The title of the short story, “First Flight” by W. D. Valgardson, may indicate that someone is attempting to escape an undesirable situation. However, this flight attempt may not go as planned and actually worsen the situation that this individual is facing. Something effective in “First Flight” is the personification used to emphasize the misery of Gregory’s isolation. When Gregory seeks company at a café, its emptiness “[dampens] the buoyancy” (482) of his mood and “[dulls] the sharp edge” (482) of his happiness, astutely depicting how forlorn Gregory feels. Additionally, the torment of isolation is evident in that winter “[freezes] all spontaneity and [seals] off all relationships” (483). Something ineffective in “First Flight” is the awkward phrasing which decreases the clarity of the text. After Gregory arrives at a railway station and opens the door, seeking warmth, the “cold air [boils] into the room, wreathing him in mist, making him look faded, a ghost of himself” (484). Although a sequence of commas can be effective through its realistic depiction of human thought (stream of consciousness), in this case, it is ineffective as it does not portray the events in a more realistic manner, but instead merely causes confusion. …show more content…
D. Valgardson, as they commit rash acts following their emotional struggle with the harsh isolation surrounding them. After “[lunging] for freedom” (487) when teased by a corporal, Gregory “[keeps] his sorrow to himself” (487) as he feels “hollow” (483) from the loneliness that prevents him from gaining comfort from others and eventually leads him to commit suicide. Likewise, after Ellen’s husband, Mathew, forbids her from enjoying Kloski’s company, Ellen experiences isolation, which eventually drives Ellen to not only disobey Mathew’s strict orders but even watch him die instead of saving
Wouldn’t it be amazing to travel anywhere you wanted to go in the world without a plane to take you there? Well, we’ve all wanted the ability to fly at least once in our lifetime. We would have the luxury to travel anywhere we wanted and we wouldn’t have to worry about the constant struggle to find enough money just to get to the destination. We would learn more about the world by seeing things through a new perspective if we could fly ourselves to it in the blink of an eye. Judith Oritz Cofer as the author shows us this ability through the characters in the short story, “Volar”.
“Gregory” concerns the Narrator’s dealings with a prisoner of war named Gregory. In the beginning of the story Gregory has a gun pointed at him, which is being held by the Narrator; the story then jumps back to explain what led up to this point. Gregory is captured in order to try and combat the fact that one of the Narrator’s Lieutenants has also been captured. The Narrator has executed five people before Gregory finding that it is getting easier to execute prisoners; however, Gregory is different. Gregory is a very nice man, who does multiple things for the Narrator and considers him a friend. Gregory feels sure of this because they ate together. After the Lieutenant is executed the orders are given by headquarters to kill Gregory and hang him up as an example. The Narrator and other solders that are attached to Gregory try to allow him to escape in order to skirt the execution. Even though Gregory has multiple chances to escape, he decides against it because the soldiers are his friends and he considers being on the base a better situation. However, because Gregory does not escape the Narrator and other soldiers feel obligated to execute him. The ...
In W.D Valgardson story he creates pathos for Gregory by using unique symbolism and distinct descriptions of an everyman. This story shows how you should think before you make decisions because you may seriously hurt a person physically or psychologically, and how exclusion can lead to the rash acts of cruelty. This story’s unique writing talent makes this short story an exceptional read.
Finally, looking at the factors involved in success. The set books used in his essay are Pullman (1995) Northern Lights and Ransom (2001) Swallows and Amazons. Critics view the books by Pullman and Ransom as examples of literary excellence. In order to evaluate this opinion it is necessary to discuss what aspects critics
This extract emphasises the lonely, outworld feeling that would have been felt living in such settings. This puts into perspective the feeling that will be felt during the coarse of the plot development.
