Peter Howitt’s Sliding Doors (1998) is a film that explores the events that unfold in Helen’s (Gwyneth Paltrow) life after she simultaneously makes and misses her train. Throughout the film, sliding doors appear as a motif and signify that an important event is about to occur or has occurred in Helen’s life. By manipulating the range of story information and mise-en-scene, Howitt is able to juxtapose Helen and James (John Hannah) with Gerry (John Lynch) and Lydia (Jeanne Tripplehorn) to ultimately create a stronger allegiance between the audience and Helen and James.
Each of the four central characters, Helen, James, Gerry, and Lydia, can be recognized by individual and distinct traits that differentiate them from each other. The protagonist, Helen, is a hardworking woman with relatively low self-confidence who is often skeptical of people and good news that comes into her life. After losing her job, Helen works many part-time jobs in order to make ends meet and, in a parallel time line, starts up her own PR company. James is a nice, successful man who tries very hard to cheer up Helen and also has his own company. However, James isn’t entirely honest with Helen, because he hides the fact that he is married to Claudia. Gerry, in contrast to James, can be characterized as a fickle man who is both dependent on Helen for support and deceitful. Gerry’s inability to choose between Helen and Lydia, persistent lying to Helen and even Russell, and lack of income are all factors that contribute to his characterization. Lydia is the polar opposite of Helen. She is an aggressive and conniving woman who is emotionally dependent on Gerry. Her constant phone calls, plots to inform Helen of the affair, and stalker tendencies all add to her “li...
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...ry and Lydia, while simultaneously causing them to cheer for the relationship between Helen and James. Elements of mise-en-scene, such as lighting, clothing choice, and setting all help further this contrast. Though the film represents a relatively short period in Helen’s life, many life-changing events occur during this time. Howitt punctuates these major events with the image of sliding doors, thereby driving home the film’s central theme of chance, possibility, and change. Our allegiance with Helen is inevitable, because we follow her story and are made to understand her motivations and agree with them; therefore, it is the allegiance, or non-allegiance, to the other characters that Howitt must work the hardest to elicit in the audience and he does so by manipulating the actions of each character to suit his needs and obtain a certain reaction from the audience.
One Child’s Courage to Survive. “ A Child Called It ” Abstract This is one of the best, yet saddest books that I have ever read. There are so many bad things out there that are happening to good people. We just have no idea.
Children these days have a variety of needs, often being surrounded by the ideas of freedom and security. While some people seek complete freedom from society’s rules, others seek the comforts of security that a normal life provides. Children’s preferences on freedom and security are reflected from their Mom and Dad’s parenting style. In The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, the characters Brian, Lori, and Jeannette show that while growing they would rather have security over freedom because they repeatedly find themselves in a state of danger due to their parent’s lack of security. For example, if Jeannette’s parents were accountable while Jeanette was in proximity to fire she would not have been traumatized and severely burnt. Another reason the children want security is Rex is an excessive alcoholic who is very dangerous to be around while he is under the influence of hard liquor, they would rather a father that responsibly handled alcohol. Rex’s surplus of expenses on booze led the family into poverty because instead of using the family’s rare profit to pay off bills Rex uses it to buy alcohol and items that were not a necessity to their survival. Therefore, their parents struggled to give even the simplest things for them such as food and clothes.
On December 10, 1950, in Stockholm, Sweden, one of the greatest literary minds of the twentieth century, William Faulkner, presented his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize. If one reads in between the lines of this acceptance speech, they can detect a certain message – more of a cry or plead – aimed directly to adolescent authors and writers, and that message is to be the voice of your own generation; write about things with true importance. This also means that authors should include heart, soul, spirit, and raw, truthful emotion into their writing. “Love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice” (Faulkner) should all be frequently embraced – it is the duty of authors to do so. If these young and adolescent authors ignore this message and duty, the already endangered state of literature will continue to diminish until its unfortunate extinction.
Life is a complicated process. It’s filled with many things that keep it interesting but at the same time, very dull. Life’s what you make it and for many, it’s something we all strive for. In the story, The Space Between, the author takes full advantage of the premise as there’s rarely a dull moment- as in life. The book is filled with many literary devices that work nicely with the plot and dialogue. These include; metaphors, similes, irony, personification, and many more. We follow a young man who is finding his way in the world. He has only a week to change his life for the better. But he will face many obstacles on the way that brings the readers into a startling and fun journey.
