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Character is what you are in the dark literary analysis
Literary analysis
How is society reflected in literature
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Every character in the following short stories have realized something immense, and some choose to ignore the fact or accept it. In “Cons” by Jess Walker, and “Killings” by Andrew DuBus, the characters in them have had major epiphanies which also teach lessons to the people who read them. Each individual character has their own struggles, and they are highlighted in the short story. They have their own subtle, or not so subtle, the realization that leads to a rocky or very certain future—sometimes it’s both.
In “Cons,” the story depicts a man trying to lead a normal life, by having a not-so-normal past. Kyle finds himself grieving over a lost life or two lost lives, he took one drunken night in his youth. He finds himself telling everyone
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about it, just so he can never get away from the pain and the regret. He has an epiphany when he gets an astonishing letter, as well as a jaw-dropping diagnosis of cancer. The letter says, “I want you to remember how you ruined the lives of these people” (Walter 85).Kyle may have ruined the lives of others, but he was about to ruin the mental image Lisa had of their marriage. She finds herself supporting her husband, but also in a battle with herself. She wants to confront the man and put an end to the letters and let him know that Kyle has felt the pain and regret to last a lifetime, which it has. However, upon her arrival to the man’s home, she finds something catastrophic. The girl Kyle killed in his youth, resembles Lisa, in every sense. She begins to wonder and ponder if he only married her to give back to the girl that never was, never amounted to anything great. Yet Lisa does nothing with the knowledge and lives her life as usual. Kyle has the same issue, as he would never want to be confronted, and he has no issue with the brutal letters her gets regularly. Both characters live in their own mind without sharing their thoughts, and yet they couldn’t be farther apart, pulled together by their own drive to forget their differences, and a separate drive wants to never know what the answer to their marriage truly is. Lisa was never going to look at Kyle the same after realizing that she, was a perfect image of a grown up ghost. Before Lisa knew the true fact of why Kyle looked at her the way she did, Lisa had original thoughts of uncertainty. In the story says, “He frequently told Lisa that he loved her, but he always said it sadly, with quiet resignation. In fact, he spoke with such grim passivity about their relationship that she began to wonder if it depressed him” (Walter 81). Matt knew that he was never going to be the same man he always wanted to be, and yet he drug his own wife down with him, for she was never going to be the girl he murdered long ago. In “Killings,” readers are introduced to Matt Fowler as he buries his son at the start of the story.
Matt’s son, Frank, was a successful young man who fell in love with a woman named Mary Ann, and this would later lead to his death—by insane ex-husband, Richard Strout. Matt soon is driven to do the unthinkable. He is going to kill the man who took his son away from him. Matt feels rage to the point of killing this man, to justify his pain by taking away another life, even when the killing itself will not bring his son back. While committing to the deed, Matt goes to Strout’s apartment, and he finds himself drawn to the life this man is going to leave behind. While Strout was trying to explain himself, he said to Matt, “I couldn’t even talk to her. He was always with her. I’m going to jail for it; if I ever get out I’ll be an old man. Isn’t that enough?” (Dubus 60). This is the only part of the story which depicts any measure of decent humanity Strout has in his body. He was upset that Matt was holding a gun to him, and he knew he deserved what was coming for him, even if he didn’t agree with Matt’s actions. Matt soon takes Frank’s life away, and he realizes killing Strout only made things worse, and made him realize even further the pain and suffering would never end. In the story, it says, “…he saw Frank and Strout, their faces alive; he saw red and yellow leaves falling to the earth, then snow; falling and freezing and falling,…he shuddered with a sob that he kept silent in his heart” (DuBus 64). Strout felt what Matt felt when he saw another man with his wife, and Matt wasn’t in the right mindset to realize both men are
suffering. Characters have their own ideas and morals within the world of their story. Each character has witnessed and has been a part of their own epiphanies. Most characters benefit or fall short with their realization of their future, or their passivity of their past situations. All characters have the ability to do well, and do good things with their emotional wellbeing, or not-so-wellbeing depending on the context of their epiphany. However, every character remains the same in that they all have a common connection within themselves—morality.
A character that was admirable in the novel “we all fall down” is John. John is the father of Will who is the main character, they spend nearly the entire story together looking for a way out of the world trade center during the 9/11 attacks. During the story you learn that John is very smart, brave, and respected. These are all characteristics which play a crucial role in saving lives such as his co-workers and a random lady they find on the way named ting, but mainly in the ending John and Will successfully escape.
In the beginning of the novel Con had just returned from the hospital for attempting suicide. Right off the bat Con finds it hard to wake up in the morning because he is afraid that anxiety and failure will be waiting for him. He makes himself think of reasons to get out of bed. Then he goes through the whole ritual in his head. Con was depressed. He would be a treated very fragile wise by his teachers. He also was a very doubt full person. When it came to his brother’s death, he would wish that he could have done something different. Con would go through the whole scene in his head over and over again pondering on what he could have done right. He also feels isolated from his mother. Although he loves his mother, she could never love him back. Most of the time he would feel obligated to stay away from her. Because Lazenby reminded Con of his brother, Con decided to break up their friendship.
Last but not least, O’Connor confirms that even a short story is a multi-layer compound that on the surface may deter even the most enthusiastic reader, but when handled with more care, it conveys universal truths by means of straightforward or violent situations. She herself wished her message to appeal to the readers who, if careful enough, “(…)will come to see it as something more than an account of a family murdered on the way to Florida.”
