In these modern times, it is hard to learn by making mistakes. One needs something to help realize what has happened. An enlightenment, or even an epiphany, can help one realize a sense of reality. There are three stories considered here, but four characters discussed that have experienced such enlightenments: Balram from The White Tiger, MadMan from Diary of a MadMan, The Professional Writer from The Noodle Maker, and The Man who ran the Crematorium in “The Swooner” chapter of The Noodle Maker. Balram was a man who grew up in a poor area of India, and his fate was already decided for before he even had a chance to have a say in it. He eventually got tired of having everything decided for him. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he decided to …show more content…
He believed that everyone around him, strangers and even people he knew and loved like his own brother, were going to try to eat him. The madman would almost lose his own mind when he would hear something about eating others, like when a mother was yelling at her son and said to him that “she could take a good bite right out of your hide” (1239).The madman believed the mother was saying it to him, the madman, instead of her son because he was so paranoid. The way his mind worked, he just had these irrational thoughts run through his mind from time to time or, maybe in this case, all the time. When he decided to read about cannibalism, the book didn’t ease his nerves it only convinced him more. Of ancient times, cannibalism was about “BENEVOLENCE, RIGHTEOUSNESS, and MORALITY” (1240). This would never ease the paranoia of his mind, but this would be an enlightenment for him. He wanted to understand why they do it or if they are going to eat him. So he tried “to make out what was written between the lines...” and he realized “a single phrase: EAT PEOPLE” (1240). He now understood it; everything that had been said around him, what the farmer said, and the green face people staring him. He was the one they want to eat. He started to believe his own brother was a cannibal, because of some incident. Once he tried to confront his brother about his eating behaviors, the brother …show more content…
She basically had no one else and nowhere else to go, so she helped her son with the business. The man who ran this business is called “The Swooner”, because he always made sure his clients’ bodies listen to their favorite kind of music as they were being burned so their soul could be lift up. His mother took care of the clothes that came off the bodies, and she took it very seriously. Most likely because she didn’t know how to do anything else very well. After a while, he started to “imagine how calm she would look when she was dead” (Jian 34). He liked to tell her how “women burn better than men” (Jian 34). He would say this in an almost creepy tone. This doesn’t fool the mother, but then just as the son was about to give up, “fate showed him a light” (Jian 38). A pharmacist’s body showed up, and the mother was close to him. She started to notice how calm he looked. The son finally had her and began to try to convince her again of death without actually saying it, saying the pharmacist is now “immortal” (Jian 40). The son was more than ready to burn his mother. He promised her the music she wanted, and the arrangements were made. They were no longer bickering at each other like before. He closed the furnace door on her without hesitation. At that moment, he felt relief, now that he was free of the title of “son” (Jian 38). That’s all he wanted was to escape from the name ‘son’. Later
The boy’s mother will take the easy way out for herself so that she won’t have to fight through the pain. By taking her own life, she will leave the boy in the father’s hands. The boy misses his mother everyday
But I am convinced that he was "…not in madness, but mad in craft." I also
In paragraph 3 and 4 the narrator explains, “ And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it. . . I did this seven long night-every night just at midnight. ” This shows that he was a calculated killer because of the time he took to watch the man before killing him. It shows how the narrator thought it through. Also shows how he was going to have to study the old man's sleeping behaviors in order to have to kill him.
Many times in life things are not as they seem. What may look simple on the surface may be more complicated deeper within. Countless authors of short stories go on a journey to intricately craft the ultimate revelation as well as the subtle clues meant for the readers as they attempt to figure out the complete “truth” of the story. The various authors of these stories often use different literary techniques to help uncover the revelation their main characters undergo. Through the process of carefully developing their unique characters and through point of view, both Edith Wharton and Ernest Hemingway ultimately convey the significant revelation in the short stories, “Roman Fever” and “Hills Like White Elephants” respectively. The use of these two literary techniques is essential because they provide the readers with the necessary clues to realize the ultimate revelations.
