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On the road jack kerouac importance
On the road jack kerouac importance
Jack kerouac- “on the road (excerpt)” critical analysis
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Creating Illusions to Find Hope in From Sleep Unbound Kevin Zhao Why is it that when individuals are faced with conflict, they often do not become demoralized by it but instead gain the confidence to overcome it? In the novel From Sleep Unbound by Andree Chedid, the author answers this question through the character Samya and the conflict she faces. Andree Chedid conveys an idea through Samya that individuals create an illusion of choice during hardships which allow them an alternate path to overcoming a conflict in their lives. By temporarily escaping reality, an individual sides with illusions to gain hope in times of hardship. From using this hope, an individual is able to isolate themselves from their weaknesses in reality and in turn, …show more content…
creates a purpose for the individual to grow and develop themselves as a confident being. Andree Chedid shows this throughout From Sleep Unbound using symbolism in the form of symbolic characters, lighting symbolism, and symbolic objects. Symbolic characters in From Sleep Unbound symbolize either the dreams and desires of Samya or the harsh reality that Samya has to face. It seems that there is a barrier of reality represented by Boutros, her husband that is always surrounding her and the zone of dreams and illusions placed far away in the form of the faraway village. Even from the start of the book, it is hinted that Samya wants to wander off into illusions and away from reality in the text “Before she became paralyzed, Samya had wanted to pass her time in the village, mingling with just anyone. Samya claimed that she was happy doing this. Boutros had reprimanded her many times.” (Page 5) From this quote, it is evident that even though Boutros attempts to correct Samya’s actions, Samya still wants to run away from the reality that is her unwanted husband and chooses instead to live with the village woman. By creating the illusion of choice of being able to wander into the village, Samya gains the hope needed to isolate herself from Boutros as she values the lives of the village woman that have a lot less conflict weighing them down. This hope created by the illusion gives purpose to Samya to grow to be confident like the village woman in hopes that one day she will join them. This is further supported by the evidence of the Sheikha as a symbol of desire in through the lines “It was Sheikha Raghia who cured the sick and brought back unfaithful husbands. It was she who helped to find thieves and stolen goods. She had powders….Sheikha Raghia could help a girl find a husband and conceive a child. Women told her their troubles. She chased away devils!” (Page 93) This quote says the Sheikha is able to inspire hope in women, even though the methods used by the Sheikha are illusions of spiritual powers. As Samya goes to see the Sheikha to isolate herself from Boutros, this connects with how she is constantly reminded of the reality that he is still her husband as implied through “I hated Boutros. Hatred made my disgust swell. I saw him and all the other Boutros’s in the world in their rigid authoritarianism. They rule over destinies; they crushed planets, sons, colors, they crushed life itself.” (Page 73) Samya describes Boutros as if he was not her husband, and it seems that Samya tries to create an illusion that she is not married to him at all. The author conveys the idea that Samya is able to describe Boutros the way she does as she does not truly care for him as a wife should care for the husband. By looking towards the illusion that Boutros is not affiliated with her and by gaining hope to isolate herself, Samya is able to gain purpose to develop herself as a confident individual even when faced with the hardship of reality. Symbolic objects in From Sleep Unbound create a dream-like setting around Samya which shows her connections with the illusions she wants to create for herself.
The repetition of surrounding walls around Samya conveys the idea that Samya is trapped. An example shown in the text is where Samya is in boarding school through lines “The veil, the black stockings, the walls. I was suffocating …yet I followed a strange fear. So I followed my own footsteps.” (Page 24) From this description, it seems that Samya tries to find another way to avoid the walls by following “a strange fear” that leads her towards her own decisions. It appears that Samya “follows in her own footsteps” by first choosing to creating an illusionary path for herself out of fear and then following that path. As Samya follows a path she created for herself, she finds hope in “following in her own footsteps” even when her footsteps are unclear as to where they lead. The passage surrounded walls are again mentioned in the text when Samya says that “We advanced in a narrow file. The walls rose before us; they would never stop rising before us”. (Page 24) The author suggests that as Samya finds hope in following her own footsteps, she develops her own confidence even in her boarding school where she is exposed by others directing her path using walls. Samya creates purpose from the hope of following her own path during her suffocation at boarding school to develop to be more confident in herself through isolation from
surroundings.