... experienced by his wife Ruth Fowler. This story is a tragic tale of how love for another person translated into murder, and there is no moral distinction between these acts. Since there is no explicit difference between these two murders, the audience understands that vigilante justice reduces an individual into a criminal – blind to ethics in an effort to attain retribution. Vigilante justice also comes at a hefty emotional price – loneliness and regret. For example, after Matt Fowler kills Richard Strout, he experiences a great deal of isolation and hidden shame, which is evidenced by his inability to make love with his wife and his internalized sadness. Matt Fowler will forever have to live on knowing that he compromised his morals to commit the gruesome act of murder to appease others. In an effort to please others, he became the murderer he sought to end.
O’Connor powerfully made the reader realize that having an epiphany opens up our mind to a clearer insight, and this was seen with the grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and Mrs. Turpin in “Revelation.” Nonetheless, O’Connor also created characters that obtained a certain type of violence deep within their personality to show the importance of real life experiences within our society. These two short stories show a great amount of emotion and life lessons towards the reader, and O’Connor successfully conveyed her point while using her powerful Southern gothic writing technique.
“Killings", written by Andre Dubus in 1979, involves several aspects such as revenge, morality, and murder. Elements, such as the story’s title, the order of events, and the development of the characters, are very unique. It successfully evokes emotion and suspense as the plot unfolds in sequence. Though it seems easily overlooked, the title “Killings” is very important due to the fact that the thrill of suspense is left in the mind of the reader. The title encourages readers to question who and what. It is also an intricate setting for the plot’s mood. It implies that a murder has taken place, but that is all the reader knows. The chronology of the story uses a style called "in media res”, a term used to describe the common strategy of beginning a story in the middle of the action or entering on the verge of some important moment (Meyer 2198). In this story, the readers are shown that murder not only takes a life, but it can also take away a living persons sense of self worth, their spirit.
I quit! These words can be attached to so many things in life. At times in life things seem to be different then they really are, for instance the thrill and the excitement of having a summer job or even successfully getting a first job. There are certain moments in a person’s life that will always have an impact on them one could call this a definitive moment or an epiphany. In the short story A&P by John Updike the main character Sammy has an epiphany in that he realizes that a moral line has been crossed in his working environment.
The Murderers Are Among Us, directed by Wolfe Gang Staudte, is the first postwar film. The film takes place in Berlin right after the war. Susan Wallner, a young women who has returned from a concentration camp, goes to her old apartment to find Hans Mertens living there. Hans took up there after returning home from war and finding out his house was destroyed. Hans would not leave, even after Susan returned home. Later on in the film we find out Hans was a former surgeon but can no longer deal with human suffering because of his traumatic experience in war. We find out about this traumatic experience when Ferdinand Bruckner comes into the film. Bruckner, Hans’ former captain, was responsible for killing hundreds
Many times in life things are not as they seem. What may look simple on the surface may be more complicated deeper within. Countless authors of short stories go on a journey to intricately craft the ultimate revelation as well as the subtle clues meant for the readers as they attempt to figure out the complete “truth” of the story. The various authors of these stories often use different literary techniques to help uncover the revelation their main characters undergo. Through the process of carefully developing their unique characters and through point of view, both Edith Wharton and Ernest Hemingway ultimately convey the significant revelation in the short stories, “Roman Fever” and “Hills Like White Elephants” respectively. The use of these two literary techniques is essential because they provide the readers with the necessary clues to realize the ultimate revelations.
The story begins with the narrator’s brother, Sonny, being arrested for using heroin. When the narrator discovers what has happened to his brother, he slowly starts to relive his past. Up to this point, the narrator had completely cut his brother and his childhood from his life. He disapproves of the past and does everything in his power to get rid of it. The narrator had become an algebra teacher and had a family who he moved to get away from the bad influences on the street. As a result, it is shown in the story that he has worked hard to maintain a good “clean” life for his family and himself. Readers can see that he has lived a good life, but at the toll of denying where he came from and even his own brother. For years, his constant aim for success had been successful. However, as the story progressed everything he knew started to fall apart.
This story starts off with Dikeledi headed to prison for man-slaughter. When she is taken to prison, she is told that there are four women in there for the exact crime that she committed of killing her husband. The guard makes a comment that killing your husband is becoming the fashion, dismissing them as if the women had no reasons to kill their husbands. This shows that the women are not taken seriously. They way that the wardess treats the women, represents women oppressing women. There are some women that feel that men are superior and submit to their husbands not because they want to, but because of tradition or what may have been taught to them. This plays on the idea that women are inferior beings to men. By doing this they add to the
Richard Strout was married to Mary Ann, who was most likely fed up with his hot temperedness that always seemed to get him into fist fights. She separated from her husband and while they were going through the process of divorce, she began a new relationship with Frank Fowler, killing all hope of reconciling her marriage with Strout. In return Strout became enraged not only in losing his wife, but their sons, who now spent their days with this new man who was taking on the father role in their life. Whether it was his love for his wife and children or pride, it drove him to the only solution he could find, and that was to kill Frank. “Richard Strout shot Frank in front of the boys…Strout came in the front door and shot Frank twice in the chest and once in the face with a 9mm automatic(100).”
Judith Wright's poem `The Killer' explores the relationship between Humans and Nature, and provides an insight into the primitive instincts which characterize both the speaker and the subject. These aspects of the poem find expression in the irony of the title and are also underlined by the various technical devices employed by the poet.
Coming out of the Great Depression, this generation was encouraged to be anything but depressed. In this book these two characters, although distinct in background, must deal with their problems, and face the consequences. The pressure to move on, as is human nature, eventually leads to a sadly fatal conclusion.
Evidence of professionalism on the part of the two killers, Al and Max, is that they both wear a uniform? They wear overcoats. that are too tight for them, gloves to prevent finger prints, and Derby hats. This might be for intimidation, to suggest they are. gangsters or something similar, or it could be that they are not so.