“I will fill your mountains with the dead. Your hills, your valleys, and your streams filled with people slaughtered by the sword. I will make you desolate forever. Then you will know that I am god. Ezekiel 35:8,” said Pastor Obadiah as he finished his sermon. Except that his voice was slightly more shaken than normal, it was a fairly normal day. Obadiah had been preaching since Marissa’d been in diapers. So naturally he was an elder of the church. He didn’t need a cane, but he was fairly close; his legs always seemed to quiver when he had to walk alone. Because of this, his designated seat was a pew in the first row. She didn’t know why but, Pastor Ernest, already on stage, rushed up to the podium and jerked open his journal. He was a gaunt man; and yet no …show more content…
taller than 5’7, he seemed much taller. Fumbling to find his notes for today as his face displayed the slightest hint of discomfiture and disorientation. As his uncombed burgundy hair fell in front of his dark brown eyes, it occurred to her he was probably late. It was then that she noticed his very discernible eye bags. He definitely woke up later than intended. Maybe that’s why his daemon was so listless... After about twenty seconds wasted, he started his sermon without time to blink. With a swift clear of his course throat to gain the crowd's attention, he was in control. As he put his weight on the podium, Marissa could almost see the wrinkles in his white button-down shirt. During his sermons, Marissa could never seem to focus. There were too many uncontrolled elements. The sunlight shining through the blood-red stained glass bore the color into her white dress. For some reason, the other colors never shone through the glass. The church was almost always around sunrise so maybe that was why the other colors never illuminated the room. It was unusual.
Like he was rushing. As long as she had known him, he’d never rushed a sermon. It was too important to him. As much as she respected him, he always made her stomach feel uneasy. She didn’t dislike him or anything; she just didn’t give him her fullest trust. His daemon being a putrid green rattlesnake definitely didn’t help either. He was such an elegant speaker, though. He could be giving a speech about American politics, and everyone would listen in awe. From the back of the church, Sister Meriwether gave Ernest the glance that an angry parent would give as he walked off the stage. Even if it wasn’t directed at her, Marissa could feel Meriwether’s glare pierce the back of her neck. As her eyes followed Ernest, Meriwether sharply gestured at her wrist as if to reiterate the amount time he’d wasted. As he looked at his own wrist watch his head down hung in a disgruntled manner and he stood next to Meriwether, leaning against a pew. The disparity between Meriwether and Ernest made her look fairly young, yet she bossed everyone around like she was their mom. She often pondered how and why Meriwether became a nun, but Marissa always suppressed her curiosity in fear of being considered
rude. “A warm round of applause for Pastor Ernest’s ten year anniversary!” Exclaimed Pastor Judith, her voice boomed in the echoey church. While the annoyance in her tone was clear, she seemed. The pastors had always given her the chills but she never knew why. Maybe it was because they always knew what to say. Or maybe the church just had a brisk feel and she hasn't noticed it until now. Perhaps it was their daemons that unsettled her. Those wide eyes of their daemons always seemed to find hers. As time passed, even their daemons seemed restless. Marissa was never one to suspect much of people. However, the pastors were different. They always talked like they were bad actors. Like their emotions weren’t genuine, but what’d she know? Besides the stained glass windows, the only other source of light was from the wax candles. It unsettled her daemon, Ozymandias. Ozymandias was a golden monkey. He grasped tightly on to Marissa’s arm as if something was amiss. Pastor Judith wrapped up his sermon and they began summoning rows up to the front of the church to the altar for communion. The church choir sang their usual hymns, from their hymnals. While waiting in the line she noticed the new pastor talking to one of the sisters up on the side balcony. He pointed at Marissa and the sister hastily left. Before she knew it she was up in the head of the line. She ate her wafer and sipped from the community wine. The wafer flaked at the touch and tasted stale and old. The wine was sour like old spoiled milk and felt thick. The pungent aftertaste of iron glazed her mouth and almost made her gag from the feeling of it trickling down her throat. Shivers ran up her arms as she braced herself against the breeze coming through an open window. Why hadn’t she remembered a jacket?
Many years later, in desperation for a remedy to cure his tortured soul, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale takes to the scaffold where Hester had once suffered her shame. He is envious of the public nature of her ...
...ile forms an image of her character. By comparing her eyes with marbles the reader can construct that Mrs. Merkle was expressionless and had cold, glazed hard eyes. For every instance that Mrs. Merkle is mentioned the phrase is repeated, in the last occurrence to excuse her from not crying for the loss of Mrs. Bylow. Wilson’s adaptation of a motif in her writing shapes the character’s conscience based on their emotional reactions to a situation.
