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Critical literacy reading and writing
Techniques of critical reading
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The utilization of imagery has dependably been a common path for authors to convey essential issues to general society. It is not remarkable to peruse a straightforward youngsters' story and find hidden political or good messages, for instance, Horatio Alger's novel Ragged Dick. This story was composed after the Civil War, when America encountered a time of immense modern development. The free enterprise hard working attitude had turned into an all inclusive thought in the North, and accordingly the Government consented to stay bankrupt issues, taking after the modern arrangement of "free enterprise." This enlarged the hole between the rich and poor people, making it troublesome for a less lucky individual to work his way up in the public
eye. Numerous Americans, notwithstanding, trusted that it was without a doubt not difficult to wind up effective in life. Horatio Alger's character, Ragged Dick, is a youthful boot-dark who lives up to expectations his way up in the public eye to turn into a respectable man of his word. Through imagery, Alger utilizes a few material articles to uncover Dick's change into a fruitful young fellow. Dick's new suit is one case of imagery that Alger employments. It is acquainted when Dick offers with be a city manual for youthful Frank Whitney. The Whitney family is exceptionally kind to Dick and they take him into their home to set him up for a day as Frank's visit guide. After a shower, Dick is given a suit that had once fit in with Frank. The suit was Dick's first blessing and it made him look so changed that it was "hard to envision that he is the same kid." The Whitney's' mediation gave Dick the capacity to be more than a straightforward boot-dark. Since he now resembled a youthful refined man's child, Dick got regard and was soon unwilling to wear his old garments which were worn out, grimy, and sick fitting. Blunt Whitney roused Dick to stop misusing his cash and start sparing. Dick said that he intends to "start over." Frank guaranteed him that through fair,
As the narrator sits in the “Shreve High football stadium”, he thinks of the actions of two groups of individuals: “I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville, and gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood”. Furthermore, the two groups are later characterized as both “dreaming of heroes”. The diction of the sentence gives rise to a deeper understanding of the two groups. For example, the action of “nursing” the beer as opposed to drinking or sipping signals the group is using the alcohol to self-medicate, and further that they are taking their time with their “long beers” in order to save money. The concept of a desire to save money, yet also drink call to the idea that they would better numb their pain than even try to make a better life for themselves. The “negroes” having their faces described as gray thus absent of color is symbolic of their mundane lives, and lack of life or energy. Therefore, they are emotionally complicit in their conditions and giving up on fighting back. One may interpret the two groups “dreaming of heroes” as a positive nod towards hope, yet they appear to have given up. Thus, their action of dreaming signifies that escape, or becoming the hero, is out of reach, and more of a lofty desire than an attainable goal. Overall, their hopelessness fosters the idea of the
Through vivid yet subtle symbols, the author weaves a complex web with which to showcase the narrator's oppressive upbringing. Two literary
Well, this is the message that Horatio Alger gives to his readers that some people feel as though it’s a myth as oppose to others thinking it’s great guidelines or a great blueprint to success. In a selection of the money and success chapter in “Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing”, a professor at Yale Law School, Harlon L. Dalton critiques the story of Horatio Alger “Ragged Dick” calling it a myth. Dalton says that you can’t just overlook the fact that people still are based upon race and class.
magnificent striking of figurative language, symbolism and narrative pricks the guilty conscience of all readers that partook in consumerism as we are forced to remember America’s callous society of mighty crush the weak.
In three dynamic pieces of literature, the desperate yet hopeful characters gallantly endure the struggles of achieving their dreams as they experience the pain of desolation and the life-fulfilling happiness of a friendly companion. Through hostile resentment, the intense repulsion created by generations of territorial disputes tears apart two vengeful foes, Ulrich and Georg, in Saki’s captivating tale. Whereas in Remarque’s gory war novel, the pure terror of battle brutally slaughters the once innocent minds of soldiers as they undergo changes in their heart and soul within themselves. Although impervious to the influence of the reclusive residents tied to the ranch, as they quest for their shared aspirations, George and Lennie forge an invincible friendship in Steinbeck’s calamitous novelette.
It challenging, typical, vivid, expressive in all it could be. The use of symbolism provides details, oriented and carefully yet fiercely intact in all its senses, proving readers a touch of the south and it’s mercenary. Richard infuses his youthful experiences from segregation, racism, and the South. In the end, we all expect and know once you play with fire, you’re likely to get burned. Bigger fought and showed will of power, but the entities that surrounded him were powerful and destructive.
Of the four members of the Richard Wagamese’s Ragged Company (2009), Richard Richard Dumont, otherwise known as “Double Dick” underwent a traumatizing event in his life. Wagamese (2009) tells the story of Dick as he grew up on reserves, and was subsequently denied the opportunity of education for Dick. As Dick turned to alcohol to cope with his life after entering his father’s moonshine manufacturing business, his life finally led up to the moment that caused him to leave his family home, and forced him into poverty. Although Ragged Company is a narrative of four homeless people, the novel also reflects social determinants of health. Davidson (2015) defines the determinants as underlying factors of health disparities. Furthermore, the historical distal determinants, such as colonialism, inevitable affects the personable, individualistic proximal determinants such as income. Together, these two variant of determinants shape the lives of Aboriginal peoples, such as Dick. After the life-defining moment, Double Dick Dumont in Richard Wagamese’s
Maggie and Jimmie, siblings whom Cranes uses as protagonists, live in deplorable and violent conditions. The setting is America West, during the industrialization era. The change from agricultural to industrial economy led to many casualties, including Maggie and Jimmie’s parents. They found themselves in periphery of economic edifice where poverty was rampant. Now alcoholics, they are incapable of offering parental care and support to their children. This leaves the children at the mercies of a violent, vain, and despondent society that shapes them to what they became in the end. Cranes’ ability to create and sustain characters that readers can empathize with is epic though critics like Eichhorst have lambasted his episodic style (23). This paper will demonstrate that in spite of its inadequacy, Cranes Novella caricatures American naturalism in a way hitherto unseen by illustrating the profound effect of social circumstances on his characters.