Light and dark symbolism is used to display contrast around Samya and seems to show the current state that Samya is in. At night time, Samya seems to be in a state of dreams and illusion. While surrounded by darkness, Samya gains the ability to bypass reality and use her dreams to create an atmosphere where she has control over her own life. It is evident that Samya wants to side with illusions as shown in the text through the lines “The drapes were always closed; Samya could not bear the slightest ray of light.” (Page 7) The author implies that the slightest ray of light would be harmful to Samya as she is dependent on the dreams and illusions associated with darkness. It appears that in this case, light does not actually refer to hardships in Samya’s life but instead the reality of Samya’s life. This may be because Samya is able to handle many hardships in her life but because it is described that she cannot “bear the slightest ray of light”, the ray of light may actually be referring to the realities in Samya’s life. As Samya seems to create many illusions of choices during conflicts, it seems natural that the setting around her would be dark and dream-like. As “the drapes were always closed”, the author implies that Samya is constantly in a state of illusion at night so that she can create hope for herself to bypass conflict through her dreams. Samya appears to grow more confident faster overnight than any other time as she seems to develop her confidence in herself through hope gained through dreams. During the day,f however, Samya must deal with the reality around her. Although it seems that she still tries to retreat into the illusions to gain hope, it is much harder for her to do so during the day. This is seen in the text during the day of the marriage through the lines “In church that morning the priest had given me to this man and he had blessed us as if we had been created for each other.” (Page 64) It is shown here that the author is telling the reader that Samya is trying to ignore the reality in which she has just been married and instead leads off by questioning the priest and his authority. Although her escape into the illusion of choice may have been partially successful by turning her attention somewhere else, she does not seem to gain hope or confidence from this as she does during the night. Chedid conveys the message that the day is a symbol of reality for Samya in which she cannot escape from and, therefore, cannot gain purpose from hope in illusions to develop herself as a more confident individual.
In the book From Sleep Unbound, the author, Andree Chedid suggests that when an individual is confronted with conflict, the individual creates dreams and illusions that allows them an alternate, isolated path to overcome the conflict in their lives. By doing so the individual is able to gain hope in times of hardship. This is demonstrated in the text through symbolism in the form of symbolic characters, lighting symbolism, and symbolic objects. With the hope gained, a purpose is created for the individual to grow and develop themselves as a confident human being.
(1454 words)
Bibliography:
Chedid, Andre. From Sleep Unbound. Athens, Ohio: Swallow, 1983. 5,93,24,7,64. Print.
"From Sleep Unbound." TheBunnyHoppers. (n.d.) Web. 15 Feb. 2015.
She started to try and forget and just fall asleep, but her thoughts would always wander too far for her to return to her natural state of mind. She contemplated with herself, why she was running away? What she was running away from?
The Napping House (1984) is a children’s book that illustrates an interesting story about a family and their journey into attempting to get to sleep. Each page a new person or animal piles onto the last person. It starts with a bed in the house, then a granny, then child and so on. As the story builds suspense, the additions continue to decrease in size finishing with a tiny flea. Amazingly enough, the flea creates an amazing ripple effect by biting the mouse and the mouse is startled to say the least. The disruption startles the cat, which effects the dog and then the child and granny. Chaos erupts and everyone and thing that was piled on the bed is in the air with smiles on their faces. When the dust settles everyone is awake and the day
His outside actions of touching the wall and looking at all the names are causing him to react internally. He is remembering the past and is attempting to suppress the emotions that are rising within him. The first two lines of the poem set the mood of fear and gloom which is constant throughout the remainder of the poem. The word choice of "black" to describe the speaker's face can convey several messages (502). The most obvious meaning ... ...
The long journey on planet earth known as life has it ups and downs, growing up as a young individual in today’s world is an obvious rollercoaster. The characters of Phoebe and Theo, are two young girls who endured completely different lives in the books The Hollow Tree, and Awake and Dreaming although they did encounter some similarities throughout their stories. The two children encountered similar family complications, utilised similar coping mechanisms to escape reality, and both became more assertive over their lifespans in the novels. These two novels offer young females readers a logical view on how tough life can get, and how the readers can overcome similar complications they have in their personal lives, while doing all this generating
Reading is on the decline and our reading skills are declining right along with the amount of reading we do. This is happening right across the board through both genders, all age groups and education levels, people are busy and they just do not have time to read books that they are not required to read for school or work. There are serious consequences to this neglect of reading that will continue to worsen if ignored. We need to take notice of what is happening to our culture and stop this situation from continuing, we must act to correct these issues that we are faced with. These things are discussed in the essay “Staying Awake’’ by Ursula K. Le Guin who uses the NEA essays “To Read or Not to Read’’ and “Reading at Risk’’ to support her argument that there is a decline in the amount of time that we are spending on reading and our ability to understand what it is that we are reading.
... in that barren hall with its naked stair... rising into the dim upper hallway where an echo spoke which was not mine ut rather that of the lost irrevocable might-have-been which haunts all houses, all enclosed walls erected by human hands, not for shelter, not for warmth, but to hide from the world's curious looking and seeing the dark turnings which the ancient young delusions of pride and hope and ambition (ay, and love too) take.
