In the reading of “Babylon Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is the tale of the return of an American expatriate to Paris. The protagonist is named Charlie Wales. We find him in the Ritz bar chatting to the barman about the whereabouts of his past drinking buddies. He also describes Paris as being mostly desolate compared to many years earlier. Charlie describes himself as being soberer for more than a year and he now lives in Prague. He then leaves in a taxi and moves about aimlessly through Paris. Later in time, Charlie goes to his brother-in-law’s house where is five year old daughter Honoria jumps in his arms. As the story progresses, we realize that Charlie Wales returned to Paris to regain custody of his daughter, who presently lives with his sister in law. His sister in law hates him and his blamed for the death of his wife Helen. Helen died few years ago meanwhile Charlie was in a mental institution. Eventually, Charlie wins her trust and makes urgent plans to leave with Honoria. This happiness is short lived after two former party friends of Charlie, show up at the home of his sister in law asking him to come and drink with them. Charlie’s affiliation with this group, causes her to change her mind about letting him take is daughter back. Lastly, he returns to the bar hoping that, in few months he would get another chance to get Honoria. Charlie is determined not to drink and party with his friends, but we are not sure if his improved from the old days. He also shows a bit of nostalgia from his old days. Charlie has many flaws, but at the same time also charismatic and persuasive speaker. Charlie is not a victim, but sympathetic yes.
In the reading of “The Death of the ball Turret Gunner” by Randall Jarrell. Th...
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...eats until the eggs are hatched (Moore, 2013, p. 1999). As times changed, so did mentality. Moore is trying to change society’s view of women. She is trying to show that a woman can accomplish a lot more than first thought. Marianne Moore also uses descriptions from Greek mythology. She refers to the ancient serpent Hydra, Cancer the crab and the hero Hercules. These references give us an idea that Moore portray’s the Nautilus and women, to be strong and adaptable in a new modern society. From my understanding of the poem, the conflict is the inequality in which women were treated. Humanity did not believe that women were capable of accomplishing everything such as man. In the present time, I believe there is still a masculine mentality in certain cultures. Moore took a great step forward to better change this issue that as afflicted society for a long time.
War has been a constant part of human history. It has greatly affected the lives of people around the world. These effects, however, are extremely detrimental. Soldiers must shoulder extreme stress on the battlefield. Those that cannot mentally overcome these challenges may develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sadly, some resort to suicide to escape their insecurities. Soldiers, however, are not the only ones affected by wars; family members also experience mental hardships when their loved ones are sent to war. Timothy Findley accurately portrays the detrimental effects wars have on individuals in his masterpiece The Wars.
Charlie Wales focuses on his visit to Paris as an extended allegory, imposing a moral value on every place that he visits and incident that occurs. He is hoping to redeem himself from the period of drunken debauchery that led to the death of his wife and loss of his daughter to relatives’care. Whether he is driving through the streets of Montmartre, the site of many past revels, or trying to find a restaurant without past negative associations where he can have lunch with his daughter, the evils of the past form pictures in his mind. He wants to be worthy of custody of Honoria,
The violent nature that the soldiers acquired during their tour in Vietnam is one of O'Brien's predominant themes in his novel. By consciously selecting very descriptive details that reveal the drastic change in manner within the men, O'Brien creates within the reader an understanding of the effects of war on its participants. One of the soldiers, "Norman Bowler, otherwise a very gentle person, carried a Thumb. . .The Thumb was dark brown, rubbery to touch. . . It had been cut from a VC corpse, a boy of fifteen or sixteen"(O'Brien 13). Bowler had been a very good-natured person in civilian life, yet war makes him into a very hard-mannered, emotionally devoid soldier, carrying about a severed finger as a trophy, proud of his kill. The transformation shown through Bowler is an excellent indicator of the psychological and emotional change that most of the soldiers undergo. To bring an innocent young man from sensitive to apathetic, from caring to hateful, requires a great force; the war provides this force. However, frequently are the changes more drastic. A soldier named "Ted Lavender adopted an orphaned puppy. . .Azar strapped it to a Claymore antipersonnel mine and squeezed the firing device"(O'Brien 39). Azar has become demented; to kill a puppy that someone else has adopted is horrible. However, the infliction of violence has become the norm of behavior for these men; the fleeting moment of compassion shown by one man is instantly erased by another, setting order back within the group. O'Brien here shows a hint of sensitivity among the men to set up a startling contrast between the past and the present for these men. The effect produced on the reader by this contrast is one of horror; therefore fulfilling O'Brien's purpose, to convince the reader of war's severely negative effects.
