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The story "O' Youth and Beauty!" by John Cheever is about the Bentley family, who live in Shady Hill as a happily married couple, who have their fair share ups and downs. Cash Bentley, the father of the household, is a former track star who has many money problems, and at times can be very touchy. Cash also had a charming quality of stubborn youthfulness, and felt they he always need to prove his youthfulness to his peers. Everytime the Bentleys went out drinking with their friends Cash would be reminded of his age and thinning hair and would feel the need to prove his youthfulness by hurtling living room furniture. One night Cash doesn't make one of his hurtles and ends up breaking his leg, and this has severe effects as everything around Cash begins to change for the worse. While Cash is out of work and unable to prove his youthfulness he begins to fall into a deep depression and begins to drink more alcohol than usual. Throughout the story events occur which make Cash fall deeper into depression and ultimately cause him to have a mid-life crisis. I feel that Cash's mid-life crisis is the main theme of the story and Cheever shows the effects and impacts that mid-life crisis can have on a person's life.
When reading about Cash Bentley I got the feeling that he has been depressed for years because of the way he drink everyday after work and becomes really irritable when
something simple goes wrong. An example of Cash being unreasonable is when he gets really angry when dinner isn't ready and drags the argument, with is wife Louise, on for
days and days. The only time cash ever seems to be happy is when he us proving his youthfulness ands athletic ability by hurtling living room furniture. I feel that once Cash breaks his leg this is the turning point of the story and triggers the mid-life crisis because of the way he becomes so depressed and consumed in his own self pity.
When Cash breaks his leg everything takes a turn for the worse. He becomes so depressed that his friends stop inviting him over to their parties. While forced to stay home Cash begins to grasp the reality of how quickly his youth is fading away. One night Cash looks tenderly toward Louise and realizes how discouraging her figure has become.
Andy goes back to school and talks to his basketball coach about how he feels about Rob's death and how his fiends and family feel about the accident. In addition, they discuss Andy's sentence because Andy keeps punishing himself for Rob's death. Everybody at school was crying during Rob's memorial service. Grief Counselors from downtown come to the school to try to get the kids to share their feelings.
Essentially this play can be regarded as the mid-life crisis of Walter Lee Younger, passionate for his family, ambitious, and bursting with energy and dreams. Walter cares about his family, and he hopes that buying the liquor store will being a brighter future to Travis, ?And-and I?ll say, all right son-it?s your seventeenth birthday, what is it you?ve decided?...Just tell me where you want to go to school and you?ll go. Just tell me, what it is you want to be ? and you?ll be it.?(Hansberry 109). Walter Lee, shackled by poverty and prejudice, and obsessed with his own sense of success, which he felt, would be the end of all of his social and economic problems. The dreams he had gave him a great sense of pride and self-satisfaction. Unfortunately Walter had to learn a hard lesson in life; pride and greed will eventually lead to unhappiness.
The world is filled with many different types of societies and cultures. This is due to the fact that many people share dissimilar beliefs and ideas, as well as diverse ways of life. People lived under different circumstances and stipulations, therefore forming cultures and societies with ideas they formulated, themselves. These two factors, society and culture, are what motivate people to execute the things that they do. Many times, however, society and culture can cause downgrading effects to an assemblage if ever it is corrupt or prejudiced. Society and culture not only influences the emotions individuals have toward things like age differences, religion, power, and equality but also the actions they perform as a result.
... love and happiness of one’s family. Walter changes from being self-centered to self-less. He gives up his dream of having a liquor store when Willy Harris runs away with the money. Walter does that so the Younger family can fill their lives with joy and do not have to struggle anymore. This is the biggest sacrifice that Walter makes for the family. This theme also applies to everyday life. Many people sacrifice their wishes and dreams that they have, so they could help their family through tough times and always keep a smile on their faces. Love, sacrifice, and happiness is a part of everyday life.
You ever wonder how money can effect and change your life? A great example is a play called A Raisin in the Sun, the play was writing by Lorraine Hansberry. The play debuted On Broadway in 1959. The play is narrates the life of an African American Family living in Chicago in the 1950s. The family is about to receive an insurance check for 10,000. This money comes from the dead of the Mr. Youngers for his life insurance. But who would have known this money would cause the family so many problems. During the play the Youngers faced racial problems, conflicts between each other but they all have dreams in which they are trying to obtain but sadly some of the family members are making difficult for them.
Living in a society where the fulfillment of dreams is based upon material wealth, the Younger family strives to overcome their hardships as they search for happiness. As money has never been a way of life for the family, the insurance check's arrival brings each person to see the chance that their own dreams can become reality. Whether in taking a risk through buying a "little liquor store" as Walter wishes to do or in -"[wanting] to cure" as Beneatha dreams, the desires of the family depend upon the fate of Mama's check. In the mind of Walter Lee Younger, the check is the pinnacle of all, dominating his thoughts, as he does not wait a second before "asking about money "without" a Christian greeting." He cannot see beyond the fact that he "[wants] so many things" and that only their recently acquired money can bring them about. The idea of money and being able to hold it "in [his] hands" blinds him from the evils of society, as he cannot see that the Willy Harris's of the world will steal a person's "life" without a word to anyone. When money becomes nothing but an illusion, Walter is forced to rethink his values and his family's future, realizing that there is more to living that possessing material riches.
