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Contribution of romance in literature
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Chapter 4: “Alone This Holiday” – The Used In chapter 4, Milkman comes to the realization that he treats Hagar like a “third beer”. He enjoys the sexual relationship that he has with her, but only partakes in her because she is conveniently there, not because Milkman actually has feelings for Hagar or has he desire to pursue her. Milkman looks for a way to break off their relationship because he has never considered Hagar as a girlfriend or potential wife to him, and would rather pursue someone of higher social class and wealth. Milkman decides to write a breakup letter to Hagar, coldly thanking her, and also includes money, as if to buy out of the relationship. The letter causes Hagar to go mad, and she rushes out trying to find Milkman. …show more content…
By telling his ex to “feel alone” and by also telling her to “throw he thought of us away”, the singer of the song is seen as cold and harsh in dealing with his breakup, similar to Milkman’s breakup to Hagar in Song of Solomon. After the decades of being with Hagar, Milkman ends the relationship by breaking up with a letter. Both the singer and Milkman are ending a relationship and telling the other that “you'll be alone this
Near the end of the book Milkman seems to change his view of his father, with some help from the positive memories of the old men in the passage.
As a result of his spoiled childhood Milkman takes women for granted. He doesn't consider how his actions affect them. This is shown when he realizes he is bored with his cousin Hagar, whom he has been using for his sexual pleasure for years. Instead of buying her a Christmas gift he gives her cash and a thank you note. He thanks her for everything she has done for him and considers the relationship over. Hagar becomes obsessed with killing Milkman. She makes several attempts to take his life but fails because of her love for him. Her last attempt to kill him is when he is hiding from her in his only friend, Guitar?s room. Hagar tries to stab him but after she sees his face she cannot. Milkman tells her to stab herself and says, ?Why don?t you do that? Then all your problems will be over.?[pg 130] This portrays how Milkman is cold hearted towards the opposite sex.
Milkman is the protagonist of the novel and also the embodiment of Morrison's notion of individual self-discovery. Throughout his life Milkman is pulled in all directions by the people around him. His father wants him to work with him, his mother wants him to go to medical school, Hagar wants a serious relationship, Guitar wants him to accept the Seven Days. Milkman rejects all of these options and drifts away from those who want to direct his life. Milkman gains his self-awareness after he leaves Southside and travels to Shalimar. The journey through Danville profoundly changes him. He looses or damages all of his material possessions before he leaves Danville. “Milkman is symbolically stripped of all of the things that connect him to his life in Southside”(Davis 225). However, it is in Shalimar that he undergoes spiritual growth and gains se...
In the same episode, he begins his incestuous affair with Hagar, leaving her 14 years later when his desire for her wanes. Milkman's experience with Hagar is analogous to his experience with his mother, and serves to "[stretch] his carefree boyhood out for thrifty-one years" (98). Hagar calls him into a room, unbuttons her blouse and smiles (92), just as his mother did (13). Milkman's desire for his mother's milk disappears before she stops milking him, and when Freddie discovers the situation and notes the inappropriateness, she is left without this comfort. Similarly, Milkman ends the affair with Hagar when he loses the desire for her and recognizes that this affair with his cousin is not socially approved, leaving Hagar coldly and consciously, with money and a letter of gratitude.
Loss and isolation are easy, yet difficult to write about. They are easy because every human being can empathize with loneliness. If someone denies this, they are lying because loneliness is a common feeling, anyone can relate. It’s hard because we don’t discuss loneliness or loss publicly very often, and when we do, we forget about it quickly. These poems contrast each other by speaking of the different types of loneliness and isolation, distinguishing between the ones of loss, and isolation in a positive perspective.
The word choice used in this poem helps to portray a mood of isolation. “And all I loved, I loved alone” (8). What the speaker is saying with this quote is that everything they found interest in, nobody else did, and therefore had nobody to share their life experiences with. Even from a young age, the speaker felt as if they were an outcast, and the loss of the loved one just intensified their loneliness. “Then- in my childhood, in the dawn, Of a most stormy life- was drawn, From every depth of good and ill, The mystery which binds me still” (9-12). The speaker felt that they had no control over their fate. No matter what happened, whether it be good or bad, the speaker felt abandone...
In typical poetic construct, “Danny Boy” remains, at its core, a narrative poem whose main function is to “express interest we as human beings have in other human beings…by telling or attending to these stories”32. Weatherly uses this basic form throughout his four stanzas by expertly placing markers of time like the lines “The summer’s gone, and all of the flowers are dying” and then “But come ye back when summer's in the meadow,/Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow,” in order to portray to the reader the feeling of watching the seasons change as time mercilessly marches on. Narrative form, however, is not merely about telling a story. It also is used so that “the reader will have a certain feeling toward it and will grasp a certain interpretation”33. Once again, Weatherly has expertly used descriptive words and phrases in order to convey the feeling of yearning throughout his lyrics. The repetition in the fourth phrase of the first stanza where “It’s you” is repeated34 is an example of the feeling Weatherly created. By repeated that Danny is the one who is forced to leave, Weatherly places more emphasis on his leaving instead of the potential for Danny to come back home, just as one would place more emphasis on the leaving of a loved one before they were going to leave or within the first few days or weeks of that person’s leaving.
he wanted at the end but he is in fact still alone and miseralble with
The motif of singing is associated with Pilate throughout Milkman’s life. When he is born, she is singing about their ancestors. However, when Pilate dies, she asks Milkman to do the singing. This motif serves to show Milkman’s growth into an adult. Pilate’s song is a parallel to Milkman’s journey from adolescence to adulthood. As Ruth goes into labor, Pilate sings “O Sugarman done fly O Sugarman done gone”. Her singing is the first thing that introduces the idea of flying into Milkman’s life. For Milkman, flying is an amazing thing that does not seem accomplishable. He is infatuated with this idea and continuously tries to find out the secret of flying. Through the song Pilate sings, he finally is able to learn that his great-grandfather
... be casting stones, or holding a conversation. The speaker of the poem does not move on from this emotional torment, yet I do feel as if in his quest for closure he does resolve some of the tumultuous feelings he does have in regard to losing his love.
Music prompts Rob to isolate himself, hold an unrealistic view of people and sabotage his relationships. Rob allows himself to get overcome with a feeling when listening to a song pertaining to that feeling. Many of the songs he mentions as his favorites or with significant meaning, relate to Rob?s life in that they have a lot to do with loneliness. One song in particular that Rob wants to serve as his eulogy, ?Many Rivers to Cross,? by Jimmy Cliff touches upon aspects of his life, such as loneliness, abandonment and anger.
because of his bad memories he wanted to be alone in a sense. Then he
apart, a lonely and isolated figure, out of touch with his own age and without
This poem, by John Berriman, is about losing something that you love, and learning to grow up.