“Black Man and White Woman in Dark Green Rowboat” Russell Bank’s “Black Man and White Woman in Dark Green Rowboat” is a short story about a young lady and a young man that are having the difficulty of deciding to keep a baby or have it aborted. The story starts off having the readers unknowing of who the main characters are at all, until the story goes on more. Once we figure out the main characters the story goes into the man and women getting in a green rowboat to go to this island to “fish”. They get to the island and talk about their baby problem. She already makes up her mind saying she is going to have an abortion and his opinion was different. The island is the scene of the story that makes up the character 's behavior in the story. At first the island seems like it is just a nice fishing spot. Later in the story you figure out that it symbolizes the baby because of the hints the young man and women give you. They leave the trailer park in the beginning to find an answer regarding the baby. When the couple gets to the island, Banks describes, “Large, rounded rocks lay around the island, half-submerged in the shallow water, like back of huge, coal-colored hippos”(69). This symbolizes that they are at a rough part of their …show more content…
The story gives us hints that the couple is dealing with a big problem; a baby. “I wish I could leave you here”(70), one clue that the boy mentions when they are at the island. He is meaning that it would be better and safer for her to stay on the island because then it would make life easier on them. The girl on the other hand gives it away by announcing, “I know you do. So do I. But it’ll be all right again afterwards. I promise. It’ll be just like it was”(70). The girl is saying she is doing it for her mother. She told us that she wants to have the baby, but her mom is saying that her life will go back to normal again if she aborts
The novel, The Color of Water follows the author and narrator James McBride, and his mother Ruth’s life. It explores their childhood—when they were both embarrassed by their mothers—through the part of their lives where they began to accept themselves for who they are. Moreover, this memoir is quite distinctive as McBride cleverly parallels his story to his mother, Ruth’s story using dual narration. This technique further helps contribute to the theme of self-identity. Throughout the novel, McBride searches for identity and a sense of belonging that derives from his multiracial family. By using two different narrations, McBride gradually establishes his identity and by integrating both narratives at the end, McBride also shows that although both narrators at the beginning had different upbringings, in the end they came together, and understood each other’s perspective.
. The amount of stress Guy has faces from the extreme poverty and lack of resources to the lack of work and money, he can obtain to give to his family leads to many stressful choices to make. The stressful events Guy faces is inestimable, compared to the amount of events that bring him happiness. In the story Guy had a dream where he explains how he “just want[s] to take that big balloon and ride it up in the air” (Danticat 347). Guy’s dream to fly off into the skies of Haiti foreshadows to what will end up happening to Guy. Guy is facing a lot stress either from his family or the living conditions in Haiti, which will end up leaving him to try to escape. After Guy reveals his dream, Lili, his wife, questions “If you [Guy] were to take that balloon and fly away, would you take me and the boy?” (Danticat 347). By inquiring if Guy is going to leave his family illustrates that Guy
“Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” At some point in life one is faced with a decision which will define the future, but only time will tell whether or not the choice was right or wrong. The Boat by Alistair MacLeod demonstrates that an individual should make their own decisions in life, be open to new experiences and changes, and that there is no way to obtain something, without sacrificing something else.
The novel, The Color of Water follows the author and narrator James McBride and his mother Ruth’s life, through their childhood—when they were both embarrassed about their mother—through the part of their lives where they began to accept themself for who they are and became proud of it. Moreover, this memoir is quite distinctive as McBride cleverly parallels his story to his mother, Ruth’s story by using dual narration which further helps to contribute to the theme of self-identity. Throughout the novel, McBride searches for identity and a sense of self that derives from his multiracial family and through the use of two different narrations, McBride slowly establishes his identity. Plus by integrating both narratives at the end, McBride also shows that although both narrators at the beginning had different upbringing, in the end they come together and understand each other’s perspective.
...n unplanned pregnancy between two young couples. While Hemingway’s story takes place in the 1920s with a couple traveling the world together, Wallace’s story takes place in the present between a religious couple making a moral decision. As revealed by the specific dialogue in Hemingway’s text and Lane Dean’s thoughts in “Good People,” both Jig and Sheri will carry the child, and while Jig and the American will end their relationship, Lane Dean and Sheri will abide by their Christian faith in matrimony.
After the boys crash on the island, their immediate reaction to the island is its beauty. The weather on the island was hot and humid, without a breeze. The look of the “dazzling beach and the water” (Golding) is unlike anything they have ever seen. The island was superior in their eyes as “The boys find themselves in a tropical paradise: bananas, coconuts, and other fruits are profusely available.” (Slayton) There was no fear and an instant commodore due to the circumstance. However, after becoming comfortable, a natural fear of the unknown begins to settle “as if it wasn’t a good island” (Golding) and they find themselves faced with an entity named, The Beast. This dark fear comes back to haunt them later.
...and little animals roaming about. When Edward first arrived on the Island, Wells used his view from the boat as the view the reader would receive through the text. “it was low and covered with thick vegetation,…..the beach was of a dull, grey sand, and sloped steeply up to a ridge, perhaps sixty of seventy feet above the sea-level, and irregularly set with trees and undergrowth” (Wells 42). Setting helps contribute to the theme because it detailed what the animals lived on, and how the animals were living.
