All of our various boating excursions in and around the Mekong Delta had thrown up and involved some dynamic, interesting, larger than life individuals. One of these was the Cabaret Club owning, petit and slender, Mademoiselle Béatrice de Funès. Who, due to her socialite connections, and a working relationship with the Diem administration, had been recruited by the “Agency” in Saigon as an intelligence gathering “Ear”. Being a natural linguist blessed with a phenomenal eye for detail made her an invaluable addition to the intelligence agency.
Béatrice de Funès was reputedly her given name, but was never officially confirmed neither to me, nor for that matter, anyone else. If the “Agency” knew for a fact either way, they never said, this being standard practice by the “Agency” in all cases.
Known by her “Agency” name of Auntie Bee she was, with all certainty, by birth a product of La Troisième République, the third French Republic. She was the only female child within the strata of an haute bourgeoisie, upper class, family living on the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis, and who enjoyed partaking of the decadent Paris style of the time.
This Parisians bourgeoise lifestyle could well have been a gilded one for Béatrice, and would possibly have remained so indefinitely, had not the Great War come along and destroyed it forever. Not only did that War violently take her beloved, devoted father from the family, it also removed her brothers and uncles from her young life in exactly the same cruel manner.
Shells and other War ordnance have no particular preference as to social class when doing their work. By the Wars end the complete male line, seven in all, of the de Funès who lived in the grande maison on the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis, la...
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...French Foreign Legion, and had backed their putsch against the leadership of Algeria in 61. On any occasion when an ex Legionnaire entered the club, she would vigorously bang on the bar with a beer mallet for silence, ascend the short staircase leading to the cabaret stage, and sing in their honor. For this she received an enthusiastic raucous chorus of whistles and shouts, accompanied by deafening applause.
Had anyone in the early 1960s wished to seek out a later-in-life Édith Piaf look-alike, and in their quest took to the backwaters of the Mekong Delta, there was available, the one and only, redoubtable, Auntie Bee.
As I have proceeded through life, some of those who have befriended me enriched it, yet others had a quite opposite effect. Auntie Bee, who was undoubtedly an immensely complicated person, is one I would put high up on my list of those who enriched.
While Doris Goodwin’s mother and father were a very important part of her life growing up her sisters were just as important. She talks about how while Charlotte, her oldest sister was not around as much as her other older sister, Jeanne she was still very important to her. She goes into detail about a shopping trip that was taken with the oldest and youngest siblings and how after the shopping trip to Sa...
Beatrice is an extremely crucial character in ‘Much Ado About Nothing’. She is one of the reasons that many plans and schemes fall into place to provide us with the outcome that the play finally reaches. Shakespeare depicts Beatrice as a very strong character who knows what she wants and how she wants to achieve it. Her characteristics of sharp wit and her ability to be acutely opinionated allow her to be a notable contrast from the other women in the play, whether this be in a positive or a negative way.
...d longs for her elder sister and mother. Frances is a good person – at heart – and is always looking out for her younger sister. Moreover, even though she has different views that her father and will always do the opposite of what is expected of her, it is seen that this insecurity is caused by James indeed. Frances feels that in order to gain security in her life, she must perform these actions. She feels compelled to live her life the way she does. Frances’s naughty and mischievous behaviour can be viewed as a weakness she possesses, and she longs to correct these weaknesses by her actions. She is not a role model by any means, but she is by no means the Devil’s advocate. A sincere heart – compelled by circumstances – does its best to make the situation turn out for the better than the worse, and Frances, through her love for her mother, inevitably does just that.
Ruth, Elizabeth. “The Secret Life of Bees Traces the Growth of Lily’s Social Consciousness.” Coming of Age in Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2013. 63-65. Print. Social Issues in Literature. Rpt. of “Secret Life of Bees.” The Globe and Mail 2 Mar. 2002: n. pag.
