I Took the Road More Traveled
The great oak table stood in the middle of the room, warped by heat from an old wood stove in the corner. Its dark brown finish had boiled up in the center into little pockets of wax and cure, and that was its grand history--a hundred years or more of Christmas dinners and knives hammered thoughtlessly into the wood. The leaves and edges drooped down, worn under the weight of rough, uncultured elbows and wood bundles for the stove. Underneath, the modest planks gave way to the graceful arch of the leg, terminating in the vicious paw of a huge dog, polished claws gleaming on the drab floor.
At night the legs tapped their way upstairs, past the rooms of sleeping adults, stopping at the unfamiliar bed in which I slept. The moonlight illuminated every glistening nail slathered in dew and blood with fierce intensity. That evil table, with hairy paws like a dog, a lion, a monster, came to devil with the shifting patterns of blue, playing on my coverlet and left again before the silvery, delicate cicadas pealed their morning mass. And I was afraid.
At the table, my chin barely reached my cereal bowl and my legs dangled wildly above the floor. I eyed the strange woman who stood at the kitchen counter and gazed out at the morning.
"Miz Edna," I said, "Where'd ya get this table?"
"Well now child, I don't rightly recall. It came from my grandmother, I reckon."
I couldn't imagine Edna's grandmother. My grandmother was already very old and very wrinkled. She stooped when she walked, and shuffled along the floor with a cane. Edna looked like that, and she said her heart hurt when she looked at pictures of her children. That was an affliction which plagued old people; sometimes I had heard they died of it in a shocking and abrupt manner. Edna's grandmother must have been very old, even older than mine.
"How old is your grandma, Miz Edna?"
"She's dead now, child. She died afore I was born. You hurry up with your cereal and run outside and play."
"Yes ma'am. One thing I can't figure though," I said.
"What's that?"
"How did you get this table if your grandmother was dead afore you were born?"
"I tol' you, child, hurry up. Your ma and I're going down to the store, and I've got to get these here dishes scrubbed.
As the novel starts out Edna is a housewife to her husband, Mr. Pontellier, and is not necessarily unhappy or depressed but knows something is missing. Her husband does not treat her well. "...looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage." She is nothing but a piece of property to him; he has no true feelings for her and wants her for the sole purpose of withholding his reputation. "He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children. If it was not a mother's place to look after children, whose on earth was it?" Mr. Pontellier constantly brings her down for his own satisfaction not caring at all how if affects Edna.
No one is without flaws, a fact that many authors emphasize in their writings. It can play an important role in shaping the personality of a character and the events and conflicts of a story. The well-known play Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare focuses on the hamartias of multiple historical characters, primarily that of Marcus Brutus. The concept of being an honorable person pervaded the plot and Brutus’s mind, and this idealistic view was the flaw that, ironically, led to his moral demise as he killed his friend, Caesar.
3.?Against the dark background of the kitchen she stood up tall and angular, one hand drawing a quilted counterpane to her flat breast, while the other held a lamp. The light on a level with her chin, drew out of the darkness her puckered throat and the projecting wrist of the hand that clutched the quilt, and deepened fantastically the hollows and prominences of her high-boned face under its rings of crimping-pins. To Ethan, s...
One example of how Edna¡¦s immaturity allows her to mature is when she starts to cry when LeƒVonce, her husband, says she is not a good mother. ¡§He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children. If it was not a mother¡¦s place to look after children, whose on earth was it?¡¨(13). Edna, instead of telling her husband that she had taken care of her children, began to cry like a baby after her husband reprimanded her. ¡§Mrs. Pontellier was by that time thoroughly awake. She began to cry a little¡Kshe thrust her face, steaming and wet, into the bend of her arm, and she went on crying there, not caring any longer to dry her face, her eyes, her arms,¡¨(13,14). These tears made Edna look as if she was still a child and that she is tired of being treated as a child by her husband. These tears also showed her she did not like where she was, a sign of maturity. Her tears symbolize her first awakening.
I believe that in the beginning of this story, Edna has not yet discovered who she is or what she really wants out of life. Edna has come to the Grand Isle as a dutiful wife and mother who grew up in an oppressive, unloving and un-nurturing home without her mother. Edna’s marriage is not a loving one, neither she, nor her husband have an emotional connection to each other. Edna goes about her life as a mother and wife in a mechanical fashion, she doesn’t have the mind for it and it’s obvious that her current position where she wants to be although at first she doesn’t see it yet. Edna most likely has never experienced any sort of love or connection with anyone. She doesn’t seem to think very highly about her husband, father, or sisters. Her love for her children is flighty at best. It’s as if she’s been locked in a cage m...