“The Boat”, narrated by a Mid-western university professor, Alistar MacLeod, is a short story concerning a family and their different perspectives on freedom vs. tradition. The mother pushes the son to embrace more of a traditional lifestyle by taking over the fathers fishing business, while on the other hand the father pushes the son to live more autonomously in an unconstrained manner. “The Boat” focuses on the father and how his personality influences the son’s choice on how to live and how to make decisions that will ultimately affect his life. In Alistair MacLeod’s, “The Boat”, MacLeod suggest that although dreams and desires give people purpose, the nobility of accepting a life of discontentment out weighs the selfishness of following ones own true desires. In the story, the father is obligated to provide for his family as well as to continue the fishing tradition that was inherited from his own father. The mother emphasizes the boat and it’s significance when she consistently asked the father “ How did things go in the boat today” since tradition was paramount to the mother. H...
	As the story of David Guterson’s book unfolds, we find ourselves looking through the eyes of a man that has lived on the island for most of his life. His name is Ishmael Chambers. Ishmael seems to be a perceptive child, and soon gets to know one of the island’s many Japanese girls, named Hatsue. As fate would have it, they fall in love with each other in Shakespeare-like-fashion. The problem of them coming from two different races of people forces them to be secretive about their relationship. When Hatsue is forced to move away because of WWII regulations, she ends her relationship with Ishmael, sending him into a life filled with jealousy and grief.
... The mother's approach is a source of terror for the child, written as if it is a horror movie, suspense created with the footsteps, the physical embodiment of fear, the doorknob turns. His terror as he tries to run, but her large hands hold him fast, is indicative of his powerless plight. The phrase, 'She loves him.' reiterates that this act signifies entrapment as there is no reciprocation of the ‘love’.
The mother is a selfish and stubborn woman. Raised a certain way and never falters from it. She neglects help, oppresses education and persuades people to be what she wants or she will cut them out of her life completely. Her own morals out-weight every other family member’s wants and choices. Her influence and discipline brought every member of the family’s future to serious-danger to care to her wants. She is everything a good mother isn’t and is blind with her own morals. Her stubbornness towards change and education caused the families state of desperation. The realization shown through the story is the family would be better off without a mother to anchor them down.
We all have expectations, something that we expect as a result of something we did, but what about the unexpected something that we did but never fathomed the consequences? We often times call the unexpected a “curve ball” and that’s exactly what happened to the couples in the short essays “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway and “Good People” by David Foster Wallace, they were thrown a curve ball. The couples in the short stories have extremely hard decisions to make. The woman have the most important decision to make and the men have to decide to support the women in the lives or make a decision to move on. Sheri will most likely have her baby because she cancelled the abortion and she has bonded with her baby in her womb, and Lane Dean Jr. will marry her because he realizes he loves her. On the other hand Jig will most likely have the abortion because she fears the American will leave her if she doesn’t, and the American will stay with her because now they can travel without a baby spoiling his plans.
The entire story essentially centered on a man named Henry Spearman who is an economist professor at Harvard that decided to go on a vacation with his wife to get away from his work that he always seemed to be doing. The events that ensue on this island make the economist work more than he probably would have if he had not gone on this vacation to Cinnamon Bay. The entire book contains many characters, each of which has something to do with the two murders that happen on this island in their own way, and it is not until the end, that we find out the connections. Some of the characters include Matthew Dyke (who works at the same college as Henry) and his wife; General Decker (who is one of the men who is murdered in the book); Curtis Foote (the other man murdered in the book), Doug and Judy Clark (a couple that is vacationing on Cinnamon Bay who has just had their children picked up when Spearman met them, meaning they can now freely go to the clubs), Detective Vincent (the detective of the murders who hasn’t had a lot of experience investigating murders), along with many others.
The mother in the story a nameless figure with very little description and almost no voice what so ever. She is a bitter reminder of how society views some woman. They are seen as a permanent stature of a home but not necessarily a figure in society. The kids both very loud and annoying portray a selfish, rude, an almost ignorant way of society such as Jo...
Her character is portrayed as being anxious through the author’s choice of dialogue in the form of diction, which is “waves of her [the mother] anxiety sink down into my belly”. The effect of this is to allow the readers to establish the emotions of the narrator, as well as establish an the uneasy tone of the passage, and how stressful and important the event of selling tobacco bales for her family is. Additionally, the narrator is seen to be uncomfortable in the setting she is present in. This is seen through the many dashes and pauses within her thoughts because she has no dialogue within this passage, “wishing- we- weren’t- here”, the dashes show her discomfort because the thought is extended, and thus more intense and heavy, wishing they could be somewhere else. The effect of the narrator’s comfort establishes her role within the family, the reason she and her sister does not have dialogue symbolizes that she has no voice within the family, as well as establishing hierarchy. The authors use dictation and writing conventions to develop the character of the narrator herself, as well as the mother. The narrator’s focus on each of her parents is additionally highlighted through