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Meaning of themes of in the lake of the woods
In the lake of the woods essays
In the lake of the woods meaning essay
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The “better story” is not always the one that is easy to believe. Sure, all the hypotheses are possible, but there is quite a fine line between the better story, and an absurd story. We only know so much about our characters in the story of In the Lake of the Woods. As for what is the truth, what really happened, well that’s up to the reader.
In both Life of Pi and In the Lake of the Woods the author is asking us to take a leap of faith. With Pi, he is asking us to believe in the power of God to save. The author in In the Lake of the Woods is pointing us all to believe that John killed his wife, but by the end we ask ourselves, why would a man who only longed to be loved kill the woman who loved him more than life? Both novels leave the audience with questions, neither giving a definite answer. It’s human nature to want answers, however, all we are given are hypotheses, and facts.
Throughout In the Lake of the
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Woods, we are given Evidence chapters. These are the cold, hard facts. Some are quotes or testimonials from John’s friends, family, and acquaintances, and some give specific items that were found such as the tea kettle, and the dead plants. John had a hard life. His father teased him constantly, but all he truly wanted was to be loved by his father. John would do magic tricks for him, and try to make himself noticed. When John’s father killed himself, his world was wrecked. At the young ages of 14, John would never be the same. John would never forgive his father for dying, and constantly imagine him back. “He tried to pretend his father was not truly dead...Late at night, in bed, he’d cradle his pillow and pretend it was his father, feeling the closeness” (page 29). Later, John would meet his future wife in college, and would become so obsessed with her, he began stalking her. “In early November he began spying on her” (page 56) . This just shows that John was not well, even before the war. He craved attention and being loved, but was not willing to give it back. John was a soldier in the Vietnam War. From what we can see now, those men who came back returned with serious post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and needed help, but because it was a relatively new topic, no one knew what to do to help the men. This included John. In chapter 7, The Nature of Marriage, we find out that Kathy has been having relations with someone else while John was at war, but they decided to marry anyway. Politics began to take over their life, and Kathy became very unhappy. After running for president and losing terribly because it came out that John was in the Mai Lai battle in Vietnam, the two decide to go to a cabin to get away from it all. This is where things begin to get blurry. Everything seemed to be going fine, not exactly well, but fine. Then one night John seems to lose sense of himself. He is tossing and turning in bed, and suddenly decides to get up and start boiling water. He’s killing plants with hot water one moment, and submerged in the lake the next. His memory keeps going in and out. John feels compelled to shout “Kill Jesus” (page 83) repeatedly, and begins imagining being able to kill God. “he stood very still, imagining himself kicking and gouging. He’d go for the eyes. Yes, he would. Tear out the bastard’s eyeballs—fists and fingernails—just punch and claw and hammer and bite. God, too. He hoped there was a god so he could kill him” (page 84). The “better story” I believe, is that John killed Kathy.
After finishing killing the plants, he walked into their bedroom. He watched Kathy sleep. He wanted to kiss her awake, but instead, took his tea kettle full of boiling water and poured it over her. John was not in the correct state of mind. He felt compelled to kill someone, something. The plants just were not enough. John poured the boiling water over Kathy’s eyes first and the steam come out of her. Next, he picked her up and took her to the boathouse. He put her in the boat and pushed her into the lake. John tipped the boat so that water began to come in, and sink the boat. He drowned his beautiful wife. One of the main reasons this seems incredibly plausible is because there is a period of time where John remembers brushing Kathy’s hair back and tucking her into bed, and then the next thing he can remember is being underwater. “He would remember smoothing her hair….At another point he found himself completely submerged, lungs like stone, an underwater rush in his ears” (page
88). John has a very selective memory. He tends to block out the bad things in life. He can only remember so much, and then it blacks out. I truly believe that is all he can remember, but just because he can not recall it doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. He could have been in a completely disassociated state and done incredibly seemingly unbelievable things. John and Kathy seemed to be odd enough for the both of them to understand one another. There’s other questions that begin to come up. Why did Kathy laugh when her coworker asked when she was coming back? What did the letter from Kathy’s sister say? Was John truly capable of murder, even in a dissociative state? Everyone says he would never hurt a fly, but he did kill PFC Weatherby in Vietnam. There’s two sides to every story, but this one, however, does not come to a conclusive ending as we read in the beginning of the book “if you require solutions, you will have to look beyond these pages. Or read a different book.” (Footnotes; page 512
Sigmund Freud introduces some powerful ideas in his book Civilization and Its Discontents. Many of his ideas and theories are evident in the life of John Wade in The Lake of the Woods. In my opinion, one can apply Freud’s theories to accurately analyze John Wade in three main ways: Freud’s structural model of the psyche, his argument of suppression of aggression, and neurosis “as the outcome of a struggle between the interest of self preservation and the demands of the libido, a struggle which the ego had been victorious but at the price of sever sufferings and renunciations.” (Freud 104). All of which lead to unhappiness and discontent.
When we discovered John’s body the following morning after he had left my house I couldn’t bring myself to believe that he had gotten lost in the blizzard. I know this blizzard was a bad one, we haven’t had one like that for quiet a while, but still John knows this land better than anyone. I really started to think that there was more to his death than a directional mishap. Just the location and direction his body was found in was enough alone to lead it to be suspicious.
