Hana is one of the main characters in Michael Ondaatje’s book The English Patient. Hana is a twenty year old Canadian woman who serves as a nurse in World War II. She spends most of her time alone, scared to love, scared to let someone in, because she knows that the moment she does then she is vulnerable. Leaving her to feel subjected to a life of misery because she knows that every good thing must come to an end. Hana takes her every step not caring whether she lives or dies, as if she has nothing to gain or lose. Living life as if she is a piece of trash waiting to be thrown away. It is her grief, love, and fear that keeps her from moving on in life, taking the one thing she needs the most away from her, her sanity.
First off, Hana’s grief
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She does not intentionally fall for him but it is something about the way he talks to her, his pureness, which draws her in even more. Caravaggio comments“ There was something about him she wanted to learn, grow into, and hide in, where she could turn away from being an adult”(52). When around the English patient Hana is calm and collected, she is somewhere where she feels she can be herself. Hana is an adult yet when she is around the English patient sometimes her mind allows her to go back in time and relive her childhood moments, times when she is overjoyed with life. Hana reads “A love story is not about those who lose their heart but those who find that sullen inhabitant…it is a consuming of oneself and the past” (97). Reading these lines allows Hana to have a sense of thought. She needs to envision herself living the life she always wanted. Letting her see that the only way for her love story to end on good terms is if she finds peace within herself. Shanice weaver suggest “this is her way to make peace with the pain in her present and the pain from her past. His stories helps her heal” (226). Letting go of the past will help her realize that she is in control of herself. Sometimes things are just too heavy to hold on to, and in order to gain strength, Hana has to learn to let …show more content…
The author says “She called everyone ‘buddy’ and laughed at the song that had the lines” (52). Hana does not call her patients by their names because by remembering their name she starts to build a relationship with them, which will allow her to easily become emotionally attached to them. Becoming attached to her patients will make it difficult for her to deal with her emotions once her patients are dead. The author also states “When she woke up she picked up a pair of scissors out of the porcelain bowl, leaned over and began to cut her hair” (49). Hana cuts her hair to ensure that she has nothing that will weld her to death. She wants nothing to do with things that will brighten her memories of times when she was once sad, lost with words, and depressed. Mark Wallace expresses “Hana is physiologically wounded by what she has seen in war. Because of this, she feels she must relate everything back to death” (217). Waking up day after day and seeing people die one after another has a strong hold on her. Thinking that she is cursed because everyone that comes around her dies. In the back of Hana’s mind all that she can think of is who is next. Who else is going to die because they have felt her
The play Kamau by Alani Apio exhibits a very strong example of the dramatic difference between the ways that local and non-local people view the value of land. The main character Alika is much attached to the land that his family has lived on for years, as the land that they’ve lived on has become their undeniable home. Alika works for a tour company that takes tourists around the island and gives a brief history of things that have happened on the island. However, Alika’s boss, Jim, is employed at a company that has just bought the land that Alika and his family live on and this company plans to build a resort in place of Alika’s home. The land in question has two very different meanings to two very different people. The struggle and
The Power of an Author Authors have the ability justify the worst actions. Authors have a way of romanticizing certain situations in order to convey a specific message. A good author has power to influence the reader into believing whatever it is the author wants. When it comes to the story of Hannah Dustan, authors such as John Greenleaf Whittier have romanticized her captivity story along with the actions she took throughout her journey. Introducing a character that will be seen in the story is one of the most vital parts when creating a piece of literature.
In the short story, “Until Gwen” by Dennis Lehane, it starts off with the main character named Bobby who is getting picked up by his father from prison with a stolen Dodge Neon. His father wasn’t alone, he brought himself a company and it was a hooker named Mandy. We got a sense of who his father was, a “professional thief, a consummate con man” (647). We don’t know why he was in prison until the rest of the story slowly reveals the flashbacks he has with his girlfriend Gwen and the incident prior of going to jail. Bobby has no sense of who he is or where he is from because there no proof of record of him such as a birth certificate. After meeting Gwen, his life has changed and felt the sense of belonging into the world he is living in. Bobby’s
When Anna Close is first introduced in the novel, As We Are Now she is referred to as Mrs. Close. From what I gather, this was to represent a sort of formality between her and Caro because they were not yet acquainted. Not only this, but it also seems that it was Harriet and Rose's way of manipulating Caro to fear the worst out of Harriet's replacement. Caro knew better than to expect someone who would actually care for her, because of this she was surprised beyond belief when she met Anna.
When war breaks out, it’s an awful time for everyone and it may even seem like the end of the world. When troublesome things happen within a family it may also feel life-changing in a bad way. Well Hana Takeda in Picture Bride most definitely felt both of these things throughout her life. Picture Bride by Yoshiko Uchida is about a Japanese woman who decides to move to America to marry a so-called successful man named Taro. When she arrives she meets a lonely, balding Japanese man with a run-down shop that isn’t selling much. Hana struggles through temptations, family hardships along with war evacuations and death all in her lifetime, quickly learning that some conflicts are worse than others.
In Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the reader has the experience to understand what it was like to live in an insane asylum during the 1960’s. Kesey shows the reader the world within the asylum of Portland Oregon and all the relationships and social standings that happen within it. The three major characters’ groups, Nurse Ratched, the Black Boys, and McMurphy show how their level of power effects how they are treated in the asylum. Nurse Ratched is the head of the ward and controls everything that goes on in it, as she has the highest authority in the ward and sabotages the patients with her daily rules and rituals. These rituals include her servants, the Black Boys, doing anything she tells them to do with the patients.
His memory of her is sweet and beautiful so that even without saying it, it is obvious that he was, and possibly is still, in love with her. He remembered the past and convinced himself that it could be like that once again. He became delusional with love, and was blinded by it.
Ellen is also one of the main characters in this book , she’s also the same age as her best friend annemarie. Even though she is a very shy girl she wants to be an actress, in order to fufill this dream she first has to survive the horrible, disgusting holocaust. with the help of her best friend ann she may just be able to live her dream. “thats the worst thing in the world..to be dead so young.I wouldn’t want the germans to take my family away to makes us live some place else.but still,it wouldn’t be as bad as being dead”.
Kiyota Emi was affected when she first time visited her grandmother who was in a Japanese nursing care. “I was so uncomfortable,” Kiyota says. “I could see that my grandmother and most of the other patients were just existing there; They had no purpose; they were just waiting for release.” Kiyota’s grandmother loved to gardening, but in that place she does not have any flowers or garden. The facility only allows the patients and. Staffs of these facilities normally calls the patients by their surname or by the room number where they are residing. That nursing home changed Kiyota’s life. Just after she the routine and the environment of what her grandmother was facing who is in the facility because
Prior to the hospital, Deborah only considered the gods and goddesses existing in Yr, to be her friends, as she would turn to them during times of loneliness or rejection. Throughout the time spent in the hospital, Deborah slowly opened up to Dr. Fried, even nicknaming her ‘Furii’, based upon the power her insight held. During her treatment sessions with Dr. Fried, Deborah familiarizes a feeling which she has become immune too over the years, a feeling of love. Due to the empathy displayed by famous psychiatrist Dr. Fried, the feeling of being the sick, crazy girl ultimately distinguishes during their sessions, resulting in a positive impact along Deborah’s road to recovery, "She liked working with patients. Their very illness made them examine their sanity as few 'sane ' people could. Kept from loving, sharing, and simple communication, they often hungered for it with a purity of passion that she saw as beautiful." (Greenberg, 19). When Dr. Royson supply’s for Dr. Fried, it becomes evident that the trust Dr. Fried built within her relationship with Deborah, and her genuine desire to help the protagonist, assisted the uphill battle, as without the compassion and belief Dr. Royson failed to provide, Deborah fell back down the hill. In conclusion, the honest efforts of the
progresses her actions to things happening around brought her to the end of her life. Other
After five years of being raised and living with their grandmother whom they truly loved, the girls had a rude awakening. Their grandmother, Sylvia had passed away. “When after almost five years, my grandmother one winter morning eschewed awakening, Lily and Nona were fetched from Spokane and took up housekeeping in Fingerbone, just as my grandmother had wished” (Robinson 29). This was the final attempt that their grandmother had made in order for the girls to have a normal and traditional life. This is a solid example of how the sister’s lives are shaped by their family and their surroundings. Lucille’s ultimate concern in life is to conform to society and live a traditional life. She wishes to have a normal family and is sorrowful for all of the losses that she has experienced such as her mother’s and grandmother’s deaths. On the other hand, Ruthie, after spending more time with her future guardian, Aunt Sylvie, becomes quite the transient like her.
She is now fearful that everyone around her is wanting to understand the meaning of the wallpaper, predominantly Jennie. There is even an instance where the protagonist finds Jennie touching the wallpaper and becomes overwhelmed with anger and has to confine herself in order not to alarm Jennie, “She didn't know I was in the room, and when I asked her in a quiet, a very quiet voice, with the most restrained manner possible, what she was doing with the paper” (224). The symbolism here is that everyone was so quick to write off the protagonist’s mental wellbeing thinking that the rest cure would solve her hysteria, and now that they can see that there are more prominent issues, they are trying to examine her more closely, and it appears they are now too late and her ability to rationalize their intentions is
Children literature is a term that refers to the texts written for children. The artist uses creative ways to ensure that children are provided with educational books, touching on a variety of themes. This paper will include comparison of two characters from the two texts, “Hana's Suitcase: A True Story,” authored by Karen Levine and “Charlotte’s Web,” written by E.B. White, with the aim of understanding ways in which problems are solvable as indicated by selected characters.
The issue of identity is of primary importance in the cosmopolitan today’s world characterized by blending of cultures and globalization processes. Identity is a construct: the ways an individual understands what it is to belong to a certain gender, race or culture. As Jonathan Culler says “Literature has not only made identity a theme; It has played a significant role in the construction of the identity of the readers. Literary works encourage identification with characters by showing things from their point of view” (2005: 112). In this regard there is a lot of theoretical debate that concerns the nature of ‘subject’ or ‘self’. The question about the ‘subject’ is ‘what am I?’ and further the question whether the identity of the ‘subject’ ‘something given’ or ‘something constructed’ has