T. Coraghessan Boyle’s “Friendly Skies” is the story of Ellen, a woman who is trying to get to get to New York to be with her mom, but has trouble doing so due to several delays. First, the plane has mechanical problems, this is followed by a pilot claim that they have lost their slots for takeoff. When the plane finally leaves LAX, the engine catches on fire, so emergency landing is required. When back at the airport she is only able to get a non-direct flight that stops in Chicago. While on this flight, Ellen reminisces about heartbreaking details of her past, so she takes prescription medicine with alcohol to try and diminish her pain. Eventually, a nervous man who had annoyed Ellen for hours, threatens to kill everyone because he is not happy with the airline service. With her built up frustration, Ellen picks up a fork and stabs the man repeatedly, which helps in restraining him long enough to land in Denver. The central idea of the story is that even a calm and constrained person can have an irrational outburst of emotion if his/her feelings are repressed.
Sherman Alexie’s Flight Patterns tries to tackle a challenging subject. It probes the underbelly of modern life, sifting through the cloudy American mind that’s full of seemingly useless information, in search of what’s truly important in life. This happens through the stories two main scenes. The first depicts William’s relationship with his daughter and wife, and conflicts in life. The second engages William in a taxi-cab conversation that shuffles his priorities and forces him to confront his problem. This pushes him to his tipping point, and when the ride is over, he becomes uneasy and cares only to hear his family’s voice, not about his job, or the fears that had previously been driving forces. Alexie is trying to show that temporary concerns should never come before a thing like family, something that will remain permanent.
Thirteen-year old Brian Robeson, the sole passenger on a small plane from Hampton, New York to the north woods of Canada, boards the aircraft excited at the notion of flying in a single-engine plane. After the novelty of the experience passes, Brian returns to his thoughts on his parents' recent divorce. Brian recalls the fights between his parents and his hatred for the lawyers who attempt to cheerfully explain to him how the divorce will affect his life. What Brian calls "The Secret" also enters his consciousness, and at this point we do not know what "The Secret" refers to. Brian feels the burn of tears come to his eyes, but does not cry, making certain to guard his eyes from the pilot, whose name Brian cannot exactly remember.
The speaker in “Five A.M.” looks to nature as a source of beauty during his early morning walk, and after clearing his mind and processing his thoughts along the journey, he begins his return home feeling as though he is ready to begin the “uphill curve” (ln. 14) in order to process his daily struggles. However, while the speaker in “Five Flights Up,” shares the same struggles as her fellow speaker, she does little to involve herself in nature other than to observe it from the safety of her place of residence. Although suffering as a result of her struggles, the speaker does little to want to help herself out of her situation, instead choosing to believe that she cannot hardly bare recovery or to lift the shroud of night that has fallen over her. Both speakers face a journey ahead of them whether it be “the uphill curve where a thicket spills with birds every spring” (ln. 14-15) or the five flights of stares ahead of them, yet it is in their attitude where these two individuals differ. Through the appreciation of his early morning surroundings, the speaker in “Five A.M.” finds solitude and self-fulfillment, whereas the speaker in “Five Flights Up” has still failed to realize her own role in that of her recovery from this dark time in her life and how nature can serve a beneficial role in relieving her of her
Although the theme of flight is seen throughout the book, for some characters it is even more. For many of the characters, including Kirsten and Tyler, flights are vital to explain character development. Tyler, who is the son of Arthur Leander, is interesting, because unlike most of the other flights of the book, his is away from normal “civilized” society and into disorder. In the book, he decides that the life that is agreed upon by almost all, where humanity must rebuild from the disaster that had occurred, was the wrong path- and that the correct one was an ideology where God had chosen the best to survive. Putting aside the many issues with his plans and beliefs, this is a great example of how an antagonist in a story rather than a protagonist
In chapter 15 from Thomas C. Fosters’ How to Read Literature Like A Professor, flight is discussed to represent multiple forms of freedom and escape, or possible failure and downfall. Throughout J. D. Salingers’ novel, The Catcher and the Rye, Holden often finds himself wondering where the ducks in the Central Park pond have flown off to due to the water freezing over. On the other hand, the ducks are symbolic of Holden are his interest in the ducks an example of Foster’s ideas that flight represents a desire to be free.
