It has all happened so stupidly, to my mind: one moment, Powel standing there, brushing from off his helmet the chalk-dust which has turned his face and stiff overcoat prematurely grey; suddenly, a shout from a welder a few stories up, a falling steel beam, and Powel stretched out on the concrete, his head split cleanly - segmented like a grapefruit. So stupid; there is no sense in feeling shocked or dismayed about it. You take your helmet off for five seconds and someone drops a steel beam on your head. We none of us knew Powel well. I was as close a friend to him as any man on the building site, and I didn't have any strong feelings for him. He was a difficult man; he had to provoke people. No doubt he didn't do it deliberately, but he rubbed people the wrong way. There had been the time he had arrived at work clutching a paper bag full of Dobostorte his wife had made for him. Dobostorte! Hungary's national cake, shaped something like a high-rise apartment block, filled with chocolate cream and topped with a kind of caramel lid, much like an éclair and just as rich. That day it reached forty-three degrees in the shade; out in the sun it must have been nearly sixty. In his perversity Powel choked down these cakes one by one, all day long - we laid bets that he wouldn't be able to finish them. He stuffed the cakes into his mouth, crumbs coming out of his nose and caramel and sweat smeared all down his cheeks like plaster eyebrows which had come loose. I suppose it was his favorite, he'd managed somehow to coerce his wife into baking Dobostorte, and he was damned if he wasn't going to eat it all. And of course, as the afternoon lengthened into evening, we all became tired and hungry, drained by the heat. After ridiculing him all da... ... middle of paper ... ...steel beam on his head. For another half-hour at least, Powel's wife is not a widow, her children are not fatherless - longer, if I should be unable to reach them. The twins will stay home from school for a week, farmed out to relatives perhaps, glad for this unexpected windfall. Then a day in church and the drive out to the cemetery, and the next thing you know Mrs. Powel has taken to wearing lipstick and those earrings - fake pearls, as big as crocodile tears. She loses a bit of weight, she has her hair done - and suddenly there's a new man in the house, and the twins are spreading mayonnaise all through his underwear. Life goes on for everybody, except Powel, who didn't know what to do with it anyway. I stop dead in my tracks. I will have to go back to the building site - I suddenly realize that, on the train, I have lost the piece of paper with Powel's address.
The warm blood trickled down his chin. It was the first warmth he’d felt in a while. The warmth fell to his hand and he looked at it through his swollen eyes. It was almost brown instead of red because of the dirt on his face. He had finally grown accustomed to the pain he’d endured for so long… In Germany, the Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler tried to establish the German “Master Race” or Aryans, and rid the world of minorities including Jews, Gypsies, the physically and mentally disabled and political opponents with the ultimate goal to conquer the world. When Hitler rose to power in 1933, the Nazis started ripping Jews from their homes and throwing them in concentration camps. With Hitler ruling Germany, the Nazi’s invaded Czechoslovakia,
“’Is my mother a communist?’ Staring. Straight ahead. ‘They were always asking her things, before I came here.’ … ‘Did the Fuhrer take her away?’ … ‘I knew it.’ The words were thrown at the steps and Liesel could feel the slush of anger stirring hotly in her stomach. ‘I hate the Fuhrer’ she said. ‘I hate him.’” (115)
With exaggeration, authors craft their writing to have an even greater, more impactful effect on their audiences. This enhanced effect found in Candide serves the purpose of highlighting how humans adopt a type of absolute viciousness and inhumanity in times of war. One example is the instance where Candide - a member of the Bulgar army, at the time - must choose between being “flogged” by the entirety of the military command, or to endure “twelve bullets in his brain” (24). Here, Candide is given a nonsensical, almost ludicrous, ultimatum. Voltaire offers an embellished example that serves to demonstrate the barbaric military practices that come with war. Being a recurring aspect of war, Candide is, essentially, forced to choose between death and death. In fact, along with exaggeration, Voltaire satirizes war even further as the choice of whether it be a gradual or speedy demise is Candide’s own luxury. Voltaire does not just simply antagonize the ramifications of war, but rather, he ridicules all facets of war. Another example within Candide is when the Old Woman reveals the story of her own life as proof of the grim hardship that she too has experienced. In the midst of another battle, “one buttock” was cut off of the live bodies of every woman present in the interest of feeding the starving soldiers (56).
Segregation from the rest of society begins the dehumanization of Sighet Jews. The first measure taken by the Hungarian Police against Jews is to label them with yellow stars. Early in Night, while life is still normal despite German occupation of their town, Wiesel explains: “Three days later, a new decree: every Jew had to wear the yellow star” (11). This decree is demoralizing to Jews because it labels them and sets them apart from the rest of Sighet’s population. Like trees marked for logging or dogs marked with owner tags, many people in Sighet are marked with yellow stars, to reveal their Jewish faith. Avni describes Wiesel and the Jews as being “propelled out of himself, out of humanity, out of the world as he knew it” (Avni 140). The Jews are taken out of the normal lives they have led for years and are beginning to follow new rules...
Mrs. Sommers is a middle aged timid mother of a handful of children, and is apparently not well to do anymore after her husband’s death; Not that she probably ever was, but more so than her luck would have it now. She is small framed with tattered old clothes, as if she hasn’t been able to purchase anything in quite awhile, nor would she knowing how...
