David Kaplan is an American writer that uses magic realism, or the use of everyday settings and objects with an added sense of magic added to them. “Doe Season” is a short story filled with various literary elements. Through this essay we will discuss other vital elements Kaplan uses in his short story such as the setting, plot, point of view, characters, symbolism, and theme. The setting of “Doe Season” is mostly in the snowy Pennsylvania woods. Although no real time was given, we can assume it takes place in modern times due to the use of rifles. Andy begins telling us about a hunting trip she went on with her father, Charlie Spoon, and his son Mac. Throughout the story Charlie and Mac question if it is appropriate for young Andy to tag along. Her father continually defends her place there by telling them how skillful she is at attracting animals and shooting. Andy also feels a need to prove her place on a men’s hunting trip, and she does so by gathering firewood and drinking coffee like her father. Mac made things increasingly uncomfortable for Andy the first night by teasing her about sexual matters. The next day Andy wondered off into the woods alone, seeking solace from the men, and spotted a doe. She rushed back to the men to tell them what she had …show more content…
found, and her father decides she should be the one to shoot the doe. They spend the last bit of the story tracking the doe, but they didn’t find it until the following morning. The characters themselves are very important to the essence of “Doe Season”.
The main character and narrator Andrea, who goes by the nickname Andy for the majority of the story, is a nine year old girl. She’s fighting an internal battle of figuring out her place in the world. In the beginning, she feels comfortable around her father, who plays an important role and defends her place in the presence on the hunting trip. Charlie Spoon and his son Mac were also characters on the hunting trip, and they play a supportive role and constantly questioned the appropriateness of a young girl on a hunting trip with men. Although her mom didn’t play an important active role in the story, she was a very important
character. David Kaplan utilizes symbolism to give many things a deeper meaning. The title is very symbolic, and could mean ‘female time’ because of the transition Andy makes from a child to a woman. In the beginning Andy references the woods of Pennsylvania as being familiar, unchanging, and safe. Andy feels pressured into fitting in with the men during the majority of the story and tries her best to show as little femininity as possible. As the story proceeds though, Andy seems to become increasingly uncomfortable in the once safe, familiar woods with her father and their company. During their hunt, Andy recalls a trip her family made to the New Jersey shore and the feeling of uncertainty the ocean brought to her. This is where Andy tells us how the exposure of her mother’s womanly body made her feel embarrassed and uncomfortable. She at that time did not relate to her mother or her feminine side. At the end of the story, Andrea once again references the ocean, that she related to womanhood earlier, and it invites her in. She knew that one day she would be forced into womanhood, but that time is now. The doe she shot is also very symbolic of the female side of herself. She shoots the deer to fit in with the men, but feels immediate guilt. That night she heard an owl, which represents wisdom and virtue, and is forced to face her guilty conscious of killing the doe. Andy stepped outside of her tent and the doe came to her. She saw and felt the wound of doe. The blood that she painfully touched and smelled represents her coming into womanhood. Kaplan also uses her name as an important symbol of the transition she makes in the story. She is called by her nickname Andy, a which can be masculine, for the majority of the story, and at the end of the story she does not relate to that name any longer. David Kaplan uses many symbols in this short story, but most help in telling us about Andy’s transition into womanhood. Kaplan uses the theme of a young girl’s transition into womanhood in “Doe Season”. He begins the story with Andy tagging along with her father and his friends on a hunting trip. Andy tries her best to fit in, and her father comes to her defense when Charlie Spoon questions her right to be there. She begins the trip feeling confident that she belongs and tries hard to prove she is fit to be there. As the story precedes, Andy becomes more uncomfortable with the guys. She feels pressured to kill the doe to fit in, and soon feels guilt after doing so. At the end of the story, she no longer identifies with Andy, and she now relates to her more feminine side of Andrea. “Doe Season”, written by David Kaplan, Andy tells us about a hunting trip in the snowy Pennsylvania woods she goes on with her father and friends. She tries proving she belongs on the whole trip with the men. Andy, her father, her mother, Charlie Spoon, and Mac are the characters portrayed in this story. The symbols used by Kaplan enforce his theme of the transition from childhood to womanhood that Andy makes.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic novel written by Harper Lee. The novel is set in the depths of the Great Depression. A lawyer named Atticus Finch is called to defend a black man named Tom Robinson. The story is told from one of Atticus’s children, the mature Scout’s point of view. Throughout To Kill a Mockingbird, the Finch Family faces many struggles and difficulties. In To Kill a Mockingbird, theme plays an important role during the course of the novel. Theme is a central idea in a work of literature that contains more than one word. It is usually based off an author’s opinion about a subject. The theme innocence should be protected is found in conflicts, characters, and symbols.
