centered on the idea of parents unwinding their children when the child was deficient in some way because unwinding was “a more…efficient option.” The parents wouldn’t be able to stop the action in any way because once they signed the order, “it had already been done”, there was no turning back. The Admiral realized that he made a rash decision and regrets that he didn’t appreciate his son more.
I chose to do a man named Connor, from the book Unwind. In the book, Connor has been signed away to be unwound, but he ran away so he would not die. Connor always believed that unwinding was a bad and morally wrong thing to do. He thought that it was murder, and that they were stripping people of their body, and that that was wrong. So he decided to do something about it.
Promises that men make have been connected with man since the beginning of time, and are the rocks for many human bonds. Breaking these covenants, disregarding the promise made to one’s family or going against ones’ word can be seen as a potential character flaw. One emotional and physical trauma of wartime is the choice to disregard a prior family commitment. Evidence of broken bonds can be seen through news articles on the Texas Revolutionary War, books on the Civil War, letters about World War I, textbooks including information on World War II, and journals from Vietnam. Discovering the existence of broken promises for self-preservation exhibits the importance of understanding the depth of wartime and the emotional trials placed on soldiers and victims of war rather than their family.
The story describes the protagonist who is coming of age as torn between the two worlds which he loves equally, represented by his mother and his father. He is now mature and is reflecting on his life and the difficulty of his childhood as a fisherman. Despite becoming a university professor and achieving his father’s dream, he feels lonely and regretful since, “No one waits at the base of the stairs and no boat rides restlessly in the waters of the pier” (MacLeod 261). Like his father, the narrator thinks about what his life could have been like if he had chosen another path. Now, with the wisdom and experience that comes from aging and the passing of time, he is trying to make sense of his own life and accept that he could not please everyone. The turmoil in his mind makes the narrator say, “I wished that the two things I loved so dearly did not exclude each other in a manner that was so blunt and too clear” (MacLeod 273). Once a decision is made, it is sometimes better to leave the past and focus on the present and future. The memories of the narrator’s family, the boat and the rural community in which he spent the beginning of his life made the narrator the person who he is today, but it is just a part of him, and should not consume his present.
Munro uses central idea of hypocrisy again, but this time looking specifically at the role of hypocrisy in the universe. “[B]y rights they[children] should have sprung up free, to live a new, superior kind of life, not to be caught in the snares of vanquished grownups, with their sex and funerals” (579). Munro’s prose reaches a peak of contrast with the combination of “sex and funerals”. Though the former nestles within intense passion and love which can eventually lead to the creation of life, the latter encapsulates the grief of mourning that same life. Munro’s use of the word vanquished to describe adults reveals the narrator’s true disenchantment with the illusion of control parents seem to represent. Though adults can try to prevent the death of their children, they cannot, in fact, do so due to the unpredictable nature of the tragedy. Any adult failing or trying to protect their child is therefore “vanquished” before tragedy can even strike. Though Munro could have stopped using words to represent duplicity with “sex and funerals” or “vanquished”, she continues driving the point of hypocrisy throughout the quote. In the passage, the parents’ “snares” imply deception; rather than saying that the children are encaged, Munro’s “snares” shows that the children are tricked into becoming trapped by their parents’ façade of power. No matter where one turns within the story, Munro ensures that
“The Boat”, narrated by a Mid-western university professor, Alistar MacLeod, is a short story concerning a family and their different perspectives on freedom vs. tradition. The mother pushes the son to embrace more of a traditional lifestyle by taking over the fathers fishing business, while on the other hand the father pushes the son to live more autonomously in an unconstrained manner. “The Boat” focuses on the father and how his personality influences the son’s choice on how to live and how to make decisions that will ultimately affect his life. In Alistair MacLeod’s, “The Boat”, MacLeod suggest that although dreams and desires give people purpose, the nobility of accepting a life of discontentment out weighs the selfishness of following ones own true desires. In the story, the father is obligated to provide for his family as well as to continue the fishing tradition that was inherited from his own father. The mother emphasizes the boat and it’s significance when she consistently asked the father “ How did things go in the boat today” since tradition was paramount to the mother. H...
certain perspective, and can be argued as such from this perspective. Unwinding, as a practice, is
The mother is a selfish and stubborn woman. Raised a certain way and never falters from it. She neglects help, oppresses education and persuades people to be what she wants or she will cut them out of her life completely. Her own morals out-weight every other family member’s wants and choices. Her influence and discipline brought every member of the family’s future to serious-danger to care to her wants. She is everything a good mother isn’t and is blind with her own morals. Her stubbornness towards change and education caused the families state of desperation. The realization shown through the story is the family would be better off without a mother to anchor them down.
The children grow to be uncaring and unresponsive to the actions that the parents do for the family as the speake...
"Out, Out--" by Robert Frost is a poem about a young boy who dies as a result of cutting his hand using a saw. In order to give the reader a clear picture of this bizarre scenario, Frost utilizes imagery, personification, blank verse, and variation in sentence length to display various feelings and perceptions throughout the poem. Frost also makes a reference to Macbeth's speech in the play by Shakespear called Macbeth which is somewhat parallel to the occurrences in "Out, Out-."
process and have stated that “The case that losing a parent can diminish both the nurturing that
...e treated his family. The kids were raised in an environment of fear and punishment. This affected every relationship, even with other children, they had established. Being bound to one’s culture is not necessarily a bad thing. The kids are disciplined and respectful, at least in the presence of other adults. The problem with the father was not understanding that some values are expired and do not fit society's norms. Traditions that bring families together should be kept not the opposite. Since society's norms are constantly changing, we have to keep traditions alive that correlate. Good traditions and cultural values should be passed on from generation to generation not the traditions that bring children down.
The premise of traditional parenting is one of the key ideologies behind Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Rappaccini 's daughter; the passage of multiple generations however, has rendered this notion impractical and irrational due to societal shifts that have changed the mentality of parents throughout history. In effect, I will apply psychological criticism to investigate the effects of the declining traditional parenting.
The tragedy King Lear by William Shakespeare ought to be seen as a lesson on what not to do as a parent. By picking favorites, King Lear and the Earl of Gloucester leave a lasting impact on their children 's psyche, ultimately leading to them committing horrible crimes. The rash judgments, violent reactions, and blindness of both Lear and Gloucester lead to both their and their children 's demise. As a result, all of the father-child relationships in the play begin to collapse.
Separation Protest (p.301): This concept is important in parenting because parents need to realize that their children do not think as logically when they are younger. Children begin to cry in
Abandonment, the action or fact of abandoning or being abandoned, is an issue not only shown in Jennifer Clément’s “Prayer of the Stolen” but that is also prevalent in today’s society. Although abandonment comes in many forms, abandonment of the family, and daughters specifically will be the main focus in this research paper. Child Abandonment in specific is also known today as a form of neglect and is classified as a parent leaving a child for a lengthy period of time, without providing any type of financial support or clear intentions to return to the child’s life. This neglect has a number of negative short term as well as long-term effects on families, and children specifically.