Too close for comfort
Yet the similarity between these two stories raises some interesting questions about how we read Carver. That he is adored as few late-century American writers are is not news -- as Bloom points out there's almost a cult of Carver. Readers treasure not only his taut, bleak, deeply moving short stories but the legend of his life, as well: unhappy, alcoholic, stifled by frustrating poverty and saddled with the overwhelming responsibilities of teenage parenthood ("[My wife and I] didn't have any youth" he told Simpson), Carver's singular talent didn't have room to develop until relatively late. His eventual triumph over adversity, a story of late, spectacular blooming against all odds, has given him a rare hold on his readers' affection. Carver chronicled the lives of the lumpen proletariat and the demoralized white working class with a sensitivity and eye for detail unmatched in his contemporaries and, many would argue, his followers. He is commonly thought of as a truly American writer, perhaps stylistically indebted to Sherwood Anderson, Stephen Crane and Ernest Hemingway (he himself suggested the link to Hemingway in his book "Fires"), but in a sense sui generis -- a talented, sensitive soul who rose up out of the deadening laundromats and strip malls of the great, dreary American suburban wastelands and wrote beautiful, sad stories in clipped, stripped prose. The minimalism and domestic realism of his short stories made his work read very differently from the cerebral literary styling of his contemporaries, the university-ensnared postmodernists. But perhaps Carver's work wasn't as unfettered or as American (in his literary influences, at least) as all that. It seems that he read (and taught) the European modernists very carefully. Bloom says that, "Carver was a very literary writer and his work is full of echoes of other writers, some of them unintentional. He's a derivative writer -- vastly overrated." Or, as Tobias Wolff wrote, admiringly, in the introduction to "The Best American Short Stories of 1994:" The picture of Gabriel Conroy [in James Joyce's' "The Dead"] watching his wife Gretta on the staircase above him as she listens to a tragic ballad ... has become for me ... the very emblem of that final distance which a lifetime of domestic partnership can never overcome. I wonder if there isn't an echo of this image in Raymond Carver's "Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?" when Ralph, returning from a walk on his honeymoon, sees his bride, Marian, "leaning motionless on her arms over the ironwork balustrade of their rented casita .
It is an emotional and heart-rending chronicle about raising in the dirt-poor of the Alabama hills--and all about moving on with the life but never actually being capable to leave (Bragg, 1997, p. 183). The exceptional blessing for evocation and thoughtful insight and the dramatic voice for the account--notifying readers that author has gained a Pulitzer Award for this featured writing. It is a wrenching account of his own upbringing and family. The story moves around a war haunted, alcoholic person (Bragg's father) and a determined and loving mother who made hard efforts to safeguard her children from the harsh effects of poverty and ignorance, which has constricted her own living standard. In this account, author was talented enough to create for himself on the strength of his mother's support and strong conviction. He left house only to follow his dreams and pursue a respectable career in life, however he is strongly linked to his ancestry. In addition, the memoir shows the efforts of Bragg in which he has both compensated and took revenge from the cruelties of his early childhood. Author's approach towards his past seems quite ambivalent and
Carver tells the story in first person of a narrator married to his wife. Problems occur when she wants a friend of hers, an old blind man, to visit for a while because his wife has died. The narrator's wife used to work for the blind man in Seattle when the couple was financial insecure and needed extra money. The setting here is important, because Seattle is associated with rain, and rain symbolically represents a cleansing or change. This alludes to the drastic change in the narrator in the end of the story. The wife and blind man kept in touch over the years by sending each other tape recordings of their voices which the narrator refers it to being his wife's "chief means or recreation" (pg 581).
A transformation took place during the story and it is evident through the narrator?s character. In the beginning he was lacking in compassion, he was narrow minded, he was detached, he was jealous, and he was bitter. Carver used carefully chosen words to illustrate the narrator?s character and the change. Throughout the story his character undergoes a transformation into a more emotionally aware human being.
Hemingway’s simple, straightforward writing style in “The Nick Adams Stories” does not leave much room for interpretation of the text. The reader must analyze the individual characters to gain a deeper understanding of their beliefs, background, and racial tendencies. Nick Adams, for example, seems to be very discriminatory towards American Indians and the black male he encounters throughout this collection of stories. Hemingway uses the character of Nick Adams to exemplify the racial stereotypes during his time period through Nick’s interactions with African Americans and American Indians. Although critics argue that Hemingway was the epitome of white male oppression, he uses racial constructs to highlight prejudiced differences found within the 1920s and the 1930s. Hemingway uses irony and racial stereotypes to help dissipate claims that people of color need to be held at a lesser standard than whites.
... of great change in America, an upheaval, a time when the once silent voices of the mainstream of society rose up and made themselves be heard. For better or worse it was a time that changed us all forever. In doing this essay I became truly aware of who those first bold few were as writers, pots and visionaries. During my research of the writers and poets Jack Kerouac has intrigued me the most from his first publication in 1950 of “The Town and The City”, to the disappointing seven years of rejection to having his most notable work “On The Road” published in 1957, to the tale of his downward spiral out of control “Big Sur” which may have been his best work before his death in 1969.
