The character I find intriguing is the oldest son of the Bundren family. Cash seems to be a person who is very thoughtful of others, almost in a way of self-sacrifice. In the novel Cash seems not to be aware of the fact that his mother is dying. His fully preoccupied with making is mothers coffin which could come across as heartless or not being touched by this tragedy. However is seem to believe that each family member had a different way of showing his affection to his mother. By making the neatest coffin and thinking about every plank and screw it shows his love for Addie. Especially if you consider the coffin as her final resting place. It Cash is being a caring son by making his mother a coffin which she approves. A counter argument about
Murphy, Edith. "'A Rich Widow, Now to be Tane Up or Laid Downe': Solving the Riddle of
During his journey to the burial site of his wife, he always was worrying about his well being before the family’s well being. The only reason that he decided to carry out Addie’s wish was that he wanted to improve his image by getting false teeth. He did care for his wife, but this caring was overshadowed by his love to improve himself.
Of least significance to Janie is her first husband, Logan Killicks. Hurston uses pathos to show that Janie and her first husband are not meant to be even though society thinks otherwise. Nanny thinks that Logan is really made for Janie, but Janie doesn’t love Logan. Janie tells Nanny, “Cause you told me Ah
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner depicts the story of one tragic family and their dismal journey across Missouri. While the Bundren’s originally set out in wake of their mother’s death, their journey is soon fueled by jealousy, selfishness and utter hatred as they are forced to depend on each other. In assessing the true severity of their dysfunction, it’s critical to critique each family member individually for their personal motives and feelings throughout the journey.
...e on her part. Throughout the story, the Mother is portrayed as the dominant figure, which resembled the amount of say that the father and children had on matters. Together, the Father, James, and David strived to maintain equality by helping with the chickens and taking care of Scott; however, despite the effort that they had put in, the Mother refused to be persuaded that Scott was of any value and therefore she felt that selling him would be most beneficial. The Mother’s persona is unsympathetic as she lacks respect and a heart towards her family members. Since the Mother never showed equality, her character had unraveled into the creation of a negative atmosphere in which her family is now cemented in. For the Father, David and James, it is only now the memories of Scott that will hold their bond together.
One question that comes to mind is why did she react the way she did? Is she concerned with the fact that the gift was made of materials from the man who lies within the coffin? In the eighth stanza, the husband asks his wife about the change in her reaction. Was it because she found out that the material of the workbox came from a grave? In the ninth stanza, the wife responds by saying "of that sort never have effect on my imaginings." She is saying that the fact that the workbox was made from the coffin's wood had no affect on her. This lets me know that the material in which the workbox was made did not cause her second reaction by her own recognit...
Marie, who is a product of an abusive family, is influenced by her past, as she perceives the relationship between Callie and her son, Bo. Saunders writes, describing Marie’s childhood experiences, “At least she’d [Marie] never locked on of them [her children] in a closet while entertaining a literal gravedigger in the parlor” (174). Marie’s mother did not embody the traditional traits of a maternal fig...
After the death of Mabel’s father, Mabel and her brothers are left without enough money and are about to lose their house. This is one of her emotional conflicts because without any money, Mabel sees no reason to keep on living and tries drowning herself. Fergusson also has emotional conflicts because he thinks he loves Mabel, but at the same time he tries to stay away of loving her. A physical conflict is when Mabel forces Fergusson to stay with her because she knows that he loves her. She believes that because Ferguson saved her from drowning, took her to his house, and undressed her thinking that he is going to take full responsibility of her. Fergusson gets a little scared by this because he doesn’t like the idea of being in this situation.
