Throughout the short story “Badeye” by Ron Rash, the narrator grapples with a battle between conforming to his mother’s beliefs or defying her. The beginning of the story describes a man named Badeye Carter who, according to the community’s mothers, is a plague on Cliffside. As the story progresses, the narrator descends into what his mother sees as delinquency, first by getting snow cones from Badeye, who his mother believes to be a poor influence, then by collecting snakes. In the end, the narrator realizes the truth behind his mother’s views, yet continues to reminisce on his delinquency. The short story “Badeye” by Ron Rash uses religion, characterization, and irony of consequences to convey the teenage struggle between conforming to a parent’s views and rebelling to be one’s own person. …show more content…
Throughout “Badeye,” the narrator’s mother views Badeye as “an intruder, a bringer of tooth decay, bad eating habits, and other things” which contrasts with the elusiveness the narrator sees (Rash 3). The use of the metaphor to compare Badeye to someone who is not welcome helps to set up the mother’s initial view of him. Furthermore, it creates a contrast between the grime his mother sees and the interest the narrator has, displaying the rebellious nature of the narrator still associating with Badeye. This rebellious nature is also shown when his mother voiced her disapproval, yet the narrator continued to get snow cones from Badeye. The narrator’s interest in Badeye, along with the temptation of the snowcones, contributed to his rebellion as he continued to feel a desire to return to Badeye. Because of Badeye’s unconformity and further, because of his mother’s distaste of Badeye, the narrator’s interest in him only heightens as the story progresses. To the boy, Badeye seemed like an untouchable man, almost
Exploring the minds of six-year-olds can be a very interesting experience. Gary Soto narrates this story as a young boy at a time when he seems to be young and foolish. Soto does a great job of showing the contrast between right and wrong through a child’s eyes. He successfully conveys the guilt of the boy through his use of imagery, repetition and contrast. He uses these tools to get the reader into the mind of the boy so that they can explore his guilt and thoughts.
Parents are always supposed to look out for the best interests of their child. Anne Tyler authored the short story “Teenage Wasteland” which depicts the strained mother and son relationship between the character Donny, and his mother Daisy. Donny is a teenage boy who is struggling with his grades at school and is exhibiting poor behavior. His mother Daisy is concerned with her son’s grades and behavior, however, she fails at getting her son the help that he requires. Told through a third person point of view through the character of Daisy, Tyler uses irony to tell the story of a teenage boy who is failed by the adults in his life who are supposed to help him flourish, including his parents, a psychologist, and his tutor.
Parent/Child relationships are very hard to establish among individuals. This particular relationship is very important for the child from birth because it helps the child to be able to understand moral and values of life that should be taught by the parent(s). In the short story “Teenage Wasteland”, Daisy (mother) fails to provide the proper love and care that should be given to her children. Daisy is an unfit parent that allows herself to manipulated by lacking self confidence, communication, and patience.
Many people see Susanna Rowson’s book, “Charlotte Temple”, as a comment on the need for youth to listen to their elders. However, the theme is far more complicated than this as it shows that the advice itself is flawed. As the characters travel from England to America, the inherent problems of the advice appears. It is here that Montraville father’s advice which is assuming similar experiences leads to lifelong misery. Charlotte the most obvious proof that ignoring your parents advice leads to trouble suffer far greater consequences because of the reversibility of that very same advice. Even the readers experience the dangers of advice as the author cautions the mothers reading the novel that their views and consequently advice are not enough because of the inherent problem of advice not being law. Montraville’s, Charlotte’s, and reader’s stories show that it is not enough to follow parental advice if the advice is misguided, founded in untrue expectations, creating more trouble and misery for the youths.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” utilize character responsibilities to create a sinister plot. For Hawthorne, protagonist Young Goodman Brown must leave his wife at home while he partakes in a night journey. For Poe, ancillary Fortunato covets a pretentious manner towards his wine tasting skills, and after being ‘challenged’ decides to prove his expertise by sampling Amontillado. Hawthorne and Poe showcase a theme of darkness but differ in their approach to the setting, characters, and fate of entrapment.
