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An essay about honesty
Essay on Honesty
Research on the topic of Honesty
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A Half-Pint of Honesty In “A Half-Pint of Old Darling”, by Wendell Berry, being honest is an important factor in a relationship. Miss Minnie and Ptolemy Proudfoot are a prime example as such when they keep secrets from one another, but then fix some things with the truth. They head over a major road bump that is eventually solved after being honest with one another. It seemingly makes their relationship stronger when the story concludes. Most of the secrets are kept in fear of hurting the other, which ends up happening one day when Tol sneaks Old Darling alcohol into their buggy. It is seen that hiding the truth means one is not being honest to his or her self, as well as to another. In this story, secrets leave speculation as to just how well Miss Minnie and Ptolemy Proudfoot’s relationship really is, and if things end up changing after a huge mistake. First, the story takes place in the 1900s on Tol and Miss Minnie’s farm. They have crops, gardens, and livestock, and are avid in what they do (Half-Pint of Old Darling 124). …show more content…
As seen, honesty is significant as the story progresses, while hiding the truth can get one into a bit of trouble. Miss Minnie and Ptolemy Proudfoot hold secrets from each other that can potentially hurt their relationship, but in the story, the confessions made only make them stronger as a pair. When Tol finds out about Miss Minnie’s whistling, he eventually accepts her for who she is and loves her nevertheless. And when Miss Minnie knows the truth about the Old Darling for a while, her and her husband start laughing about it. The wife seemingly enjoys telling the humorous story lightheartedly to friends. Thus, genuine love can overcome a lot of struggles, as long as one is truthful and willing to fix the wrongs that have been
The preface to Wendell Berry’s What Are People For? is in the form of a two-part poem, titled “Damage” and “Healing.” By carefully digging through its cryptic obscurities (“It is despair that sees the work failing in one’s own failure”), we find the main message: The more diminutive, local, and settled a culture, the healthier it is and the less “damage” it inflicts upon its people and the land. Berry can be called a utopian but not in the traditional sense. He pines not for the future but for the past. Basing his lifestyle upon his boyhood memories of fifty years ago as well as America’s pioneer days, Berry is confident he has found the answer to the perfect existence.
In Wendell Berry’s “Pray Without Ceasing”, there are many characters described by grandmother Margaret that would be a positive model for the way we might live our lives. Many have role model worthy qualities and characteristics about them, but the one that stands out the most to me is Martha Elizabeth Coulter. Martha Elizabeth is the daughter of Thad Coulter, the antagonist of the story. She stands out to me because of her love, patience, thoughtfulness, determination, and her ability to forgive. These great characteristics are shown in a couple different parts of the story.
"My honesty is broke, Elizabeth; I am no good man. Nothing's spoiled by giving them this lie that were not rotten long before.
These beliefs include how women should act in society and in marriage. Nanny and her daughter, Janie's mother, were both raped and left with bastard children, this experience is the catalyst for Nanny’s desire to see Janie be married to a well-to-do gentleman. She desires to see Janie married to a well-to-do gentleman because she wants to see that Janie is well cared for throughout her life. As a result of Nanny’s desire to see Janie married to wealth, she forces Janie to marry Logan Killocks, an older black farmer who owns 60 acres and a mule. Janie does not love Logan but because Nanny pushes her into the marriage she believes love will follow marriage, but Nanny quickly says “You come head wid yo’ mouf full uh foolishness on uh busy day.
The statement, “She had telephoned the man whose name they had given as a reference and he had told her that Mr. Freeman was a good farmer but that his wife was the noisiest woman ever to walk the earth” suggests, when the term farmer is used, that this story takes place in a farm town. Also the way Mom describes herself can lead the reader to think that she works on a farm herself. She says, “I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man” (744). From the way she describes her working hands to explaining how she slaughtered a cow, the reader understands that she has a farm that they live on and is an extremely hard worker. The setting in these stories are used in a way that impact the theme tremendously because the individuals who go to college are both from small rural communities where opportunities like this do not happen very often especially during this time, which is probably around the mid to late 1950s and 1960s. While, in the story “Good Country People”, a comment is made about the make of a car when the author notes that, “She said he owned a ’55 Mercury but that Glynese said she would rather marry a man with only a ’36 Plymouth who would be married by a preacher” (195). This statement can indicate that the time frame that ”Good Country People” happens in is around 1955 because the way it is talked about the older
The story is set in a rural community in turn-of-the century Iowa. This time-frame is one where women did not have the freedom they have today, but were instead seen as wives, cooks and housekeepers. This is the basis for Minnie’s isolation, her place in the society of the day. This is also compounded by Minnie’s husband, John Wright, who makes her more isolated than many other women of the time. We see that Minnie is isolated from love. Her husband is not an affectionate man and she has no children. In the story, we are told that after her marriage her only friend was “solitude.”
