Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Identity development
In the poems “Feliks Skrzynecki” and “St Patrick’s College”, Peter Skrzynecki explores the relationship between understanding and belonging through his experiences, both with his father and at school. Brandon Sanderson delves into the effects prejudice can have on acceptance in the novel “Mistborn: The Final Empire”. These texts all demonstrate how inclusion can be prevented by a reluctance to accept or engage. Peter feels estranged from his father in “Feliks Skrzynecki” and disconnected with his school in “St Patrick’s College”. The concepts of disconnection and estrangement are further revealed in “Mistborn: The Final Empire”, along with perceptions of exclusion. Collectively, the texts
Peter experiences a sense of separation from his father
…show more content…
Peter feels resentment towards his mother for enrolling him at school, where he experiences disaffection. He believes his mother was “wanting only / “What was best”.” Peter directly quotes his mother to show how she did not think for what he wanted, but instead focused on what she thought would be better for him. “St Patrick’s College” and “Feliks Skrzynecki” both explore Peter’s dissatisfaction with his parents. Peter could not rationalise her mother’s actions, preventing him from accepting her and the school he is forced to attend. Similarly, Peter does not understand his father’s culture in “Feliks Skrzynecki”. During Peter’s initial experiences at St Patrick’s College, he “stuck pine needles / Into the motto / On my breast”. The stabbing of his school motto symbolises his disaffection towards the school. Peter has no emotional connection with his school, and humorously mocks the school’s motto - “Luceat Lux Vestra / I thought was a brand of soap.” The latin phrase meaning “let your light shine” is misunderstood by Peter to be a brand. This represents Peter’s disconnection with the school, as he is unknowledgable about the school’s culture. The phrase is later used in a powerful metaphor at the end of the poem, “That the darkness around me / Wasn’t “for the best” / Before I let my light shine”. Peter uses both his mother’s words of “for the best” and the school motto to demonstrate his dissatisfaction towards his mother and his school. He is bitter towards his mother for enrolling him at St Patrick’s College, and describes the school as “darkness”, restricting him until he graduates. That is when he can “let his light shine” - when he is free from the school’s restraints. Peter’s lack of appreciation for both his mother and his school is expressed in
Everyone has once been someone that they aren’t necessarily ashamed of, but something they aren’t anymore. When you’re in school, everyone is different; between the popular kids, the jocks, the cheerleader, the dorks, the Goths, and all the other “types” of people. In “Her Kind,” Anne Sexton shows that she has been a lot of different women, and she is not them now. In this paper we will be diving into the meanings behind the displaced “I,” the tone and reparation, and who Anne Sexton really is and how that affects what she is trying to let people see through this poem.
The juxtapositions of text and image, the places where text shifts from short prose passages to more traditional poetic line breaks, and the works of art draw readers to their own understanding of the unconscious prejudice in everyday life. Thus, Rankine has the capability to push her readers with the use of the second person, where the reader is really the speaker. This method helps establish a greater unity of people, where she chooses to showcase her work as a collective story for many. In this way, she guides the reader with the second person toward a deeper understanding of the reality of a ‘post-race world’, allowing the reader to experience the story as if it’s their own. The final section, focuses on the themes of race, the body, language and various incidents in the life of the narrator. In the end, Rankine admits that she, “…[doesn’t] know how to end what doesn 't have an ending” (159). It is what her audience chooses to do with the newfound self that they find, where their standing on the reality of differences
Conclusion: In all, racial oppression and identification is a concurrent theme in Butler’s works that have been discussed. Butler’s examinations involving the sense of pride and passion towards uniqueness and individualism are evident in many different perspectives. In Butler’s works, the passion the main characters have towards themselves in an alien world teach the reader important values and lessons against negativity and racial discrimination.
Abuse is a difficult and sensitive subject that can have long lasting effects. These traumatic emotional effects are often intensified if the abuse happens at a young age because children do not understand why the abuse is happening or how to deal with it. There are many abuse programs set up to counter the severe effects which abuse can have. Even more, poets and writers all over the world contribute works that express the saddening events and force the public to realize it is much more real than the informative articles we read about. One such poem is Theodore Roethke’s My Papa’s Waltz which looks carefully through the eyes of a young boy into the household of an abusive father. Robert Hayden’s Those Winter Sundays is a similar poem from the perspective of a young adult reflecting back on the childhood relationship with his father and the abuse his father inflicted. These poems are important because they deal with the complex issues surrounding the subject of abuse and also show the different ways which children react to it. My Papa’s Waltz and Those Winter Sundays are similar poems because they use tone, imagery, and sounds and rhythms to create tension between the negative aspects of abuse and the boys own love and understanding for their father.
In the first section Skrzynecki suggests that the physical journey is both literally and metaphorically away from Europe and the tragedy of war and represents the undertakers’ changing perspective. The introductory stanza of the first section immediately describes the undertaking of the physical journey which the poet implies is an escape but the voyage is described in an ambivalent tone. The adjective many denotes the fact that there was a whole mass of the immigrants and heat implies that the discomforting and cramped situation of the migrants wasn’t pleasant. Never see again emphasises the fact that these people are migrating and will never return to their homeland. The migrants’ physical description Shirtless, in shorts and barefooted stresses the lack of their belongings as they’ve left everything behind and their milk-white skin implies that their skin colour isn’t right for their adopted country, Australia and depicts that they won’t be comfortable there. The second stanza’s description of the migrants with the imagery of shackles, sunken eyes, ’secrets and exiles portrays them in disgrace as if they are running away from their homeland. Their sunken eyes also conveys their hardship in suffering and the war’s adversity and the shackles further emphasises their oppression and their confinement. To look for shorelines implies their desire to purge their suffering and inner turmoil as they find some consolation and hope in starting a new life. The last word of the stanza exiles implicates their expulsion from their land in fact they actually chose to leave.
