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Life and death in literature
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Octavio Paz’s “Identical Time” and Ray Bradbury’s “The Pedestrian” have, in common, a theme of aliveness. They each feature certain individuals as particularly alive in their cities: the old man is alive in the busy dawn of Paz’s Mexico City, and Mr. Mead is alive in the silent night of a future Los Angeles envisioned by Bradbury. The individuals’ aliveness manifests as stillness in “Identical Time” and motion in “The Pedestrian” against the urban backgrounds - signifying, in both, living a human life freely, in the present and nature. Furthermore, in portraying the urban backgrounds as, in contrast to the individuals, dull and lifeless, the two pieces speak together to how cities may diminish and hinder our aliveness and humanity. In “Identical The cars that “flare up and burn out and flare up” as the speaker watches them go by with his eyes closed - a fact that indicates the symbolic nature of the imagery - is precisely a metaphor for the movement of the city, one with explosive speed and fiery intensity (Paz 1). A drastically different image, however, is presented right beneath in stanza 2: “On a bench an old man talks to himself” (Paz 1). The nameless person, referred to plainly as “an old man,” is implied to be less lively than his surroundings, the city portrayed earlier, because of his advanced years. In fact, he is simply sitting “on a bench,” immobile, in contrast to the movement of the city and its cars. The fact that he “talks to himself,” instead of interacting with others in a city of millions where, in contrast, just around him “a couple embraces by an iron railing / she laughs and asks something,” conveys a sense of idleness (Paz 1). However, despite the fact that the old man is still - immobile and inanimate - in opposition to the vibrant Mexico City in which he The poem conveys the notion of “present” through the motifs of time and stillness: “There is another time within time / still… / without past or future / only alive / like the old man on the bench / indivisible identical perpetual,” says the speaker near the end of the poem (Paz 6). The “another time within time” that is “identical,” which the title of the poem, “Identical Time,” alludes to, is “still” and “identical” because it is “without past or future,” the transient states of the conventional perception of time. Instead, this other time is the present (since it is what’s other than the past and future), and it is by virtue of its stillness - the expression of aliveness in the poem - “alive.” Furthermore, the speaker, in regard to the present, reflects, “Perhaps time doesn’t pass / images of time pass / and if the hours do not come back / presences come back” (Paz 5). He thinks that the time that “doesn’t pass,” the present, is, in fact, the real and true time which always “come[s] back” to him and is always with him, while the common perceptions of passing time are “images,” fabrications by the minds of others that “do not come back” and are out of their control. Hence, to be alive means, in the poem, to live in the present, that which is alive, real, and controllable. Indeed, the old man’s aliveness stems from the fact he lives in the present,
The city, writes St. Augustine, “builds up a pilgrim community of every language .... [with] particular concern about differences of customs, laws, [and] institutions” in which “there is among the citizens a sort of coherence of human wills.”3 Put simply: the city is a sort of platform upon which “a group of people joined together by their love of the same object” work towards a common goal.4 What differentiates Augustine’s examination from other literary or theological treatments of the city is his attempt to carve out a vision of how the city operates—both the internal qualities and external ...
... alive. Dillard’s language in her description of the landscape not only makes it vivid for the reader, but mimics the sense of rhythmic movement which she assigns to the land as well. Dillard’s use of repetition, sound devices, metaphor, images and active verbs create for the reader a sense of fluid, changing language on a page, which in turn describes an apparently fluid and changing landscape. The final image of the oscillograph, while indicative of an inorganic process, measures the activity witnessed by Dillard, reflecting itself upon the image of the forest. Perhaps an oscillograph of Dillard’s writing in this passage during her transcendent moment would also generate rhythmic waves and currents, progressing and yet doubling back, continues and full of movement and life.
Esperanza and her family move into a poor neighborhood in Chicago. “Bricks are crumbling in places, and the front door is swollen you have to push hard to get in. There us no front yeard, only four little elms the city planted by the curb. Our back is a small garage for the car we don’t own yet (Cisneros, 4).” The reader learns that Esperanza and her family are also from Mexico. “Look at that house, I said, it looks like Mexico. Rachel and Lucy look at me like I’m crazy, but before they can let out a laugh, Nenny says: Yes, that’s all Mexico right. That’s what I was thinking exactly (Cisneros, 18).” As an immigrant family, Esperanza’s family is struggling to make ends meet in Chicago. “I could’ve been someone someday, you know? My mother says sighs. She has lived in the city her whole life. She can speak two lanugages. She can sing an opera. She knows how to fix a T.V. But she doesn’t know which subway train to take to get downtown. I hold her hand very tight while we wait for the train to arrive (Cisneros, 90).” This is also a reference of space and time that is associated with the time period of
Most people awake to a daily routine, in which they keep eyes dazed staring at the pavement they walk on yet so easily ignore. Usually, these same people go about their business with no more than a passing glance towards their fellow man. However, there is an enigmatic few that are more than mere pawns in the game of existence. They are passionate spectators who take in their surroundings with every sense. They rejoice in the vastness of the electric crowd and become one with it. By all means, these few can be called ‘idle city men’ or, according to Charles Baudelaire’s 1863 essay “The Painter of Modern Life”, they are flâneurs. I believe a worthy example of a man such as this, is the persona in Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”. He is a flâneur in all ways but one.
