Guilt. Experience. Death. Theodore Finch (“Finch”) and Violet Markey live in the small town of Bartlett, Indiana. Violet is portrayed as popular, pretty, and everything that Finch, who deals with constant gibes from peers who refer to him as “freak”, is not; however, much of Violet’s status is a guise hiding her true feeling since the death of her sister Eleanor. When the two teenagers meet for the first time on the ledge of the school’s bell tower, it is evident that they may not be so different after all. In this journal I will be questioning, visualizing, and connecting. Throughout All the Bright Places, Violet fights to overcome the guilt she feels since the car accident that killed her sister, and I am questioning why she feels the need
to take responsibility when her loved ones die: “’I’m sorry about Finch.’…This gets my attention. Then he adds, ‘I feel responsible.’… You can’t feel responsible. I’m responsible. Don’t try to take that from me” (Niven 347). A possible reason why Violet feels she has to take responsibility for her sister’s death even though she wasn’t driving the car, is the fact that Violet suggested the route to take that night: “I should never have suggested we take the A Street Bridge. What if we’d gone the other way instead?” (Niven 347). Violet’s involvement in her sister’s death is a possible reason explaining why she feels the need to take responsibility for the deaths of Finch and Eleanor, and why she feels so guilty. In the novel, Finch and Violet are given the assignment of traveling to destinations in Indiana for a school project, and I am visualizing the shoe trees in Milltown, Indiana that Violet “wanders” to after Finch’s death: “Trees stand at all four corners, their branches filled with shoes. Hundreds and hundreds of shoes. Most are draped across the limbs by the laces like oversized Christmas ornaments” (Niven 355). When I read this, I visualize the vibrant colored shoes resting on the four tree’s branches, and the various types of shoes as well. I can picture the woodsy look of the four-way intersection that the shoe trees are located at. I imagine the pliable branches, the peeling bark, and the aged roots of the trees. Clearly the shoe trees are part of a wondrous destination that Violet enjoyed experiencing. In this paragraph, I will connect All the Bright Places to the novel The Fault in Our Stars by: John Green. In the two stories, both relationships are like time bombs. In All the Bright Places, Violet and Finch struggle with thoughts of suicide (this is apparent considering where and how they met), and in The Fault in Our Stars, Hazel Grace and Augustus both have cancer. Although both situations deal with very opposite topics, it is obvious to the reader that these two stories most likely end in tragedy. I see a direct connection between the way Violet and Hazel Grace handle the deaths of their loved ones. Both characters show fortitude during their time of mourning, and they learn important lessons about life: “The thing I realize is that it’s not what you take, it’s what you leave” (Niven 376). This is one of the main themes in All the Bright Places, and Violet realizes this when she learns to cope with the fact that Finch is gone. It is clear that All the Bright Places and The Fault in Our Stars are comparable in that they are written about the sensitive subject of death. In this journal, I questioned why Violet feels responsible for the deaths surrounding her, visualized one of Violet and Finch’s wanderings, and connected All the Bright Places to The Fault in Our Stars. In conclusion, All the Bright Places can be summed up in three words: guilt, experience, and death.
In the classical short story 'Among the Mourners', written by Ellen Gilchrist, a thirteen year old female deals with 'difficult' times. Aurora, the protagonist, is an average teenager who is faced with emotions of mortification and lust. 'Among the Mourners' conveys Aurora's feelings through the wake her parents have at her house, her new boyfriend, Giorgio, and her parent's marriage. Many times Aurora seems to be being over-dramatic through actions towards her family and boyfriend. Also, Aurora has the predisposition to tell lies, extend the truth, or even make her own belief up about a particular event. Finally, like any adolescent boy or girl, Aurora is boy crazy. Therefore, Aurora is a typical teenager because she is over-dramatic, stretches the truth, and is boy crazy.
