We scrambled onto the ship and teeter tottered back and forth for a moment while the Captain licked his finger and pointed it towards the heavens to measure the wind’s speed and direction. “We be headin’ west.” I pulled anchor and off we glided, gleaming gold smoke trailing behind. The sky was eye-achingly blue, and the sea a pane of glass spreading endlessly before us. For a time, I lost myself in the pleasant rhythm of the paddle wheel’s flat blades lapping at the water. The Captain sat watching me from the bow, while Mason and the Kidd lazed in the copper sunshine sipping limeade and playing crazy eights. Gypsy whistled and waltzed with a broom around the deck. “We couldn’t have asked for better weather,” the Kidd said, then suddenly his …show more content…
“Did I ever tell you about the troll I met in the Forbidden Forest?” he asked. “No,” I’d said, my jaw hanging open like a big-mouthed bass. “What sort of troll?” “The horrible deformed kind. With yellow, putrid skin, glowing eyes, shiny fangs that sparkled in the moonlight, and a silver tongue. Some say he introduced darkness and was cursed to wander through the woods forever.” “The curse?” I finally asked her. She crossed her wings and sighed. “Yes the curse. Be wary for it will be yours unless you defeat the troll and set our fate right. You and your family will be bound in chains, destined for death. This I have seen.” A distant clap of what sounded like thunder echoed, and the darkened sea surged boiling and bubbling together with the blotted out moon into a double, double toil and trouble, a witch’s brew that dumped thick waves resembling gruel ashore. Gypsy glanced at the night sky, like she was considering our plight. “How about I take first watch, huh? You get some sleep.” I was still reeling with so many questions, but she started to hum, soft and sweet, and I laid back on the sand, my eyes stinging from the salt. And after a few bars of Gentle on My Mind, I was
But nearly as soon as Marion's dreams of sailing became reality, the reality became a nightmare. On the voyage home, a whale rammed the schooner, ripping the seams and sending water into the hold. Before the schooner went down, the captain, al...
As one of America’s leading contemporary poet’s, Sharon Olds is known for the intense personal and emotional poetry that she writes. Her ability to intimately and graphically divulge details of her personal life allows readers to delve into the deepest parts of not only her mind, but of their own as well. Sharon Olds uses her writing to allow readers to experience the good and bad of life through her eyes, yet allows readers the interpretive freedom to define her works as they fit into their own lives. Olds’ ability to depict both wonderful and tragic events in stories such as “First Thanksgiving” and “Still Life in Landscape”with beautifully gruesome clarity allow readers a gritty real-life experience unlike any other.
“Bye kids make sure you have everything ready and on the table when we are back from the harvesting autumn day parade make sure you have applesauce for the baby alright bye love you make sure you don’t set the kitchen on fire.
“Sinking or not, we have to get on one of these boats. It looks like they’re letting first-class on first, so we’re in luck.” I said to Joe. On the deck below us, I could see masses of people that looked like herds of sheep being rushed in one direction. I noticed myself a little more seasick than I was before, and that the deck seemed slanted. It was obvious the ship was sinking now. A guard nearby was calling for first-class passengers so we went there and climbed aboard.
As my family and I sped along the coast, the sour smell of sulfur vents and sea salt pungently gusted through my nostrils. My clothes were damp from the constant spray of seawater. My sense of balance was overcome by the sequential hop from wave to wave and – combined with the
As the story opens, the young captain is standing out on the deck looking at the scenery as the ship pulls away. In the distance he notices a ship and on his right, two clumps of trees marking the river's mouth. He notices the “flat shore joined to the stable sea (83).” The captain can scarcely discern where one element of nature begins and another ends. Similarly, at this point he himself is at a faintly discerning line between immaturity and maturity, between landsmen and seamen. He is an outsider according to the skeptical crew and he is a stranger to his ship and himself.
