Time can change everything including a person’s personality, which is shown in Stephen King’s ‘The Last Rung on the Ladder”, by portraying one of the main characters, Kitty. She goes through a profound change after her life begins to disintegrate. At the beginning of the story, she appears to be daring and trusting but later without her brother to help her, she becomes hopeless and weak who would rather jump from the top of a building than be tortured by life.
Kitty is a daring person with strong willingness to undertake new things that might involve risks of danger. Early in the story King reveals this character in the eyes of Larry, when Larry describes his sister as “she was the second biggest tomboy in Hemingford.” (King 22). “Tomboy”
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After they enter the stage of adulthood, Kitty has been writing his brother many letter about her life lately but every time Larry seems to have different excuses, which makes her tired of waiting as she writes one letter, “ Can you come, Larry? It 's been a while.” (King 25). She particularly adds this remark at the end of the letter to remind his brother of her purpose of writing letter to him and her hope is slowly but surely destroyed. Throughout the story, Kitty exhibits drastic change but her brother only notices the change after she commits suicide. He describes, “I couldn 't believe that my sister and the beaten woman who signed 'Kitty ' in a circle at the bottom of her letters were really the same person.” (King 25). Larry has grown up but he forgets to catch up Kitty’s growth and he still remains at the point, where her “sister was a girl with pigtails, still without breasts.” “Pigtails” here can represent naivety and in opposite, “breast” is always associated with maturity. Larry is blinded in front of Kitty’s growth and simply ignores her need, which subsequently leads to her loss in hope. Now she loses trust in both her husband and her brother, who only turn her trusts into despair. “She was the one who stopped writing” (King 26), as Larry later realizes. Kitty finally decides to lay her pen to rest so there is no more disappointment, but the only thing left for her is desperation and endless suffering. She struggles to find a reason to go on living and tries to battle with herself about committing suicide, but her brother has not yet shown up. In the last letter, Kitty writes, “I 've been thinking about it a lot lately... and what I 've decided is that it would have been better for me if the last rung had broken before you could put the hay down.” (King 26) Kitty regrets that Larry saves her and she knows the hay will not be there anymore because there is
Cara Sierra Skyes has a hard role in Perfect by Ellen Hopkins. Cara is in love with her boyfriend Sean, she describes him as fun, good-looking, adventurous, and a jock. Everyone expects the perfect girl to go out with the perfect guy. Caras mom has always taught her, appearances are everything. So, Cara held onto that. She is a pretty and popular cheerleader. Cara holds a special trait, she is actually really smart and has a scholarship lined up at Stanford. Problem is, Cara has a twin brother, Connor. Connor is super suicidal and has tried many times to kill himself, sadly one day he succeeds and leaves a girlfriend and his family behind in his high school years. So everything is definitely not the idea her parents have of “perfect”. At Least she tries. Cara is in love with her boyfriend Sean but she starts to spark an interest for a girl at the ski slopes one day and she becomes very confused. Between dealing with all her school activities, her grades, and her brother that she worries about all the time, Cara is struggling to keep her life together and be
One of the main characters in the short story “The Things They Carried”, written by Tim O’Brien, is a twenty-four year old Lieutenant named Jimmy Cross. Jimmy is the assigned leader of his infantry unit in the Vietnam War, but does not assume his role accordingly. Instead, he’s constantly daydreaming, along with obsessing, over his letters and gifts from Martha. Martha is a student at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey, Jimmy’s home state. He believes that he is in love with Martha, although she shows no signs of loving him. This obsession is a fantasy that he uses to escape from reality, as well as, take his mind off of the war that surrounds him, in Vietnam. The rest of the men in his squad have items that they carry too, as a way of connecting to their homes. The story depicts the soldiers by the baggage that they carry, both mentally and physically. After the death of one of his troops, Ted Lavender, Jimmy finally realizes that his actions have been detrimental to the squad as a whole. He believes that if he would have been a better leader, that Ted Lavender would have never been shot and killed. The physical and emotional baggage that Jimmy totes around with him, in Vietnam, is holding him back from fulfilling his responsibilities as the First Lieutenant of his platoon. Jimmy has apparent character traits that hold him back from being the leader that he needs to be, such as inexperience and his lack of focus; but develops the most important character trait in the end, responsibility.
A young 12-year-old boy by the name of Aaron Kurlander faced many hardships when he was left to fend for himself while his family was separated from him in the 1930’s depression era in St. Louis at the Empire hotel. Aaron uses his imagination and sense of reality to survive and he never seems to let his spirits sink. While Aaron was left to fend for himself, his father seems to think he had good reasons for the families absences; Aaron’s brother Sullivan was shipped off to go live with relatives, his mother (Mrs. Kurlander) admitted to a sanitarium for tuberculosis, and his father (Mr. Eric Kurlander) who was a door-to-door sales man who sold wickless candles left town to travel for a watch
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.
