Eva Ibbotson: Writer of Theme, Characterization, and Imagery
British author Eva Ibbotson was one of the most imaginative writers to come about. Michael Morpurgo states, “Eva Ibbotson weaves a magic like no other. Once enchanted, always enchanted” (“Eva Ibbotson Dies Aged 85”). She may not have been well-known, but she was still admired among the people who were familiar with her works, and she was able to sell many novels. Ibbotson was born in 1925 in Vienna, Austria. She later moved to London, England, where she lived the remainder of her life. Her life ended on October 20, 2010. She was a full-time writer, but she had been a former schoolteacher and university teacher before (“Eva Ibbotson (1925-) Biography…”). Most of her books are meant for children and young adults. This could be because she had worked with kids for a large part of her years as a teacher. In addition, Ibbotson had spent her childhood transferring back and forth to her separated parents’ houses. Michelle Pauli states, “Ibbotson described this period of her childhood as "cosmopolitan but unhappy" and she attributed to it her desire for happy endings in which her characters always find a home.” Eva Ibbotson was “A self-confessed "happy endings freak", she expressed some bemusement at trends for darker children's fiction and her books always reassured young readers that good would be rewarded and that spoilt brats and greedy grown-ups would get their comeuppance (Pauli). She was also one to use different methods to seize her young audience’s attention. In her works, she used theme, characterization, and imagery to convey to her readers special literary aspects of the story.
In Eva Ibbotson’s book, The Great Ghost Rescue, she used the theme to demons...
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...- Personal, Addresses, Career, Honors Awards, Writings,
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---. Which Witch?
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Charlotte Brontë uses literary technique in her novel “Shirley” to characterize the phases of leaving childhood and entering adulthood. “Elf-land lies behind us, the shores of reality rises in front,” is a quote from”Shirley” that is a literary device used to show how the age of 18 is where Caroline Helstone is leaving childhood (“Elf-land”) and is about her new age. Brontë uses metaphors, personification, and imagery to foreshadow what it will be like to enter adulthood once becoming eighteen.
Zora Neale Hurston grew up in poverty, lived her life in infamy, and died in obscurity. Her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God dropped off the face of the Earth because of negative and damaging criticism from Richard Wright and Alain Locke, and the fact that she was a black woman in a discriminating culture. It then resurfaced 30 years later due to fans and the movements of the civil rights, woman’s rights, and Black Arts.
Comparing Edna of Kate Chopin's The Awakening and Nora of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House
From infancy, children depend on their parents to do for them what they cannot do for themselves. They learn to recognize the faces of loved ones from an early age, and with no one else to rely on, they trust those loved ones to keep them safe and sound. But what about the children who aren’t fortunate enough to have another human being to depend on, the children who are left to raise themselves? Furthermore, is raising oneself from an early age a possibility or do such ideas only exist in fantasy? In “Abandoned Children” Rachel Fuchs suggest that “Any child who lives beyond birth does so only through his or her dependency on another human being” (Fuchs, 6) While this has proved true, especially during the nineteenth century when the survival rate of children was only a small percentage of what it is today, it is orphans, children who are forced to stand on their own two feet in order to beat the odds constructed by society, that make for exciting adventure heroes. Although authors may choose to base their stories on orphans for a variety of reasons, this essay will attempt to understand the motives behind choosing an orphaned protagonist. Characters like Mary Lennox in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s story, “The Secret Garden” and Anne Shirley in L.M. Montgomery’s story “Anne of Green Gables” are identifiable characters and it is because of the popularity of these characters that orphans came to be a commonly used protagonist in the literary world. It is difficult to understand why such sorrowful characters would be ideal literary heroes. “Unlike orphan stories, most describe a childhood more sweet and innocent than most, if not all, children ever experience.” (Nodelman, 220) Do readers find ‘Orphan stories’ enticing simply because the...
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One day, there was this girl called Anayra Ivette but right after years pass they called her lightning girl she had special powers she also had purple hair and blue eyes. She's 5’7 tall when shes 15 years old and she's 5 years old in the beginning of the story. She lived in a small place where the woods are in Methuen she lives with her mom, dad, sister and brother in the country of massachusetts. When she was getting older as an adult she didn't like people she turned real bad. This is a tall tale about a girl using her powers.
Miss Havisham adopted a young, stunning girl named Estella. Daily, Miss Havisham forced the girl to steal the heart of young men and lovingly torture them. However Estella had no choice, Miss Havisham did not care if she wanted to go outside and run away. Estella’s nefarious mother eliminated any of her opinions or freedoms of being an innocent young girl. In chapter 33, Es...
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