Winter of Entrapment and The Donner Party
Winter of Entrapment tells the story of the Donner Party in a way that it has never been told before. Unlike many other books written on this story of hardships, cannibalism, and survival, it is written mostly in regards to the experiences of the Breen's, a large family that was part of the Donner Party. The author of this book, Joseph A. King, wanted to write the story as accurately as possible without bias or fictitious legends. Many of the books written previously on the events of the Donner Party have been heavily biased and had unreliable sources. Many people associated with the Donner Party have been harshly judged in articles and books, of which were largely based on testimonies of "one survivor who had a reputation for boasting and lying." The book begins with a history of the Breen family and their journey from Ireland to Canada, and eventually to Independence, Missouri. From there they decided it best to move their family to California, for what reasons have not or cannot be verified--only speculated. Winter of Entrapment then goes on to tell the ordeals of the journey from Missouri to California in great detail.
The journey began on April 5, 1846 in Missouri. The story of the Donner Party has many geographic locations, including: Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Utah, Nevada, and finally California. The bulk of the story took place in the Sierra Nevada, where the Donner Party was trapped with little food and supplies. The Breen family, along with the Graves children and Mary Donner were rescued on March 12, 1847. Relief parties rescued other members of the Donner Party before that date, but the Breen family was not yet capable of surviving the last leg of the journey at that time.
Winter of Entrapment tells the story of the Donner Party in chronological order. A few times in the book, King will forewarn to indicate what happens next, but will wait to tell the incident in its entirety until it fits into the story in chronological order. For example, when James Reed is banished from the Donner Party for murdering John Snyder, King went on to say, "Reed's wife and four children remained with the company. Reed caught up with the Donners, where his teamsters, Walter Herron joined him.
Truman Capote decided to write his “non-fiction novel” entitled In Cold Blood when he saw a brief report in the New York Times. The report showed how a certain Clutter family was murdered in 1959 (BBC News). Capote's novel was a product of hard work and a lot of research. As a matter of fact, it took him several years to research the case. His friend, Harper Lee, helped him in asking significant people involved in the case, such as the neighbors of the Clutter family, and in the long run, the murder themselves (BBC News). In line with this, this paper will discern how Capote revealed the nature of his research through the construction of the book. Aside from that, this paper will discuss about the significance why Capote himself was never named, and how this absence endangers the credibility of the narrative in lieu of the Heisenberg Principle.
One example that the author uses to support the thesis is when she explains how the Grimke took a pioneering speaking tour that took place ten years before the Seneca falls convention. This convention was designed for the girls to demand their rights as citizens. The author explains how the girls would have some key struggles that they would face during this convention but with everything that the Grimke sisters had done and come up with they knew that these women’s voices would be heard. In 1838, a woman who stood up for her sex and expressed how she felt about women’s rights was emancipated as a “new women” half a century before the phase had been coined. This example supports the thesis because Gerda emphasizes that even though the women
Through his obsession with the so-called vengeance and pyromania depict the power struggle that is Abner Snopes life. As evidenced through his physical and mental scars, “the wiry figure walking a little stiffly from where a Confederate provost’s man’s musket ball had taken him in the heel on a stolen horse thirty years ago (Faulkner 2), he feels as though the world has wronged him. He spends his life trying to amend the injustice, abusing his son and family, committing criminal acts, and destroying the property of innocent people along the way. He develops a cold and rather terrifying personality in the process, to the point where he is compared to a ferocious beast. “There was something about his wolflike independence and even courage when the advantage was at least neutral which impressed strangers, as if they got from his latent ravening ferocity not so much a sense of dependability as a feeling that his ferocious conviction in the rightness of his own actions would be of advantage to all whose interest lay with his. (Faulkner 3). In Snope’s struggle for power, the unfairness of the world and the social classes become evident through the story and contribute to one of the major themes of Barn Burning, that the injustice of social structures creates harboring feelings of hate and anger that can only
"The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin." University of Virginia Library. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/StoKeyu.html (accessed April 9, 2012).
The cruel dominance of a father, can extinguish any flame of hope that builds in the people around him. In William Faulkner's short story "Barn Burning," Abner is that father. The story portrays a nomadic life of a family driven from one home to another. Abner had a craving hunger to belittle those around him that thought they were "better than him." Although the family accepts the nomadic life, Sarty (the son) dreams of having peace and stability. To have this peace, it only requires a lack of conflict. The Snope family was doomed to struggle due to Abner's constant instigation of conflict, the ongoing domination of his family and his complete lack of respect for the law.
