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Reality vs.fantasy in a modern world
CONCEPT OF grief
Reality vs.fantasy in a modern world
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The Year of Magical Thinking Essay In the memoir The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion narrates her personal struggle of coping the realization of John being dead and will never resurrect to reunite with Joan. Joan exerts many sorrowful expressions as medical information and the vortex effects instill a sense of anticipation that John will soon come back. Consequently, Didion’s hopefulness opaques her true identity as she still associates herself as a married woman, when in reality, she needs to move on from John to reestablish her extroverted personality to the world once again. On the contrary, Didion comes to a consensus that John’s death was inevitable, Joan starts to ponder about her future with the exclusion of John. With Joan grieving …show more content…
She says “I reasoned that an autopsy could show that what had gone wrong wrong was something simple” (Didion 37). Didion’s request for an autopsy, a thorough examination of a corpse is unnecessary when she witnesses John choking and later falling to the ground. Her beginning phrases such as “You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends” (Didion 3) questions her reasoning for the demand of an autopsy when she expresses John’s death as a distraught and impactful event for her. The autopsy implies that Didion cannot deal with reality; Didion tries to resort to alternative facts to escape the reality that John’s death occurred instantaneously rather than being predictable. Furthermore, grief makes Didion to hallucinate and believe in idiosyncratic beliefs such as the resurrection of John. She says, “I stood there for a moment, then realized why: he would need shoes if he was to return” (Didion 37). Her situation alludes to a similar situation where Didion and siblings had to give away their father’s clothes when he passed. This action portrayed a sense of moving on and enabled for Didion’s mother to become a widow. The reason why donating John’s personal item startles and frightens Didion because it signalizes that John will never come back and Joan has to reevaluate her identity of being a
“A nice warm shower, a cup of tea, and a caring ear may be all you need to warm your heart”. Charles Glassman’s quote was exemplified beautifully in the poem “Common Magic” by Bronwen Wallace. The piece took readers through a series of everyday events, explaining how each seemingly meaningless moment contained it’s own kind of magic. Through the use of oxymoron, imagery and characters, Wallace developed the theme that simple pleasures are fleeting and a fulfilled life involves t`21aking time to appreciate everything.
In Jean Rhys’ novel “Good Morning Midnight” the reader is introduced to Sasha Jansen. Sasha is a run of the mill alcoholic who has seemingly been handed the most dreadful hand in life. Her husband deserted her, her child died, she is poor, and mostly—she is isolated and alone. Her viewpoints on the world, and herself, are very cynical and pessimistic. Sasha’s story details her downfall in a stream of consciousness narrative that takes the reader from one thing to the next and back again. It tells of the things she has sensed which leads to the inevitable end of hopelessness which causes her to suffer severe disconnection from the world around her. The problem is, absolute hopelessness is the best thing that Sasha could find for herself. For Sasha, everything must be kept in perspective. She must not go places that make her remember, she must not do things that make her remember, and she must not see things that make her remember. For Sasha, remembering her tragedies means destroying the careful routine that she has crafted for her life. Sasha herself alludes to this when she claims “[she] doesn’t want the way to the exhibition, [she] wants the way out.” (13)
Jane presents one aspect of woman in The Waking collection (1953): Ross-Bryant views Jane as a young girl who is dead. The poem expresses concern with the coming of death. This poignant elegy is presen...
Cather, Willa. A Lost Lady. Ed. Susan J. Rosowski with Kari Ronning, Charles W. Mignon and Frederick M. Link. The Willa Cather Scholarly Edition. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1997.
I chose to start this paper by quoting an entire poem of Anne Sexton's. Why? Because no one told the story of Anne Sexton's life as often or as well as Anne Sexton herself. Over and over she wrote, recounted, and recast her struggles with madness, her love affairs, her joys and griefs in parenting, and her religious quests. For example, "Rowing" touches upon the need for Anne to tell stories about herself, her longing for connection with others, her mental problems, and her searching for God - one could not ask for a better introduction to the world of Anne Sexton.
