In the short story “Ashes for the Wind”, written by Hernando Tellez, he applies the use of symbolism and theme to elevate his writing to a greater degree. Through various symbols providing profound overtones concealed throughout the story, Tellez’s continuous references to these symbols help to establish and reinforce the theme; the theme depicted in the story is corruption and reveals that the government will not tolerate those who have conflicting political views. One of the most prominent symbols that underlines the theme is the oil dripping from the black drum in Don Rómulo Linares’ store, which illustrates the continuation of life. When Juan Martinez is denied from purchasing oil, he is denied of his life; the oil is in clear sight across
“The Secret Lion” is a short story by Alberto Rios that has an abundance of symbolism. The lion, the arroyo river, the grinding ball, and even the gold course all withhold major examples of symbolic meanings. All of these symbolic meanings point the theme in the direction of maturation. All of the symbolism in this story is expressed through a twelve-year-old boy, which just happens to be the one telling the story, and Sergio, his friend.
Throughout an individual’s life-time, he/she has a vision as o what his/her should be. But when things do not go as planned and the unexpected occurs, does that person face it, or run away? In “An Act of Vengeance” by Isabel Allende, running away is not an option at well. Through the usage of plot, character and irony, Allende illustrates the cost of war.
In my mind, the piling on of more and more oil stick pigment as the text continues vertically down the canvas is symbolic of the gradual building up of ideas and words which are trapped inside the narrator because he is afraid to express them. As his silence and fear of self-expression continues, the ideas because so tightly packed together that he cannot separate them, like the barely readable black text surrounded by black pigment.
In D.H. Lawerence's short story, “The Rocking Horse Winner”, and Grahm Greene's “The Destructors, there are many truths to consider. Although these two stories are considerably different, the message is the same. Whether in a life-like story, such as “The Destructors”, or a fantacy, like “The Rocking Horse Winner”, the seeds of materialism are planted and nourished in lives of the characters. The aspects of materialism in these two stories develop desired conclusions by its characters. In order to understand the similar message of Greene short story “The Destructors” and Lawerence's “The Rocking Horse Winner”, one must scrutinize the various aspects of each story.
Throughout one’s life, he or she will encounter an opportunity that will likely impact his or her perspective on a given situation. In Waste Land, Vik Muniz embraced the opportunity to travel to Jardim Gramacho in Brazil in hopes of making a difference with the pickers by incorporating the pickers as assistants for the art projects. While at the landfill in Rio de Janeiro, he experiences the life of the pickers which helps him to create the art that will transform the lives of the workers; these experiences allow Muniz to develop as a person (Walker). Vik Muniz’s perspective regarding the landfill and the pickers evolved from expressing pity to embracing the pickers as a group of friends.
Junot Diaz’s “Otravida, Otravez” postulates a perspective of life where one’s present and future always reflects their past in some way. Diaz incorporates symbolic figures to convey how a person’s past can be carried into the future. Diaz’s use of symbolic figures includes the dirty sheets washed by Yasmin, the letters sent by Virta to Ramon, and the young girl who begins working with Yasmin at the hospital. These symbolic figures and situations remind the readers that the past will always play a major role in one’s present. Additionally, Diaz’s word choice, where Spanish words appear in many different parts of the reading, suggests that indirectly, one’s past habits are not easily broken.
In “The Fortune Teller,” the author, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, uses symbolism to prove to one that an affair is not worth a person’s life. He uses the letter to symbolize hate between Villela and Camillo regarding the affair. This very ambiguous letter has terrified Camillo and put an end to his life. The letter enhances the theme of the short story by showing the anger and hate that Villela now had for Camillo. This hate is a focal point in the short story that leads to ending the affair along with Camillo and Rita’s life. Ultimately, the affair caused a large amount of tension between the three. However, the author was successful in grabbing the reader’s attention with the letter as the turning point of the short story.
Many authors use symbolism to convey messages about society as a whole. One particular symbol which is trans-cultural and appears in much of literature is that of the blade. The blade in many cases embodies masculinity, honor, and courage. In the two stories “In a Grove” and Chronicle of a Death Foretold the authors use the motif of the blade to convey similar messages about the societies in which they take place. Both authors Akutagawa and Marquez use the motif to give an insight into views of honor and masculinity in the societies of Japan and Latin-American countries, respectively.