Yet the similarity between these two stories raises some interesting questions about how we read Carver. That he is adored as few late-century American writers are is not news -- as Bloom points out there's almost a cult of Carver. Readers treasure not only his taut, bleak, deeply moving short stories but the legend of his life, as well: unhappy, alcoholic, stifled by frustrating poverty and saddled with the overwhelming responsibilities of teenage parenthood ("[My wife and I] didn't have any youth" he told Simpson), Carver's singular talent didn't have room to develop until relatively late. His eventual triumph over adversity, a story of late, spectacular blooming against all odds, has given him a rare hold on his readers' affection. Carver chronicled the lives of the lumpen proletariat and the demoralized white working class with a sensitivity and eye for detail unmatched in his contemporaries and, many would argue, his followers. He is commonly thought of as a truly American writer, perhaps stylistically indebted to Sherwood Anderson, Stephen Crane and Ernest Hemingway (he himself suggested the link to Hemingway in his book "Fires"), but in a sense sui generis -- a talented, sensitive soul who rose up out of the deadening laundromats and strip malls of the great, dreary American suburban wastelands and wrote beautiful, sad stories in clipped, stripped prose. The minimalism and domestic realism of his short stories made his work read very differently from the cerebral literary styling of his contemporaries, the university-ensnared postmodernists. But perhaps Carver's work wasn't as unfettered or as American (in his literary influences, at least) as all that.
Hooks, Bell. "Narratives of Struggle." Critical Fictions:The Poltics of Imagnitive Writing. N.p.: Dia Center for the Arts, 1991. 53-61. Print.
Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick has depicted a general picture of New York in the late nineteenth century. The novel is about a street boy Dick’s rise from poverty to respectability. Someone may argue that Dick’s success is all because of his luck. He is so lucky that he has met lots of people who are willing to help him. In my opinion, luck is just a part. Dick’s rise is due to a combination of his efforts, perseverance, ambition, optimism, virtues, smartness and luck.
Filled with a plethora of themes and convictions, Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men excels in its endeavor to maintain the reader’s mind racing from cover to cover. The setting is the Texas-Mexico boarder; the story embodying a modernized western-themed Greek tragedy filled with drug runners and automatic weapons. Llewelyn Moss, a Vietnam veteran, finds himself on the run from forces that seem to be an instrument of karmic consequence. While on the run, Llewelyn is given the opportunity to end the madness that has arisen so immediately in his life. But he doesn’t. Instead he braves on, defying his own advice, and persistent on luck, only leaving him a misfortunate ending. To fully recognize the circumstance the novel surrounds itself in the reader must digress into the thoughts of the town’s Sheriff, an old vet just like Llewelyn, named Ed Tom Bell. From there and with a deep analysis of Llewelyn Moss, McCarthy succors light to why such an assessment was made amongst the lawless violence that has entered this town.
Anderson makes effective use of fantasy to teach a moral lesson. He builds up the story in such a way that the reader does not care for the validity of the incidents. The moral lesson is that the proud and the disobedient must suffer.
A story that has long been told by many different cultures is the tale of the “outlaw hero”, or “Social Bandits”, as Eric Hobsbawm calls it in a book he wrote by the same name in 1969 (Seal, 2009). Outlaw heroes are almost always real people whose story has been built upon or aggrandized as it was passed around and down generations. The reason this type of story is so popular with listeners, readers, and onlookers is because they are the classic tales of the oppressed getting one up on the oppressors. Whether it’s about the poor getting over on the rich, the citizen getting over on the government, or the lowly servant getting over on the King or Queen, whatever the story, it’s something every day working people can relate to, vicariously.
Set in the ever changing world of the Industrial Revolution, Charles Dickens’ novel Hard Times begins with a description of a utilitarian paradise, a world that follows a prescribed set of logically laid-out facts, created by the illustrious and "eminently practical" Mr. Gradgrind. However, one soon realizes that Gradgrind's utopia is only a simulacrum, belied by the devastation of lives devoid of elements that "feed the heart and soul," as well as the mind. As the years fly by, the weaknesses of Gradgrind's carefully constructed system become painfully apparent, especially in the lives of his children Louisa and Tom, as well as in the poor workers employed by one Mr. Josiah Bounderby, a wealthy factory owner and a subscriber to Gradgrind's system. Dickens, through the shattering of Gradgrind's utilitarian world, tells us that no methods, not even constant oppression and abuse, can defeat and overcome two basic needs of humans, our fundamental needs for emotion and imagination.