Throughout the book Wilderness Tips, by Margaret Atwood, I was hit with a barrage of different themes throughout each individual story. Most stories had mentions of love and affairs, or reminiscing’s from youth to present day, however, the story that struck me most interesting, or just got my undivided attention, was “Uncles.” As identified in the Wilderness Tips Study guide given to students for class, some reoccurring themes of Atwood are “survival, sexual exploitation, loss, and discovery.” The story “Uncles” truly does present all of these, but sometimes in a way that makes readers look beyond the page, and really think about what the author has said not only about the characters, but also how these characters are people that we may be …show more content…
in contact with in a daily occurrence. “Uncles” begins with Susanne as a young girl of five years, and her memory of her time at a dance recital.
This beginning is very important for readers to remember. Through this memory, we learn about how absorbed, I felt, that Susanne seemed to be with herself. She talks of those who came to watch her in the recital, her mother and her aunts and uncles, and who she favored for. Atwood writes, “It was the uncles that counted” (122). This is later seen through the uncle’s devotion to Susanne’s mother and Susanne herself. An example is that the uncles “had clubbed together to buy her the house, because she (the mother) was their little sister” (124). The uncles provide the house and wages for Susanne and her mother, but they also support Susanne herself, and pay for her continuing …show more content…
education. After the uncles die, we see Susanne’s journey out into the world and how she hopes to make something for herself, a life and money, something her mother could not do without a man.
Susanne ends up working for a newspaper, where she finds the mentor that will later on disgrace her name to the public. After years of Percy molding her into the very women that led her to success, we see their drifting relationship and then at last, the memoir that Percy writes, that sites him as the source of who she is, and makes her out to be a wicked witch. In the end, reads see Susanne very distraught as to why Percy would make her out to be this cruel villain, and end with very vivid and troubling daydream. The daydream take Susanne back to the beginning of her story, she is on stage at her recital, but instead of thing of herself as cute and talented, she comes to look on herself as a brat and a showoff; leading her to question what she was and acted her whole life. The last difference in this recital, is that the uncles that shipped her life so much are not there, but the “mother” and “father” from the image in her mother’s room are there. The mother sitting and looking bored, while the father, who died in the war long before this recital originally took place, looks on at her with a look of
hate. This ending is why a main reason I chose to reflect on this specific story from within the book. All through the story, I saw the building of a strong independent women. One thing that specifically struck me was when the third uncle told Susanne, “she should not throw herself away by getting married too soon, and that a women who knew how to earn a living would never have to be dependent” (127). This quote itself has the power to sum up the general themes of Wilderness tips: survival. The way I defined the novel was not directly tips to camping out in the forest, but rather, a way of survival in a world that is never the same in each and every aspect. The survival the women seek in these short stories in in their everyday lives and tribulations; they just want “tips” on how to triumph and keep living.
“The sea's only gifts are harsh blows, and occasionally the chance to feel strong. Now I don't know much about the sea, but I do know that that's the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong. To measure yourself at least once. To find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions. Facing the blind deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your hands and your own head.” – Christopher McCandless, Into the Wild
...e on her part. Throughout the story, the Mother is portrayed as the dominant figure, which resembled the amount of say that the father and children had on matters. Together, the Father, James, and David strived to maintain equality by helping with the chickens and taking care of Scott; however, despite the effort that they had put in, the Mother refused to be persuaded that Scott was of any value and therefore she felt that selling him would be most beneficial. The Mother’s persona is unsympathetic as she lacks respect and a heart towards her family members. Since the Mother never showed equality, her character had unraveled into the creation of a negative atmosphere in which her family is now cemented in. For the Father, David and James, it is only now the memories of Scott that will hold their bond together.
Previously, the narrator has intimated, “She had all her life long been accustomed to harbor thoughts and emotions which never voiced themselves. They had never taken the form of struggles. They belonged to her and were her own.” Her thoughts and emotions engulf her, but she does not “struggle” with them. They “belonged to her and were her own.” She does not have to share them with anyone; conversely, she must share her life and her money with her husband and children and with the many social organizations and functions her role demands.
After reading the book Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder, and watching an interview from Time Magazine on Paul Farmer, viewers will recognize common themes that Paul Farmer conveys throughout the book and interview. The themes embraced throughout are bringing health care to impoverished nations, spreading awareness of new diseases, and not giving up on the nations or patients.
...eemed to combine assimilation of American culture with that of her long lasting Jewish traditions. She has turned down and shunned away from countless Jewish traditions, for hatred of her father. As the story ends it seems that her relationship with her father strengthens and in turn her religious traditions also strengthen. The father is yet another way to view her struggle with her Jewish teachings and religious traditions. Sarah's love for her father strengthens, then so does her will to accept her Jewish upbringing. Sarah is now an American women who also carries the burden and responsibility of her Jewish past. Throughout all her life she had struggled to accomplish all her goals, and in doing so she had ruined her most important goal of fatherly acceptance. As she is proud of completing all her dreams, she has also accomplished a peace of mind with her Father.