With assertive shouts and short tempers, the prominent character, Ricardo, is characterized as a feisty townsman, doing nothing except trying to protect his town and its members from the judgments of the western world. For example, the characterization of the “‘…quaint’” man is exemplified through the simplicity of his life and the fact that he is “‘…employed’” and is full of knowledge, not a “‘cow in the forest’” (55, 29, 32). Ricardo desperately wants to establish the notion that he is not a heartless, feebleminded man, only an indigent, simple man striving to protect his friends and family from the criticisms of callous cultures. Incessantly Ricardo attempts to make it clear to the photographer the irritation elicited by his prese...
Whether you’re stuck on the 405 freeway during rush hour, on the 15 freeway heading back from a long-weekend vacation, or driving through the busy streets of Hollywood, traffic on the highways and streets of Los Angeles can often be a hassle. In Dagoberto Gilb’s short story Love in L.A., first published in 1986, the troubles of traffic are experienced first hand by our main character Jake. Jake is a common fellow with a steady occupation who is merely trying to make his way to work through the busy streets of Hollywood. As he is working his way through the piled traffic, not paying complete attention to the road in front of him, Jake crashes into the back of a Toyota. In the midst of exchanging information with the driver of the Toyota, Jake finds himself attracted to the female driver, whose name is Mariana. Jake attempts several times to ask her out for some coffee or breakfast; however his persistent attempts were not successful. The two drivers continue to exchange insurance information, however Jake not having any valid insurance gives false information to Mariana, and the two of them go their separate ways. In this short story, the author demonstrates the effect of gender roles, Marxist criticism, and new criticism in his writing.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) was an Argentine short-story writer and essayist best known for his fiction that focused on the interconnected themes of labyrinths, dreams, religion, and time. Specifically, the idea that time can bifurcate, and that all time is occurring simultaneously are pivotal to a large portion of his writing. This essay will focus on this ideas, along with other temporal themes, providing an in-depth analysis of time throughout the body of his works, with a specific focus on The Garden of Forking Paths. Further, this essay will endeavor to answer the question of whether or not Yu Tsen’s and Stephen Albert’s views on time are in accordance with the conclusions pertaining to Borges’ time.
In line three “even though the person was alive” she shows the irony of life and the order of life. She shows that for one thing to live another must die. Yet, on the other hand she also shows the important thing that a life means because it says that she does not says if she is alive or not; she still suffering from something, but she still awake. Also, in sentence number four and five she says some similarities “I saw my eyes in the mirror and cried at the sight” I think that she means that she looks back her self and she still in a bad moon. In lines thirteen and fourteen “when I thought about love, I got hit bad” She means that not everything is loosen there is always something that it not there but It could be at any time.
The streets of London consist of various personalities and characters. Whether it is a mass of bustling high-end shops on Oxford Street, eclectic collection of music, art and food in Camden or simply hidden pathways consisting of independent coffee shops, book stores and boutiques in Soho, London is composed of multiple characters. Midnight In London was created to reflect these dynamic personalities, while demonstrating it doesn’t take much just a simple walk or turn of the corner to experience these atmospheres. However, midnight was selected for this project because time contains a powerful hold on not only how the environment changes, but also the ways in which a person experiences them. Midnight is a time I find quite enticing. It is constructed
Wirth, L. (1938). Urban as a Way of Life. In R.T. Legates, & F. Stout (Eds.). The City Reader (pp. 90-97). New York, NY: Routledge
The Street, is a novel, by Ann Petry, that tells a story about Lutie Johnson’s relationship to the urban setting. Petry conveys Johnson’s relationship to the urban setting through the use of imagery, personification and selection of detail. These literary devices help not only help give a better way to explain what Johnson is going through, but lets the readers have a better way of understanding it.
Octavio past uses dark mysterious tones, and mood to capture the illusion of confusion. To Begin with “The Street” has dark tones and a mysterious mood, an example being the first and second stanza “Here is a long and silent street. I walk in blackness and I stumble and fall”. Secondly in 1962, Paz became Mexico’s ambassador to Indian and resigned six years. This event led him to become confused and alone, thus creating the confusion and lugubrious tone in “The Street”. Lastly Octavio Paz Uses words in “The Street” like “Silent Street, everything dark and door less, dry leaves, and nobody”. He uses words like this to give the poem a melancholy mood. The poem has a mysterious and mysterious mood to it, yet even though Paz does not use many literary devices in this poem it is still interesting and a great poem.
Andrew Marvell in his poem describes a young man convincing his fair mistress to release herself to living in the here and now. He does this by splitting the poem up into three radically different stanzas. The first takes ample time to describe great feelings of love for a young lady, and how he wishes he could show it. The idea of time is developed early but not fully. The second stanza is then used to show how time is rapidly progressing in ways such as the fading of beauty and death. The third stanza presses the question to the young mistress; will she give herself to the young man and to life? Although each stanza uses different images, they all convey the same theme of living life to the fullest and not letting time pass is seen throughout. Marvell uses imagery, symbolism, and wonderful descriptions throughout the poem. Each stanza is effective and flows easily. Rhyming couplets are seen at the ends of every line, which helps the poem read smoothly.
The theme of this poem is the infatuation with immortality that the speaker has and although it seems to be a love poem for his beloved there are times where it feels like the poem is about himself. This poem’s purpose is to display a no typical love poem as there are parts where the speaker seems to hold some resentment for his lover and sort of focuses on himself, his poetry, and his abilities.