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Essays on symbolism in literature
Significance of symbolism in literature
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In the short story "A Bad Time for Fathers" by Robert Cormier displays a father's sorrow for his daughter leaving for college. The father fears that once his daughter leaves for collage, she won't return.
Symbolism is displayed in this short story to strengthen the theme. When talking to his daughter about her departure for college, the father repeatedly mentions seeing Indians. When he is asked by his daughter what he was doing, he responded, "Looking for some Indians." He is beginning to worry here, by the indication that he is seeing Indians. (98) Later on he said, "Look... Indians on the warpath." (100) which is displaying how he further felt his fear of his daughter leaving. At the end of the story, he concludes by thinking, "I went
upstairs to see if there were any Indians riding to attack, although I knew that they were gone forever." (105) This indicates that he believes that he has lost his daughter forever and that she will never return. Conflict is also used to reinforce the theme. Through out the story, the father is having an internal conflict with himself. He knows that it's best that his daughter goes away to college, but there is also
Encountering struggles in life defines one’s character and speaks volumes about their strength, ambition, and flexibility. Through struggles, sacrifice, and tragedy, Junior in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, adapts to survive difficult situations and faces his problems head-on. As he makes life changing decisions, adapts to an unfamiliar culture, and finds himself amongst misery and heartbreak, Junior demonstrates resilience to overcome adversity and struggles.
She asked Alexie to apologize, he asked: “Sorry for what?” For being an “Indian.” to what teacher replied “Everything.” She punished him by standing straight for fifteen minutes and eagle-arm with books in each hand. Betty Towle made him eat the paper for reading the words wrong way when he read them right. She used the word “Indian” consecutively with a capitalization, to what Alexie answered “Yes, I am, I am Indian. Indian, I am.” This is significant because he is expressing his pride for his Indian background. He is not ashamed to stand up for himself. She sent a letter to his parents telling him to cut off his braids otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to enter her
Adjusting to another culture is a difficult concept, especially for children in their school classrooms. In Sherman Alexie’s, “Indian Education,” he discusses the different stages of a Native Americans childhood compared to his white counterparts. He is describing the schooling of a child, Victor, in an American Indian reservation, grade by grade. He uses a few different examples of satire and irony, in which could be viewed in completely different ways, expressing different feelings to the reader. Racism and bullying are both present throughout this essay between Indians and Americans. The Indian Americans have the stereotype of being unsuccessful and always being those that are left behind. Through Alexie’s negativity and humor in his essay, it is evident that he faces many issues and is very frustrated growing up as an American Indian. Growing up, Alexie faces discrimination from white people, who he portrays as evil in every way, to show that his childhood was filled with anger, fear, and sorrow.
Louise Erdrich’s short story “American horse” is a literary piece written by an author whose works emphasize the American experience for a multitude of different people from a plethora of various ethnic backgrounds. While Erdrich utilizes a full arsenal of literary elements to better convey this particular story to the reader, perhaps the two most prominent are theme and point of view. At first glance this story seems to portray the struggle of a mother who has her son ripped from her arms by government authorities; however, if the reader simply steps back to analyze the larger picture, the theme becomes clear. It is important to understand the backgrounds of both the protagonist and antagonists when analyzing theme of this short story. Albetrine, who is the short story’s protagonist, is a Native American woman who characterizes her son Buddy as “the best thing that has ever happened to me”. The antagonist, are westerners who work on behalf of the United States Government. Given this dynamic, the stage is set for a clash between the two forces. The struggle between these two can be viewed as a microcosm for what has occurred throughout history between Native Americans and Caucasians. With all this in mind, the reader can see that the theme of this piece is the battle of Native Americans to maintain their culture and way of life as their homeland is invaded by Caucasians. In addition to the theme, Erdrich’s usage of the third person limited point of view helps the reader understand the short story from several different perspectives while allowing the story to maintain the ambiguity and mysteriousness that was felt by many Natives Americans as they endured similar struggles. These two literary elements help set an underlying atmos...
Eating wild rice, hunting and fishing can be the essential evens for Indians who are living on reservations. The culture itself represents the beauty of Indian’s life. Rez life could be violent, harsh when the economy goes down; when whites enter their life without asking. When they fight with whites over something that has to do with its own policy and rights. Life could be simple and happy, when everybody in the rez doing their own business and keep their own briefs. The history was rare, but real life is wild. Non-Indians who like us, don't know much about Rez life, but after reading this book, we all can find out the real meaning of the welcome sign!
