WORLD LITERATURE HOMEWORK: Sabrina Ferreiro 28/8/14 1st Reflective and Analytic Essay: Krik? Krak! is a book with a set of stories which somehow seem to go in a cycle and could be related and linked to each other . Davis Rocio G. states in his critical essay “A cycle may be defined as “a set of stories linked to each other in such a way as to maintain a balance between the individuality of each of the stories and the necessities of the larger unit.”” Krik? Krak! is made in such way to make the story telling easier to understand and remember because it gives a sense of storytelling for both the speaker and reader. Throughout all the series of stories in the book Krik? Krak? There is a constant variable in all of them; each short story …show more content…
stated in his critical essay how the loss of the first child in “The Children from the Sea” short story was somewhat a foreshadow the other dead child that Marie in “ The Pool and the Gardenias” seems to find. “I never knew before that dead children looked purple. The lips are the most purple because the baby is so dark. Purple like the sea after the sun has set.” ( p25, first paragraph in children of the sea) , Marie gives a similar description which she says “ She was very pretty. Bright shiny hair and dark brown skin like mahogany coca. Her lips were wide and purple, like those African dolls you see in tourist windows but could never afford to buy.” ( p91 first sentence in The pool and gardenias.) This was well stated by Davis Rocio in his critical essay and a good point that can relate the stories even more, Marie was in desperate need to have a baby because it would always require her attention and would be something of hers, she needed love and attention her husband nor anyone did not give that is the reason why she got Rose ,the dumped baby who was left in the streets to die even though such things in Ville Rose were considered a crime , and kept her until the smell got so bad she could not even get close to her. Marie had reached a point of insanity from all the pain she had bared, which took the Dominican man no time to discover. The rest of the people from her everyday life did not even notice that one day she was without a baby and the next with, nobody cared about nobody in the town, at least she
In the book Between Shades of Gray Ona is a character who is placed in the book to create emotion and a demonstration of motherly grace. One very important way they create These things with her in this book is by using her baby in the equation. As soon as her baby was born she had soviet soldiers stuff her and her baby into a cattle car full of people to take them to who knows where. On this trip in the cattle car no one expected the baby to live and right they were. Once the baby had died Ona was grieving over the child's death by “ Being very quite and not celebrating when they find out the germans were in lithuania!” (Sepetys 69). This adds great emotion and shows great motherly grace in the book by connecting with the people who are reading
Children are an important focus in both stories. Jackson makes it easy. for us to imagine their "boisterous play"(para 2), and Le Guin writes "their" high calls rising like swallows crossing flights over the music and the singing"(para 1). I see these children being used to symbolize perceived states. of happiness in both stories.
Baby narrates her story through her naïve, innocent child voice. She serves as a filter for all the events happening in her life, what the narrator does not know or does not comprehend cannot be explained to the readers. However, readers have reason not to trust what she is telling them because of her unreliability. Throughout the beginning of the novel we see Baby’s harsh exposure to drugs and hurt. Jules raised her in an unstable environment because of his constant drug abuse. However, the narrator uses flowery language to downplay the cruel reality of her Montreal street life. “… for a kid, I knew a lot of things about what it felt like to use heroin” (10). We immediately see as we continue reading that Baby thinks the way she has been living her life is completely normal, however, we as readers understand that her life is in fact worse then she narrates. Baby knows about the impermanent nature of her domestic security, however, she repeatedly attempts to create a sense of home each time her and Jules move to another apartm...
Danticat's Krik? Krak!, are a collection of short stories about Haiti and Haitian-Americans before democracy and the horrible conditions that they lived in. Although it is a mistake to call the stories autobiographical, Krik? Krak! embodies some of Danticat's experiences as a child. While the collection of stories draw on the oral tradition in Haitian society, it is also part of the literature of diaspora, the great, involuntary migration of Africans from their homeland to other parts of the world; thus, the work speaks of loss and assimilation and resistance. The stories all seem to share similar themes, that one story could be in some way linked to the others. Each story had to deal with relationships, either with a person or a possession, and in these relationships something is either lost or regained. Another point that was shared throughout the short stories was the focus on the struggles of the women in Haiti. Lastly they all seem to weave together the overarching theme of memory. It's through memory and the retelling of old stories and legends that the Haitians in Danticat's tales achieve immortality, and extension to lives that were too often short and brutal.
Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi and Mark Mathabane’s Kaffir Boy are both coming-of-age narratives that were written through the eyes and experiences of young people who grew up in a world of apartheid. Although, it should be noted that they both have parallels in their stories as well as distinctions one should take into account the times and places in which each occurred. While Coming of Age in Mississippi occurred during a Jim Crow era in the American South, between 1944 and 1968, Kaffir Boy’s autobiographical narrative occurred in the regime of South Africa’s apartheid struggle from 1960 to 1978 in the town of Alexandra. During the late 20th century both narratives offer a framework of racism, a value and yearn for education and the struggle and will to survive. This essay will compile how both narratives experienced their areas race-relations given the time and place that they are in.