Born into a working-class family in the city of New York, Whitman’s literary inspiration arises from his explorative outlook of the culture and environment in which he lives. In the midst of success as an uprising, influential writer, sudden troubles emerge. Decline in the government affects Whitman, along with his publicist’s, William Thayer and Charles Eldridge, in an unexpected downfall of business; resulting in bankruptcy and crucial depression of sales of Whitman’s text, Leaves (Beginning of the Civil War 1). In February of 1861, Whitman reads a newspaper discussing the reasoning of the downfall and society and the bitter extent in which it reaches—the firing of Fort Sumter and beginning of the Civil War. Promptly, the war weighs upon him to the point of seeking a change in his life. Correspondingly, he sacrifices his time to visit and nurse the casualties of war, resulting in the greatest inspiration of Whitman’s career; notably producing works within the uprising, evolving era of American
That Faulkner and Mitchell both wrote these conflicting novels about the legacy of the South is quite telling about the world view of Southern Whites, regardless of economic or social standing. Certainly it can not be easy to reconcile the fact that one's ancestors believed and acted as they did and yet were revered as heroes. Few places outside the dust bowl were in more dire straits as the rural South during the 1930's and perhaps many thought, as Faulkner's characters seemed to have, that perhaps God had still not forgiven their sins. Such are the answers which historians seek as they attempt to put the pieces of the past in order and try to solve the riddle of who we are and how we got here.
Comparing ?Everyday Use?, ?Sonny?s Blues? and ?The Cathedral?, one can conclude that they share a common meaning. Although all three stories consider poverty as their theme, each chooses to elaborate it in a different manner. In fact, ?Everyday Use? emphasizes on the state of extreme poverty in which certain people live. On the other hand, ?Sonny?s Blues? contributes to the theme by describing the poverty of spirit of Harlem?s ?inner kids?. Carver?s ?The Cathedral?, however, prefers to explore the notion of poverty as a state of one?s mind rather than the environment in which one lives.
After reading more than a dozen of Ray Carver’s short stories from his collection Where I'm Calling From, I have to ask the question, "Where was Carver calling from?" On the surface, his stories seem very simple. They are about people with average jobs such as hotel managers, waitresses, salesmen, and secretaries, who live unsophisticated, mediocre lives. Below the surface, however, there is always more to be discovered if the reader is willing to put forth a little bit of effort. Carver obviously put a lot of thought into his stories. The least that we, as readers, can do is scratch the surface a little, or better yet, dig deep into his words to see what he is really trying to say to us. This is a task that is easier said than done.
...n reality. The influences of such writers as Charles Darwin made an impact on his life and his writing style, as he embraced Darwinism and the idea of evolution and especially social evolution. Although he doesn’t have a piece that can be defined as the “great American novel” his novel “Sister Carrie” is fundamental in understanding the changing times for women in the early 1900’s as well as the overall change that our society went through in moving from rural areas into more domestic city living, much like he himself did when moving to New York. Theodore Dreiser was an amazing eccentric mind who produced modernist pieces as well as informational works and brought his own mentality into these in the form of character drama and intrigue. He helped to shape the turn of the century modernist writing style into one that embraced coming social and political changes.
American literature styles are constantly changing, from the popular naturalism and realism genres to the newer concept of modernism. Many of these short stories and novels are based on historical events that occurred during the author’s lifetime. Both F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner use life experiences to frame their writings. They create realistic characters that deal with the same challenges the author went through. The authors show main areas of struggle through the stories “Babylon Revisited” and “A Rose for Emily.” Both of these literary works look into how each story’s main character deals and adapts to the concept of change based on the time in history and the values each character holds.
On September 25, 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi, a son was born to Murry Cuthbert and Maud Butler Faulkner. This baby, born into a proud, genteel Southern family, would become a mischievous boy, an indifferent student, and drop out of school; yet “his mother’s faith in him was absolutely unshakable. When so many others easily and confidently pronounced her son a failure, she insisted that he was a genius and that the world would come to recognize that fact” (Zane). And she was right. Her son would become one of the most exalted American writers of the 20th century, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature and two Pulitzers during his lifetime. Her son was William Faulkner.
Carver's similar use of the thematic content revealed in both stories not only tells the reader what these themes have in common in totally different situations, but exhibits the style of writing and way that this author shows the orthodox pictures concerning particular individuals with strange personalities.
Scott Momaday was born on February 27, 1934, in Oklahoma. His mother was a literature teacher and his father was an art teacher. Momaday’s parents both where authors and taught on Indian reserves. Momaday was forced to adjust between two cultures from an early age; although, he views this situation as an advantage, both in his life and in his work. After receiving a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of New Mexico, he submitted a few poems to a creative writing contest sponsored by Stanford University. There Ivor Winters, professor and established poet, secured a scholarship for the young man and became his mentor. Momaday remained at Stanford to earn a master's and Ph.D. in English and continued to write fiction and poetry. He came out as a highly successful writer of many books, and his literary career full of outstanding achievements. House Made of Dawn, his “classic first novel”, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. In his writings, Momaday ha...
The traumatic events of World War 1 made many writers re-evaluate their views of society which then translated into their works. The themes used in works by writers like Sherwood Anderson, Robert Frost, and Ernest Hemingway reveal the extent of trauma the war had on the human psyche. Loss of communication, disillusioned characters, and personal alienation are a few of the major themes that are displayed in the writings of a lot of authors during this period. This essay will examine the use of the literary modernism themes mentioned above in Robert Frost’s “Home Burial,” Sherwood Anderson’s “Hands,” and Ernest Hemingway’s “The Killers.”