The Double Hook
1. Sheila Watson was born in Westminster British Columbia in 1909. She was also an elementary and high school teacher. After world war two she attended the University of Toronto to study English literature. She wrote the majority of The Double Hook in Calgary in the early 1950’s, it was originally published in 1959, but the edition I am reading was published in 1989. Sheila Watson died in the year of 1998 at the age of eighty nine. The Double Hook consists of one hundred and eighteen pages, so it is not the longest novel and I am approximately one third of the way through the novel.
2. At the beginning of the novel you are introduced to multiple characters, the novel begins with “In the folds of the hill under Coyote’s eye
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The old lady from above is fishing in our pool, he said coming into the Widows kitchen. I’m going to scare her out.” The widow’s boy is the one who says his quote and it shows the impatience that the people are experiencing towards the old lady. James is the son of the old lady and the reason I find him very important because he may not always agree with his mother’s action but since she is his mother he must still worry for her which I think differentiates him from the other his worry is found on page 35 “He turned to James. I came to tell you, he said, that your Ma’s out in the storm. Before it broke she was down to our place fishing in our pool… Do you think James would stand there letting her come to harm.” This was said when there was a storm and James did not know where she was during the storm, the final portion of the quote is someone saying that James would not let her come to harm without trying to help. The following quote shows how James and Greta have taken care of their mother over the years which can be found on page 36 “Ma’s my business and James’s business. Who’s had the care of her all these years that you bother yourself about her now? ” The third most important character is the Coyote. The Coyote is not actually a physical but more of a pigment of the other characters imagination. The reason I find him important is because I find him to intrigue the reader …show more content…
I believe that the central theme or topic revolve around internal conflicts in a small isolated location. The internal conflicts that occur at this point in the book are linked directly to the old lady and her habit of fishing on other people’s property. Her fishing of course gets some angry and provokes action as stated by the Widow’s boy on page 16 where he says “The Widows boy saw the old lady. The old lady from above is fishing in our pool, he said coming into the Widows kitchen. I’m going to scare her out.” he later says that he will build a fence to block her out, which show that the people are tired of her fishing on their property. The reason I say it is isolated is due to one quote found on page 24 “There were more than six score thousand persons in Nineveh; but here were only herself and William Greta and James Lenchen the boy her brother the Widow Prosper, Angel and Theophil the old lady, lost like Jonah perhaps in the cleft belly of the rock the water washing over her.” This quote makes reference to Nineveh which was an ancient Assyrian city known to be the largest city for fifty years around the year of 612 BC. Its population is described as more than six score thousand or one hundred and twenty thousand persons and compared to the population of the novels town which as stated to be only twelve, which is very small and
Halfe has a degree in Social Work from the University of Regina, as well as training in drug and addiction counseling (Moses and Goldie 396). In 1990, she made her first appearance as a poet in Writing the Circle: Native Women of Western Canada. Her other works include Bear Bones and Feather which received the Canadian Peoples Poet Award and Blue Marrow which was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry. The Crooked Good is her latest novel which has just been published.
Mersault, the narrator and protagonist, is The Stranger. He has cut himself off from the world. As he narrates the novel is divided into two parts. In part 1 he deals with everyday affairs except for two important events. At the beginning of the novel his mother has died. He is struggling to make ends meet, therefore he sent his mother to a nursing home in Marengo. This has brought criticism from the community. At the funeral he does not feel the grief as is expected nor is he concerned with the formalities of mourning. The next day Mersault starts an affair with Marie, who at one time been a typist in his office. They have a wonderful time eating, swimming, watching movies and making love. People, i.e. society is aghast that he has not observed what is considered a proper mourning period for his mother.
The author uses short, simple sentences that manage to say a lot in a few words. The author also uses imagery. He also puts in his book references to historical events. These references increase the understanding and appreciation of Billy's story by suggesting historical and literary parallels to the personal events in his life. The novel does not have smooth transitions from one event to the next.
The theme that has been attached to this story is directly relevant to it as depicted by the anonymous letters which the main character is busy writing secretly based on gossip and distributing them to the different houses. Considering that people have an impression of her being a good woman who is quiet and peaceful, it becomes completely unbecoming that she instead engages in very abnormal behavior. What makes it even more terrible is the fact that she uses gossip as the premise for her to propagate her hate messages not only in a single household but across the many different households in the estate where she stays.
He is the narrator of the book. The story is told from his perspective (I-perspective).
...st person. The narrator is looking back on this story and remembering things from a child’s point of view. The reader only sees the narrator’s opinion in the story, but that allows the reader to have his own opinions as well, questioning the literary work constantly. This makes the story more complex and permits the reader to wonder what is going on inside each of the characters’ heads.
2. The first reason for this thesis stems from the point of view used in the story. The point of view exemplified is one of third person, more specifically one who is omniscient. The story’s message could not be conveyed from the first person, due to the fact that virtually everyone in the writing at hand is not only unable, but unwilling to figure out the true nature of their surroundings.
himself as the narrator continues telling the story of their experience in Herland and what they
1. If the narrator is the protagonist in this story, who (or what) is the antagonist? With whom (or what), exactly, is she in conflict? What does the narrator seem to want, and what prevents her from getting it?
... of language and education is the most important in this story and society. The make use of two different languages in a narrative, provides a reader a perplexing yet fascinating image of characterization and customs. Multilingual story telling pushes the reader to decelerate and acquire supplemental focus on the expressions which are in the small fragments, however as soon as the reader has figured out the foreign words, he or she acquires a priceless picture of the theme of this story. The panorama of native words and phrases, cultural perceptions, and class dispute taken from the incorporation of two different languages are helpful for the reader to obtain significance that he or she couldn't gain if exclusively one language was employed in the story. Just as the power of language is applied to unveil a society, a better comprehension is provided to the reader.
Print. The. Bouson, J. Brooks. Margaret Atwood, the robber bride, the blind assassin, Oryx and Crake. London: Continuum Books, 2010.
Upon reading the first paragraph, Shirley Jackson describes the town in general. The town is first mentioned in the opening paragraph where she sets the location in the town square. She puts in perspective the location of the square "between the post office and the bank" (196). This visualizes for the reader what a small town this is, since everything seems to be centralized at or near the town square. This is also key in that the town square is the location for the remaining part of the story. The town square is an important location for the setting since the ending of the story will be set in this location. Also, Shirley Jackson creates a comfortable atmosphere while describing the residents of the town. First, she describes the children gathering together and breaking into "boisterous play"(196). Also, the children are described as gathering rocks, which is an action of many normal children. She described the men as gathering together and talking about "planting and rain, tractors and taxes"(196). Finally, she describes the women of this community as "exchanging bits of gossip"(196) which is a common stereotype of women. She creates a mood for the reader of the town and residents of this town on a normal summer morning.
Stylistically, the book is arranged in rotating chapters. Every fourth chapter is devoted to each individual character and their continuation alo...
In conclusion, the author’s choice of utilizing the third person narration is what provided the high level of ignorance, as the voice concentrated on the protagonist husband. It brought the reader to the place of how inadequately the husband treated the wife and how he was oblivious of how his actions affected her. The reader is also able to envision that the protagonist is not cognizant that he is not being truthful to himself. It permits the reader to realize the how boring, prideful, thoughtless, and insensitive the protagonist is overall.
...res that make these books continue to live on for centuries. Due to the constraints of the essay not all aspects of the narrative perspective could be discussed and the role they play with the novellas.