In the novel The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton a teenage boy named Ponyboy lives with his two older brothers named Soda and Darry, and there is some controversy on whether or not his brothers are able to take proper care of Ponyboy. All three of the brothers are apart of the neighborhood gang called “The Greasers”, which is more like a brotherhood of underprivileged boys that have eachother’s backs rather than a gang. Ponyboy finds himself involved with the murder of an egotistical “Soc” named Bob, and is at risk of being taken away from his family and friends. Ponyboy should be able to stay with his brothers, because he is a well-rounded student that obeys the law for the most part, and his brothers are able to provide financial and emotional
In the novel 11/22/63, Stephen King uses settings to describe a vivid atmosphere for the reader. As Jake travels throughout the novel, King brings life to the setting by taking Jake through a muggy Derry, a fictional town in Maine King happens to use in his other novels, as well as showing the characteristics of the citizens in Jodie, Texas where he experiences love and romance. Derry is used to portray a deeper grimmer city in Maine that King has referred to before and doing so in this novel to show the extant of uninviting scene that King portrays for us.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of four novels written about his world famous detective, Sherlock Holmes. However, unlike the other books written about Sherlock Holmes, much of The Hound of the Baskervilles is absent of the detective. Instead, the audience is left to work through the mystery of who murdered Mr. Baskerville with Sherlock Holmes’ assistant and friend, as well as the narrator of the novel, Dr. John Watson. There are multiple reasons Doyle may have decided to make Watson the narrator, and to remove Holmes from a large portion of the novel. First, as Holmes is such a dry and clinical person, by making Watson the narrator, Doyle is able to employ more descriptive and entertaining writing. Second,
Only Stephen King could write such a spellbinding tale of a bunch of boys doing nothing but walking.
Many talk about the road less traveled; however, words mean nothing without the follow through of commitment. The rare person who is able to follow their true calling in life, must be totally focused on their goal and objectives without distraction, walks alone.
A character that was admirable in the novel “we all fall down” is John. John is the father of Will who is the main character, they spend nearly the entire story together looking for a way out of the world trade center during the 9/11 attacks. During the story you learn that John is very smart, brave, and respected. These are all characteristics which play a crucial role in saving lives such as his co-workers and a random lady they find on the way named ting, but mainly in the ending John and Will successfully escape.
Many people think that reading more can help them to think and develop before writing something. Others might think that they don’t need to read and or write that it can really help them to brainstorm things a lot quicker and to develop their own ideas immediately (right away). The author’s purpose of Stephen King’s essay, Reading to Write, is to understand the concepts, strategies and understandings of how to always read first and then start something. The importance of this essay is to understand and comprehend our reading and writing skills by brainstorming our ideas and thoughts a lot quicker. In other words, we must always try to read first before we can brainstorm some ideas and to think before we write something. There are many reasons why I chose Stephen King’s essay, Reading to Write, by many ways that reading can help you to comprehend, writing, can help you to evaluate and summarize things after reading a passage, if you read, it can help you to write things better and as you read, it can help you to think and evaluate of what to write about.
Holly Janquell is a runaway. Wendelin Van Draanan creates a twelve year old character in the story, Runaway, that is stubborn and naive enough to think she can live out in the streets alone, until she is eighteen.She has been in five foster homes for the past two years. She is in foster care because her mother dies of heroin overdose. In her current foster home, she is abused, locked in the laundry room for days without food, and gets in even more trouble if she tries to fight back. Ms.Leone, her schoolteacher, could never understand her, and in Holly’s opinion, probably does not care. No one knows what she is going through, because she never opens up to any one. Ms. Leone gives Holly a journal at school one day and tells her to write poetry and express her feelings. Holly is disgusted. But one day when she is sitting in the cold laundry room, and extremely bored, she pulls out the diary, and starts to write. When Holly can take no more of her current foster home, she runs, taking the journal with her. The journal entries in her journal, are all written as if she is talking to Ms.Leone, even though she will probably never see her again. Over the course of her journey, Holly learns to face her past through writing, and discovers a love for poetry. At some point in this book, Holly stops venting to Ms. Leone and starts talking to her, almost like an imaginary friend, and finally opens up to her.
A solitary woman sits in conversation with a benign tumour that had just recently been removed from her ovary. As the woman speaks, the inanimate tumour, which she has named Hairball, looks on from its glass encased perch atop the fireplace. The scene is macabre and certainly unusual, but such is the life of Kat, the main character in Margaret Atwood’s short story, Hairball. Kat’s life is filled with the unusual and the shocking, a lifestyle that has been self-imposed. Throughout the years, Kat, an "avant garde" fashion photographer, has altered her image, even her name, to suit the circumstances and the era. Over time Kat has fashioned a seemingly strong and impenetrable exterior, but as Kat’s life begins to disintegrate we discover that the strong exterior is just a facade devised to protect a weak and fragile interior. Kat’s facade begins to unravel and she undergoes significant personal losses; in fact, the losses go so far as to include her identity or lack there of. As Kat begins to lose control, her mental and physical disintegration is hastened by three major conflicts: The conflict with the society in which she lives, the conflict with her romantic interests (specifically Ger), and finally the physical conflict she faces with her own body. In the end, these conflicts will threaten to strip Kat of her lifestyle as well as her name.
Cat’s Eye is a “self-portrait, of sorts” (446). It contains Elaine’s face from the upper half of the nose up. Behind the head, a pier glass hangs in which part of her hair, younger hair, is visible in addition to three small figures in the snow. This painting represents Elaine’s identity as a child. Her half face shows uncertainty, her uncertainty of who she was. Although cat’s eye was what her marble was called, there is no marble in the painting. However, when looking at the marble, Elaine sees her “life entire” (434). The painting also shows her entire life, as it includes and older Elaine and a young
While all this is going on, Dolly’s younger sister, Kitty, is in the process of being courted by two potential suitors: Levin, an awkward landowner, and Alexei Vronsky, a dashing military officer. Kitty ends up opting for the good life and turns down Levin in favor of Vronsky. Shortly afterwards Vronsky meets Anna and becomes infatuated with Anna instead of Kitty. This devastates Kitty, who promptly falls ill. Levin, who becomes depressed after Kitty denies his advances, retires to his country estate. Anna too finds herself to possibly love Vronsky, but after some deep thought, she disregards this as nothing more than a crush.