Marriage is a concept that society takes extremely inaccurately. It is not something one can fall back from. Once someone enter it there is no way back. In Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat” she tells the story of Delia, a washerwoman whom Sykes, her husband, mistreats while he ventures around with other women and later attempts to kill Delia to open a way for a second marriage with one of his mistresses. By looking at “Sweat” through the feminist and historical lens Hurston illustrates the idea of a sexist society full of men exploiting and breaking down women until men dispose of them.
In her novel The Daughter of Time Josephine Tey looks at how history can be misconstrued through the more convenient reinterpretation of the person in power, and as such, can become part of our common understanding, not being true knowledge at all, but simply hearsay. In The Daughter of Time Josephine claims that 40 million school books can’t be wrong but then goes on to argue that the traditional view of Richard III as a power obsessed, blood thirsty monster is fiction made credible by Thomas More and given authenticity by William Shakespeare. Inspector Alan Grant looks into the murder of the princes in the tower out of boredom. Tey uses Grant to critique the way history is delivered to the public and the ability of historians to shape facts to present the argument they believe.
“On the Pulse of Morning” by Maya Angelou. "On the Pulse of Morning," is a poem written by Maya Angelou. In this poem, Angelou depicts personification. Personification is an element of literature in which an object or animal is given human characteristics. Angelou uses personification to give the rock, the river, and the tree the ability to speak to the reader. In "On the Pulse of Morning", Angelou writes, "But today, the rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, Come, you may stand upon my back and face your distant destiny, but seek no haven in my shadow.
Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat” is a distressing tale of human struggle as it relates to women. The story commences with a hardworking black washwoman named Delia contently and peacefully folds laundry in her quiet home. Her placidity doesn’t last long when her abusive husband, Sykes, emerges just in time to put her back in her ill-treated place. Delia has been taken by this abuse for some fifteen years. She has lived with relentless beatings, adultery, even six-foot long venomous snakes put in places she requires to get to. Her husband’s vindictive acts of torment and the way he has selfishly utilized her can only be defined as malignant. In the end of this leaves the hardworking woman no choice but to make the most arduous decision of her life. That is, to either stand up for herself and let her husband expire or to continue to serve as a victim. "Sweat,” reflects the plight of women during the 1920s through 30s, as the African American culture was undergoing a shift in domestic dynamics. In times of slavery, women generally led African American families and assumed the role as the adherent of the family, taking up domestic responsibilities. On the other hand, the males, slaves at the time, were emasculated by their obligations and treatment by white masters. Emancipation and Reconstruction brought change to these dynamics as African American men commenced working at paying jobs and women were abandoned at home. African American women were assimilated only on the most superficial of calibers into a subcategory of human existence defined by gender-predicated discrimination. (Chambliss) In accordance to this story, Delia was the bread victor fortifying herself and Sykes. Zora Neale Hurston’s 1926 “Sweat” demonstrates the vigor as wel...
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain is her own story that she wrote about during the Great War otherwise known as World War One. The main theme of her story is the struggles that she had to face, whether it dealt with her family, or her personal goals such as attending college or the world that she was surrounded by. On page 17 Brittain stated that "When the Great War broke out, it came to me not as a superlative tragedy, but as an interruption of the most exasperating kind to my personal plans." Another important aspect of Vera's goals was the aspiration and ambition that she had, that aspiration allowed her to move forward in her life.
There are many aspects for my mind to conceive while reading the articles why I write by George Orwell and Joan Didion. There are many different factors in triggering an author’s imagination to come up with what they want to write, and why they want to write it. In most writings a purpose is not found before the writer writes, but often found after they decide to start writing.
Many people describe “The American Dream” as a life full of happiness and material comfort acquired by an individual but F. Scott Fitzgerald challenges this to elucidate the darkness that wealth can pull one in. As illustrated by characters such as Gatsby that is surrounded by so much materialism, for which his idealism is not primed for, leads to the tarnish of his dreams of success. He is too blinded to see the money could not buy love or happiness. Daisy and Tom, living a life full of lies and infidelity, serve as proof to the unhappiness that success can bring. Jordan Baker confirms that money dulls ones morals which only increases the speed of corruption. F. Scott Fitzgerald effectively offers a powerful message of a corrupt society due to its materialistic ideology and the destructive reality it provides.
Love has many definitions and can be interpreted in many different ways. William Maxwell demonstrates this in his story “Love”. Maxwell opens up his story with a positive outlook on “Love” by saying, “Miss Vera Brown, she wrote on the blackboard, letter by letter in flawlessly oval palmer method. Our teacher for fifth grade. The name might as well have been graven in stone” (1). By the end of the story, the students “love” for their teachers no longer has a positive meaning, because of a turn in events that leads to a tragic ending. One could claim that throughout the story, Maxwell uses short descriptive sentences with added details that foreshadow the tragic ending.
Ernest Hemingway's classic novella The Old Man and the Sea is centered around an old