Growing up on a reservation where failing was welcomed and even somewhat encouraged, Alexie was pressured to conform to the stereotype and be just another average Indian. Instead, he refused to listen to anyone telling him how to act, and pursued his own interests in reading and writing at a young age. He looks back on his childhood, explaining about himself, “If he'd been anything but an Indian boy living on the reservation, he might have been called a prodigy. But he is an Indian boy living on the reservation and is simply an oddity” (17). Alexie compares the life and treatment of an Indian to life as a more privileged child. This side-by-side comparison furthers his point that
In Jennine Crucet’s story, “Taking My Parents to College” she really explains to the reader how challenging it was leaving home and starting a new chapter in her life. When the author and her family first arrived to Cornell University, they were sitting there when the dean ended his speech with: “Now, parents, please: Go!” Being a first generation college student Crucet nor her family had any idea that they were not supposed to stay for orientation and had to leave her as soon as they got her settled in. They did not even have all the right materials and supplies that she needed to begin with by stating, “Every afternoon that week, we had to go back to the only department store we could find, the now-defunct Ames, for some stupid thing we hadn’t known was a necessity, something not in our budget: shower shoes, extra-long twin sheets, mesh laundry bags.” Both Crucet and I suffered from similar issues during our first few weeks on our new journey in college and we both had no idea what was ahead of us.
American Indian stories is the story of an Indian girl’s childhood experiences and how she went to school and also talks about the different Indian customs. The book sarts out with how her father, uncle and little sister were killed by the white men, and how much her mother resented the white men or palefaces as she called them. Bead work was one of the main things the Indian women did and so the little Indian girl also learned to do bead work by watching her mom. This book also tells of the many Indian myths or beliefs. In one case the little girl and many of the villagers were going to see a young warriors first arrival and their was a great party and during the walk to the center of the camp the little girl tried to grab a plum when her mother told her not to get a plum because the plum bush was growing out of the hands of an Indian boy who always like to play and eat plums. one day missionaries came to the camp to basically send mostly children to the East so they would learn the ways of the white man and also become civilized and in turn help bring more Indians Eastward to help with the modernization of America and Indians. The book describes in detail the regiment of what happened and how the little girl was feeling while she was in school and the day she went back home to visit her mother and also to recruit new children from the school she came from. Finally the little girl became a teacher. The book goes on to describing a warrior chief and his pride and joy in his little daughter and how he didn’t see anyone that would be able to marry his daughter. Blue-Star Woman was an Indian women at
In a desperate attempt to discover his true identity, the narrator decides to go back to Wisconsin. He was finally breaking free from captivity. The narrator was filling excitement and joy on his journey back home. He remembers every town and every stop. Additionally, he admires the natural beauty that fills the scenery. In contrast to the “beauty of captivity” (320), he felt on campus, this felt like freedom. No doubt, that the narrator is more in touch with nature and his Native American roots than the white civilized culture. Nevertheless, as he gets closer to home he feels afraid of not being accepted, he says “… afraid of being looked on as a stranger by my own people” (323). He felt like he would have to prove himself all over again, only this time it was to his own people. The closer the narrator got to his home, the happier he was feeling. “Everything seems to say, “Be happy! You are home now—you are free” (323). Although he felt as though he had found his true identity, he questioned it once more on the way to the lodge. The narrator thought, “If I am white I will not believe that story; if I am Indian, I will know that there is an old woman under the ice” (323). The moment he believed, there was a woman under the ice; He realized he had found his true identity, it was Native American. At that moment nothing but that night mattered, “[he], try hard to forget school and white people, and be one of these—my people.” (323). He
In the novel, The Wednesday Wars authored by Gary D. Schmidt, the protagonist Holling Hoodhood has a sister named Heather who wants to go to college. However, her father does not want her to go because she has a job and he wants Heather to be safe. I believe that Mr. Hoodhood is both right and wrong in not allowing Heather to go to college. It is right because, she could be unsafe, but is wrong because Heather should be able to go to college to learn and explore new things. I feel that many parents still have this attitude today. Parents should care about their child’s safety but also let them do some things they
The Absolute True Diary of a Part Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, is about a high schooler trying to get away from his futureless culture. Although the book was an easy, amusing read, filled with pictures, and funny captions. Portraying the hopelessness of the Native American people, his culture, in his eyes. By analysing the text you dig past this comedic writing to see the true struggles of a kid our own age. “You’ve been fighting since you
Identity. Social Injustice. Coming of age. Those are three out of several other themes that are touched on in The Diary of a Part-Time Indian, written by Sherman Alexie.
Just before World War II Rudi Kaplan starts learning a very important lesson. A Father’s Promise is a historical fiction written by Donnalynn Hess. The setting is in 1939 right before World War II in Warsaw, Poland.
The research supports the theory of a father’s absence having negative effects on the child’s life. Nearly one third of
...lthy and successful family. If a father is missing from a daughters life they are then considered deprived of a significant amount of love, self-worth, and confidence. The effects of a fathers absence has been demonstrated in the research presented as being damaging to the overall wellbeing of their daughters. It doesn’t matter if the catalyst of the father’s absence is divorce or having a child out of wedlock as a society we need to fix this problem. Before adults decide to have children they need to first prepare for a healthy marriage which includes learning the dynamics of a marriage. The logic behind this would be to decrease the amount of fathers lost to divorce. There are times, for instance death, when the loss of a father is unavoidable, but we need to begin to educate our fathers with the importance and impact they bring to their daughters lives.