“Goodbye daddy.” Tears from Abraham dropped like raindrops onto his father’s casket. Four of his father’s brothers grabbed the handles on each corner of the casket, slowly picking it up and placing it into the hearse. As the hearse drove out of the driveway, Abraham’s mother fell down on to her knees, covered her face with both hands, and sobbed. Behind her, Sophia hugged Abraham explaining, “Daddy is in a happier place now. Mommy is going to be okay.”
As a result of his father’s funeral ceremony, the family was driven further into debt. Everyday necessities became luxuries for the family and each member took turns sacrificing his or her meal each day to save some money. Electricity was a luxury in his small village of Milham, so wood was used as the primary source for keeping warm, and candles were extremely expensive.
In order to earn an income for the family, young Abraham took his father’s job chopping wood. It was a dangerous time of the year to cut wood. Snowstorms were common and occurred daily, and the winds from the blizzards could toss a full-grown man into the air as if he was light as a feather. Abraham woke up early every morning, even before the sun did, to the chirping from the birds. As he gathered all of his tools from the shack and placed them into his rucksack, he noticed a very old, rusty axe that belonged to his father. As he gazed at the axe, he all of the sudden pictured himself walking to the forest with his father and his father telling him that one day his axe was going to be his. He gripped the axe, swinging it around, envisioning him cutting wood like his father had.
As he walked to the forest with his fellow woodchoppers, he passed Lake Milham, a lake where he and his father loved to swim in every...
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... a reward for your honesty.”
John, standing with a grin on his face, was watching this whole event from behind a tree just a couple feet from where Abraham was sitting. He hid as Abraham walked by him and he approached the same lake with his own axe. Checking his surroundings, John threw his brown axe into the lake and waited for the white figure to appear. Bubbles began to form, melting the ice around, and the figure appeared. “Hello John. Earlier today, an axe came flying into this lake and almost hit me. Did you lose this axe by chance?” The figure pulled out a gold axe from behind its back, the colors reflecting brightly on John’s face. “That gold one you are holding in your hand is mine. I must have lost it during the day,” replied John. The figure smiled, realizing John’s dishonesty and sunk back into the water, taking both the golden axe and his brown axe.
Due to the hidden charges for the house, he finds that he is dreadfully wrong. Eventually, all of the family members must seek work, just to survive. Life becomes a hand-to-mouth proposition. Even after the family loses the house, things do not get any easier.... ...
With a large family such as the Stanleys, financially supporting everyone in the family is difficult with a stable economy, let alone during a period of struggle (Frontline Video, 2013). During this time, the middle class was in poverty, meaning people in poverty originally, are far financially worse (Frontline Video, 2013). The father, Claude, was a pastor (Frontline Video, 2013). The mother, Jacki, made efforts to find work (Frontline Video, 2013). She spent most of her time helping her husband run the church (Frontline Video, 2013).
In this article “ The Old Man isn’t There Anymore” Kellie Schmitt writes about the people she lives with crying in the hallway and when she asks what happened she is told that the old man is gone. This starts the big ordeal of a Chinese funeral that Schmitt learns she knows nothing about. Schmitt confuses the reader in the beginning of the story, as well as pulling in the reader's emotions, and finishes with a twist.
Before reaching his destination , John begins to allow nature to be his mentor. “The three deer passed in the valley, going east….I followed them”(Benét 77). He travels alone, relying on the fauna to guide him the right way. John arrives to the place of the gods where his ignorance comes into play again. He sees a variety of appliances but is not aware of their names. “There was a cooking place but no wood, and though there was a machine to cook food, there was no place to put fire in it” (Benét 82). He is describing an oven but living from an isolated world for decades, John is a stranger to all things modern. After more investigating, he falls asleep and dreams about the past. John is perplexed by the new things he had never seen before, “When gods war with gods, they use weapons we do not know. It was fire falling out of the sky and mist that poisoned” (Benét 84). It is noticeable to the audience that John is again envisioning technology that he is not familiar with. He then encounters a “dead god” and soon realizes something life-changing about the gods, “...they had been men neither gods or demons….They were men” (Benét
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)
The excitement the family had when they received the call about the dead cows, also shows their poverty. Their scavenging and meek options presented how they were in need of money and food. In my family, I am lucky enough to be able to buy clothes and food from stores. Along with necessities, I am able to receive luxuries such as eating out and going on vacation. Even though I grew up with money doesn’t mean my family has no budget, my family has the same ideals to eat what you get and not to waste food. But their family waste isn’t an option for food as it becomes part of a bread pudding when they have leftovers. (Blow, 2014,
Sal longed to visit her mother’s grave for quite some time, but her father refuses to take her. She believes that if she makes it to the grave by her mother’s birthday, her mother would miraculously be there for her. Sal takes a road trip with her grandparents across the United States of America. To pass the time she tells a mysterious tale about Phoebe Winterbottom. The main purpose of the trip was to go to her mother’s grave in Lewiston, Idaho. They stop at some of the major tourist destinations along the way, including The Black Hills, Mt. Rushmore, Lake Michigan, and even Yellowstone National Park. While on the trip, Sal’s grandmother, Grams, suffers from a stroke and they make an emergency trip to the hospital. Sal’s Grandfather, Gramps, tells Sal to drive to Lewiston by herself to finish the trip. On the way, traffic police stop her and explain to her that underage driving is dangerous. Sal explains to the police man that she is taking a trip to see her mom’s grave. The helpful police officer offers to take Sal to see her mom’s grave. On the trip to her mom’s grave, she realizes why her grandparents took her on this trip. They wa...