Family is one of the most important institutions in society. Family influences different aspects of a person’s life, such as their religion, values, morals and behavior. Unfortunately, problems may arise when an individual’s belief system or behavior does not coincide with that of family standards. Consequently, individuals may be forced to repress their emotions or avoid acting in ways that that are not acceptable to the family. In the novel The Rain God, written by Arturo Islas, we are presented with a story about a matriarchal family that deals with various conflicts. One major internal conflict is repression. Throughout the novel the characters act in strange ways and many of the family members have internal “monsters” that represent the past that they are repressing. In his article, “The Historical Imagination in Arturo Islas’s The Rain God and Migrant Souls”, Antonio C. Marquez’s implicitly asserts a true idea that The Rain God is a story about repression. Marquez’s idea can be supported from an analysis of secondary sources and a reading of the primary text.
Dinaw Mengestu’s novel The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears is a story about an immigrant from Ethiopia named Sepha Stephanos that discovers the freedoms he travels to the United States for are not easily accessible and that sometimes you can lose yourself trying to figure out who you are. The passage that most clearly represents this notion comes as Stephanos is reflecting at the end of the novel, he says: “What was it my father used to say? A bird stuck between two branches gets bitten on both wings. I would like to add my own saying to the list now, Father: a man stuck between two worlds lives and dies alone. I have dangled and been suspended long enough” (Mengestu, 228). This paper will examine the metaphor of the two worlds Stephanos
Throughout his novel, Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes effectively uses the transformation of reality to critique and reflect societal and literary norms. In three distinct scenes, Don Quixote or his partner, Sancho, transform reality. Often they are met with other’s discontent. It is through the innkeeper scene, the windmill scene, the Benedictine friar scene, and Quixote’s deathbed scene that Cervantes contemplates revolutionary philosophies and literary techniques. The theme of reality transformation does not even stop there. Sometimes the transformations of reality scenes act as mimetic devices. Ultimately, Miguel Cervantes’ use of transformative scenes acts as a creative backdrop for deeper observations and critiques on seventeenth-century Spanish society.
In the Carpenter’s Pencil, Herbal, a Nationalist guard, narrates the traumatic story of the Civil War through the account of a Republican doctor, Daniel Da Barcas, to Maria Davisitaçåo, a Portuguese-speaking African prostitute. This narrative counteracts the Spanish collective memory of rebel Galicia (Hirsch, 109) by vindicating the memory of Galician resistance, it also fuels the collective memory of Republican values as progressive and enlightened and Nationalists ones as conservative and ruthless, while at the same time providing an alternative to the collective memory of the triumphant Rebels through illustrating some of the atrocities committed by the Nationalists against the Republicans in Galicia, and the consequent guilt that some Rebels
The poem “Exile” by Julia Alvarez dramatizes the conflicts of a young girl’s family’s escape from an oppressive dictatorship in the Dominican Republic to the freedom of the United States. The setting of this poem starts in the city of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, which was renamed for the brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo; however, it eventually changes to New York when the family succeeds to escape. The speaker is a young girl who is unsophisticated to the world; therefore, she does not know what is happening to her family, even though she surmises that something is wrong. The author uses an extended metaphor throughout the poem to compare “swimming” and escaping the Dominican Republic. Through the line “A hurried bag, allowing one toy a piece,” (13) it feels as if the family were exiled or forced to leave its country. The title of the poem “Exile,” informs the reader that there was no choice for the family but to leave the Dominican Republic, but certain words and phrases reiterate the title. In this poem, the speaker expresser her feeling about fleeing her home and how isolated she feels in the United States.
Pablo Neruda is from Chile and gives a voice to Latin America in his poetry (Bleiker 1129). “The United Fruit Co.,” the poem by Pablo Neruda that will be analyzed in this essay, is enriched with symbolism, metaphors, and allusions. These allusions have great emphasis to the Christian religion, but some allusions are used to evoke negative emotions towards the United States (Fernandez 1; Hawkins 42). Personification and imagery along with onomatopoeia and metonymy are also found in “The United Fruit Co.” Neruda’s use of these literary devices makes his messages of imperialism, Marxism, and consumerism understandable (Fernandez 4). In this essay each of these literary devices with its proper meaning will be further analyzed in the hope of achieving a more complex understanding of Neruda’s message.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s short story, “One of These Days,” describes the disparity between everyday working class people and higher class politicians. The story focuses mainly on two contrasting characters: a humble dentist, Aurelio Escovar, and an aggressive and abusive mayor who takes advantage of his townspeople. Deep in this piece, the situation between the two characters symbolize the corruption of power and the negative influence it can put on society. Though the mayor owns all of the dominance out of everyone in the town, the dentist receives influence for a period of time, taking advantage of it at all cost. We learn at the end of the passage that no matter the identity nor class of an individual, the excess of power can lead to corruption.