Experiment in Literature in My Life with the Wave
Octavio Paz’s extraordinary tale of "My Life with the Wave" is exactly about what the title states, a man’s life with a body of water. Paz experiments with the norm and takes literature to a higher level (Christ 375). He plays with our imagination from the start and lets us believe the man has stolen "a daughter of the sea." These two beings try to establish a relationship despite their extremely different backgrounds and in so doing take us on a journey of discovery. The way these two characters react to one another represents the friction found in so many types of relationships. This is a love affair doomed from the beginning but destined to be experienced.
Like so many other wonderful tales from Hispanic cultures, this story blends imaginative events with realism. Just as the filmmakers did in "The Milagro Beanfield War" and "Like Water for Chocolate," Paz encourages you to believe in the incredible. You can almost visualize the wave as a self-contained cubicle of water frothing and pumping itself up against invisible walls.
There are impossible passages that the male character takes in this story that you can enjoy through your imagination. He calls them "his troubles" (Paz 852). Events that revolve around this relationship become his secrets which leads him to alienate himself from the life he once may have had. His relationship with the water develops slowly and the water’s strong and passionate character is revealed. It is clear that the man’s troubles are directly related to the existence of the wave in his life.
Paz presents the wave as real. She is immortal. This is proven when she is left behind on the train when her man is arrested for smuggling...
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...to becoming run-off to the sewer, the wave knows her destiny will eventually return her to the sea because that is the nature of water. Since she escaped the train’s water tank, her life has proven to be cyclical. In this way she is self-serving, which is much more like the true character of water.
Paz distances the reader from the norm, arriving in a seemingly alternate universe. He demands that the reader bring the level of comprehension to a higher one (Christ 375). "My Life with the Wave" is a successful experiment in literature that celebrates the ability to view the many combinations of relationships in our world.
Works Cited
Christ, Ronald, CLC, Vol 3. Ed. Carolyn Riley. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, Co., 1975.
Paz, Octavio, and "My Life with the Wave." The Harper Anthology of Fiction. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York: HarperCollins, 1981.
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Mishima, Yukio. The Sound of Waves. Trans. Meredith Weatherby and Yoshinori Kinoshita. New York: Vintage, 1994. Print.
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Europe’s social structure in the Middle Ages consisted of feudalism. A hierarchical society of Kings granting land to nobles, who would then give a fief to a knight in return for service. The knight would then have peasants or serfs working on their fief. However, as the plague spread, many peasants died and their labour could not be replaced. This loss of workforce had a significant impact upon the economy as grain was not being harvested and livestock roamed free. The agrarian economy had been severely damaged, the land became uncultivated and returned back to its natural state. This rural collapse eventually led to food shortages in towns and cities.
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Confusion, embarrassment, and guilt can all be found throughout João Guimarães Rosa's short story "The Third Bank of the River." Rosa forces the reader to analyze his words and delve deeply into the hidden meanings behind them. Upon first glance, a story unfolds of a father who seemingly abandons his family and chooses to live out the remainder of his life rowing a small boat back and forth along a river. There are circumstances leading up to this behavior, which new insight to the author's psychological meaning.
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The Old Man and the Sea has been a time old classic by a both beloved and occasionally despised author Mr. Ernest Hemingway. In the Old Man and the Sea Symbolism and references that reflect Hemingway’s own life can be seen in many different lights, he had many ups and downs similar as Santiago’s struggles and as I have chosen to explore the suffering that can be seen in Santiago and in relation to Hemingway’s own life.
The main arguments in this source is the old man 's dependents on the boy, feminizing the sea and the respectful engagement of its feminine presents, and Interspecies kinship—brotherhood between man and animals, as well as with nature. The purpose of this source is to show the reasons why the old man feels defeat with old age. This source relates to The Old Man and the Sea because many times throughout the novel when Santiago was in the sea, he wished Manolin was there to help him because he has a rough time doing some things nowadays, but his old age still does not stop him from catching that