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Tragedy in literature
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The whole predicament was unknown; something unexplainable, still to this day. My name is Olivia. I am sixteen and currently serving a fifteen year imprisonment. The ironic thing is, I don’t remember how, why, or what I did. Just that I have the distressing scar through my stomach to prove something happened that night. The even more ironic thing is, it wasn’t I who did it, it was her. I lead a normal teenage life, just six months ago; at least, as normal as teenage life can ever be. I went to school, I had a best friend. Yes, I had my ups and downs, but it never resulted in anything so gruesome, evil or sick as what happened the night of Friday 13th five months ago.
It all began the night my best friend Daisy killed herself. Not to mention her five-year-old twin brother and sister seconds before. She butchered them with a kitchen knife, before turning the blade on herself. All three of them were left to be found by their mother. I was uncontrollably hysterical when I found out by an inevitably shaken-up father to Daisy, who was reluctant to playing the bearer of bad news; excruc...
Diane Urban, for instance, was one of the many people who were trapped inside this horror. She “was comforting a woman propped against a wall, her legs virtually amputated” (96). Flynn and Dwyer appeal to the reader’s ethical conscience and emotions by providing a story of a victim who went through many tragedies. Causing readers to feel empathy for the victims. In addition, you began to put yourself in their shoes and wonder what you would do.
The style of editing in His Girl Friday follows the description of what Bordwell labeled as "invisible editing. " The majority of the shots have a very smooth flow that causes people who watch the film to be almost entirely unaware of the cuts between scenes. For example, the very first scene of the movie is a lateral tracking shot that shows the scale of the newsroom. The very next shot is of the women working at the switchboard in the newsroom and it transitions between scenes with a dissolve.
1 It was a cold March night in 1980 in China. There was only Tyler Day, TJ Paul, 2 and Lauren Day at the movie. It was late at night, when Tyler, TJ, and, Lauren were 3 leaving from the movies. They decided to play hide n seek after watching the movie 4 Friday The 13th. The three of them split up, and they all had night vision goggles so 5 they didn't hit any trees. Lauren volunteered as tribute to be it, but that was kinda 6 weird because she is never it first in any game they played with people.
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)
Suffering from the death of a close friend, the boy tries to ignore his feelings and jokes on his sister. His friend was a mental patient who threw himself off a building. Being really young and unable to cope with this tragedy, the boy jokes to his sister about the bridge collapsing. "The mention of the suicide and of the bridge collapsing set a depressing tone for the rest of the story" (Baker 170). Arguments about Raisinettes force the father to settle it by saying, "you will both spoil your lunch." As their day continues, their arguments become more serious and present concern for the father who is trying to understand his children better. In complete agreement with Justin Oeltzes’ paper, "A Sad Story," I also feel that this dark foreshadowing of time to come is an indication of the author’s direct intention to write a sad story.
they learn that they have all played a part in the suicide of a young
At the old age of 90 years old, being on my death bed, I have a story that needs to be addressed desperately before I pass. My story took place almost 80 years ago in 1935, when I was 15 years old in the woods behind my house, only a year after my sister was brutally killed. I will leave my writings on my bedside, as for when I pass someone is bound to read it. Being believed isn’t my concern, only that my story is known by someone, anyone, and that I can get some type of release before I pass.
Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s
October 2, 2001 started like a normal Tuesday morning at Hotchkiss High School. As I lazily wandered past Mr. Schelle into his advisory class, I noticed that he seemed quite upset about something. I dared not ask what had happened, for it was really none of my business. Soon after the bell rang, Mr. Schelle, whose eyes were welling up with tears, struggled to compose himself enough to say, "Guys, I've got some bad news for you." I sensed a bit of hesitation as he proceeded to read a letter as clearly as possible. The letter explained that Derek Grillos, a sophomore at our school and a good friend of mine, had died the night before. At first, my mind failed to register his name. I sat wondering who Derek Grillos was. As everyone questioned Mr. Schelle to find out who Derek was, I sat quiet. Finally, the fact that Derek, my "soccer buddy", had died hit me and hit me hard. I could feel my eyes darting back and forth in confusion and my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my toes. I stared aimlessly at everything yet nothing. I su...
People, like Brittany Leedham was fortuitous to survive from a teen car accident, but others like her boyfriend Zak Kerinuk was not able to come out of the crash alive. The event started the Saturday night after Thanksgiving, November 29th, 2008. Just in the year 2008 alone, a total of 3,118 teenagers in America died due to a result of a car accident. They were riding in a convertible Mustang GT going at 70 miles per hour when Zak swerved off the road, hitting a hackberry tree. The impact killed him as she struggled to survive, losing half of her own blood, her legs broke during the crash, as well as her pelvic bone as she called out for help. Looking back at the morbid crime scene and going back to the one spot where the event took place, Brittany could not look at the blood stained tree as the perpetrator of the crash. She states it was the “teenage sense of indestructibility.”
The ride home had been the most excruciating car ride of my life. Grasping this all new information, coping with grief and guilt had been extremely grueling. As my stepfather brought my sister and I home, nothing was to be said, no words were leaving my mouth.Our different home, we all limped our ways to our beds, and cried ourselves to sleep with nothing but silence remaining. Death had surprised me once
Death is something that is sometimes misunderstood and hard to accept. In James Baldwin’s short story, “Sonny’s Blues”, the reader learns of four deaths that had occurred during the narrator’s life time. One of the deaths that the narrator describes was of his daughter, Gracie. Gracie had died of polio. Originally, she was thought to only have a cold. Four days later, Gracie fell and there was no sound. When Isabel decided to go see, she found her daughter curled up on the floor and not breathing. By the time Gracie found her breath, she let out a horrifying scream. “And when she did scream, it was the worst sound, Isabel says, that she'd ever heard in all her life, and she still hears it sometimes in her dreams. Isabel will sometimes wake me up with a low, moaning, strangling sound and I have to be quick to awaken her and hold her to me and where Isabel is weeping against me seems a mortal wound” (92). From the quote above, the reader can picture the suffering Isabel is under from the lost of her daughter. One can also tell that she has not been able to deal with it completely by her reoccurring nightmares. Losing a child is very hard to deal with. It brings a lot of pain, sadness, but most of all much suffering. It is s...
Edward Buchan, a young man of 19, who lived at 42, Robin Hood-lane, Poplar, was seen by his sister cutting at his throat. His father tried to stop him by seizing the razor blade, but the suicide drew it through the former's fingers and ran round the room slashing at his throat all the time, till he dropped down with his head nearly cut off. His uncle committed suicide in the same way three years ago. Dr. Skilly said to a coroner's jury to-day that the only thing that was not cut through was the bone. It was the most gory thing he had ever seen.
By the time I got home, my brother had already arrived and was enthusiastically recounting the day’s events to my mom, who had obviously been crying. When he finally stopped carrying on, my mom told me to sit down and then she told me. I will never forget her exact words or even the way she said them. “Megan committed suicide today.” I stared blankly at her, I knew she had to be lying, she had to be wrong, Megan would never do that. We had been too good of friends for too long, I knew her too well. Megan was always happy, she always had a joke to tell. She had such a bright future, she was an excellent athlete and it seemed as though she succeeded in everything she tried.
Death can be very scary for the elder and young. One never really knows how they will react to the event of death. Even though inevitable, death can be shocking for some or troubling for others. A shocking and a troubling reality of death are depicted in two short stories, Used to Live Here Once by Jean Rhys and A Father’s Story by Andre Dubus. How characters in a story react to death are often different from one another.