Time then slows down; the explanation of the phenomenon, of Peyton Farquhars's death, is both detailed and plausible, and there is a special trick: "He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife and children"(P.67) It is in this sentence that Ambrose Bierce starts to evoke hope in the reader. The author knows th...
people. Hurston opens the door for her protagonist, Janie Crawford, to create a more substantial and empowering life for herself after the many hardships she faces. She leads her down a path to self-determination and this path is embodied by the spirituality of voodoo. “The old, old mysticism of the world in African terms...a religion of creation and life” (Tell My Horse 376).This i...
“She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight,” (11). The novel, Their Eyes Were Watching, God by Zora Neale Hurston, tells a story of a woman, Janie Crawford’s quest to find her true identity that takes her on a journey and back in which she finally comes to learn who she is. These lessons of love and life that Janie comes to attain about herself are endowed from the relationships she has with Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake.
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...
For any article it is important to identify the rhetorical triangle, and get the background information to further the understanding of a subject. The first piece of the rhetorical triangle is the author. Pythia Peay is a writer mostly known for her works in the fields of spirituality and psychology. Her writings tend to focus on specific areas such as “the soul of the city, the messages in our nightly dreams, the spiritual passage of death, the sacred bonds of friendship, and the wisdom of ancient myths” (duplain.com). She has been a columnist for over twenty years and has numerous articles published in “Utne Reader, George, New Age Journal, New Woman, Publisher's Weekly, and Beliefnet.com” (www.duplain.com). Some of her well-known newspaper pieces include her comments on “reincarnation, dreams, healing, and other spiritual topics” (duplain.com). Peay’s credibility in this subject is valid by observing her previous record. Along with checking the credibility of an author, a certain audience is always trying to be reached in any piece of writing. “Soul Searching,” is geared towards any U.S. citizen that lives in a metropolis. Although th...
Orleanna Price, after her marriage, loses her sense of self and falls into the same prison of guilt as her husband. Orleanna had a cheerful childhood despite growing up in the middle of the Great Depression. She spent her days running wild on the outskirts of town with her cousins and worshipping the “miracles of a passionate nature” (Kingsolver, 1998, p. 193). She thinks fondly of her childhood and
In the mist of the ubiquitous moral relativism and pluralism that appears to permeate every inch of the current postmodern society, Flannery O’Connor stands as a bastion of Christianity, unabashedly proclaiming that her Christian dogma “enlarges [her] field of vision” and allows her to masterfully craft stories with a reverent respect for mystery (Mystery 146). Even though their generation could now “face total extinction” from science, O’Connor’s peers increasingly hailed scientism as supreme and rejected the supernatural, but O’Connor maintained her Christian worldview and explicitly conveys her religious views throughout all of her short stories (Mystery 41). O’Connor, a devout Catholic and a unique writer from the mid-twentieth century, includes a “moment of grace” in her short stories in which the protagonists experience a violent and grotesque act that simultaneously brings anguish and enlightenment to the characters by “returning” them
Death and life are contrasting points of view while discovery seems to be the main point in Joan Didion’s essay “On Going Home and, N. Scott Momaday’s essay The Way to Rainy Mountain. For Joan Didion, returning home is a source of comfort, confusion, and conflict. The life she lives with her husband and child are a world apart from the life she grew up in. Her memories are a part of who she is and the kind of mother and wife she hopes to be. Perhaps in her quest, she will find the best parts of her to pour into her new life. In contrast, N. Scott Momaday’s “home” is his grandmother. She encompasses all that he came to know and love. The Kiowa traditions were brought to life in her home through her beadwork, cooking, storytelling, and prayers. Her death is a turning point in his life which sends him on an adventure to discover his Kiowa roots.
“Her twin, the murky depths of the river, the past, all conspire to claim her. And they do” (Gardner, 2004).
When faced with difficult situations, humans tend to block out the problem with other aspects or delusions. However, the story “Miss Brill” reveals to us that we cannot shelter ourselves from reality, for the brutal awakening lurking amongst us could corrupt our mind. For instance, Miss Brill caresses her faux fur with motherly presence, admiring the scarf. She briefly acknowledges the ominous feeling that seems to be in the midst of her, but she continues on her usual routine. Miss Brill looks into the foxes “dim little eyes” hearing the tragic question of “what’s happening to me?”. From there, the author, Katherine Mansfield, submerges the audience into Brill’s fantasy world.