In “The Red Convertible,” Louise Erdrich through her first- person narrator Lyman, creates an unspoken emotional bond between two brothers. This emotional bond between the brothers is not directly spoken to each other, but rather is communicated through and symbolized by “The Red Convertible.” In spite of what appears as a selfless act by one brother, in turn, causes pain in the other brother, as no feelings were communicated. In this case, Lyman explains his version as he takes us through the experiences that he and his brother Henry have with the car.
The lack of support and affection protagonists, Sula Peace and Nel Wright, causes them to construct their lives on their own without a motherly figure. Toni Morrison’s novel, Sula, displays the development of Sula and Nel through childhood into adulthood. Before Sula and Nel enter the story, Morrison describes the history of the Peace and Wright family. The Peace family live abnormally to their town of Medallion, Ohio. Whereas the Wrights have a conventional life style, living up to society’s expectations.The importance of a healthy mother-daughter relationship is shown through the interactions of Eva and Hannah Peace, Hannah and Sula, and between Helene Wright and Nel. When Sula and Nel become friends they realize the improper parenting they
Louise, the unfortunate spouse of Brently Mallard dies of a supposed “heart disease.” Upon the doctor’s diagnosis, it is the death of a “joy that kills.” This is a paradox of happiness resulting into a dreadful ending. Nevertheless, in reality it is actually the other way around. Of which, is the irony of Louise dying due to her suffering from a massive amount of depression knowing her husband is not dead, but alive. This is the prime example to show how women are unfairly treated. If it is logical enough for a wife to be this jovial about her husband’s mournful state of life then she must be in a marriage of never-ending nightmares. This shows how terribly the wife is being exploited due her gender in the relationship. As a result of a female being treated or perceived in such a manner, she will often times lose herself like the “girl
In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Atticus Finch’s parenting skills were often questioned throughout the novel. Although there were people that didn’t believe he was a good father, I think that he was. There are many different reasons provided throughout the novel that prove he is a good father. Atticus may let his children get away with a little more than the average parent would, but he has a good head on his shoulders. He is open to giving his kids more freedoms and there’s nothing wrong with that. Atticus approaches life with a devotion to fairness and exposes his children, Jem and Scout, to real life. Overall, he makes a pretty good father.
Bad choices are made every day by everybody. Those bad choices could lead to consequences that are going to bother a person for a long time. Even more, that person may try various ways to correct that error. The intention is good, but things can go even worse if the effort is based on unrealistic fantasies. This effort is presented as a part of modernist ideas. Modernist writers dramatize this effort through the tragic outcomes of the characters. Three modernist pieces, A Street Car Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, The Great Gatsby, all of them sent out a message to the audience, the loss of past and how it cannot be recovered. Each piece features a character who lost hope, strived to recover the hope, and ended with a tragic outcome. A Street Car Named Desire featured Blanche; Blanche spent her whole life trying to get some attentions. Death of a Salesman featured Willy; Willy spent his whole life trying to apply the idea “Be Well Liked.” The Great Gatsby featured Jay Gatsby; Gatsby spent his whole life trying to win back Daisy. All of those characters ended with tragic outcome. Blanche was sent to asylum by her own sister. Willy committed suicide after felt humiliated by his sons. Gatsby was murdered with a gunshot planned by Tom Buchanan. Blanche, Willy, and Gatsby’s tragic fates are caused by their false beliefs about life, which are proven wrong by the contradictions between the reality and the illusion.
Violet has a deeper understanding of the society she lives in, and she also begins to question the corporations who run that society. When Violet was at the doctor’s she starts to, “think about things” (Anderson 80). At this particular scene, Violet sounds paranoid as she explains her thoughts, “Everything we do gets thrown into a big calculation. Like they’re watching us right now. They can tell where you are looking. They want to know what you want.” (Anderson 80). Violet is now understanding why they are programmed the way they are. She then makes a huge simile for it, “It’s like a spiral: They keep making everything more basic so it ...