The chapter on fecundity addresses the bizarre ways that nature has evolved to ensure the continuity of a species. As the title suggests, fecundity deals with the fertility of species where Annie Dillard explores the inefficiency of fertility and the brutality of nature’s evolution. In the end, Dillard concludes that death is a part of life.
On October 3, 2016, I watched The Woodsman in class at Brigham Young University. James Ortiz directed the play, along with the production team Claire Karpen (Director), Molly Seidel (Costume Design), Catherine Clark and Jamie Roderick (Lighting Design) and Becca Key (Production Manager). A Broadway Production, The Woodsman epitomized the strength of technical design while allowing the audience to fall in love with the characters.
As technology moves forward, previous generations feel left behind and nostalgic with the ever increasing advances of it. The Last Child in the Woods is an essay written by Richard Louv expressing his lament over technology apparently replacing nature the way it was when he was a child. He uses pathos, anecdotes, and diction choice to share his nostalgia and worry for the way car rides used to be and the way they are now.
John’s approach appears to be logical as he decided it would be better for his wife to escape her depression by moving temporary to an isolated estate where air, water, greenery, and calmness should be the uplifting factors in his wife’s journey towards gaining strength and getting better. The narrator disagrees with her husband’s decisions on how she should stay and do what he decided for her in this retreat, but follows his orders regardless. John’s treatment of his wife consists of medical prescriptions, “I take phosphates or phosphites-whichever it is-and tonics,...
Rooms are a great place to unwind and recollect after a long day. They hold precious items and memories, and are the one place we can get away from the world. Bedrooms tend to be a place where we feel at our safest, and where we keep all our personal items. Items that we subconsciously identify ourselves with because they mirror our inner self. In my room, I have items that I feel reflect my inner values. However, it did take me quite some time to find these items among my family’s things. Just as John McPhee states in his essay, “The Pines,” “It was something of a wonder that I noticed the pump, because there were, among other things, eight automobiles in the yard, two of them on their sides and one of them upside down, all ten years old or
How far will one go to get their happily ever after? Some will say, “Do what it takes” while others “Good things happen to those who wait”. Either way, many people generally make decisions based on sociological concepts because it provided guidance to right and wrong, good and bad, and strength and weakness. Thus, the musical, Into the Woods, gives people insights on how sociological concepts play out when one is put into a unique situation and/or obstacle. The musical is based on multiple characters from classic fairy tale books, such as Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and The Baker and his Wife. Each character from the stories wanted and/or needed achieve a goal. In each story, it
I want you to know why story-truth is truer than happening-truth. Here is the happening-truth. I was once a soldier. There were many bodies, real bodies with real faces, but I was young then and I was afraid to look...Here is the story-truth. He was slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay in the center of a red clay trail near the village of My Khe. His jaw was in his throat. His one eye was shut, the other eye was a star shaped hole. I killed him” (O’Brien, 171 and 172)
In “Once More to the Lake,” E.B. White expresses a sense of wonder when he revisits a place that has significant memories. Upon revisiting the lake he once knew so well, White realizes that even though things in his life have changed, namely he is now the father returning with his son, the lake still remains the same. Physically being back at the lake, White faces an internal process of comparing his memory of the lake as a child, to his experience with his son. Throughout this reflection, White efficiently uses imagery, repetition, and tone to enhance his essay.
Welcome to Lake Martin. Lake Martin is where many people come to spend time with their families and to relax. This lake is known for the Martin Dam and former/current coach's own land or a house on the lake. On the lake you can do many fun things such as spend time on the water and where to eat lunch and dinner after a long day out on the water.
...h up their session, Pi asks them, “‘So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can’t prove the question either way, which story do you prefer?’” The factual or provable existence of God is not necessarily relevant to whether someone should believe in Him. This requirement of proof for belief is typical of the agnostic, whose sole belief is that he or she cannot believe either way because there is no proof either way. However, life is a story, and in real life, there must be a story to tell. When it comes to Life of Pi, there is hardly any difference between life and story, so how could the novel not mimic life, being the story of a life itself? A life perhaps embellished to become better, just as readers must embellish their own lives in favor of the better story.
In the film Cabin in the Woods, directed by Drew Goddard, Goddard uses different cinematography techniques to make sure he captures the audience's attention in an interesting way and also depicting the real plot of the film and certain aspects of the characters.
To prevent the upcoming death of a teenage girl, a security officer infiltrates a group of teenage aristocrats and uncovers a tangled web of secrets tightly concealed by the social elite.
The film adaption of Life of Pi did clearly capture the “essence” of the novel. Overall, the movie carried the same themes and central ideas. However, it accomplished this through a slightly more uplifted and positive tone. One of the themes that was expressed most effectively in both mediums was the concept of religious belief and the idea of “choosing the better story”. Before his treacherous journey overseas, Pi takes on the practice of multiple religions in order to better understand and love God. At the end of both mediums, Pi recounts two alternate stories to the Japanese officials that result in the same ending. Afterwards, he asks the Japanese officials which of the two stories they prefer, seeing no reason why they shouldn’t choose