Guy, a working husband and father struggling to feed his family, from “A Wall of Fire Rising”, reveals the depth of his despair when he decides to take his own life. Throughout the story, Guy talks of flying
In the beginning of The Ascent, Jared is seen as an imaginative and innocent child, albeit a little lonely. However, the tone dramatically shifts when Jared discovers the plane wreck and “sit[s] in the back seat [for] two hours, though [to him] it seem[s] only a few minutes” (Rash 281). By finding comfort with dead people, it is clear that Jared is emotionally disturbed. He isolates himself from others by depending on his imagination to make up for his lack of company. This is further exemplified when Jared watches his parents “pas[s] the pipe back and forth… want[ing] to go back to the plane” (Rash 284). Rather than stay with his drug-abusive and neglectful parents during Christmas time, Jared desires to escape to the place where he can be alone with just his imagination. According to Robert Stanley Martin’s review of the short story, “[t]he plane becomes to [Jared] what the drugs are to his parents: a place to escape that he never wants to leave, and which he always longs to return.” The plane and drugs in the short story are extreme examples of common forms of escapism used by humans every day. People love to take a mental and emotional break from reality in the form of vacations and hobbies. However, when these examples of escapism are vastly more important to individuals that actuality, they can become “numb inside the vehicles of their escape” (Martin). This is very detrimental to one’s emotional stability as an individual will lose his perception of the real world. At the end of The Ascent, when visiting the plane for the final time, Jared has escaped so far from reality that he imagines the plane “ha[s] taken off” (Rash 287). He stays in the plane for so long that “after a while he began to shiver but after a longer while he was no longer cold”, demonstrating his eventual death from hypothermia (Rash 287).
The Spleen by Anne Finch, the Countess of Winchelsea, presents an interesting poetic illustration of depression in the spleen. The spleen for Finch is an enigma, it is mysterious, shape-shifting, and melancholic. Melancholy leads the subject to flashes of a grander, terrifying emotion: the sublime. The subject of Finch’s Pindaric ode experiences the sublime, and yet has the uncanny ability to reflect and reason on the feeling with acuity--even though the subject suffers from depression, which in effect dulls sensory information. The fact that she intensely perceives the sublime suggests a paradox where dulled senses can produce a penetrative emotional episode. To understand the paradox, the theory of the sublime and Finch’s engagement with the sublime in The Spleen must be traced to conceive the state of the dulled mind in the thrall of an infinite, and transcendent wave of emotion. The focus of this essay is that Finch understands that Dullness, as a by-product of depression, enables rational thought during a sublime experience. Furthermore, she thus illustrates her experience through images where she emphasizes her sensory information and her feelings, which were supposedly numbed by depression. Her feelings, indicated in The Spleen, are the crux to how Finch is able to simultaneously feel numb, and process the sublime.
By the usage of this particular vocabulary, the narrator reinforces Kayerts’ feeling of being confined and entrapped in this mist. Further, it clearly transfers not only Kayerts but also the reader out of everyday life experiences, emphasising the inability of explaining this peculiar event. Referring to Burke’s concept of the sublime, the narrator indeed dramatizes here the idea of pain and danger as encountering the mighty and powerful as well as the “deadly immaculate” (cf. Burke 13-14; Conrad Part II). Through the personification of the mist, this description changes into an imagination beyond reason, since a fog is, in fact, not able the ‘penetrate’ the character. Moreover, the reduced visibility, which Kayerts experiences, alludes anew to colonial criticism, meaning the Western exploitation of foreign countries. As Kayerts and Carlier reveal, while recording a print they have found in their home, that the Western judge the “Colonial Expansion” in a highly positive way. The narrator epitomises, “It spoke much of the rights and duties of civilization, of the sacredness of the civilizing work, and extolled the merits of those who went about bringing light, and faith and commerce to the dark places of the earth” (Conrad Part I). By means of the usage of ‘brining light’, the narrator ironically indicates the process of enlightening the uncivilised