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)
Marie-Laure’s life changed when at the age of six she went blind, causing her to become very dependent on the people around her. Her father tried to make her life as
Annemarie is a normal young girl, ten years old, she has normal difficulties and duties like any other girl. but these difficulties aren’t normal ones, she’s faced with the difficulties of war. this war has made Annemarie into a very smart girl, she spends most of her time thinking about how to be safe at all times “Annemarie admitted to herself,snuggling there in the quiet dark, that she was glad to be an ordinary person who would never be called upon for courage.
Erich Maria Remarque's classic war novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, deals with the many ways in which World War I affected people's lives, both the lives of soldiers on the front lines and the lives of people on the homefront. One of the most profound effects the war had was the way it made the soldiers see human life. Constant killing and death became a part of a soldier's daily life, and soldiers fighting on all sides of the war became accustomed to it. The atrocities and frequent deaths that the soldiers dealt with desensitized them to the reality of the vast quantities of people dying daily. The title character of the novel, Paul Bäumer, and his friends experience the devaluation of human life firsthand, and from these experiences they become stronger and learn to live as if every day were their last.
When the war was over, the survivors went home and the world tried to return to normalcy. Unfortunately, settling down in peacetime proved more difficult than expected. During the war, the boys had fought against both the enemy and death in far away lands; the girls had bought into the patriotic fervor and aggressively entered the workforce. During the war, both the boys and the girls of this generation had broken out of society's structure; they found it very difficult to return.
Have you ever thought about what it was like to live during World War 1, or what it was like to fight at war? At first glance of any war piece, you might think the author would try to portray the soldiers as mentally tough and have a smashing conscience. Many would think that fighting in a war shows how devoted you are to your country, however, that is not true. According to All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, the reality of a soldier's life is despondency, carnage and eradication at every bombardment. Living every day is not knowing if they will eat, see their families, or even if they will awaken the next day. Demeaning themselves from heroes to barely men without their military garment or identity. Remarque conveyed how
When people finally see the flaws, they wake up and the dream ends.” Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess” is a haunting poem that tells the story of a seemingly perfect wife who dies, and is immortalized in a picture by her kind and loving husband. This seems to be the perfect family for a tragic accident. Upon further investigation and dissection of the poem, we discover the imperfections and this perfect “dream family” is shown for what it really is, a relationship without trust. The deceased wife appeared to be completely perfect and caring.
Through Baümer, Remarque examines how war makes man inhuman. He uses excellent words and phrases to describe crucial details to this theme. "The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts," (page #). Baümer and his classmates who enlisted into the army see the true reality of the war. They enter the war fresh from school, knowing nothing except the environment of hopeful youth and they come to a premature maturity with the war, their only home. "We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. We are not youth any longer" (page #). They have lost their innocence. Everything they are taught, the world of work, duty, culture, and progress, are not the slightest use to them because the only thing they need to know is how to survive. They need to know how to escape the shells as well as the emotional and psychological torment of the war.
World War I had a great effect on the lives of Paul Baumer and the young men of his generation. These boys’ lives were dramatically changed by the war, and “even though they may have escaped its shells, [they] were destroyed by the war” (preface). In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Baumer and the rest of his generation feel separated from the other men, lose their innocence, and experience comradeship as a result of the war.
...e desires above all else (p.432). The negative propaganda is not working fast enough to end the power held by the Abnegation faction (p. 244-246), “the failings of choosing government officials based on their faction, asking why only people who define themselves as selfless should be in government”(p. 261-262). Beatrice concludes that “Selflessness and bravery aren’t that different” (p. 396) not through impatience but through longsuffering and goodness.
After reading this book, we were forced to look at life in a different way. The luxuries that are provided for us that we take for granted, like money, cars, a house, food, and even rights, were all put into perspective. ?We couldn?t use street cars, go to the theater, couldn?t be out past 8 PM, couldn?t even sit in our own gardens. We had to turn in our bicycles; no swimming pools, beaches, or libraries- we couldn?t even walk on the sunny side of the street.? This is a quote from Anne?s diary. This just touches upon some of the many simple luxuries that were robbed from her and her family. Today, most of us would blow a casket if we were so ?inconvenienced? as to not be able to drive a car, stay out past midnight even, or not to be able to enjoy sunlight. At one time or another, especially during the summer, each and every one of us makes a...