*Meaning of the title: A junction is a place where roads come together or such as in this story break up in different directions. This regers to the end, where Mrs. Etterick asks for 'one single and one return to Sunbury, please'. Mrs. Etterick is going to drop her retarded daughter, Gina, at a special institution in Sunbury for Christmas. She doesn't want her daughter around: their ways are separated in the station (although Mrs. Etterick travels with Gina to Sunbury).
'Clapham' is a word that is often used by Theroux (the writer) in his other short stories (not in this book).
Narrator: The narrator is an omniscient and unintrusive narrator: he knows everything but he doesn't give a comment.
Hints in the story:
* In the beginning they are talking about Gina and Mrs. Etterick says that 'hers is not the sort of affliction that can be cured in a place like Sunbury'. We don't know what's in Sunbury but we know that there's something with Gina that cannot be cured there; she has a disease.
* Cox asks Mrs. Etterick 'Are you going away for Christmas?' and a bit further he asks 'So you might be alone?' and she answers 'I'm not sure'.
* p.111 They hear Gina's present: a transistor. Mrs. Etterick explains it 'I decided to give Gina her present early'
characters:
All the characters (4-Mrs.Etterick/Rudge/Cox/Gina) are telling stories but the important thing is that they don't listen to each other, they constantly interrupt each other; they 're very selfish in a certain way but they apparently work in the same company/building: Cox says that 'When I didn't see you in your office (p.111) ...' And Rudge said that is was 'a party with all the secretaries'. Another similarity is that they sill don't know what they're going to do with Christmas (where/with who?). Mrs. Diana Etterick: She has a daughter, Gina who is nearly thirty but she's retarded. She lost her husband Richard (who works at the university) in Thailand (while they were living there) to a twenty-one year old Chinese girl, who was determined to leave China. They're both now in Australia while she's alone (except for now). She's very cynic avout that - p.112 Rudge asks 'Was it a tropical disease?' 'Yes', replies Diana 'she was about 21...' She hates Christmas: she didn't went to the party at work and on p.112 she says 'In Bangkok, you never know it was Christmas' and 'I'd like to spend the next eight days in bed,watching rubbish television.
With only four characters in the play, each of these individuals plays a vital role in each other’s lives. Gary and Dave are juxtaposing characters in the play, with Christine and Sue-Anne being the other two. Prior to their first meeting, Gary was hardworking and determined, a classic Aussie tradie striving to build a house on a block of land he inherited from his passing father in hopes of providing a future for his unborn baby. Dave however, is quite contrasting in comparison to Gary. Dave is known for being laidback and lazy, playing a passive role. Despite not revealing much about himself, Dave is socializes well with the rest of the characters with c...
One of the many factors that have contributed to the success of Australian poetry both locally and internationally is the insightful commentary or depiction of issues uniquely Australian or strongly applicable to Australia. Many Australian poets have been and are fascinated by the issues relevant to Australia. Many in fact nearly all of these poets have been influenced or have experienced the subject matter they are discussing. These poets range from Oodgeroo Noonuccal Aboriginal and women’s rights activist to Banjo Patterson describing life in the bush. Bruce Dawe is also one of these poets. His insightful representation of the dreary, depressing life of many stay at home mothers in “Up the Wall” is a brilliant example of a poem strongly relevant to Australia.
They are already in a compromising situation in celebrating her eighteenth birthday at a gas station having coffee which was already established as being not the norm earlier with Marie recounting her own large party where her “mother made a large party” (154). There reality is broken when the teenagers arrive and “One of the girls went to the juke box and put money in” and they are forced to leave because of Carol condition which causes her to have a breakdown from the noise (157). The arrival of the kids forced them to come into contact with their own reality which can never coincide with the one they have fabricated. This small reminder of what the norm is supposed to be is often brought to their attention through others such as when they “could see, in the light shaft of light, a boy, two girls and a dog” (155). In this instance, they are walking on the way to their weekly picnic, which is in itself repetitive, when they are shown the norm of other having fun “the boy splashing in the water with the dog” while they are forced to go through the motions without much emotion. This depiction of the norm unsettles their reality and, even though they don’t stop trying to alter reality to shelter Carol, shows how dysfunctional their own situation is as it can be seen as a potential version of themselves without Carol’s
The story follows three girls- Jeanette, the oldest in the pack, Claudette, the narrator and middle child, and the youngest, Mirabella- as they go through the various stages of becoming civilized people. Each girl is an example of the different reactions to being placed in an unfamiliar environment and retrained. Jeanette adapts quickly, becoming the first in the pack to assimilate to the new way of life. She accepts her education and rejects her previous life with few relapses. Claudette understands the education being presented to her but resists adapting fully, her hatred turning into apathy as she quietly accepts her fate. Mirabella either does not comprehend her education, or fully ignores it, as she continually breaks the rules and boundaries set around her, eventually resulting in her removal from the school.
The fundamental characteristic of magical realism is its duality, which enables the reader to experience both the character’s past and the present. In the novel, Monkey Beach, Eden Robinson uses this literary device to address the the trauma and mistreatment of the Haisla community in Canada by unveiling the intimate memories of the protagonist, Lisamarie, and the resulting consequences of this oppression. Monkey Beach illustrates how abuse in the past leads to another form of self-medication in the future - a neverending, vicious cycle for the members of the Haisla community. Many characters in Monkey Beach are scarred from childhood sexual abuse and family neglect, and resort to drug and alcohol abuse as a coping mechanism. These appalling memories are an account of the impact of colonization on the Haisla territory which continues to haunt the Aboriginal community throughout generations.