Deception is present in Tennessee Williams’s drama ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, William Shakespeare’s Tragedy ‘Othello’ and L. P. Hartley’s novel ‘The Go-Between’; the writers choose to use characterisation to explore the theme in depth. Often the protagonists of each text are the primary offenders of deceit, though some supporting characters mislead as well; although Iago is the antagonist of ‘Othello’, he is incomparably the most deceitful character in the entire play. Similarly, Williams uses Blanche to develop the plot by misleading the other characters and even herself at times, though arguably, unlike Iago, Blanche is presented as a character who lacks the motivation to hurt anyone. Conversely Leo, although the protagonist and narrator of the novel, is not the most deceitful character – Ted Burgess and Marian Maudsley not only coerce him into the deceit, but they themselves are presented as masters of the game they play, however, this essay will focus on Leo as he is a unique symbol of deceit; he is unaware of the consequences of his actions.
The story is told through the eyes of seven year old Luke Chandler. Luke lives with his parents and grandparents on their rented farmland in the lowlands of Arkansas. It takes place during the harvest season for cotton in 1952. Like other cotton growers, these were hard times for the Chandlers. Their simple lives reached their zenith each year with the task of picking cotton. It’s more than any family can complete by themselves. In order to harvest the crops and get paid, the Chandlers must find cotton pickers to help get the crops to the cotton gin. In order to persevere, they must depend on others. They find two sets of migrant farm workers to assist them with their efforts: the Mexicans, and the Spruills - a family from the Arkansas hills that pick cotton for others each year. In reading the book, the reader learns quickly that l...
One of the main symbols of the story is the setting. It takes place in a normal small town on a nice summer day. "The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full summer day; the flowers were blooming profusely and the grass was richly green." (Jackson 347).This tricks the reader into a disturbingly unaware state,
In, "No One's a Mystery," by Elizabeth Tallent, a very naive eighteen-year old girl, who remains unnamed, neglects to realize the truth that is so plainly laid out before her. She is riding with Jack, and older married man with whom she has been having sex with for the past two years, and fiddling with the birthday present she received from him; a five year diary. A Cadillac that looks like his wife's is coming toward them, so he shoves her onto the floorboard of his filthy truck. Jack and his wife exchange subtle gestures as they pass, and the young girl is then given permission to get back onto the seat. When she asks how he knows his wife won't look back and see her Jack replies, "I just know...Like I know I'm going to get meatloaf for supper...Like I know what you'll be writing in that diary." Jack proceeds to tell her that within a couple of years she will not even to be able to recall his name or remember what interested her in him, other than the sex. Contrary to what Jack knows is true, the young girl imagines a sort of fairy tale life where she and Jack have a family and live happily ever after. She is totally oblivious to the truth that is so blatantly staring her in the face. Tallent demonstrates the way our heart and mind work together to blind us of the truth if we are not mature enough to see through the self created facade and face reality.
In Stephen C. Brandy’s essay, “One of My Babies,” he quoted, “the grandmother’s petty acts of deception are, it seems at first glance merely that- petty acts. Profoundly dishonest, she stops at nothing ...
According to Ms. and Mr. Mouse, Minnie cries easily, changes moods quickly, is sad, irritable, and reports that nobody likes her. These rating are consistent with Ms. Mouse report that Minnie appears to become easily upset and has difficulty regulating her emotions. These ratings are also consistent with the examiners observations during the testing session. On occasion when Minnie encountered a difficult problem, she would cry “I want my
This novel and the stories within take place on a ranch that is in the high mountains of Salinas, California in the early 1930’s. The house of the Tiflin Family stands in the middle of the ranch with a bunkhouse, a chicken yard, and a large vegetable patch nearby. The house is surrounded by the brush line, where there is round green tub from which the animals can drink water.
Marie’s grandparent’s had an old farm house, which was one of many homes in which she lived, that she remembers most. The house was huge, she learned to walk, climb stairs, and find hiding places in it. The house had a wide wrap around porch with several wide sets of stairs both in front and in back. She remembers sitting on the steps and playing with one of the cats, with which there was a lot of cats living on the farm...
Miss Brill is advanced in years. She has been coming weekly to the gardens for “‘a long time’” (100). Furthermore, the two young lovers describe her as an “‘an old thing”’ (100).