1. Jack Gladney: The narrator in the novel who lives in a town known as Blacksmith. Jack is the chairman of a department of Hitler studies at College-on-the-Hill. He “invented Hitler studies in North America in 1968” (4). Jack is married to Babette, his fourth wife. They live together with four children from previous marriages. Jack has another persona known as J.A.K. Gladney “to be taken seriously as a Hitler innovator” (16). As a professor of Hitler studies, Jack preserves a dignified image when wearing his “academic gown and dark glasses” (32). Jack like many Americans is bombarded by media and ideals of consumerism. He obsesses over his fear of death which is further influenced by the airborne toxic event. Jack is deeply in love with Babette and finds great comfort in their relationship.
2. Babette Gladney: Jack’s wife who is described by her physique as “tall and fairly ample” (5) is the mother of Denise and Wilder. She is caring towards her husband and children. Babette can be described as a rock with her sturdy and reassuring character who has a “careless dignity” (5). Babette teaches an adult education course and is a volunteer who reads to the blind. She reads to Old Man Treadwell, an elderly man, once a week (5). Babette also has a fear of death which she keeps to herself and does not tell Jack. She participates in an experimental drug trial in order to find a cure for her fear of death. The treatment causes side effects of memory loss which frequently affect Babette.
3. Murray Jay Siskind: A visiting lecturer from New York who is teaching a course on living icons (10). He speaks of the deterioration and destruction of American pop culture. While at College-on-the-Hill, Murray wants to create a department devo...
... middle of paper ...
...Why did the author write this work? What does he want us to take with us after reading it?
Don Delillo wrote White Noise to show the detrimental effects of consumerism and the bombardment of media on our daily lives. He shows how it causes characters to blend reality with illusions and desensitizes them from what is truly real. For example, the SIMUVAC simulations which are rehearsals for a catastrophe that really already happened or the effects of the Dylar pill which blur what is actually occurring with sounds making it difficult to distinguish between the two. The book is also written with flashes of noise and and superfluous facts and data, mimicking how the media and TV bombard us with useless information today. This novel serves as a reminder of the effects of our changing culture due to technology, media and consumerism and encourages readers to be watchful.
Drifters by Bruce Dawe This poem is about a family that’s always on the move, with no place to settle down for long, hence the poem was titled ‘Drifters’ to describe this family. ‘Drifters’ looks at the members of this family response to frequently change and how it has affected them. This poem is told in third person narration in a conversational tone. This gives the feeling as if someone who knows this family is telling the responder the situation of this family.
A long, long time ago, God decided to punish the wicked people, but before he did that, he instructed Noah to build an ark and fill it with two of every animal he can find along with his family. Animals and humans. The book I would like to use throughout this essay is “ Crossing ,” by Gary Paulsen. This book took place in Juarez, Mexico, where a bridge could mean so much. Each character in this book was being compared to an animal, to make us more understand about each of them. Each of them are also different. From the shape of their eyes, the way they react to something, and those are what made each of them different and special. Paulson compares animals and humans by their simliar characteristics and their behaviors.
In Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain, the theme of music is one of the novel’s most powerful themes. From symbolizing character growth to the healing of physical wounds, music plays an integral part in this novel. While many critics will point out that music has little effect on the human psyche, Charles Frazier shows his belief that music does indeed have a profound effect on the human mind throughout Cold Mountain. Throughout the novel, Inman, Ada, Ruby, Stobrod, and many other characters experience music that allows them to keep faith against the odds or even heal their wounds! There are three major types of music used in this novel; hymn music, folk music, and “natural music”. It is through these types of music that the characters in this novel regain their strength to continue their journeys. Many critics of Cold Mountain claim that Frazier ignored certain historical facts in order to make his point. However, when writing about the music of the South during the Civil War, Frazier stays very accurate in the use and power of music. In the world of Cold Mountain as well as the historical South, music is an extremely powerful force.
1. The title of the book is Milkweed; Milkweed is a type of plant, it is as green in October as it is in July, it produces little pods that release white fluffs. It is also the symbol of the story.