One of the main characters is a girl named Jasmine but they call her Jazz for short. Jazz is basically a goth girl and she has black hair with a little pink on top. She goes to high school and is around the age of 15. Jazz is in a pretty bad mood usually but it just depends on what she is doing. The other main character's name is Antonia. Antonia is a very smart girl and helps other people out with their problems. She is like a councilor. She has about shoulder length dirty blond hair and is pretty average in height for her age. She is usually in a good mood but sometimes she can get mad or sad. The last main character is Antonia's mom. She has pretty good attitudes depending on what she feels like. She is in her mid-30's.
While running the Whistle Stop Cafe, Idgie and Ruth help certain individuals, especially throughout the extraordinary misery, when the ladies sustain each eager individual – frequently at no charge – that passes through their entryways. Idgie likewise supports the "colored" occupants of Whistle Stop by serving them from the indirect access – despite the fact that isolation is strictly upheld – and treating her colored people with the same reasonableness with which she treats her white workers. A scene that was very gruesome which leads to a character development in Idgie is at the point when the forthcoming Bennett tries to take the infant from her house one night, a hued workers, Sipsey, kills him with a griddle, and her child, Huge George, discards the body in that week's barbecue, which he then proceeds to feed to the analysts performing the homicide investigation. Eventually when Idgie is captured for the wrongdoing years after the fact, she declines at fault Huge George or Sipsey, and dangers time in jail deceiving the jury by providing a plausible excuse for all of them. At the point when Ruth dies, Idgie's story basically ceases from all operations, however at the end of the novel, it is indicated that she is still alive. But when idgie was young it was quite clear that she was not always like this because she used to be the type that needed to run about and scratch her knees, get bruised eyes, and get messy, and that is simply what she did. Not much her own particular Momma could do to control her. Another side that reveals a character trait of Idgie’s is the point when Buddy dies Idgie runs off and doesn’t let anybody in her family draw close to her. She might go back just to check how her family was doing, yet she lived ...
Throughout a lifetime, one can run through many different personalities that transform constantly due to experience and growing maturity, whether he or she becomes the quiet, brooding type, or tries out being the wild, party maniac. Richard Yates examines acting and role-playing—recurring themes throughout the ages—in his fictional novel Revolutionary Road. Frank and April Wheeler, a young couple living miserably in suburbia, experience relationship difficulties as their desire to escape grows. Despite their search for something different, the couple’s lack of communication causes their planned move to Europe to fall through. Frank and April Wheeler play roles not only in their individual searches for identity, but also in their search for a healthy couple identity; however, the more the Wheelers hide behind their desired roles, the more they lose sense of their true selves as individuals and as a pair.
Sidewalk is a book written by Mitchell Duneier, an American sociology professor at Princeton University, in 1999; where the book has gained a lot of favorable reviews, leading its winning the Los Angeles Times Book prize and C. Wright Mills Award. Similarly, the book had become a classic in urban studies, especially due to the interesting methodology, which was used by Duneier while he was conducting his research. The book is based on observations, participant observation and interviews, which gave the author the ability to live and interact with the book and magazine vendors on daily bases. Although, this gave him an insight into the life of the sidewalk, many methodological issues have concerned scholars and students of sociology since the day this book was published. Duneier had admitted during the book that he couldn’t be completely subjective while conducting his research and writing his book due to his involvement and personal relationship with people who work and live at the sidewalk, which raise the question, whether the research is still relevant if the researcher is only giving us an objective outcome?
“Wild Geese” is very different from many poems written. Oliver’s personal life, the free form of the poem along with the first line, “You do not have to be good,” and the imagery of nature contributes to Oliver’s intent to convince the audience that to be part of the world, a person does not need to aspire to civilization’s standards.
In the short story “Being There”, by Jerzy Kosinski, there are multiple examples of satire that are displayed throughout both the book and the movie. A few of them are: media, death, politics, and racism. The satire of the media was very similar in the book and the movie. Media played a big role in society and still does to this day.
Ballad of Birmingham by Dudley Randall. In Ballad of Birmingham, Dudley Randall illustrates a conflict between a child who wishes to march for civil rights and a mother who wishes only to protect her child. Much of this poem is read as dialogue between a mother and a child, a style which gives it an intimate tone and provides insight to the feelings of the characters. Throughout the poem, the child is eager to go into Birmingham and march for freedom with the people there.
Setting: This book starts out in this kids house his name is crash. Then they go to the arcade. That is where they spend most of the story. Then close to the end they go to the riverside.
The first member, Kristen, read the book called “A Perfect Night to go to China” by David Gilmour. Simply put, the book is about a father who is unable to find his son and consequently his life starts to fall apart. As the speaker was giving her brief summary, I was really intrigued when she mentioned the diverse characters. The main character, Roman – the father of the lost child, is more kept to himself and introverted. His wife on the other hand is essentially the exact opposite. She is more open with her emotions and not afraid of expressing it towards Roman. Stories with multi-dimensional characters are always exciting to read, seeing as how there are sometimes unique perspectives. Surprisingly, Kristen – who actually read the book in its entirety, did not like it very much. She was expecting a better ending and was disappointed by the unnecessary build up of suspense. With that being said, I am not going to discredit this book until I read it myself.
The novel Dublin 4 was written by Maeve Binchy in 1983. This consists of four short stories which all took place in a town called Dublin. The four short stories that Binchy wrote about are Dinner in Donnybrook, Flat in Ringsend, Decision in Belfield, and Murmurs in Montrose. Each story has different characters, plots, and imagery. Also they all have different themes and conflicts. At the end of each short story Maeve Binchy does not tell what the resolution to the conflict is. She also uses familiar experiences, common conflicts and characters in her writing. The novel Dublin 4 was written by Maeve Binchy in 1983. This consists of four short stories which all took place in a town called Dublin.