Analysis Of Kevin O Brien's The Lightning Bugg

In Kevin O'Brien short story The Lightning bugs, the narrator remises about the lighting bugs he used to see when he was a young child. The narrator is recalling his experience he had collecting the lightening bugs in a jar with a pink lid on it. I really enjoyed this story because I could connect with the story because I too grew up collecting lightening bugs. I love that something so simple as a lighting bug has such a great influence on his mood. I really didn’t understand how the people could not see the lighting bug s as they got older because realistically you can see lighting bugs at all ages. The structure of the story is very simple, however the story does have a deeper meaning. I felt that the deeper meaning of the story was a child our mind is so creative and imaginative but as we get older we lose the ability to think outside the box because we have conformed to society.

I felt that loosing innocence was another theme of this story, when the narrator lost was young he had the ability to see the lighting bugs but as he got older he lost the ability to see them.

As a child we start off so innocent but as we grow older society robs us of that innocence. One thing that was unclear was I understand if the lighting bugs were supposed to be imaginary or not; that just didn’t seem like a plausible conclusion because lighting bugs are a real things. The entire story is written in first person which makes sense because it’s a memoir about the author when he was young. In the end of the story the author sees his life through this little boy in a way but he doesn’t fully connect with what is happening . The narrator express the same behavior that his family members showed him when he was growing up. Overall I really enjoyed the story because I felt that It was something everyone can relate

too.

Camille Haider poem Apocalypse was broke down into four parts; each part represents a event that is leading to the progression of the apocalypse. The first part the conquest there is the beautiful metaphor of a leopard killing a goat and then going home to his perfect life. The deeper meaning behind the metaphor his how people will do dirty work and go home with clean hands like it nothing. Then the second part called war is written in a tercet similar to a haiku because it does not rhyme and it is describing the nature. The author using nature which is usually something that is so beautiful and paints us this image of something so harsh and bloody. For example he describes lots of blood as a "red river" and the author compares heaven to a cold title. The third stanza talks about famine. The last stanza is death which is ironic because its finale to the poem but also death is the finale of life. In the poem the girl seems like she is tending to farm and she is scared to report back to her father that they didn’t get any crops this year. This poem does have a structure each section has different length stanzas and the poem doesn’t really have any rhyme to it. I really did not understand the last part about ships and not wanting to see her father. The way I read the poem was that person was living in a third world country and they were describing the struggles of living in such a place. Another angle to this poem could be that it describing the world and how it is a cruel place to live. I wish that each stanza wasn’t labeled with a title because it took away from me being able to visual see what was happening.There were certain parts sections in the poem that I felt were kind of flat; particularly the last part because it didn’t seem to fit well with the rest of the poem.