Literary Analysis: What is the most important or most impactful part of a story? The beginning sentence or the end? The first sentence may be the one that gets a reader into a story, it makes them begin a journey of whatever the narrative may hold. However, it is the ending, or last sentence, that leaves the audience with the final thoughts. It is the finale of the show. In the two stories, Paradise by Yxta Maya Murray and Haguillory by Stephanie Soileau there are many similar aspects, however, one small but most significant aspect, is how they both end with impressive, concluding thoughts from the main characters. They both take advantage of the most impactful part of their story. Paradise by Yxta Maya Murray begins with Fernanda, suggesting …show more content…
This last sentence of the story is extremely significant because the whole conflict of the story was how stubborn and racist her father-in-law was. It almost completes the whole plot of the story, that Fernanda does not get her peace, even at the end of her life. Perhaps that is the point of these last thoughts, final sentences; it leaves us with a final, most important thought. Perhaps this is what the author wants us to take away from the story. This same concept continues in Haguillory and ends with a similar concept of words, “... Haguillory tossed out his arm and flung the cat, pin-wheeling, over the rail and into the canal thinking, as it splashed, We’ll see how spiteful I am. Thinking, there’s all kinds of meanness, and all kinds of mercy too” (194, Soileau). Haguillory seems to either think of this action as mean or as mercy. It is a sentence that makes you think about if he is going to be better like Dot asks him to be, and if this act of essentially killing the cat was an act of mercy. In the sense that, maybe the cat would no longer
Lisa Genova, the author of Still Alice, a heartbreaking book about a 50-year-old woman's sudden diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, graduated valedictorian from Bates College with a degree in Biopsychology and holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Harvard University. She is a member of the Dementia Advocacy, Support Network International and Dementia USA and is an online columnist for the National Alzheimer's Association. Genova's work with Alzheimer's patients has given her an understanding of the disorder and its affect not only on the patient, but on their friends and family as well (Simon and Schuster, n.d.).
The book “Dead Girls Don’t Lie” written by Jennifer Shaw Wolf focuses on a variety of different ideas and topics, mostly fixating the murder of the main character’s best friend Rachel. With this also comes gang violence, lost and found relationships, and the fact that some people will go to great extents in order to keep a lethal secret from the public eye. Rachel and Jaycee were best friends up until 6 months before where the book started. But, an altercation between them caused the breakup of their long lasted friendship. It is soon found out that Rachel was shot through her bedroom window, which is at first suspected to be gang violence. When Jaycee doesn’t answer her phone on the night Rachel was murdered, she received a text that circulates
A story review. Relationship changes over the passing of time as circumstances in life shape a person's way of thinking and way of life. Whether it flourishes or decays depends greatly upon how both people react to these alterations.
Vanitas paintings are two dimensional compositions of symbolic content and iconography. The various objects used in the design of these paintings symbolize the brevity of life, the vanity of wealth and beauty, and the inescapable reality of death. This form of art was developed out of Northern Europe in the mid-16th century and through the 17th century. The word “vanitas” is Latin for “vanity.” Vanitas paintings are designed to remind its viewers of the verse in the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes that says all earthly things are “vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Artists who painted vanitas wanted their viewers to remember that the wealth, beauty, and achievements that people desire and obtain will pass away and that death is a sure thing. Mortality is the message present in each vanitas painting and each artist expresses this meaning individually with the use of iconography, color, and various techniques.
The first unit on our textbook Interactions by Ann Moseley and Jeanette Harris talks about the self-concept. It is hard to find a definition for the self-concept because it is certain beliefs about ethnicity, religion, and personalities combined. This unit has a number of readings by various authors where it shows struggles with the self. Self-identity, ethnic backgrounds, and self-esteem are the major aspects of those readings. After reading their writings I found that I could relate to their experiences. The three readings that got my attention were “Zero” By Paul Logan, “I’m Just Me” by Lylah Alphonse, and “The Jacket” by Gary Soto.
The concept of belonging and how it’s conveyed is through the connections to people, places, groups, communities and the wider world. For someone to feel that they belong, they must feel the support of friends and family. Barriers also exist for people not to belong to a group or society and can lead to negative repercussions. This is explored both in Jane Harrison play “Rainbows End” and “The Little Refugee” by Anh Do and Suzanne Do. Both texts explore the stages of a physical connection to a place, while being alienated, from the desire of not being accepted for being different of unalike.
Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate is the story of an African boy, Kek, who loses his father and a brother and flees, leaving his mother to secure his safety. Kek, now in Minnesota, is faced with difficulties of adapting to a new life and of finding his lost mother. He believes that his mother still lives and would soon join him in the new found family. Kek is taken from the airport by a caregiver who takes him to live with his aunt. It is here that Kek meets all that amazed him compared to his home in Sudan, Africa. Home of the brave shows conflicts that Kek faces. He is caught between two worlds, Africa and America. He feels guilty leaving behind his people to live in a distant land especially his mother, who he left in the midst of an attack.