After reading Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, a novel that exposes the short life of Chris McCandless and the clues to the mystery of his untimely death, we as readers can comprehend and fathom the actions and thoughts of Chris McCandless if we are able to perceive and distinguish the characteristics and results of a family that is dysfunctional. More specifically, a dysfunctional family in which there is an authoritarian parent that greatly impacts the life and actions of the other members in the family. This parent may employ a perfectionist attitude on the children which can be debilitating in the long run. The lack of proper parenting can force children to take up nontraditional roles to facilitate proper family functioning. This unnecessary
A teacher, who had “an indescribable air of one who knew the world”, leads Goodman Brown from the cave. His teacher continually leads him along the path to enlightenment despite Goodman Brown’s attempts “to return whence I came.” Goodman Brown learns that people are not perfect and that “good” people sometimes do “bad” things. People who Goodman Brown views as perfect, like the governor and his Sunday school teacher are exposed as imperfect people who lie and cheat and steal by using the images of a stolen broom and a promise to be queen of Hell.
This story makes the reader wonder, why must parents do this to their children, what kinds of motifs do they have for essentially ruining their child’s life. I believe
The story provides many sources for the boy's animosity. Beginning with his home and overall environment, and reaching all the way to the adults that surround him. However, it is clear that all of these causes of the boy's isolation have something in common, he has control over none of these factors. While many of these circumstances no one can expect to have control over, it is the culmination of all these elements that lead to the boy’s undeniable feeling of lack of control.
“Young Goodman Brown”, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, delves into the classic battle between good and evil; taking the protagonist, Goodman Brown, on a journey to test the resolve of his faith. Goodman ventures out on his expedition deep into the sinister forest, in order to repudiate the attempt of the devil to sway him from Christianity; a test he believes his devout faith is prepared to confront. Goodman Brown is forever altered in ways unforeseeable by taking a stroll with the ultimate antagonist, the devil himself. The prevailing theme in this literary work, which is common in Hawthorne’s gothic writing, is the realization that evil can infect people who seem perfectly respectable. Throughout the course of his journey, Goodman Brown discovers that even highly reputable people of Salem are vulnerable to the forces of darkness.
Neil Gaiman’s “Snow, Glass, Apples” is far from the modern day fairy tale. It is a dark and twisted version of the classic tale, Snow White. His retelling is intriguing and unexpected, coming from the point of view of the stepmother rather than Snow White. By doing this, Gaiman changes the entire meaning of the story by switching perspectives and motivations of the characters. This sinister tale has more purpose than to frighten its readers, but to convey a deeper, hidden message. His message in “Snow, Glass, Apples” is that villains may not always be villains, but rather victims.
The children couldn’t accept what they thought was so horrible. There was a lot of ignorance and carelessness portrayed throughout this short story. The theme of ungratefulness was revealed in this story; The author depicted how disrespecting someone can inturn feed you with information you may wish you never knew and how someone can do one wrong thing and it immediately erases all the good things a person did throughout their
In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll should be held accountable for Mr. Hyde’s wrong-doings. Recently, Utterson has been getting suspicious of Jekyll, his best friend, who seems to be keeping something important about Hyde, one of Jekyll’s friends. He starts to think this because Utterson has recently found out that when Jekyll either goes missing for three months or dies, Hyde will get the will, when Utterson should be getting it. Jekyll, however, rarely brings up Hyde even though Utterson is his best friend who he is able to trust. Whenever Hyde is mentioned, Jekyll starts to get nervous.
Oh, senseless teenagers of society- to believe that you maintain reason and competence is the very idiocy that blinds you. Whilst you folly in totality to those around, stupidity stabs the hearts of the earth and infects it with your venomous ora. You are consumed and suffocated by temptuous evil. Its savaging claws are forever impelled into souls as yours, and they forebode the innocent of impending corruption. All so subtle but familiar, as temptation replaces obedience with rebellion, modesty with prostitution, innocent games with fatal encounters, and a once genuine love with cold, callous hearts.
Adam, a corporal officer, starts as man who works everyday to catch the ‘villains’ of society, but is not spending enough time with his family, especially his son. He favors his nine year old daughter over his fifteen year old son. Adam views his daughter as a sweet child, and his son as a stubborn teenager who is going through a rebellious stage. However, when his daughter is killed in an accident, his perspective of family changes. In his grief, he states that he wishes he had been a better father. His wife reminds him that he still is a father and he realizes that he still has a chance with his son, Dylan. After his Daughter’s death, he creates a resolution from scriptures that states how he will be a better father. Because of the resolution he creates, he opens up to and spends more time with his son. By th...