Early into the novel Overton gives an overview of the conditions Theobald is growing up in; along with most boys of the upper class Theobald’s father “thrashed his boys two or three times a week and some weeks a good deal oftener, but in those days fathers were always thrashing their boys.” (Butler, 17). “As a child, (Ernest) believes all that is told: that he is, for example, a wicked, ungrateful boy who deserves Theobald’s frequent beatings,” Deborah Core analyzes Butler’s novel as focusing on how naïve Ernest is as a result of the way his father has treated him (Core). In continuation to Core, Butler points out how the parenting styles of the time period work against their main goal; Ernest ended up in prison and against Christianity entirely after attending Cambridge University at the orders of his
The plot of this story revolves around a decision that two characters, Lane Dean Jr. and Sheri, are forced to make. Lane and Sheri are both Christians who are not an official couple, but clearly haves feeling for each other, sitting in a park bench analyzing the choices they must make. Sheri “ was serious in her faith and values” (Wallace 217) and already has a stereotype towards her on how she must be a good person. Sheri and Lane although not a couple or married, become pregnant. With Sheri being very smart and serious about school abortion is the decision she is leaning towards with an appointment already set. As Lane and Sheri sit at the “ picnic table at the park by the lake”...
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...
The narrator is forbidden from work and confined to rest and leisure in the text because she is supposedly stricken with, "…temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency," that is diagnosed by both her husband and her brother, who is also a doctor (1).
“Don’t be silly,” he muttered. The unlit cigarette bobbed up and down with the movement of his lips. “She doesn’t think it’s silly. Why should she–the way you’ve played around with her?” He sighed and said: “I wish to Christ I’d never seen her.” “Maybe you do now.” A trace of spitefulness came into the girl’s voice. “But there was a time.” “I never know what to do or say to women except that way,” he grumbled, “and then I didn’t like Miles.” “That’s a lie, Sam,” the girl said. “You know I think she’s a louse, but I’d be a louse too if it would give me a body like hers. Spade rubbed his face impatiently against her hip, but said nothing (Hammett
“This veil that Mr. Hooper was wearing represents that everyone has something in their hearts that no one else knows about.” As time passed by and the minister still was wearing the veil the townspeople began to become very uncomfortable whenever in his presence. The simple reason behind this is the veil begins to make the congregation fear
Arthur Dimmesdale is presented as a respected and applauded man who had a way with words. As the town’s Puritan minister, he was “supposed to be the absolute pinna...
At last I arrived, unmolested except for the rain, at the hefty decaying doors of the church. I pushed the door and it obediently opened, then I slid inside closing it surreptitiously behind me. No point in alerting others to my presence. As I turned my shoulder, my gaze was held by the magnificence of the architecture. It never fails to move me. My eyes begin by looking at the ceiling, and then they roam from side to side and finally along the walls drinking in the beauty of the stained glass windows which glowed in the candle light, finally coming to rest on the altar. I slipped into the nearest pew with the intention of saying a few prayers when I noticed him. His eyes were fixated upon me. I stared at the floor, but it was too late, because I was already aware that he wasn’t one of the priests, his clothes were all wrong and his face! It seemed lifeless. I felt so heavy. My eyes didn’t want to obey me. Neither did my legs. Too late I realised the danger! Mesmerised, I fell asleep.
Also there is a clergyman who is so frail that he would sooner wait until the
and a brief description of the young woman. Then he tells the reader about the “
First Miss Lonelyhearts goes on a date and gets intimate with his coworker Shrike’s wife, which is clearly a sin someone so Christ like would not execute. Next Miss Lonelyhearts has sexual intercourse with a woman named Mrs. Doyle after she wrote him a letter for his column and included her phone number. Miss Lonelyhearts knew Mrs. Doyle was married as that was the main subject of her letter. Mrs. Doyle turns to Miss Lonelyhearts because her husband is a “cripple” and she longs for a man in better physical condition than her husband’s. Although Miss Lonelyhearts tries to insert Christ into every aspect of his life, he forgets to remain in that state when he takes Mrs. Doyle back to his apartment, as a true religious man would never do. Despite his personal wants at the time, Miss Lonelyhearts forgets his values and strays away from his morals of staying true to Christ and his beliefs. Something that is emphasized in this story is that all the characters who write to Miss Lonelyhearts’ advice column all have physical ailments or disfigurements that match their broken, ravaged interiors, much like Miss Lonelyhearts himself. For example, Mrs. Doyle is described as being obese and “brutish” relates to her interior of being abusive to her husband and taking her anger out on Miss Lonelyhearts who gives into sin by giving her what she wants. However, later in the story Miss
Whenever Elizabeth was sad about Victor postponing the wedding Maureen would make herself smaller by turning into herself and holding her arms tightly. Elizabeth worries so much about Victor that she can not stand still and constantly goes to the window to watch for Victor. To show Elizabeth’s love for Victor Maureen’s pitch would get higher and her voice would fill with excitement when Victor entered a room. Maureen made sure that whenever Victor was in the room, Elizabeth never took her eyes off him. Elizabeth climbed the ladder with such speed and determination, because she knew she would be with Victor no matter how dangerous the situation
In doing this, the usher of the church on “Fifth Avenue,” abandoned someone less fortunate in order to maintain a good appearance. This “house of God,” which should be opening its doors to give a he lping hand, turns away a man in need of help. Hughes shows betrayal in the same poem, when the less fortunate man asks St. Peter if he can stay. St. Peter replies, “You ca...