... a prayer for the dead. Meanwhile Uncle Andrew takes Rufus for a walk and tells him about the “magnificent butterfly” that settled on Jay's coffin just as it was lowered into the grave before flying off high into the sky – an episode that Andrew believes “miraculous.” Andrews then reviles Father Jackson, who has refused to read the full burial service, since Jay has never been baptized. Rufus struggles to understand the hostility that Andrew feels toward the church even as he loves Christians such as Mary and Hannah. Rufus wants to ask for some clarification, but instead he and Andrew walk silently home. Thus Agee ends the novel on a note of unresolved conflict. As he grows up, it is suggested, Rufus will continue to suffer from the same divisions of faith and social milieu that are involved in his parents' relationship, and he will develop into the contemplative artist who already, at the age of six, has shown such sensitivity to human motives and the language in which they are conveyed. Written toward the end of his life, A Death in the Family may be considered Agee's attempt to understand the origins of, and to come to terms with, the self-division that plagued his existence.
Many people that did not come from rich families lived a life of extreme poverty. They sent kids to work in factories to help pay for things needed to survive, such as food, clothing, and other necessary materials. There were many poor families living in poverty during the Victorian Era: ‘I reflected. Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to children: they have not much idea industrious,...
... I met my father crying’ and are about deaths. ‘Little – Less – Nothing and that ended it’ ‘He had always taken funerals in his stride.’ Also, that both deaths were accidents. ‘The saw ........ seemed to leap out of the boys hands.’
This chapter breaks from the plot progression and focuses on Jerry remembering his mother's illness and death. She was a hard-working, passionate woman, and it was incredibly difficult to watch. During her illness, Jerry and his dad grew estranged. Jerry felt his father was sleepwalking through that period of time. Cormier describes a scene at Jerry's mother's funeral in which Jerry and his father shared their first and last moment of emotion, crying and hugging at the cemetery.
The parents moved her body into their own bed the night before they took their daughter's body to the crematorium, with each of them holding one of her hands for the last time. Ilse cut some strands of her daughter's hair to save, and told Joshua his sister his sister was dead, and would live in their hearts forever.
...solute silence in the room before Francis screamed and bolted to the door. They heard her footsteps taking the stairs three steps at a time. Margaret hopped nimbly out of the casket, slipped her shoes back on her feet, and with a sly smile she whispered, “I know the back way out.” The three children followed their grandmother down a narrow set of back stairs and through the small bricked in garden at the back of the mortuary. When they were safely out of view the four threw themselves down onto a patch of grass and screamed with laughter, until their stomachs ached. Harrison and Clara rolled into each other’s arms trying to stifle their laughter, but still they shook with uncontrollable hysteria. Julian shook like a wet puppy on the ground. Then they regrouped arm in arm, made their way back down Gray Street, letting Mr. Adams signal them across the street once more.
“It will be gone in a minute,” his mom said. Aaron didn’t see how that would be possible. He waited a little while and gingerly opened the door a crack. He took a long whiff of air and found it fresh. Grandpa was holding Baby Sister. Grandpa’s eyes asked Aaron if he wanted to hold her. Aaron shook his head. How did Grandpa know how to hold a baby? Aaron stepped closer to the wheel chair. Baby Sister gazed intently at Grandpa and held tightly to one of Grandpa’s fingers. Grandpa smiled and invited Aaron to hold her hand. He was going to say “No”, but his hand just had a mind of its own and reached out to her. When his han...
Alistair quickly ran towards the bushes where he had heard the noise. He plunged his hand into the bush. He felt something hard. He withdrew it. To his great surprise, it was a chess piece. It was a white king to be exact. Alistair examined it closely. Despite his status as a peasant, he knew many things. He had been stealing books from the king’s library, when his master him with the taxes, since a young age. Someone must have placed the chess piece in this bush. But why? Alistair felt around to check for any more items. He withdrew a dented mug and a ball of wool. Even more mystifying. Suddenly a guard spotted him.