White Noise gives us an inside look into the life of Jack Gladney, showing readers that there is a Jack in every family, and maybe a little bit in everyone. Jack is a professor at the College-on-the-hill in Blacksmith, he teaches Hitler studies-an area of education that he created, partly because of his disturbing obsession with the man himself. Adding to Jacks obsession “the chancellor at the school felt, that in order for his students to take him seriously he suggested, that Jack grow into Hitler-by changing parts of his identity, and changing his name from Jack Gladney, to J.A.K Gladney” (16-17). Of course, this was only when Jack is teaching, at home he is himself, a family man. Jack’s personal life is something, unfortunately, the majority of people can relate to in today‘s society. Jack was married three times before marrying Babette-who was married previously herself, has a daughter, Denise, from her pervious marriage, and Wilder is Jacks son. Unlike Jacks previous wives Tweedy Bonner- who is the mother of Jacks daughter Bee, and worked in intelligence, Dana Breedlove-who...
Michael MacDonald’S All Souls is a heart wrenching insider account of growing up in Old Country housing projects located in the south of Boston, also known as Southie to the locals. The memoir takes the reader deep inside the world of Southie through the eyes of MacDonald. MacDonald was one of 11 children to grow up and deal with the many tribulations of Southie, Boston. Southie is characterized by high levels of crime, racism, and violence; all things that fall under the category of social problem. Social problems can be defined as “societal induced conditions that harms any segment of the population. Social problems are also related to acts and conditions that violate the norms and values found in society” (Long). The social problems that are present in Southie are the very reasons why the living conditions are so bad as well as why Southie is considered one of the poorest towns in Boston. Macdonald’s along with his family have to overcome the presence of crime, racism, and violence in order to survive in the town they consider the best place in the world.
Hutch, the main character of The Big Field, has played baseball all of his life. He has always played shortstop, the same position that his father dreamed of playing as a professional. “Hutch, had always thought of himself as the captain of any infield he’d ever been a part of” (Lupica 1). Hutch finds himself being demoted to second base because there is another player, Darryl, on his new team that is expected to go pro and also plays shortstop. Hutch struggles because he does not want to play second base and his father does not support him because he does not want baseball to break Hutch’s dreams like it did his own. Hutch is betrayed by his father and Darryl when he finds them practicing together. Hutch has to learn to adjust and eventually becomes friends with Darryl, the up and coming shortstop. He understands that if he wants to win, then he needs to work together with Darryl. His father also comes around and finally gives Hutch his approval. Students should read this book in a high school English classroom because it demonstrates how relationships can be difficult, but teamwork can help to solve many issues.
The poem exposure was written by Wilfred Owen in the winter of 1917, it has all the hard ships of the soldiers and how they felt during the war in horrific conditions that led the soldiers to death. Starting with the first stanza Owen uses different types of techniques to influence the reader about world war one conditions. “Our brains ache” is a short sentence to open with, emphasizes that statement, hyperbole and sets tone for the poem. The quotation which illustrates how Owen and the soldiers felt during the war “Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us...” this this quotation illustrates the hard ships of the soldiers and how they felt. “Winds knive us” is a personification, aggressive metaphor of the weather attacking them. Ellipses in the quotation slows the rhythm down, creates space, pause and waiting, reflecting the content. The whole stanza talks about the soldiers, and the weather conditions, the stanza creates a sense of unbearable and horrendous sites, as the following quotation talks about the effects on soldiers from things around them, “Wearied we keep awake” the use of alliteration, emphasizes the desperation to stay awake despite the tedium also causes the reader to reflect on what is being said. The soldiers have to stay awake during the war and there is no sleep for them. “But nothing happens” is repeated four times in the poem, it highlights the boredom and tedium of the reality. This is worse, in many respects, than fear of fighting.
For as long as man has walked the earth, so has evil. There may be conflicting moral beliefs in this world, but one thing is universally considered wrong: serial killers. Although some people may try to use insanity as an explanation for these wicked people, they cannot explain away the heartlessness that resides in them. As shown in The Stranger Beside Me, infamous serial killer Ted Bundy is no exception to this. Even though books about true crimes may be considered insensitive to those involved, the commonly positively reviewed book The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule handles the somber issue of Ted Bundy’s emotionally destructive early life and the brutal crimes he committed that made people more fearful and aware of the evil that can exist in seemingly normal people well.
