The White Silence is about Ruth, her husband Mason, and the Malamute Kid on a trek through the Yukon with their dogs. Resources are scarce so they only have enough food for themselves and nothing to share with the dogs. They set out on their journey after they finish eating. The dogs are weak from having no food and Carmen, one of the dogs falls in the traces. Mason slashes the dog with his whip, which starts an argument with Malamute Kid. Mason decides to leave the dying dog behind and ventures ahead of Ruth and Malamute Kid, stopping by a large pine tree. The pine tree falls from the weight of the snow onto Mason, crushing his shoulder. He survives but is gravely injured, Ruth and Malamute Kid are unable to take him back with them. Mason tells Malamute Kid to take care of Ruth and to go on without him, but Malamute Kid pleads to wait three day before leaving; Mason agrees to allow them to stay only one day. With no improvement from Mason, Ruth says her goodbyes to her husband and her and Malamute Kid leave Mason behind. The main theme of this story is survival, Mason, Ruth, and Malamute kid have to endure the harsh environment of the Yukon. They face the danger of running out of food, or stepping on thin ice. Everything they do is to ensure they survive their journey. Another theme is patience. Malamute Kid showed patience …show more content…
Each character is developed fairly for a short story. We learn about their past and their personalities. Malamute Kid is a native to the Yukon and is Mason’s apprentice, Ruth is also a Yukon native but was treated unfairly because she is a woman. Mason is rather arrogant because he believes he is an expert at the trails, he is not a Yukon native but has worked there for many years. I think each character’s strong and weak points vary and London includes diverse personalities. No clear hero or anti-hero can be determined, but the enemy to all three characters is the
Silence — the sound of quiet, the state of mind, the lack of meaning — all these pertain to its definition. Communication is expanding, noise is increasing, music is becoming more obtainable as people search desperately for a moment of peace or a breeze of silence. As the scarcity of physical silence increases, its value as a rare commodity increases as well. The idiom “Silence is golden” may perhaps only grow closer to reality as time passes, as exemplified by the white noise machines or silent fans entering the market and fictionalized in Kevin Brockmeier’s short story, “The Year of Silence.” In light of this, Brockmeier explores the value of silence and noise in his story without putting one above the other. Through strange clues and hidden
There were many themes illustrated throughout the memoir, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael beah. These themes include survival/resilience despite great suffering, the loss of innocence, the importance of family/heritage, the power of hope and dreams, the effects of injustice on the individual, and the importance of social and political responsibility. Every theme listed has a great meaning, and the author puts them in there for the readers to analyze and take with them when they finish reading the book.
Another interesting aspect the reader might recognize in these stories is the theme of acceptance and integration to something either known or unknown to them. Most of these stories deal with having to change who they are or what they would become like Nilsa, the boy, and others, they have all had to choose what they wanted for there life and accept the fact that if they did not take serious measures they would not be integrated into society prosperously.
To understand the blue wall of silence we must understand the definition. The blue wall of silence is defined as: An unwritten code among police officers not to report on another officer’s errors, misconducts, and or crimes when questioned about an incident of misconduct involving another colleague, during a course of an inquiry. Even though the blue wall of silence originated from the understandable need for law enforcement to be able to trust and rely on each other, it is neither morally justifiable nor is it a legal act. The wall of silence hinders the relationship with the community by degrading the trust and compromising the integrity. It is generally understood that the code of silence breeds, supports and nourishes other forms of unethical
Life is a series of crossroads, major and minor, and each decision plays a key part in analysing the character of a person. In “Hills Like White Elephants” Ernest Hemingway tears back the curtains and exposes one of these moments in full ingenuousness. A man and a woman, named Jig, are at an impasse. They have to decide whether or not they are going to abort their child. The man wants no change in his life, and so he wants no child. The woman wants a change in lifestyle, but in order to keep the child she has to break the autonomous lifestyle that has surrounded her for her entire life. She, in essence, must change her identity in order to follow her aspirations. By juxtaposing the character’s perceived identity to the character’s hopes, Hemingway provides the reader with certain axioms of life. These axioms that Hemingway presents fit into the curriculum of Junior Year by relating to specific values and social conventions, by having literary merit and lastly by transcending time by influencing modern society’s media themes and motifs.
What would literature be had every author used the same perspective for every single story? Literature would not be as well received as it currently is received. Take three American short stories, “Hills Like White Elephants,” “A Rose for Emily,” and “The Yellow Wallpaper,” for example. These stories, by Hemingway, Faulkner, and Gilman respectively, each utilize a different a point of view. The perspective of a story heavily influences the impact of the story on a reader and that impact varies based on the content of the story.
