The novel, “A Visit From The Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan is told through a span of forty years by several loosely connected people. The two main characters, who are the most closely linked are Bennie Salazar and Sasha, for most of the novel, Bennie is a record producer and Sasha is his assistant. There is no real chronology in the story, making it difficult to follow because each chapter is another person’s story. The interwoven thread throughout the novel and embedded into each chapter is the seeking of some form of redemption, as well as trying to buy or turn back time to redeem past actions. The story ends in the near future, leaving the sense that each person has gone as far as they will go towards redemption and if someone is going to
be redeemed it has already happened.
Heather O’Neill, an inspiring author, wrote Lullabies for Little Criminals that guides readers through the prostitute life of Baby. It instantly became a bestseller worldwide in 2007. O’Neill is a Canadian novelist, poet, short story writer, screen writer, and an essayist. She was born in Montreal and was raised in a French family. Due to poverty in her lower class neighbourhood, young adults would not graduate high school or go to university. Young women would easily become prostitutes and live the rest of her life with an older adult male. However, O’Neill was lucky to attend McGill university, a renowned university that accepts higher class students.
John Demos’s “the Unredeemed Captive” is a story about a man named John Williams, and his five children who were captured by Indians during a war in 1704. John Williams and his children are eventually released, but much to his disappointment, his youngest daughter Eunice remained with her captors, and married an Indian man. This story has a captivating storyline, and makes for a very compelling narrative. In this paper I will attempt to make a critical analysis of John Demos’s work. The major areas I am looking at are the evolution or the piece, from beginning to end, what the major sections of the book are and how they flow together, and how this work is and isn’t a conventional narrative.
Many believe the Dust Bowl was caused solely by bad weather, but Egan shows a multitude of factors that led to the catastrophe. In Timothy Egan’s book, The Worst Hard Time, Egan believes that the syndicate and government, overproduction of the land, and drought were all factors that caused the Dust Bowl.
Time: How does the way the writer moves between the past and present and future affect the structure of the book? How might this technique inform my approach?
Capital punishment and bias in sentencing is among many issue minorities faced for many years in the better part of the nineteen hundreds. Now it continues to spill into the twenty first century due to the erroneous issues our criminal justice system has caused many people to suffer. In the book Just Mercy authored by Bryan Stevenson, Stevenson explains many cases of injustice. Stevenson goes into details of numerous cases of wrongfully accused people, thirteen and fourteen year olds being sentenced to death and sentences of life without parole for children. These issues Stevenson raises bring to question whether the death penalty is as viable as it should be. It brings to light the many issues our criminal justice system has today. There
Dugard, Jaycee. A Stolen Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011. ix - 268. Print.
The Worst Hard Time is all about surviving the dust bowl days in the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, commonly referred to as no man’s land. The author, Timothy Egan, wrote this because he knew the sources for first hand accounts were dwindling as many people who were alive during that time are now growing old. Egan begins by describing breakup of the XIT ranch which covered most of the Texas panhandle. All this land was then sold in small sections to new homesteaders, or nesters, who then began to turn sod, till the land plant wheat, corn, and other crops on this newfound inexhaustible resource. Egan describes the forces that led to European settlement of the Great Plains. The U.S. government cleared the land of the Indians and bison by the
The concept of time travel is quite abstract. Its mysteries and wonders are unfathomable to the average human to the point where it may leave one wondering how it works and even how it affects everyday life. Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife both depict two very different stories of men dealing with the burden of unmanageable time travel. Billy Pilgrim and Henry DeTamble demonstrate both negative and positive impacts that uncontrollable time travel has on external relationships. Both men experience difficulties with familial relationships; for Billy, it is with his daughter and for Henry, it is with his wife. In both cases, they are faced with conflicts from onlookers, whether it is WWII comrades or family friends. Aside from the negative impacts, Billy’s relationship with a lover is strengthened, as well as Henry’s with his daughter.
The story begins with the narrator’s brother, Sonny, being arrested for using heroin. When the narrator discovers what has happened to his brother, he slowly starts to relive his past. Up to this point, the narrator had completely cut his brother and his childhood from his life. He disapproves of the past and does everything in his power to get rid of it. The narrator had become an algebra teacher and had a family who he moved to get away from the bad influences on the street. As a result, it is shown in the story that he has worked hard to maintain a good “clean” life for his family and himself. Readers can see that he has lived a good life, but at the toll of denying where he came from and even his own brother. For years, his constant aim for success had been successful. However, as the story progressed everything he knew started to fall apart.
First, the exposition of this story starts with the narrator who discovers Sonny in the newspaper for using and selling heroin. As he reads the paper on the subway he couldn’t believe what he had read. This made him reminisce the days that
People often use the expressions “a New York minute”, “time flies” and “wasting time” to describe the passage of time; however, these idioms indicate time is something that can be controlled, altered, or differentiated. Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From the Goon Squad presents time exactly how it is: relative. Egan breaks away from the structurally conventional form of traditional novels and presents time as a “goon”, a foolish entity that controls every character in this story and hinders them from becoming successful individuals. This “goon” leaves no one unscathed; everyone faces the wrath of time and all that comes with it. Egan uses music, as well as the non-linear structure of the book,
Redemption, a word with many meanings but few examples. People who think of redemption will usually think of Jesus, but few ever think of Hester Pyrnne. In Hawthrone's The Scarlet Letter Hester was caught in the act of adultery, and in this society, it is no small crime. While in prison Hester gives birth to Pearl, and on the day of Hester's punishment in front of everyone, the entire crowd see Pearl as a small, innocent babe. When Hester was lead in front of the church to point out the man who also committed adultery with her she refuses, "'Never!' Replied Hester Prynne, looking, not at Mr. Wilson, but into the deep and troubled eyes of the younger clergyman. 'It is too deeply branded. You cannot take it off. And would that I might endure his agony, as well as mine!'"(Hawthorne 64) Although it would be easier to tell the town the man who also committed this crime, she says to have his life better treated than that of hers. "...that I might endure his agony, as well as mine!" (Hawthorne 64).
supports the belief that the “truth comes out through time.” In the novel the main character, Grant, is
The criminal underworld has been an essential aspect of crime fiction since the concept emerged in the mid-eighteenth century. While many authors have constructed their own idealistic conceptualizations of the criminal underworld, they have implemented distinct boundaries between the “good” and “evil” features of society. These opposing “worlds” often intertwine when the protagonist, a crusader for good, is thrust into the hellscape of society’s underworld. The novels A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson feature protagonists from differing backgrounds who embark on treacherous journeys through the criminal underworld.
Judith Wright's poem `The Killer' explores the relationship between Humans and Nature, and provides an insight into the primitive instincts which characterize both the speaker and the subject. These aspects of the poem find expression in the irony of the title and are also underlined by the various technical devices employed by the poet.