According to Raymond Williams, “In a class society, all beliefs are founded on class position, and the systems of belief of all classes …” (Rice and Waugh 122). His work titled, Marxism and Literature expounded on the conflict between social classes to bridge the political ideals of Marxism with the implicit comments rendered through the text of a novel. “For the practical links,” he states “between ‘ideas’ and ‘theories’ and the ‘production of real life’ are all in this material social process of signification itself” (133). Williams asserts that a Marxist approach to literature introduces a cross-cultural universality, ensuingly adding a timeless value to text by connecting creative and artistic processes with the material products that result. Like Williams, Don DeLillo calls attention to the economic and material relations behind universal abstractions such as aesthetics, love, and death. DeLillo’s White Noise brings modern-day capitalist societies’ incessant lifestyle disparity between active consumerists and those without the means to the forefront of the story’s plot. DeLillo’s setting uses a life altering man-made disaster in the suburban small-town of Blacksmith to shed light on the class conflict between the middle class (bourgeoisie) and the working poor (proletariat). After a tank car is punctured, an ominous cloud begins to loom over Jack Gladney and his family. No longer a feathery plume or a black billowing cloud, but the airborne toxic event—an event that even after its conclusion Jack cannot escape the prophecy of his encroaching death. Through a Marxist reading of the characterization of Jack Gladney, a middle-aged suburban college professor, it is clear that the overarching obsession with death operates as an...
In the short story “Being There”, by Jerzy Kosinski, there are multiple examples of satire that are displayed throughout both the book and the movie. A few of them are: media, death, politics, and racism. The satire of the media was very similar in the book and the movie. Media played a big role in society and still does to this day.
In the novel, Darkness at Noon, by Koestler, Rubashov learns about himself, and makes an effort to cross the hazy lines between his conscience and his beliefs. Rubashov's realization of the individual aspect of morality is a gradual process, satisfying his internal arguments and questions of guilt. His confession to Gletkin reflects the logic that Rubashov had used (both by himself and his political regime), as well as his internal conflicts. He questioned the inferior value of the human, in respect to the priceless value of humanity. Rubashov's ideas on communism, he found, were blurred by his dedication to the Soviet revolutionaries, and ordeal that compromised his life to solve. In many ways, Rubashov was an antagonist to himself. One way Rubashov defeated his goal was by giving in to suit others. "The Party denied the free will of the individual - and at the same time it exacted his willing self-sacrifice… There was somewhere an error in the calculation; the equation did not work out."(204) Rubashov's confession implies a submission of his personal ego to a larger purpose, and he questions himself as to whether it is worth it. His ideals were not his own, but rather the ideals that the communist revolutionaries forced him to have. Rubashov was a man who thinks extremely logical in every situation; he follows every idea "…down to its final consequence."(80) He is an elite intellectual, but even as Ivanov and Gletkin question his line of thinking, Rubashov constantly asks himself the same questions. He justifies his rational by reminding himself that he is working for a more perfect society, no matter what the cost. As stated in the first partition of his confession, he heard only ...
The book Call It Sleep written by Henry Roth is a literary work that explores immigrant life as they adjust to the new and unfamiliar ways of American life. The book is somewhat of a social commentary on the period of the Eastern European immigration to America at its peak. The novel gives an inside view on how foreigners (primarily Jewish immigrants) fit into main stream society. Throughout the course of the novel, you travel along with the main character David Schearl as he ages from six to eight and grows up in Brownsville on the lower East side of New York. David is torn between the love of his over protective mother and the hatred of his angry and mentally disturbed father in a quest to make sense of his life in contrast with all of the other immigrant children that he comes in contact with. All of the adventures that David encounters and all of the people that he comes in contact with are simply the author’s way of depicting an immigrants inner struggle and dealing with the pressures of life as seen through the eyes of a remarkably perceptive and imaginative child.
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, is one of the most famous historical fiction books ever written. This 352 paged book has inspired many teens to acknowledge the Genocide of Baltic people. Ruta Sepetys was inspired to write a fiction book instead of a non-fiction book based on the stories she heard from survivors of the genocide during a visit to her relatives in Lithuania. She interviewed dozens of people during her stay. Between Shades of Gray was her first novel that she had written. This book was interpreted well enough by the readers to become a New York Times Bestseller.
In Don Delilo’s, White Noise different themes are displayed throughout the novel. Some themes are the fear of death, loss of identity, technology as the enemy, and American consumerism. The society represented in the novel views people as objects and emotionally detached from many things. Death is always in the air and trapped in peoples mind. The culture that’s represented in the novel adds to the loss of individualism, but also adds to the figurative death of the characters introduced in the novel.