As a journalist in 1920 for the New York Herald Tribune, Sophie Treadwell was assigned to go to Mexico to follow the situation after the Mexican Revolution. (Mexican Revolution 1910-1917) She covered many important aspects of the Mexican Revolution during this time, including relations between the U.S. and Mexico. She was even permitted an interview with Pancho Villa in August 1921 at his headquarters. This interview and other events that she experienced in Mexico are presumably what led her to write the play Gringo. In Gringo Treadwell tries to depict the stereotypical and prejudicial attitudes that Mexicans and Americans have about each other. There is a demonstration of how Mexican women are looked at in the Mexican culture and how they see themselves. The play also corresponds to similar events that occurred during the Mexican Revolution.
Michael MacDonald’S All Souls is a heart wrenching insider account of growing up in Old Country housing projects located in the south of Boston, also known as Southie to the locals. The memoir takes the reader deep inside the world of Southie through the eyes of MacDonald. MacDonald was one of 11 children to grow up and deal with the many tribulations of Southie, Boston. Southie is characterized by high levels of crime, racism, and violence; all things that fall under the category of social problem. Social problems can be defined as “societal induced conditions that harms any segment of the population. Social problems are also related to acts and conditions that violate the norms and values found in society” (Long). The social problems that are present in Southie are the very reasons why the living conditions are so bad as well as why Southie is considered one of the poorest towns in Boston. Macdonald’s along with his family have to overcome the presence of crime, racism, and violence in order to survive in the town they consider the best place in the world.
In Black and Blue, Fran Benedetto tells a spellbinding story: how at nineteen she fell in love with Bobby Benedetto, how their passionate marriage became a nightmare, why she stayed, and what happened on the night she finally decided to run away with her ten-year-old son and start a new life under a new name. Living in fear in Florida--yet with increasing confidence, freedom, and hope--Fran unravels the complex threads of family, identity, and desire that shape a woman's life, even as she begins to create a new one. As Fran starts to heal from the pain of the past, she almost believes she has escaped it--that Bobby Benedetto will not find her and again provoke the complex combustion between them of attraction and destruction, lust and love. Black and Blue is a beautifully written, heart-stopping story in which Anna Quindlen writes with power, wisdom, and humor about the real lives of men and women, the varieties of people and love, the bonds between mother and child, the solace of family and friendship, the inexplicable feelings between people who are passionately connected in ways they don't understand. It is a remarkable work of fiction by the writer whom Alice Hoffman has called "a national treasure." With this stunning novel about a woman and a marriage that begins in passion and becomes violent, Anna Quindlen moves to a new dimension as a writer of superb fiction. Black and Blue is a beautifully written, heart-stopping story in which Anna Quindlen writes with power, wisdom, and humor about the real lives of men and women, the varieties of people and love, the bonds between mother and child, the solace of family and friendship, the inexplicable feelings between people who are passionately connected in ways they don't understa...
end. This essay will further show how both stories shared similar endings, while at the same time
Godwin, William, and Henry S. Salt. Godwin's "Political Justice." A Reprint of the Essay on "Property," from the Original Edition. London: Allen & Unwin, 1890. Print. Political justice Godwin had insisted on utilitarian groups that in the case of a fire, one had an obligation to rescue first the person most likely to benefit rather than an immediate as a family member. It is a moral obligation to have the well being of living individuals especially the family members depend on one. Godwin’s best work is the political theory. “They are sudden and unprepared emanations of truth that have the greatest tendency to deprive men of their sobriety and self command.” (138) including the attention on class society considering people who are rich instead
In conclusion, I would like to say that an open-ended story has much more impact and imagery than a close-ended story. An open-ended story lingers about the reader’s thoughts and to some extent dominates the reader’s imagination. The plot and theme are the two most important literary elements in a literary piece and the piece would fail heavily without a good theme or a good plot.
Meshes of the Afternoon by Maya Deren is one of the most intriguing and significant experimental films of the 1940’s. Maya Deren is a surrealist experimental filmmaker who explores themes like yearning, obsession, loss and mortality in her films. In Meshes of the Afternoon, Maya Deren is highly influenced by Sigmund Freud’s theory of expressing the realms of the subconscious mind through a dream. Meshes of the Afternoon, is a narration of her own experience with the subconscious mind that draws the viewers to experience the events being played out rather than just merely showing the film. I chose Maya Deren for my research because her intriguing sense gives viewers an enthralling experience by taking them to a different, semi-real world of the subconscious mind. Meshes of the Afternoon not only reveals Deren’s success in a male dominant arena, but also provides a sensational and escalating experience for the spectators.
Culture molds the character of writers and gives a variety of different perspective on certain life experiences. In Julia Alvarez’s short story Snow, Yolanda, an immigrant student, moved to New York. While attending a Catholic school in New York, bomb drills were performed. The teacher would explain why these drills were important. Yolanda later found out that her first experience of watching snow was not the best experience one could possibly have.