Set in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, Arthur Miller's The Crucible describes the witch hunt that saw harmless people hanged for crimes they did not commit. The Crucible provides an accurate historical account of the witch hunt, but its real achievement lies in the many important issues it deals with. Miller's concerns with conscience, guilt and justice develop into significant and thought-provoking themes throughout the play. These themes are developed through the characters of Abigail Williams, John Proctor and Deputy Governor Danforth. The Crucible is even more successful when the wider relevance of these issues is considered. This occurs particularly when the themes of the play are examined in relation to the events occurring at the time Miller was writing.
The Bundren family has recently suffered the loss of their most beloved mother, Addie. When Addie was young and fresh out of labor with her second of five children, she made her husband promise that when she died he would burry her in Jefferson, the town where Addie’s family lived. Generally Jefferson was a one or two day trip, but when a rain spell floods the river and destroys both bridges and washes out the direct road to Jefferson, Anse, Addie’s husband has to ford the river and take a much longer route to get to Jefferson. While crossing the river, a large log flowing downstream starts a chain reaction that results in a badly battered wagon, the death of a team of mules, a broken leg for the oldest of the five children, and a one-day delay in the journey. Many other troubles follow this family and the short trip to bury their mother becomes a nine-day journey with a dead body that is beginning to rot in the back of the wagon.
The novel The Night Circus has a unique set of ideas about love but the setting is what’s most important, the circus is a completely different but an absolute beautiful world. It’s almost as if it’s alive, breathing, a world that is asleep during the day and awake during the night. The circus is a stage for the duel of two magicians, their battle is something like no other and the homely vibe of the circus's atmosphere makes it all the more special.
On Christmas Eve, December 24th, 1945, a fire destroyed the Sodder family home in Fayetteville, West Virginia. At this time, five out of ten of the Sodder children went missing. Some believe the children died in the fire, but some agree they were kidnapped. There was no trace of them. Investigations have found clues to prove this theory. Without a doubt, the Sodder children were kidnapped.
Throughout humanity's lifetime there have been a few accounts of "witch-hunting". This refers to a person or group of people making accusations with little to no evidence, which would lead to the majority of people viewing the accused negatively. The first main instance of witch hunting was in the 1800s with people accusing each other of being witches. This also occurred again shortly after 9/11 with the outbreak of anthrax.
To fully understand the purpose of In Cold Blood, one must explore Capote's strategy in writing such a tale. In his "In Cold Blood," Capote raises the possibility of rational order without ever fully endorsing it, often revealing that random and accidental events shape the history of the crime. Because of this, we as readers cannot pinpoint one exact reason for the incidents that occurred at the Clutter house that fateful night, and are forced to sympathize with two opposing characters within the story, Perry Smith and Alvin Dewey.
Once Northup was freed and returned to his family as a free man, he filed kidnapping charges against the men who had sold him as a slave and defrauded him. What followed was a long trial that was eventually dismissed based on technical details. Additionally, Northup did not receive any compensation for the 12 years of his life that they h...
The author wrote about this specific subject because of his profession, where he lives, and to clarify any confusions about the actual events of the Salem Witch Trials. The author wrote about the specific people and places mentioned in the book to establish the events of the trial through more than one point of view. By using an unprecedented format for writing, and by retelling the accounts of different people, places, and how they compare, Baker established a sense of confident understanding for his readers to
“We are in a remote country house, toward evening, a cold blizzard rages.” [Cite] The short, simple, and beautifully written murder mystery play The Blizzard, written by David Ives, begins in a somewhat cliché state. Inside the secluded house in a forest, with the predictably unfavorable weather outside, and no access to technology primarily no external communications. The starting leads to a feeling of unremarkability, that soon the play may become another no name story that hardly leaves a dent in your memory. This dreary beginning in part fits into the themes of the play and in some ways better compliments the more creative middle and end. Ultimately, The Blizzard is a meta play primarily referential to murder mysteries on a whole rather
Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon depicts the fallacious logic of a totalitarian regime through the experiences of Nicolas Salmanovitch Rubashov. Rubashov had fought in the revolution and was once part of the Central Committee of the Party, but he is arrested on charges of instigating attempted assassinations of No. 1, and for taking part in oppositional, counter-revolutionary activities, and is sent to a Soviet prison. Rubashov, in his idle pacing throughout his cell, recollects his past with the Party. He begins to feel impulses of guilt, most especially in those moments he was required to expel devoted revolutionaries from the Party, sending them to their death. These subconscious feelings of guilt are oftentimes represented physically in the form of toothache or through day- or night-dreams. As his thought progresses with the novel, he begins to recognize his guilt, which emerges alongside his individuality. It remains in his subconscious, and it is not until Rubashov absolves himself through silent resignation at his public trial that he is fully conscious of guilt. By joining the Party, Rubashov allows himself to forget the questions of human nature and of his individuality. The nature of his guilt lies in this betrayal of his individuality.