The Orphan Train is a compelling story about a young girl, Molly Ayer, and an older woman, Vivian Daly. These two live two completely different yet similar lives. This book goes back and forth between the point of views of Molly and Vivian. Molly is seventeen and lives with her foster parents, Ralph and Dina, in Spruce Harbor, Maine. Vivian is a ninety-one year old widow from Ireland who moved to the United States at a young age. Molly soon gets into trouble with the law and has to do community service. Molly’s boyfriend, Jack, gets his mom to get her some service to do. Jack’s mom allows her to help Vivian clean out her attic. While Molly is getting her hours completed, Vivian explains her past to her. Vivian tells her about all the good times and bad in her life. She tells her about how she had to take a train, the orphan train, all around the country after her family died in a fire. She told her about all the families she stayed with and all the friends she made along the way, especially about Dutchy. Dutchy is a boy she met on the orphan train and lost contact with for numerous years, but then found each other again and got married and pregnant. Sadly, Dutchy died when he was away in the army shortly after Vivian got pregnant. When Vivian had her child, she decided to give her up for adoption. Molly and Vivian grew very close throughout the time they spent together. Molly knows that Dina, her foster mother, is not very fond of her and tells her to leave. Having no place to go, Vivian let her stay at her house.
“September Elegies” is a poem written by an American poet Randall Mann in memory of Seth Walsh, Justin Aaberg, Billy Lucas, and Tyler Clementi. It articulates a gloomy story about four young boys who took their own lives by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. The memorialization is a reminder of how cruel our world can be and how bigotry and indifference destroy people’s lives. The poet reveres their memory by making use of various literary devices in order to transmit the pain the boys experienced.
“Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen” (“Brainy Quotes” 1). In Edith Wharton’s framed novel, Ethan Frome, the main protagonist encounters “lost opportunity, failed romance, and disappointed dreams” with a regretful ending (Lilburn 1). Ethan Frome lives in the isolated fictional town of Starkfield, Massachusetts with his irritable spouse, Zenobia Frome. Ever since marriage, Zenobia, also referred to as Zeena, revolves around her illness. Furthermore, she is prone to silence, rage, and querulously shouting. Ethan has dreams of leaving Starkfield and selling his plantation, however he views caring for his wife as a duty and main priority. One day, Zeena’s cousin, Mattie Silver, comes to assist the Frome’s with their daily tasks. Immediately, Mattie’s attractive and youthful energy resuscitates Ethan’s outlook on life. She brings a light to Starkfield and instantaneously steals Ethan’s heart; although, Ethan’s quiet demeanor and lack of expression causing his affection to be surreptitious. As Zeena’s health worsens, she becomes fearful and wishes to seek advice from a doctor in a town called Bettsbridge giving Ethan and Mattie privacy for one night. Unfortunately, the night turns out to be a disastrous and uncomfortable evening. Neither Ethan nor Mattie speaks a word regarding their love for one another. Additionally, during their dinner, the pet cat leaps on the table and sends a pickle dish straight to the floor crashing into pieces. To make matters worse, the pickle dish is a favored wedding gift that is cherished by Zeena. Later, Zeena discovers it is broken and it sends her anger over the edge. Furious, Zeena demands for a more efficient “hired girl” to complete the tasks ar...
...e on her part. Throughout the story, the Mother is portrayed as the dominant figure, which resembled the amount of say that the father and children had on matters. Together, the Father, James, and David strived to maintain equality by helping with the chickens and taking care of Scott; however, despite the effort that they had put in, the Mother refused to be persuaded that Scott was of any value and therefore she felt that selling him would be most beneficial. The Mother’s persona is unsympathetic as she lacks respect and a heart towards her family members. Since the Mother never showed equality, her character had unraveled into the creation of a negative atmosphere in which her family is now cemented in. For the Father, David and James, it is only now the memories of Scott that will hold their bond together.
Living in Maryland, the narrator and her little brother Joey lived a very simple life. There mother had job that required many hours, and her father was unemployed and still in the process of trying to find a job. They lived in a very run down house in a very small poor community. One summer day, the narrator , Joey, and a group of kids from the community were bored and wanted to do something different. So,the narrator and the kids went down to one of the elders home, Miss Lottie. Miss Lottie was the old woman that everyone made stories about and for the kids they knew her as the witch. In the summer time Miss Lottie would always be in her front yard planting marigolds, which were an easy target to destroy. The kids all took part in throwing rock at Miss Lottie's marigolds, and the narrator was the coordinator. After they sprinted back to the oak tree, the narrator started to feel guilt for what she
Mother always blames the girl because Connie very often admires in front of a mirror. Also, mother constantly puts the older sister June as an example for Connie and it leads to alienation of the girl. Connie's father spends not enough time at home because he is busy on the work and when he returned to family, he just had supper, read newspapers and went to sleep, as a result, Connie feels a lack of parental attention. There is not enough love and care about each other in their family; therefore, they are
Andy expresses extreme distaste for the sea and a curiosity of the woods. She never really admits to liking the woods but the way she refers to it is always as if she's fascinated by it, but she doesn't know much about it. Therefore, she must go hunting as a test to see if she belongs. To contrast how she feels about the sea and the forest, she refers to the forest as deep and immense, while she refers to the sea as huge and empty.
