Sherwood Anderson's "Paper Pills": Deception In The Title
Sherwood Anderson, in the title “Paper Pills,” tries to persuade us, the readers, in believing the short story is going to be about some kind of drug.
Anderson in the other hand turns every thing around to tell us a story about two people falling in-love. The story begins with a description of Doctor Reefy and a brief description of the young woman. Then he tells the reader about the “ twisted apples” (71)that represent doctor Reefy.
Anderson begins characterize Doctor Reefy in his opening paragraph. The reader is given some facial and body features of the doctor. The “... white beard a huge nose and hands” (71) that Anderson puts as a description, making
Reefy seem old, ugly, and worn out to the reader. The doctor kept to himself after his wife died. Reefy started smoking a cob pipe and sat in his empty office by a window that he never opened. On a hot summer day the doctor tried to open the window but when the window did not budge, Reefy did not attempt to reopen the dusty window again. Reefy was so devastated about his wife passing away that he did not care about him self for over ten years. The young woman was well off and needs to find a husband to help her take care of the farm that she inherited from her parents. She was tall, dark, and beautiful with lots of money. As the unwanted “twisted apples” are left on the tree to rotten -- so is Do...
author decides to wrap up his writing with that final statement. Now you know that
... middle of paper ... ... "As he took out his backpack and stuffed it with the food and water and tools he would need, he gave his girl her working orders" (250). Doc, on the other hand, is more laid back and relaxed. "
The author starts off his book with a note highlighting the meaning of this book. It is as follows:
In the first chapter of the book we are introduced to one of the main
In the beginning, the narrator talks about her surroundings, and why she is in her current situation. Her state of mind is clear, as she describes what is going on prior to her being set in this room. As the narrator writes about her husband she alludes to the fact that she suffers from an illness that her husband, who happens to be a well known physician, does no...
is an only child; she is rich and would be a good catch for any man of
tells the story as it should be told and comes under the utter annoyance of the
perceive the novel in the rational of an eleven-year-old girl. One short, simple sentence is followed by another , relating each in an easy flow of thoughts. Gibbons allows this stream of thoughts to again emphasize the childish perception of life’s greatest tragedies. For example, Gibbons uses the simple diction and stream of consciousness as Ellen searches herself for the true person she is. Gibbons uses this to show the reader how Ellen is an average girl who enjoys all of the things normal children relish and to contrast the naive lucidity of the sentences to the depth of the conceptions which Ellen has such a simplistic way of explaining.
As the story begins, the unnamed doctor is introduced as one who appears to be strictly professional. “Aas often, in such cases, they weren’t telling me more than they had to, it was up to me to tell them; that’s why they were spending three dollars on me.” (par. 3) The doctor leaves the first impression that he is one that keeps his attention about the job and nothing out of the ordinary besides stating his impressions on the mother, father and the patient, Mathilda. Though he does manage to note that Mathilda has a fever. The doctor takes what he considers a “trial shot” and “point of departure” by inquiring what he suspects is a sore throat (par. 6). This point in the story, nothing remains out of the ordinary or questionable about the doctor’s methods, until the story further develops.
Sarah narrated the story very well by selecting very exciting verbs to use in her autobiography. One example of this is when Sarah says “When I hold up two gloved hands, Robert holds up his own open palms”. Sarah could have used a less exciting way to say this, which in turn would result in a colorless autobiography. Sarah presents Robert in the very first paragraph. While Sarah’s description of Robert was lacking, it seems it wasn’t essential to the autobiography because Sarah did an exceptional job at making sure the reader can hear and visualize Robert. An example of this is when Robert is instructing Sarah the proper boxing technique, Sarah made it seem extremely immersive by using great detail. Sarah was lacking in terms of describing
Mrs. Woolf begins her memoir in an easygoing, conversational manner by deliberately reaching out to her audience. She states in her first paragraph that she knows many different ways to write a memoir but for lack of time cannot begin to sift through them all and so she simply begins by relating her first memory. Stating that she is not deciding upon a set method and formalizing that she will be informal demonstrates a frame of mind directed outward; it is her attempt to involve the reader in her work. The sympathetic reader feels as if he and Woolf are chatting about her life over a cup of tea. After narrating her first memory she returns to the structure of her memoir, explaining that she could never really succeed in conveying the feelings represented by her first memory without first describing herself. She notes: "Here I come to one of the memoir writer's difficulties – one of the reason...
The story is told in an omniscient third person point of view and this enables
she is no longer a part of his life, this is an example about how
by the lack of love in his life because of the loss of his daughter.
he pills helped it seem bearable. It got to a point where all I could think about was drugs – getting the cash together, getting on, and getting out of it. When I was a young bloke I’d smoked the odd joint with mates, but when I joined up the job provided all the buzz I needed. Don’t get me wrong, I still loved a drink! But the bottle never got the better of me the way pills and dope did. After I got discharged I really hammered the dope, got stuck on pills too – Xanax and Oxycontin. I got them from my doctor the first time to help me deal with my stress and back pain. Pretty soon I was shopping doctors to get more of the pills, and I even bought them off the net without a script.