“Ding dong”. Anna stares at her computer and ignores the doorbell that just rang. The summer night breezes briskly whorls through the neighborhood of Mount Laurel. She was too obsessed with her coding homework and her computer coding class project. “Ding dong”. Anna rushes over to the door in hopes of it being her babysitter, Jamie. She opens the door and a low and behold, it’s Jamie. As soon as Jamie walked inside, Anna’s parents remind them to be safe and don’t answer the front door. Mr. and Mrs. Smith were going out into the city for the night and left Anna alone with her babysitter, Jamie. Once the parents left, Jamie called her boyfriend, Chris, to come and pick them up. While they waited for Chris to come, Anna and Jamie blasted music and jammed out to their favorite songs in Anna’s bedroom. They shouted out of her window and laughed so hard. Chris called Jamie on his phone to come down. They hopped in his navy blue Honda and drove off without a care in the world.
Mrs. Sagal put the plate down in front of Lucinda and said, “Eat up! We’ll be leaving soon for the grocery store.” Lucinda moved the eggs around on her plate. Then she picked up the toast, put jelly on it and took a bite. Just then her dad ran down the stairs, grabbed a piece of toast and shot out the front door.
Instantly, for no reason at all, Mrs. Ramsay became like a girl of twenty, full of gaiety. A mood of revelry suddenly took possession of her. Of course they must go; of course they must go, she cried, laughing; and running down the last three or four steps quickly, she began turning from one to the other and laughing and drawing Minta's wrap round her and saying she only wished she could come too, and would they be very late, and...
She speaks how the child detainees were “privileged”. They were permitted to bring a small item or two with them from France. Christophe’s mother brought two small pieces of chocolate. She told her daughter she would save them for when “you’ve collapsed completely, and really need help. I’ll give you this chocolate and you’ll feel better”. Christophe then tells of a particular day when a pregnant detainee, a woman named Hélène, was giving birth. Her mother explained that Hélène was weak and may not survive the delivery, so she asked Christophe’s permission to give the chocolate to the woman so she and the baby would survive. Christophe agreed; the mother and child survived the delivery. Six months later, the camp was liberated. This personal history depicts chocolate as a source of life. My view of chocolate has now changed. Before learning about Francine and her experience, I saw it as an insignificant piece of candy. Now, knowing how much a single piece of chocolate changed the life of Holocaust prisoners of war, chocolate is weighted with hope and
He washed a mouthful of hardtack down his throat with a tin of boiled water. The biscuits tasted like dry cardboard, but he had grown accustomed to it. He'd hardly had a choice. After all, where could he find any other source of nourishment these days? He wrapped the leftovers in a clean, silk cloth, leaving them for dinner. The meagre meal did little to sate his hunger, but he'd learned to ignore the constant grumbling of his stomach. On...
The house, all bricks and windows silhouetted by the moon, dwindled to the size of Legos as we pulled onto the freeway. I crouched on the back seat of Momma's green sedan, knees tucked under me, facing backwards with my arms folded under my chin. Cheryl, her body tucked into a ball next to me, folded her sweater between her head and the door to soften the rocking of the car. On my left was Doug, his head lolled back onto the seat and his eyes staring at the ceiling, black hair whipping in the wind from the open window in the driver's seat where Momma's elbow jutted out into the darkness, her hand rising every few minutes to wipe the tears from her eyes.
The sound of groaning wooden furniture came from her parent’s bedroom. Chizkiyahul took a step back into the shadows. The sound of her mother could be heard whimpering. The soldiers dragged her parents down the hallway, past the bathroom, through the kitchen and out the front door. Horror shocked Chizkiyahul into silence...
Loisel replied with “ What do you think I have to go in.” MMe. Loisel husband “hadn’t given that a thought.” So he suggested that MMe. Loisel wears the dress that they go to theater in.”Thats looks quite nice, I think.” Then ‘He stopped talking, dazed and distracted to see his wife burst out weeping.” MMe. Loisel husband asks whats wrong. Then “by sheer willpower she overcame her outburst and answered in a calm voice while wiping the tears from her wet cheek, Oh nothing. Only I don’t have an evening dress and therefor I can’t go to that affair. Give the card to some friend in the office whose wife can dress better then I can.”So he asked “let's see Mathilde. How much would a suitable outfit cost- one you could wear for other affairs too- something very simple?” MMe. Loisel took a little bit to reply but finally said “four hundred francs.” When she said that all the color dranined from her husband face. The ression for that was he was saving up to buy a new hunting rifle to go hunting with all his friends this summer, but he gladly gave her the money to make her happy. So she went and bought a beautiful dress. When she got the dress she was happy with
In the 30s in Germany, an Austrian man called Hitler came to power. He was a dictator, and he ordered persecution of the Jewish people. He believed there was a superior race, the Aryan, and the rest were not to have power in this world. At the bottom of his list were the Jews, and he demanded that all Jews were to wear an orange star, the Star of David, to mark their inferiority. The dictator’s followers, the Nazis, followed his orders, and this is ultimately the reason we had to escape. The Holocaust, this period of unjust treatment and gruesome manslaughter, cost the lives of over 6 million Jews in total. Luckily, we managed to get to France in time, but it wasn’t safe there for long. Paris was soon after invaded, and therefore we couldn’t stay there either. So we left for Portugal, temporarily, as we didn’t intend for it to be our new home, primarily because it felt too close to the war zone. We made the decision to cross the pond to Brazil, but we did so without your great grandma. One sunny morning in June, my mom went to the market in the town of Lisbon, but she never returned. The time after, dealing with my little brother and a heartbroken dad, I started losing faith. When we got to Brazil, I found myself committing crimes, such as stealing and threatening innocent people. I was burnt out, and I believed in no such thing as humanity any longer.” At this point, Ingrid’s grandmother had lost herself in the horrifying memories and looked
“Daddy, where are you?” The front door slammed open and he heard his daughter’s footsteps running through the house. He couldn’t break the news to her, not yet. She was too young, too impressionable. He had no idea how she would react to her brother’s passing. He kissed his son’s forehead and pulled the covers over the boy’s head.