Janie who continually finds her being defined by other people rather than by herself never feels loved, either by her parents or by anybody else. Her mother abandoned her shortly after giving birth to her. All she had was her grandmother, Nanny, who protected and looked after her when she was a child. But that was it. She was even unaware that she is black until, at age six, she saw a photograph of herself. Her Nanny who was enslaved most of her lifetime only told her that a woman can only be happy when she marries someone who can provide wealth, property, and security to his wife. Nanny knew nothing about love since she never experienced it. She regarded that matter as unnecessary for her as well as for Janie. And for that reason, when Janie was about to enter her womanhood in searching for that love, Nanny forced her to marry Mr. Logan Killicks, a much older man that can offer Janie the protection and security, plus a sixty-acre potato farm. Although Janie in her heart never approves what her Nanny forced her to do, she did it anyway. She convinced herself that by the time she became Mrs. Killick, she would get that love, which turned out to be wrong.
The setting takes place mostly in the woods around Andy’s house in Pennsylvania. The season is winter and snow has covered every inch of the woods and Andy’s favorite place to be in, “They had been in her dreams, and she had never lost' sight of them…woods always stayed the same.” (327). While the woods manage to continually stay the same, Andy wants to stay the same too because she is scared of growing up. The woods are where she can do manly activities such as hunting, fishing and camping with her father. According to Andy, she thinks of the woods as peaceful and relaxing, even when the snow hits the grounds making the woods sparkle and shimmer. When they got to the campsite, they immediately started heading out to hunt for a doe. Andy describes the woods as always being the same, but she claims that “If they weren't there, everything would be quieter, and the woods would be the same as before. But they are here and so it's all different.” (329) By them being in the woods, everything is different, and Andy hates different. The authors use of literary elements contributes to the effect of the theme by explaining what the setting means to Andy. The woods make Andy happy and she wants to be there all the time, but meanwhile the woods give Andy a realization that she must grow up. Even though the woods change she must change as
Susie’s mother opened the door to let Molly, Susie’s babysitter, inside. Ten-month old Susie seemed happy to see Molly. Susie then observed her mother put her jacket on and Susie’s face turned from smiling to sad as she realized that her mother was going out. Molly had sat for Susie many times in the past month, and Susie had never reacted like this before. When Susie’s mother returned home, the sitter told her that Susie had cried until she knew that her mother had left and then they had a nice time playing with toys until she heard her mother’s key in the door. Then Susie began crying once again.
When her father and the others began to gut the deer, Andy feels terrible and starts running away. The men began calling out to her, “Charlie Spoon and Mac and her father—crying Andy, Andy (but that wasn’t her name, she would no longer be called that)" (397). She is running away Andy the tomboy and is running towards Andrea the mature woman. At that moment she realizes the truth about herself. She no longer wants to be Andy, she wants to be herself, Andrea. She ran just as she ran away from her mother in the ocean. She began to understand that growing up and becoming a woman is unavoidable. The theme of the story is the idea that to mature, a child must reconcile life with the reality of death. "While all around her roared the mocking of the terrible, now inevitable sea" (397). She is no longer interested in hunting, a male activity, she is now disgusted by it. She's accepting towards the changes and can now tolerate the "ocean" or the idea of womanhood.
This story speaks of a married woman who fell in love with a man who was not her husband. She bore this man a child and realized that she could not live without him. In the event, she decides to leave her husband to be with the child’s father. However, there is only one problem and that is that she has two other children by her husband. She has a daughter who is 9 years old and is very mature for her age, and a darling son who is 5 years old. As she leaves to restart her life again with this other man, the 5 year old son is left behind to stay with his dad, and the little girl is tragically killed by a pack of wolves. The little boy is devastated by his mom’s decision to leave him behind. He is constantly haunted by dreams and images that come to his mind surrounding his mother’s...
A breathtaking saga of a young girl’s tragic memories of her childhood. As with Ellen, Gibbons’ parents both died before she was twelve-years-old, forming the family. basis of the plot and themes of this novel. The fond memories she possessed of her mother and the harsh ones of her father are reflected in the thoughts and actions of Ellen. The simplistic and humble attitude that both Gibbons and Ellen epitomizes in the novel is portrayed through diction and dialogue.
She’s introduced as the weird kid who’s always on her own and constantly getting into trouble, only invited to the birthday from which the girls were kidnapped out of pity. Despite these social defects over course of the film, she shows a proactiveness and understanding of the dire situation that allows her to succeed where the others fail. The truth behind this, however, is rather haunting. In a series of flashbacks we see her being taught to hunt by her father, at first assumed to be the cause of her skewed view on the world, but later revealed as context for the horrific abuse at the hands of her uncle. The film provides a chilling representation of pedophilia – the grooming scene, with the adult wanting to “play animals” is terrifying, as is the power the uncle wields even when held at gunpoint – and goes to great efforts to show how it affected Casey’s life growing