Sarah and her mother are sought out by the French Police after an order goes out to arrest all French Jews. When Sarah’s little brother starts to feel the pressures of social injustice, he turns to his sister for guidance. Michel did not want to go with the French Police, so he asks Sarah to help him hide in their secret cupboard. Sarah does this because she loves Michel and does not want him to be discriminated against. Sarah, her mother, and her father get arrested for being Jewish and are taken to a concentration camp just outside their hometown. Sarah thinks Michel, her beloved brother, will be safe. She says, “Yes, he’d be safe there. She was sure of it. The girl murmured his name and laid her palm flat on the wooden panel. I’ll come back for you later. I promise” (Rosnay 9). During this time of inequality, where the French were removing Sarah and her mother just because they were Jewish, Sarah’s brother asked her for help. Sarah promised her brother she would be back for him and helped him escape his impending arrest. Sarah’s brother believed her because he looks up to her and loves her. As the story continues, when Sarah falls ill and is in pain, she also turns to her father for comfort, “at one point she had been sick, bringing up bile, moaning in pain. She had felt her father’s hand upon her, comforting her” (Rosnay 55).
The word family evokes an image of trust and a bond of loyalty. In William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” and James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”, the main characters in both these stories demonstrate the idea of family loyalty in several ways. While they continue to express the values of family loyalty, the main characters have to overcome several obstacles. Searching for ways to communicate effectively with their families and maintaining their changing identities trap the characters. In “Barn Burning”, Sarty is conflicted with being loyal to his family and being loyal to himself and in “Sonny’s Blues”, the brother has to deal with being loyal to Sonny’s values. During this process, it changes their character and forces them to change and learn about themselves.
She had been in New York for quite some time, doing well in school and with a brand new best friend. When she returned to her grandparents, she nurtured her grandpa in his last moments, and when he had taken his last breath a little bit of Jacqueline had slipped away as well. It isn’t that she hadn’t cherished the time with her grandfather, but as if his death was too sudden, and when she had started to really find her way in New York and South Carolina began to fade into a memory, the news was a wake up call.
LaJoe's parents packed up soon ... ... middle of paper ... ... sing the possibility of suing her husband for child support with someone. As for the analysis of the book itself, although the author aims toward providing a chronicle of two years in the lives of the two brothers, he actually ends up writing more about their mother.
Although this story is told in the third person, the reader’s eyes are strictly controlled by the meddling, ever-involved grandmother. She is never given a name; she is just a generic grandmother; she could belong to anyone. O’Connor portrays her as simply annoying, a thorn in her son’s side. As the little girl June Star rudely puts it, “She has to go everywhere we go. She wouldn’t stay at home to be queen for a day” (117-118). As June Star demonstrates, the family treats the grandmother with great reproach. Even as she is driving them all crazy with her constant comments and old-fashioned attitude, the reader is made to feel sorry for her. It is this constant stream of confliction that keeps the story boiling, and eventually overflows into the shocking conclusion. Of course the grandmother meant no harm, but who can help but to blame her? O’Connor puts her readers into a fit of rage as “the horrible thought” comes to the grandmother, “that the house she had remembered so vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee” (125).
“Into The Wild” by John Krakauer is a non-fiction biographical novel which is based on the life of a young man, Christopher McCandless. Many readers view Christopher’s journey as an escape from his family and his old life. The setting of a book often has a significant impact on the story itself. The various settings in the book contribute to the main characters’ actions and to the theme as a whole. This can be proven by examining the impact the setting has on the theme of young manhood, the theme of survival and the theme of independent happiness.
The thought of her brothers still being in her former home environment in Maine hurt her. She tried to think of a way to get at least one of her brothers, the sickly one, to come and be with her. She knew that her extended family was financially able to take in another child, and if she showed responsibility, there would be no problem (Wilson, 40). She found a vacant store, furnished it, and turned it into a school for children (Thinkquest, 5). At the age of seventeen, her grandmother sent her a correspondence, and requested her to come back to Boston with her brother (Thinkquest, 6).
June is the older, responsible sister with a job, who lives at home with her parents. Her description builds on the contrast between Connie and June. June is the complete opposite of Connie because Connie spends her time daydreaming rather than paying respect to her family and being productive. June does not show the conceited characteristics like Connie that their mother criticizes. June is “so plain and chunky and steady that Connie had to hear her praised all the time by her mother and her mother’s sisters” (Oates) shows the purpose of why June is included in the short story. June represents the child that Connie’s mother wishes for and the chasm that was created between Connie and her mother. June is an overweight girl with no ambition or thought for looks. She is dutiful to her parents and does her chores. Therefore, June causes Connie to feel separated from her family where she is looking for comfort and attention from others to fulfill her fantasies shown through her obsession with music. Connie’s disdain for June ...
Even Sixo, the wild man, went among the trees at night to “keep his bloodlines open.” Each one of these characters has endured the horrors of slavery and faced this ordeal in different ways, but they all deal with slavery with the comforting and harmless aspect of nature, trees. Although people today don’t have to live through slavery, people still have to face their own tough personal situations. Instead of having nature to soothe one’s problems, people today drown their sorrows in material possessions and controlled substances, unfortunately a problem plaguing society. Readers can only remember a time not too long ago when the little secret hiding place in the woods or one’s special thinking rock meant a great deal more than material items, a simple healthy escape from life and it’s problems.
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...