An individual’s meaning or purpose in life cannot truly be realized unless they are faced with a situation in which their course of action directly affects their future. In most cases, humankind is forced to face an extreme circumstance when something comes to an end, whether it be positive or negative, for that ending means that change is inevitable and approaching. Thus, life becomes more meaningful as something ends, for people are forced to realize what is truly important to them as well as the idea that nothing lasts forever. Individuals must choose which of the aspects and goals of their lives are the most significant and should be focused on as they approach a resolution, as can be seen in the Gawain Poet’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Therefore, due to the finality of an ending and the uncertainty of the following events, humankind can reveal what they believe are the
The human condition may contain the sense of great heights, achieving great dreams and great lives, but it also contains the hellish experience that many call the limit of man. No matter the intensity of the desire or pain, cowardice and selfishness will always creep down from its dark cave, ravaging at the man before the crossroad. As a result, more often than not, man will take the path of less resistance, aware but unaware of his weak spirit. Traveling down the road, the man will soon realize that he has lost something important: his free will. He weeps, but weeps of his weakness, his lack of strength to stand up to his desires, to fight his inner demons and cowardice, to seek the light he has always desired. He dreams shortly of what could have been, the cruelty of the double-edged sword called the human condition, then falls on his knees to become his own
In The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga our protagonist struggles in his journey to adulthood. Born to a rickshaw puller who ends up dying of tuberculosis due to government corruption, Balram sets his sights to become somebody better than his father–– someone who wears the uniform–– as he’s a smart person and an entrepreneur. On his journey, he is confronted with many difficult decisions which help him discover the kind of person that he is; while also learning how corrupt the upper class is and how that has to do with the government. In the end he succeeds and goes from a rooster in the Rooster Coop, to somebody who 's broken out and made it–– out of the darkness, into the light. However, this doesn
In the novel, The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga the main character, is Balram, one of the children in the “darkness” of India. Adiga sheds a new light on the poor of India, by writing from the point of view of a man who was at one time in the “darkness” or the slums of India and came into the “light” or rich point of view in India. Balram’s job as a driver allows him to see both sides of the poverty line in India. He sees that the poor are used and thrown away, while the rich are well off and have no understanding of the problems the poor people must face. The servants are kept in a mental “Rooster Coop” by their masters. The government in India supposedly tries to help the poor, but if there is one thing Adiga proves in The White Tiger, it is that India’s government is corrupted. Despite the government promises in India designed to satisfy the poor, the extreme differences between the rich and the poor and the idea of the Rooster Coop cause the poor of India to remain in the slums.
The widow loses her only son to a stabbing, leaving her completely alone in the world, in this scene we can see her begin her mourning after the son’s body is brought to her. “Then, stretching her wrinkled hand over the body, she promised him a vendetta. She did not wish anybody near her, and she shut herself up beside the body with the dog, which howled continuously, standing at the foot of the bed, her head stretched towards her master and her tail between her legs. She did not move any more than did the mother, who, now leaning over the body with a blank stare, was weeping silently and watching it.” In this scene, we can see the grief struck mother begin her mourning process, although she also begins to make her transformation by promising her son
in order to leave the life he led in the past. However, from the moment of introduction to the
He too fells the urge to kill and to destroy. He also goes to the hunters and feasts with them on the pig.
On page one, the text states “Nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, and not dulled them.” Here, the narrator seems to be very defensive about his condition. This shows that he has been questioned and confronted about his disease before in the past, and feels the need to explain what his disease actually is to everyone. Other peoples’ interpretations are obviously different than his, as he classifies mad a whole different way than many others might. This is shown again when he says on page one that “I heard all things in heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell” (2) and “And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense?” (2). So, once again, he is showing that being mad has to do with dull senses, not anything else that others, and that other people interpreted it wrong. Other quotes really hit home that the disease represents misinterpretation such as “If you still think me mad, you will so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body” (3) and “Would I madman have been so wise as this?” (1). All of this challenging towards the reader reinforces what was previously stated in this paragraph, and definitely shows that there are difference in opinions between the narrator and others. A song quote that really
The mother realizes, as she is dying, that she needs her son nearby because their connection gives her strength.
They acted savagely, not knowing what they were doing. The boys did not take a second look at what their actions were. They had let their malicious urges control them. He came to be disguised. He may come again even though we gave him the head of our kill to eat.
The story opens with the boy, whom to this point had ignored his mothers coughs, drops everything to rush to her aid as she “collapsed into a little wicker armchair, holding her side”. (O’Connor 206) As he watched his mother struggle trying to light the fire he told her, “Go back to bed and Ill light the fire”. (206) Now to this point, as the reader, I am unsure of the age of the boy, but I get the impression that he is a young boy. My idea of this boy is that he tries to take on too much throughout the day and eventually it was the demise of the opposite sex that eventually caused the meltdown of the “awesome” little boy. This is certainly something that will happen again to this young lad but he has definitely learned his lesson this time.