After Emily’s death, she arrives at the cemetery and joins the others who were buried there. Once here, Emily wishes to revisit a moment of her life. The others warn her not to, as it would be painful. The Stage Manager tells her it would be painful knowing what the living are not aware of, such as who dies and what becomes of everyone. Emily does not understand this and chooses to visit the day of her twelfth birthday. She returns to her twelfth birthday and everything was normal. Emily, for the first time, realizes her mother was once young. She experiences the rest of the day, receiving gifts, and tries to call out to her mother, saying “Mama, I’m here. I’m grown up. I love you all, everything. I can’t look at everything hard enough”(105). No one hears anything she says. After realizing everything is moving too fast and she does not have time to appreciate everything, she says goodbye to all the small things she will miss, like clocks ticking and coffee, and returns to the cemetery. From this experience, Emily learned that everything in life is special. Only in death did Emily fully appreciate everything she had. This blatantly shows Wilder trying to convey the message that everyone should learn to appreciate the little things in
He encounters a diverse range of individuals from New York who are in difficult phases of overcoming adversities. Oskar’s journey does not primarily concentrate on pain and sorrow, but the common strain which humans share and struggle to survive through different means. Although his wounds do not heal instantly, Oskar is able to fully take control of his past towards the end of the novel when he finally acknowledges his mother’s relationship and informs her “It’s OK if you fall in love again.”(Foer 324). Oskar realizes that other individuals need similar support to move on in life . What he considers to be his mother's betrayal is simply just another form which allows him to recover over his horrific loss. Oskar finally succeeds in recovering over his loss by investigating himself and others similar to him, fulfilling his journey’s purpose. If we look closely at McCloud's Show and Tell Comic we see that he focuses mainly on symbols and their use of enlightening one on understanding complex concepts. He writes, "Some of this art show considerable attention to detail, concerned with pictorial representation."(Page 715, Show and Tell). Symbols are greatly used in this novel to explain concepts. For instance, the birds allow Mr. Black to flee from his past, and the coffin serves as a symbol where Oskar is able to fade his past. Without symbols, it would be nearly impossible for this story to have any sort of a meaning. Symbols along with words are conducive to one’s understanding of the external world. Therefore pictures and text play an equal role in helping us learn various forms of nature and the surrounding
“She would follow her own way just the same. She would always hold the keys of her own situation” (Lawrence). Mabel heads out with a scrubbing brush to her mother’s grave where she always finds peace. “Mindless and persistent, she seemed in a sort of ecstasy to be coming nearer to her fulfilment, her own glorification, approaching her dead mother, who was glorified” (Lawrence). This line in the story symbolizes Mabel wanting to go be with her by dying. Mabel felt while at her mother’s grave that she actually had contact with her mother. As she was scrubbing the headstone, Dr. Fergusson watched her and felt like it was like looking into another world. As she could feel him looking, she looked up and their eyes met. When their eyes met, it felt almost as they connected immediately. “There was a heavy power in her eyes which laid hold of his whole being, as if he had drunk some powerful drug. He had been feeling weak and done before. Now the life came back into him, he felt delivered from his own fretted, daily self” (Lawrence). This line shows how things felt for Dr. Fergusson as their eyes met. He felt as if his weakness had been taken away. Jack went on to tend to patients in surgery as Mabel continued tending to her mother’s
On the train to Chicago, Carrie had met a traveling salesman, Charlie H. Drouet. She is impressed by the way he talks and dresses. When they meet again, Drouet is aware of her beauty and innocence and he hopes to charm and seduce her. He "lends" Carrie money to buy nice winter clothes, treats her to fine meals, takes her to the theater, and shows her the sights of Chicago. Because Carrie is young and inexperienced in the world of men, she is not wise enough to understand where all Drouet's attention is leading toward. Although she senses that the money should be given back, her desire and longing for the good things in life are so powerful that she ignores her beliefs in what is right and wrong.
Mabel had a strong love for her mother that is evident throughout the story. Lawrence describes Mabel's way of living as, "She lived in the memory of her mother, who had died when she was fourteen, and whom she had loved." (Lawrence, 363) Mabel let her mother have strong influence in her life, even after her death. Her mother was the only person she had a strong connection with. Mabel continued to live in her memory to an extent which was not healthy. After her mothers death, she feels isolated within her own household. Having nothing in common with her three brothers, she has no one to identify with. Mabel's brothers speak to her, but they are harsh and uncaring toward her. One brother goes so far as to call her 'the sulkiest bitch that ever trod.' (Lawrence, 363) "But Mabel did not take any notice of him. They had talked at her and round her for so many years, that she hardly heard them at all." (Lawrence, 361) She does not see the point in living when she has no one to identify with in her famil...
Shepard created an ending which the world could appreciate its simplicity yet complications. Buried Child explores the inner tensions of a rural existence, father-son relationships, and the place women hold in an ambiguous domestic atmosphere. Simply poetic, humorous, and mysterious, Buried Child is a vision of a troublesome family transformed into a symbol of America's loss of innocence. This play made Shepard a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1979, and is very much earned.
Although more than five decades have passed between O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms and Sam Shepard’s Buried Child, the theme of infanticide recurs with the same dynamism. This three act tragicomedy as mentioned is about a decomposed rural American family who has been bearing the guilty secrets of incest and infanticide. Dodge, the patriarch, in his seventies, whose life does not go beyond the physical space of a corroded living room, and who whiles away time watching television and sipping away his whiskey lying on a descript sofa. Tilden and Bradley are his sons; the first one, unable to make a decent living, returns to his parents house while the latter, an amputee, feels himself unable of leading a life without his parents being