Although, for her, she has nothing more to focus on she trusts her imagination to pass the time. Over time she becomes more and more obsessed with the yellow wallpaper, which leaves her in shock. “The wallpaper becomes a projection screen of the narrator growing fright.” (Berman, p.47) This means that the narrator goes to herself on the wall. The isolated woman in the yellow paper is her own reflection. Something that the narrator still does not realize, she only feels the need to release the woman trapped in the wall. She refers to her room as a prison continuously. As she begins to feel isolated she projects her feelings on the yellow wallpaper, but the idea that the room is her prison goes from figurative to reality as insulation deepens her need to escape in some way. “Every time the narrator speaks, she is interrupted and contradicted until she begins to interrupt and contradict herself.” (Berman, p.55) She has her own plan for recovery. But unfortunately, her husband does not listen. For him, the only
The Big Sleep Movie and Novel & nbsp; On first inspection of Raymond Chandler's novel, The Big Sleep, the reader discovers that the story unravels quickly through the narrative voice of Philip Marlowe, the detective hired by the Sternwood family of Los Angeles to solve a mystery for them. The mystery concerns the General Sternwood's young daughter, and one Mr. A. G. Geiger. Upon digging for the answer to this puzzle placed before Marlowe for a mere $25 dollars a day plus expenses, Marlowe soon finds layers upon layers of mystifying events tangled in the already mysterious web of lies and deception concerning the Sternwood family, especially the two young daughters. & nbsp; When reading the novel, it is hard to imagine the story without a narrator at all. It certainly seems essential for the story's make-up to have this witty, sarcastic voice present to describe the sequence of events. Yet, there is a version of Chandler's novel that does not have an audible storyteller, and that version is the 1946 movie directed by Howard Hawks. & nbsp; Hawks' version of The Big Sleep is known to be one of the best examples of the film genre-film noir. "
She is left with no choice but to stare at the wallpaper endlessly and begins to see things within the pattern. She insists there is a woman behind the paper "and she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern-it strangles so" (667). This is representative to women's power being "strangled" by man and that there are women everywhere trying to escape and break free from the suppression and she sees herself as one of those woman behind the wallpaper creeping around trying to get out.
Under the orders of her husband, the narrator is moved to a house far from society in the country, where she is locked into an upstairs room. This environment serves not as an inspiration for mental health, but as an element of repression. The locked door and barred windows serve to physically restrain her: “the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.” The narrator is affected not only by the physical restraints but also by being exposed to the room’s yellow wallpaper which is dreadful and fosters only negative creativity. “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.”
Through the narrator’s obsession with the wall, she begins to envision a woman, that is trapped behind the Yellow Wallpaper. “By daylight she is subdued, quiet. I fancy it is the pattern that keeps her so still.” (pg. 166) From this line, it is made clear to the reader that the pattern of the wall symbolizes the social constraints women face daily. While the woman behind the wallpaper is just a figment of the narrator’s imagination, she metaphorically represents the speaker and her desperation to break free of the mental and physical oppression that has been placed upon her not only by her husband but also society as well; this is seen in the line “I suppose I shall have to get backs behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard”
...lor that made the woman despise it so very much. By being able to understand the various meanings behind the wallpaper the reader is able to fully comprehend the narrative behind the entire story and why her mental health keeps diminishing. The ending of the story reveals that the woman no longer only saw the woman in the walls at night; she began to believe that she actually was said woman.
A restorative theory claims that sleep is used to repair the body including the brain. Oswald suggests that slow wave sleep is when body repair occurs and REM sleep is when the brain is repaired. This is supported by the fact that there is an increase in the secretion of growth hormones during SWS. This could also explain why brain activity levels are high during REM sleep, and similar to when awake.
Susan Schenkel, author of “Giving Away Success” says “there are many ways we discount ourselves. Three of the most common patterns are: 1) emphasizing the negative 2) automatically attributing success to something other than ability, and 3) automatically blaming failure on lack of ability” (Schenkel, 6). Schenkel explains how women also end up being susceptible to falling into helplessness as a result of uncontrollability, which is the belief that nothing can be done to rectify their current state of misfortunes. As a result they end up withdrawing, for example, stopping, quitting or escaping from making ardent efforts to deal with their existing problems. A second thing they tend to do is to avoid getting into tough situations. They do this by shying away from confrontation with the difficulty they feel unable or unwilling to handle (Schenkel, 19). As a result of this helplessness disrupts behavior such as undermining motivation, interfering with ability to learn and creating emotional distress (Schenkel, p. 24).
Then to further instate his isolation in the next stanza the narrator admits to being the source of his seclusion. The narrator claims to put walls around him, but then goes into it more to say, “ A fortress deep and mighty”.