Stephen Crane’s short story “The Open Boat” is a story of conflict with nature and the human will and fight to survive. Four men find themselves clinging to life on a small boat amidst a raging sea after being shipwrecked. The four men, the oiler (Billie), the injured captain, the cook, and the correspondent are each in their own way battling the sea as each wave crest threatens to topple the dinghy. “The Open Boat” reflects human nature’s incredible ability to persevere under life-and-death situations, but it also shares a story of tragedy with the death of the oiler. It is human nature to form a brotherhood with fellow sufferers in times of life threatening situations to aid in survival. Weak from hunger and fatigue, the stranded men work together as a community against nature to survive their plight and the merciless waves threatening to overtake the boat. The brotherhood bond shared between the men in “The Open Boat” is evident through the narrator’s perspective, “It would be difficult to describe the subtle brotherhood of men that was here established on the seas. No one said that it was so. No one mentioned it. But it dwelt in the boat, and each man felt it warm him” (Crane 993). Crane understood first-hand the struggle and the reliance on others having survived the real life shipwreck of the S.S. Commodore off the coast of Florida in 1897. “The Open Boat” is an intriguing read due to Crane’s personal experience and though it is a fictional piece it shares insight into the human mind. Crain did not simply retell a story, but by sharing the struggles with each character he sought to portray the theme of an inner struggle with nature by using the literary devices of personification of nature, symbolism of the boat, and iron...
“You don’t know me.” My voice sounded as unsteady as his stance. He shrugged as he chuckled; the laughter turned my blood cold. He seemed to know something I did not.
Second of all, in the poem “Lake Isle of Innisfree”, the reader sometimes fails to understand what is really happening. “I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water...
I read the next line, “And the ship sailed onward, gliding serenely down the moonlit river toward the dark lands beyond.”
I left to be free. I'm Arnald the turkey. I was in a pen for what seemed like forever. I ran away because they said Thanksgiving was coming. They said they would pick the meatiest one of all the turkeys on the farm. I new I was the one. I had heard of this dredful holiday but I had never experanst it. So I knew I had to plan my escape. So my plan was to go in the hole were Peter the pig goes poo-poo. And travel under ground until I saw another hole. I went up and I felt like I was in a different world. Then I saw a man I was to tired to run but he did not want me for Thanksgiving. I'm so glad I ran
"People either love it, or they hate it," Fred proclaimed again, for the umpteenth time. His reddish face almost glowed against the gray sky. The combination of giddy grin, round cheeks, and fine, yellow, tousled hair yielded a face far too boyish for a man in his mid-fifties. But the always-present twinkle in Fred's eye was ever so slightly diminished today, and I knew why: he feared that his intuition might be mistaken and that I might not, after all, take to today's activity. His concern was compounded by weather; it was far from ideal for this, my first sail. Why was it so important to him that I like sailing anyway?
Near the masts Frank rocked up and down and up with the waves. It was a feeling like no other to him; the fact that the gentle movements could turn rough at any time gave him so much pleasure from the start of the ride to the finish. He loved to sail out as far as he could go before he got tired from the rocking motion and had to stop going farther. He loved trying to venture farther and farther out each time before he had to turn back; his favorite part was the rough sea where the waves were rougher and rougher as he kept going. A sudden gust made him think about turning back, but he knew that they had gone too far to turn back, and he knew he had to keep going until the waves had reached their peaks. Then they passed a part of the water where the waves suddenly stopped and quickly gave way to a very calm feeling inside of him so that he could relax and recollect the ride so farº.
On November 26, 2009, Thanksgiving day, I could hear men shouting, “ Give me everything!” outside of my house. My father had told us, children, to stay inside while he headed out into the chaos. My little sister began to weep so my older sister and I put some of her favorite music on but very low. “ Cierra los ojos y no pienses en lo que está pasando afuera. Close your eyes and don’t think about what’s happening outside.” She stopped sobbing and I was relieved. My little cousins did the same thing as my sister. I decided to take a peek at what was happening considering that my head had already been filled with curiosity. I saw two men wearing ski masks outside my house, one of them holding a bag and the other pointing a gun at my father. I
Fear has taken a hold of every man aboard this ship, as it should; our luck is as far gone as the winds that led us off course. For nights and days gusts beyond measure have forced us south, yet our vessel beauty, Le Serpent, stays afloat. The souls aboard her, lay at the mercy of this ruthless sea. Chaotic weather has turned the crew from noble seamen searching for glory and riches, to whimpering children. To stay sane I keep the holy trinity close to my heart and the lady on my mind. Desperation comes and goes from the men’s eyes, while the black, blistering clouds fasten above us, as endless as the ocean itself. The sea rocks our wood hull back and forth but has yet to flip her. The rocking forces our bodies to cling to any sturdy or available hinge, nook or rope, anything a man can grasp with a sea soaked hand. The impacts make every step a danger. We all have taken on a ghoulish complexion; the absence of sunlight led the weak souls aboard to fight sleep until sick. Some of us pray for the sun to rise but thunder constantly deafens our cries as it crackles above the mast. We have been out to sea for fifty-five days and we have been in this forsaken storm for the last seventeen.