Lois McMaster Bujold once said, “Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself. Atticus Finch a heroic figure in the novel To Kill a MockingBird by Harper Lee is known as a white lawyer who defended a “black” man accused of raping Mayella Ewell, the daughter of a disturbing man, Bob Ewell. Atticus knows his reputation is at risk, when he decides to take a black man’s court case. He is appointed to this case because Mayella Ewell blamed an innocent black man, Tom Robinson of raping and beating her. She fails to admit the truth due to obeying her father. In the 1930’s racism was extremely crucial and no matter what the truth was a white person was most likely believed over an African American. Miss Maudie, The Finches neighbor tells the kids, “There are some men in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father’s one of them” (Lee 219). Atticus Finch is highly respected and someone everyone can look up too in Maycomb, Alabama. Throughout the novel, Atticus presents himself as calm, courageous, and an open-minded person.
In conclusion, the tenuous relationship Sethe shared with her mother led to Sethe’s inability to provide for her children. Consequentially, the murder of Beloved built an emotional barrier that added to the preexisting issue of concerning her stolen milk left Denver with too little milk and the primitive drive to live that at first seemed foiled by her mother’s overbearing past. Yet, against all odds Denver was able to break her family’s legacy of being engulfed in the past and began taking steps for a better future.
There lies a child within every human being. No matter how small, some sense of freedom and hope tends to endure in adults, as they once experienced youth. While Tom, Daisy and Jordan exhibit how they share this feeling in the novel, this youthful instinct most evidently appears in the behaviors of Jay Gatsby and Myrtle Wilson. Because they never learn how to survive in the real, adult world, their uncontrollable attitudes catalyze their early deaths. In F. Scott Fitzgerald 's The Great Gatsby, Myrtle Wilson and Jay Gatsby represent childlike desire and the corruption of maturity in the 1920s. Their deaths signify the actuality that childhood terminates, exposing the inevitable reality of adulthood.
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...
The killing of teenagers with big dreams and hopeful futures represents death’s unpredictability. “He will never go to college… He will never satisfy his curiosity, never finish the hundred best novels ever written, never be the great man he might have been” (Lockhart 60). Through the adults and living children, the two incredibly different ways of dealing with and understanding tragedy are shown. “They know it doesn’t play out in life as it does on a stage or between the pages of a book. It is neither a punishment meted out nor a lesson conferred. Its horrors are not attributable to one single person” (Lockhart 63). Clairmont symbolizes the problems of the Sinclair family, while New Clairmont stands as a reminder of the dead children. ““New Clairmont seems like a punishment to me… A self-punishment. He built himself a home that isn’t a home. It’s deliberately uncomfortable”” (Lockhart 53). In conclusion, connections to tragedy linger in every corner of We Were Liars through symbolism in characters and
Esther Greenwood was a scholarship student attending an all-women’s college in New York. While in school, she wrote for a women’s magazine under the supervision of her editor Jay Cee. Writing was her passion and she especially loved poetry. Unfortunately, the college life and New York City were not exactly what Esther had thought they would be. She always found herself being a third wheel or the outsider of the group. This may have been the spark that began her battle with depression. Either that, or the realization that her childhood crush Buddy Willard, a medical student at Yale, was a hypocrite. He and Esther had known each other since a very young age through the church and their parents had intended for them to eventually be married. After Buddy invited Esther to attend Yale’s prom, they began spending a lot of time together until she found out that he had lost his virginity to a sleazy waitress. This contradicted everything Buddy was and had claimed to be. His whole good and pure act was flawed whenever Esther discovered these facts. She was especially hurt, because they were very competitive with each other and she now wanted to lose her virginity so as to no...
It is rare to come by someone who has true beliefs. In Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill a
Throughout the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, one can see two central themes: the need for compassion and the need for conscience. Atticus Finch is trying to raise his children in a way that both will have compassion and a strong conscience. Atticus Finch teaches his children about the need for conscience by example when he punishes Jem by making him read to Mrs. Dubois for one month, agrees to defend Tom Robinson, and in his closing remarks to the jury.