Fong, Bobby. College Literature. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Vol. 17 of Roethke's `My Papa's Waltz'. Academic Search Premier. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. .
Racial discrimination has been an issue among different cultural groups, ethnic races and many religions. It is an issue that has stopped people from becoming well diversitized and embracing multiculturalism, especially during the olden days where slavery and wars were a huge part of the world. Racism has created a separation between people, causing many dilemmas’ to arise. This problem has been seen and touched upon throughout many works of literature and verbal presentations. A discourse on racial discrimination will be used to exemplify how individuals abuse their rights, categorize humans and ill treat others through an exploration of the texts in, Snow Falling On Cedars and The Book of Negroes. These novels have given an insight of the discrimination between different classes of people and the unfavorability of one’s kind.
Gregor Samsa and Ivan Ilyich cast a light on the intolerable conditions they experience, which originate from the inability to fit in and have a connection with their surroundings. The incessant search for a place of belonging by both characters stems from what society and family thinks is standard; Ilyich and Gregor think they will find belonging if they follow society’s rules. Kafka must utilize Gregor’s metamorphosis or dehumanization to separate Gregor from the rest of the world. Likewise, Tolstoy utilizes Ivan Ilyich’s torment and suffering to separate himself from society, and thereby criticizes society for imposing conventional rules. Only through these comparisons and referrals to dehumanization suffering can the reader truly understand and empathize with the drastic alienation and agony experienced by both characters.
Mangelwadi and Falk both promote good ideas about science and Christianity and their relationship to each other. Mangelwadi uses the bible to help explain the Western Cultures importance in history. He thinks that Western Civilization is only the way we know it because of the Bible and Christians views within the World. Western Civilizations rise for importance for science began when the bible inspired Christians to recover God’s command for human dominion over nature. Mangelwadi explains that the scientific method grew out of the theology that these Christians held, and that science is understandable because God created the world as a rational and ordered creation that is regulated by natural laws. He further suggests that by understanding
How does this text either help you to explore and understand the possibilities of belonging or exclude you from connecting with the world it represents?
The story of this poem tells about a young boy that is lured in by the sensuousness of the moon, and then dies because of his own desire for her. The symbolic meaning is much more hidden and disguised by the literary elements of the poem. The storyline and aspects of the literal story add meaning when searching for the figurative meaning. The warning learned from this poem is that infatuation with anything can lead to a downfall. The moon seemed to offer a comfort that attracted him, but it was only a disguise to lead him to death. The passion the young boy felt for the moon can easily be modified to describe the passion a person can feel for anything. The young boy saw safeness in the moon that brought him closer to her. Any obsession will seem to offer the same comforts that the young boy also saw, but this poem warns that death can always disguise itself.
This leads to the other major theme of discrimination between social classes. Though Robbie has been exceptionally well-treated and well educated, neither he nor the family members could ever completely forget that he is the” gardener", and that all he eve...
“It may be that writers in my position, exiles… are haunted by some sense of loss, some urge to reclaim, to look back, even at the risk of being mutated into pillars of salt”1 said Salman Rushdie. The loss and love of home is not what constitutes an exilic existence; what actually and in true sense constitutes it is the chasm between carrying forth and leaving behind and straddling the two different cultures from two different positions. In my paper, I propose to look at the two sides of an exilic existence- the negative that which has the horrors and trauma with reference to Adorno and Said; and the positive, that which provides the intellectuals and writers a critical and reflective insight, and here I would refer to JanMohamed and Salman Rushdie with special reference to Said’s “contrapuntal” effect. I would then proceed to the ‘enabling’ aspect of exile which involves the agential process of hybridity where I will bring in Homi K. Bhabha’s take on it and his concept of “third space”.
The continuum of society’s inequality towards its citizens has been long perceived. The notion of equality that spurs from within peoples’ hearts will surely lead to disappointment, for humanity’s negativities alter an individuals composition. Society, a mental concept, has not only discriminated against its occupants but instilled alienation as well, which leads to a sense of incompletion. In his novel, Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro displays the ongoing struggles of inequality that are present in society. This message is strengthened through the representation of an array of humane elements such as acceptance, hope, love, aspirations, freedom of choice, and societal pressures. Kazuo Ishiguro incorporates narrative conventions to convey the negativities of humanity and its respected society through the portrayal of the truth: Humanity’s barriers blocking one’s fully realized composition leads to lack of fulfillment, from a range of literary theory.
Many writers use powerful words to portray powerful messages. Whether a writer’s choice of diction is cheerful, bitter, or in Robert Hayden’s case in his poem “Those Winter Sundays,” dismal and painful, it is the diction that formulates the tone of the piece. It is the diction which Hayden so properly places that allows us to read the poem and picture the cold tension of his foster home, and envision the barren home where his poem’s inspiration comes from. Hayden’s tumultuous childhood, along with the unorthodox relationships with his biological parents and foster parents help him to create the strong diction that permeates the dismal tone of “Those Winter Sundays.” Hayden’s ability to both overcome his tribulations and generate enough courage