The Infant Child plays a huge role in Blanche’s early life. As a result of her mother’s death, Blanche has a fearful temperament, and
... the United States, the simple and hard work of the midwife Monique sharply contrasts Holloway’s perspective. With the death of Bintou during childbirth, Holloway realizes the reality of the situations Monique and other midwives faced everyday (88). When complications emerge, midwives lack the equipment to help save the mother and child. In the United States, children are normally born in a hospital or within a drive away from a health center.
Marie, who is a product of an abusive family, is influenced by her past, as she perceives the relationship between Callie and her son, Bo. Saunders writes, describing Marie’s childhood experiences, “At least she’d [Marie] never locked on of them [her children] in a closet while entertaining a literal gravedigger in the parlor” (174). Marie’s mother did not embody the traditional traits of a maternal fig...
The narrator, Twyla, begins by recalling the time she spent with her friend, Roberta, at the St. Bonaventure orphanage. From the beginning of the story, the only fact that is confirmed by the author is that Twyla and Roberta are of a different race, saying, “they looked like salt and pepper” (Morrison, 2254). They were eight-years old. In the beginning of the story, Twyla says, “My mother danced all night and Roberta’s was sick.” This line sets the tone of the story from the start. This quote begins to separate the two girls i...
The nursery in the story symbolizes the way women were treated like children. In the story, the narrator's husband places her in a nursery room, because she was going through post pardon depression, and he felt she shouldn't be able to see her child while she was sick. As she starts settle into the room, the more she begins to act like a child. Like a baby she could not leave the room whenever she wanted to, she couldn't do nothing but look at the wall and ceiling, and she was kept in one place under the care of her husband. John would treat her like a child by calling her names like "blessed little goose," and "little girl." Just like a baby she would cry for nothing most of the...
The author skillfully uses literary techniques to convey his purpose of giving life to a man on an extraordinary path that led to his eventual demise and truthfully telling the somber story of Christopher McCandless. Krakauer enhances the story by using irony to establish Chris’s unique personality. The author also uses Characterization the give details about Chris’s lifestyle and his choices that affect his journey. Another literary element Krakauer uses is theme. The many themes in the story attract a diverse audience. Krakauer’s telling is world famous for being the truest, and most heart-felt account of Christopher McCandless’s life. The use of literary techniques including irony, characterization and theme help convey the authors purpose and enhance Into The Wild.
It differs greatly, in its portrayal of mothers, from Le Brun’s Self-portrait with her Daughter and Cassatt’s artworks. Behind Marie Antoinette, you see a jewelry cabinet, off to the right of the canvas. This illustrates that, although she is with her children, she finds treasure within her own materialistic objects. Furthermore, her expression lacks emotion as she holds the child loosely within her arms. The child looks off, barely acknowledging its mother, who is holding him. Next, the child, on the far right of the canvas, reveals an empty cradle, alluding to a child who has died. Again, Marie seems unfazed or simply chooses not to acknowledge the boy’s actions. Furthermore, the young girl, on the right of the canvas, clings on to her mother as she lovingly looks up to her mother. Marie holds a wry smile, appearing somewhat annoyed or displeased. The color scheme is dark, but Le Brun utilizes contrast to emphasize the royal family. However, it only works to further expose the detached relationship between a Marie and her children. According to the lecture, “To counter people’s hatred of the queen and their criticisms of her as a bad (even a degenerate) mother, Vigée Le Brun was commissioned to paint this portrait of Marie Antoinette and her children” (Gartrell). Sadly, the painting was
Stylistically, the book is arranged in rotating chapters. Every fourth chapter is devoted to each individual character and their continuation alo...
During the early seventeenth century, poets were able to mourn the loss of a child publicly by writing elegies, or poems to lament the deceased. Katherine Philips and Ben Jonson were two poets who wrote the popular poems “On the Death of My Dearest Child, Hector Philips”, “On My First Son”, and “On My First Daughter” respectively. Although Philips and Jonson’s elegies contain obvious similarities, the differences between “On the Death of My Dearest Child” and “On My First Son” specifically are pronounced. The emotions displayed in the elegies are very distinct when considering the sex of the poet. The grief shown by a mother and father is a major theme when comparing the approach of mourning in the two elegies.
In the simplest form, there is a basic structural pattern to narratives, as expressed through Tzvetan Todorov’s explanation of narrative movement between two equilibriums. A narrative begins in a stable position until something causes disequilibrium, however, by the end of the story, the equilibrium is re-established, though it is different than the beginning (O’Shaughnessy 1999: 268). Joseph Cam...