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins was published in 1859-60, two years after The Matrimonial Causes Act, a change in British law “that was first big step in the breakdown of coverture,” according to Danaya C. Wright in the essay Untying the Knot: An Analysis of the English Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Court Records. Under the law of coverture in England, a single woman had few legal rights, but the rights she did have vanished once she married. The property of a feme covert, including any future inheritance, and the ability to earn a wage, was directly under her husband’s control. Lillian Nayder, in “Wilkie Collins,” writes that Collins’s “concen with the inequities of Victorian marriage" stemmed from his own upbringing, being raised by
In “The Great Silence” Ted Chiang presents the reader with the idea that humans and other intelligent species do live on earth. Communication between different species on earth can be difficult because they can’t express their thoughts to one another. According to a possible solution to fermi’s paradox, intelligent life would rather hide than to present themselves to potential enemies. Humans have a hard time trying to find other species to communicate with because they only focus on extraterrestrial life. Humans created the Arecibo observatory to send out signals into space and pick up any signals that could be sent by extraterrestrial life. Although Humans cannot speak directly to other species we are able to communicate with our actions and vibes.
Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants", is a story about a doomed relationship. Hemingway uses symbolism, dialogue, and also setting to tell this story. Behind the words said by the characters, and sights explained to the readers, are hidden meanings that when analyzed, bring the story to another level.
The major themes of the book are directly related to the themes which John Demos uses to tell this story. The storyline moves on though the evolution of one theme to the next. The function of these major sections is to allow the reader to relate to John Williams overall state of mind as the story unfold. By implementing these major themes into his work, John Demos make it possible for the reader to fully understand the story from beginning to end.
The theme in a story is the message or big idea that the author is trying to reveal in his or her narrative. If there was no underlining theme in Sherman Alexie’s short story, “This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” then readers would have no interest in reading the fictional story. Understanding the message that Alexie is trying to display to his readers can vary in many ways and depends on the reader 's understanding of the story. Strong themes that are presented in the fictional tale are man versus self conflict, family, and tribal identity. Victor is a tribal member that has had a rough life and has to deal with his father passing away. Not only does he have to come to terms with his father 's death, but he also has to face his
returned since the end of the war. His view on London has drastically changed. “Those five year-1918 to 1923- had been, he suspected, somehow very important. People looked different. Newspapers seemed different” (Woolf, 80). Time had changed his perception of London, and the only thing he knew before was what his memories told him. “These references suggest that the class under examination in the novel is living on borrowed time” (Zwerdling, 70). Their values and memories of what London used to hold is no longer accurate. Unlike the rest of the story, these memories of what London used to be like, do not have any credibility. Time had changed the feelings and thoughts of the people, and so the characters must adapt, make new memories. “The
There are many themes that occur and can be interpreted differently throughout the novel. The three main themes that stand out most are healing, communication, and relationships.
This movie is a story about societal race reversal. Everything, as we know the world to be is changed. Instead of White People being in control with the wealth and power, the world is opposite. Black people are the majority and control all of the wealth and power. White people are the oppressed race of people and prejudice is placed upon them. It begins with an elitist; Thadeus played by (Harry Belafonte who at a dinner party held at his home, says white people are genetically inferior. Louis Pennant (John Travolta) is a white candy factory worker for Thadeus’ company. All of the factory workers are white, the supervisors are black. Louis volunteers to deliver a package to the “big man” Thadeus’ home. Louis is familiar
Is there such a thing as free will, what is the relationship between mind and body, and the true difference between right and wrong are a few questions about human existence that have plagued philosophers and average men alike since the days of Socrates and Aristotle. While not everyone may pay these questions much attention, there is one philosophical thought that has probably crossed the mind of every human at some point in time, and that is the concept of death and what happens after. There are widespread thoughts about what happens postmortem which range from the idea of immortality during the days of the ancient Greeks to the belief in reincarnation that is associated with many Eastern religions. These beliefs, along with others similar to them, provide some with a sort of safety net because they know that their essence (soul, spirit, etc.) will continue to exist after they pass. That being said, not everyone shares these opinions and for some the idea of death can be frightening. Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise examines this fear through Jack Gladney and several other characters. While the novel does not offer any answers, it does stimulate thought regarding death in modern society and how it should be handled. Although many of the characters try to do things such as ignore or embrace their fear in order to get it off their minds, Jack cannot shake his angst, all of which mirroring the various reactions people in today’s society have regarding death.