A certain matter-of-fact quality pervades the descriptions of the wounds inflicted and received by soldiers; the face-to-face attacks with rifle butts, spades, and grenades; the sounds, smells, and colors of death and dying in this book.
Many people say that the metal of a man is found in his ability to keep his ideals in spite of anything that life can through at you. If a man is found to have done these things he can be called a hero. Through a lifelong need to accept responsibility for all living things, Robert Ross defines his heroism by keeping faith with his ideals despite the betrayal, despair and tragedy he suffers throughout the course of The Wars by Timothy Findley.
She questions “why should I be my aunt / or me, or anyone?” (75-76), perhaps highlighting the notion that women were not as likely to be seen as an induvial at this time in history. Additionally, she questions, almost rhetorically so, if “those awful hanging breasts -- / held us all together / or made us all just one?” (81-83). This conveys the questions of what it means to be a woman: are we simply similar because of “awful hanging breasts” as the speaker of the poem questions, or are we held together by something else, and what is society’s perception on this? It is also interesting to note Bishop’s use of parenthesis around the line “I could read” (15). It may function as an aside for the reader to realize that the six year old girl can in fact read, but also might function as a wink to the misconstrued notion throughout history that women were less educated and didn’t
Babylon Revisited is made up of different characters with different ideologies in life. The Protagonist, Charlie is a reformed alcoholic who had come back to take his daughter. Marion is Charlie's sister- in - law who dislikes him because she thinks he caused her sister's death. I think Marion is emotionally disturbed. She overacts to things that happen in everyday life. Lincoln is Marion's husband .He tries to keep things as even as possible for Marion. Loraine and Duncan are ghosts from Charlie's past and they came to haunt him at the end of the story.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. “Babylon Revisited”. Short Fiction: Classic and Contemporary. 6th ed. Ed. Charles Bohner and Lyman Grant. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.
One of the worst things about war is the severity of carnage that it bestows upon mankind. Men are killed by the millions in the worst ways imaginable. Bodies are blown apart, limbs are cracked and torn and flesh is melted away from the bone. Dying eyes watch as internal organs are spilled of empty cavities, naked torso are hung in trees and men are forced to run on stumps when their feet are blown off. Along with the horrific deaths that accompany war, the injuries often outnumber dead men. As Paul Baumer witnessed in the hospital, the injuries were terrifying and often led to death. His turmoil is expressed in the lines, “Day after day goes by with pain and fear, groans and death gurgles. Even the death room I no use anymore; it is too small.” The men who make it through the war take with them mental and physical scarification from their experiences.
In "Babylon Revisited," Fitzgerald uses these troubled times as a background for his story. The main character is someone many Americans of the day could sympathize with. His rise from mediocrity to a life of wealth and leisure and then his tragic fall appealed to the broken and world-weary masses subjugated by the demoralizing affects of the depression.
His caution was justified; within minutes, the Sherman rounded a curve in the road and almost drove over a squad of SS troops trying to set up a roadblock. The infantrymen riding on the tank opened fire, as did the Sherman’s bow machine gunner and Gangel’s troops in the truck, and the SS troops fled into the surrounding woods. Lee ordered his driver to “open her up,” and the tank slued around another corner and up the road to the castle, the Wehrmacht truck close behind. Roaring over the short bridge at the top of the road, the vehicles lurched to a stop directly in front of Itter’s main gate as night began to fall.
Fitzgerald, Scott F. "Babylon Revisited." Loeffelholz, Mary. The Norton Anthology of American Literature . New York: Norton & Company , 1931. 1839-1853.
"Babylon Revisited" focuses on Charlie Wales, a man who returns to Paris to retrieve his daughter and begin his life anew as a family with her. The title is appropriate because Charlie returns to Paris where, before the Depression hit, he and his wife lived a life of endless partying and spending of money, where everything had a price that he could afford to pay.
...sed society with religious overtones throughout the poem, as though religion and God are placing pressure on her. The is a very deep poem that can be taken in may ways depending on the readers stature yet one thing is certain; this poem speaks on Woman’s Identity.
During the 1920’s, the morals of many people changed dramatically. F. Scott Fitzgerald shows this in the story he wrote in 1930 called “Babylon Revisited”. In the story Charlie, the protagonist, reflects on his old life living in the “new morality” and works hard to achieve the “old morality” to get his daughter back. Charlie has obstacles thrown at him including his old party friends and his past wife’s family. In Fitzgerald’s life, he lived the “new morality” to the fullest while partying and drinking every night. Before long, his wife was in rehab and he was writing stories to try to keep his family supported. The story reflects on his own life in many ways. The characters each stand behind either the “new morality”