The second flaw is Brutus’ poor judgement. His judgement is taken advantage of by Antony. The first sign of this is when Antony talks Brutus into letting him speak at Caesar’s funeral. Another example of Brutus’ poor judgement is how Brutus thinks that Antony could cause no harm to the conspirators and their plan. The judgement Brutus made when he let Antony speak at the funeral was the turning point of the play and it led to the conspirators downfall. Brutus’ final act of poor judgement was when he decided to attack Antony and Octavius at Philippi. This decision lead to many deaths’s including his.
Like the witches, Lady Macbeth uses carefully chosen words to exert control over Macbeth. However, whereas the witches’ intentions were unclear, it is clear to see that greed and ambition are the reason for her actions. Lady Macbeth seems to have a large amount of influence over Macbeth, which she uses to her advantage. Lady Macbeth uses her relationship with Macbeth and plays on his emotions in order to exert control over him.
It is in human nature that the more power one desires the more corrupt actions one must do to attain it. In Shakespeare’s tragedy of Macbeth, a Scottish noble's craving for power leads him to do terrible deeds that leads to his demise. Shakespeare shows that power corrupts by using Macbeth who corrupts under the thought of have power over others. Macbeth becomes corrupt under the thought of becoming king and gaining almost complete control over the people that he rules. Macbeth wants the power badly enough to do horrible deeds such as commit regicide. Lady Macbeth becomes very ambitious and allows herself to become seduced to the idea of becoming Queen. Her ruthlessness urges Macbeth to commit regicide by questioning his love for her and his own manhood.
Theoretically, Edna’s need to fulfill her personal desires is the cause of her demise. Edna chooses to associate and be enamored with Robert. In doing so, Edna begins to step farther and farther away from her family and sees their needs less clearly. Bonnie St. Andrews views Edna’s actions as, “one woman’s rebellion against convention” (28). In essence, her desires turn into a greed that blinds her from seeing anyone except herself.
Brutus's fatal flaw is his trustworthy nature. He joins the conspiracy not because he "loved Caesar less but loved Rome more." ( ) Brutus joins the conspiracy under the impression that he is preventing Caesar's tyranny and saving the people of Rome. He also trusts the motives of the other conspirators. In entering the conspiracy he is also responsible for the death of Caesar and the movement of the plot. The civil war is a direct result of Caesar's assassination and eventually Brutus's own death. Brutus's fall is definitely caused by his trustworthy nature.
As a “speculative man of high motives and refined sensibility”(Catherine C. Dominic) Brutus does have his confusion of motives. Act I, scene ii, is the first we see his weakness, “his concern with reputation and appearance, his subtle vanity and pride”(Gayle Green). Yet the main bases of Brutus’s bewilderment of motives takes place in Act II, scene I, with his famous soliloquy beginning with “It must be by his death”. This speech may be the turning point in which Brutus feels better about the assassination of his once called friend.
Granny Weatherall was eighty years old and on the border between life and death. Her daughter Cornelia brought Doctor Harry to check Granny but she keeps shooing him away. Doctor Harry confirms however that Granny Weatherall does not have much time left in this world. Cornelia wants to take care of her mother but Granny Weatherall told her to leave her alone and that she will be fine. Granny Weatherall was too stubborn to see that she is dying but she started to doubt. Granny Weatherall later think about her long life and the hardship she been through as a single mother raising her children. She also thought about her first love George who did not showed up at their wedding and her husband John who died a young man. Granny rethinks about her life as a mother and her c...
In analyzing the poem 'The Road Not Taken'; by Robert Frost, it represents 'the classic choice of a moment and a lifetime.';(pg 129) He relies much on the reflections of nature to convey his theme. However, this poem seems to be in essence very simple but
This poem by Robert Frost was first read to me in the last year of my high school experience. Back then, not only did I have absolutely no interest in any literary work, but moreover, had no intension to lye there and analyze a poem into its symbolic definitions. Only now have I been taught the proper way to read a literary work as a formalistic critic might read. With this new approach to literature I can understand the underlying meaning to Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken". In addition to merely grasping the author's intension, I was able to justly incur that this poem, without directly mentioning anything about life's decisions, is in its entirety about just that.