1. In the book, the father tries to help the son in the beginning but then throughout the book he stops trying to help and listens to the mother. If I had been in this same situation, I would have helped get the child away from his mother because nobody should have to live like that. The father was tired of having to watch his son get abused so eventually he just left and didn’t do anything. David thought that his father would help him but he did not.
Jeannette Walls, the author of the memoir, The Glass Castle, was raised by parents whose relentless nonconformity and radical ideals were both positive and negative aspects to their wellbeing. Their names were Rex and Rosemary Walls, and they were the parents of four children. While the kids were still young, the family moved from town to town, camping in the wilderness and sleeping in the car, and sometimes even had a small place to stay. Rose Mary, who was both an artist and an author, identified herself as an “excitement addict”. As a mother who despised the responsibility of caring for her family, Rose Mary preferred making a painting that will last forever over making meals for her hungry children. Rex was an alcoholic who, when sober, was a charming and intelligent man that educated his children through geology, physics, mathematics, and how to live life fearlessly.
Diamant has Dinah effectively tell her story from three different narrative perspectives. The bulk of the novel is related by Dinah in first person, providing a private look at growing up and personal tragedy: "It seemed that I was the last person alive in the world" (Diamant 203). Dinah tells the story that she says was mangled in the bible.
A Child Called It was about the struggles of a young boy named Dave Pelzer. Dave was put through hard times and at some point lost hope in his dreams and doubted the humanity of mankind, but in the end because of his strong will he was able to overcome his problems and make a better life for himself.
She (Judith) moves to a big city with her husband (Brice), where she hope to begin her career. Brice is a smart young man, with little finances and Judith wants more. Brice is conservative, simple, and inexperience in romance and their marriage is stale. So, Judith takes an internship job to help support the household and to work toward her dream of becoming a marriage counselor. At her job she (Judith) meets an older, charismatic, wealthy guy that is attractive to her (Judith). Judith denied his advantages until Judith succumbs to his charms, left her husband and had an affair with him (Harley). Judith mother was hurt she left her husband and tried to get Judith to return home and come back to the church
In Peter Howitt’s film Sliding Doors, Helen’s (Gwyneth Paltrow) life progresses after she misses/makes her train. Throughout the movie, there are sliding doors, which appear as a motif. It also shows that a significant event is about to occur or has taken place in Helen’s life. Howitt manipulates mise-en-scene by comparing Helen and James (John Hannah) with Gerry (John Lynch) and Lydia (Jeanne Tripplehorn). At the beginning of the film, Helen goes backward in time the after she misses the train first caused by the little girl in the stairway. It seems like they re-winded the film then paused and it continues the same way. The only difference is that the girl does not get in the way the second time and Helen gets on the train. Non-diegetic music helps convey the mystery and fantasy to the story.
Many people have life changing revelations in their lives, but very few people are as young as Jared when he realizes what he does about his life. Ron Rash wrote the short story, "The Ascent," about a young boy's journey that brought him to have a significant revelation about his life. In the story, Rash uses a naive narrator, foreshadowing, and imagery to show the setting of the story that led to Jared's revelation about his life.
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a harrowing and heartbreaking yet an inspiring memoir of a young girl named Jeannette who was deprived of her childhood by her dysfunctional and unorthodox parents, Rex and Rose Mary Walls. Forced to grow up, Walls stumbled upon coping with of her impractical “free-spirited” mother and her intellectual but alcoholic father, which became her asylum from the real world, spinning her uncontrollably. Walls uses pathos, imagery, and narrative coherence to illustrate that sometimes one needs to go through the hardships of life in order to find the determination to become a better individual.
In the essay “Everything Now” Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers, author Steve McKevitt blames our unhappiness on having everything we need and want, given to us now. While his writing is compelling, he changes his main point as his conclusion doesn’t match his introduction. He uses “want versus need” (145) as a main point, but doesn’t agree what needs or wants are, and uses a psychological theory that is criticized for being simplistic and incomplete. McKevitt’s use of humor later in the essay doesn’t fit with the subject of the article and comes across almost satirical. Ultimately, this essay is ineffective because the author’s main point is inconsistent and poorly conveyed.
Pressfield, Steven. Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae. New York: Bantam, 1998. Print
The Dice Man written by Luke Rhinehart is an incredibly thought challenging and intentionally provocative piece that knows no bounds and sought to cover every aspect of the human psyche. The exploratory nature of this book transverse across subjects that most novels and authors would dare not touch. Rape, murder, sexual experimentation, racism, drug use, adultery and senseless blasphemy. The Dice Man covers them all, and when presented with the title quote “This book will change your life” I would plainly agree and contend that it will not only change your life in some way but severely change your perspective on things.