Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves is an intricately layered post-modernist text, entwined with a complex narrative that even the most intrepid readers would find difficult to navigate. The novel follows the dialogue of an array of characters in their experiences with the ‘haunted’ house located on Ash Tree Lane. The house, ever changing in structure, is in many ways a direct reflection of the form of narration employed by Danielewski in tracing each character’s journey. In her article, “What Has Made Me? Locating Mother in the Textual Labyrinth of Mark Z. Danielewski’s “House of Leaves,”” Katherine Cox argues that Johnny Truant, one of the main characters, utilizes the structure of the labyrinth “to reinvestigate his mother and to recover …show more content…
Truant nicknames Thumper based on a tattoo she has “…barely an inch from her shaved pussy or as she liked to call it – “The Happiest Place on Earth”” (xii). Truant’s nickname not only equates this woman with a fictional cartoon character, but it is also indicative of his view of women in that the nickname results from his sexual objectification of her body. The second account of Truant’s encounter with Thumper is found about a hundred pages into The Navidson Record. Once again, Truant is characterizing Thumper based on his sexual view of her, “One of the reasons I like Thumper is because she’s so open and uninhabited, I mean uninhibited” (105). Truant then launches into Thumper’s tale of her sexual preferences. Although Truant corrects himself in his description of her to “uninhibited,” his inclusion of the word “uninhabited” refers to the ways in which she is uninhabited by him. Truant never sleeps with Thumper, even though he somehow always manages to sleep with the beautiful women he encounters. She is the one woman that he really wants but can hardly bring himself to speak
Literary devices are used by Sandra Cisneros throughout the vignette “The Monkey Garden”, to highlight the mood of the piece. For instance, Cisneros uses symbolism to encompass feelings of mysticality when she describes the Monkey Garden as a place the kids can go too “far from where our mothers could find us.”(95). The garden is symbolized as a haven, that can seemingly alleviate the characters problems. Cisneros also uses juxtaposition to further develop mystical emotions the in the audience. When the author compares two objects like “a dollar and a dead mouse.” (95), she is juxtaposing two inherently disconnected objects to emphasise the range of feelings in the garden. By using literary devices to establish the mood, Sandra Cisneros can
The author illustrates the “dim, rundown apartment complex,” she walks in, hand and hand with her girlfriend. Using the terms “dim,” and “rundown” portrays the apartment complex as an unsafe, unclean environment; such an environment augments the violence the author anticipates. Continuing to develop a perilous backdrop for the narrative, the author describes the night sky “as the perfect glow that surrounded [them] moments before faded into dark blues and blacks, silently watching.” Descriptions of the dark, watching sky expand upon the eerie setting of the apartment complex by using personification to give the sky a looming, ominous quality. Such a foreboding sky, as well as the dingy apartment complex portrayed by the author, amplify the narrator’s fear of violence due to her sexuality and drive her terror throughout the climax of the
If you were in a situation where you had no idea what was going on, and someone proposed an idea that could help you, and give you some direction, would you believe them? In both stories, The Twilight Zone “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street”, and All Summer In A Day, the theme is expressed that a single idea can turn a crowd into a mob. Something as little as one idea can turn people against one another, and get them to do things they might regret. In The Twilight Zone “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street,” this is demonstrated when everyone is in a frenzy, and Charlie ends up shooting Pete Vanhorn. In All Summer In A Day, William’s claims lead to Margot’s condemnation, and her being locked in a closet. A combination of confusion and imagination can lead to something dangerous and chaotic pretty easily.
In Mary Downing Hahn’s “The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall,” Downing Hahn shows that sometimes the best of people who deserve the best end up getting the worst. In this companion book, you will see the difference between the two main characters; Sophia and Florence. You will also find out about the setting and what dangers can go on at Crutchfield Hall. You will see what something in the book symbolizes, including the cat and the mice, and the cold. I will show you Sophia’s mind and her thoughts, and what she is planning on doing, more about her death, and possibilities of what could’ve happened.
‘Once in a House on Fire’ was set in the 1970’s Manchester, where she was born. It is a memoir that Andrea’s writes to express her difficult childhood and the idea that she uses detailed sensory language, as if it was portrayed like a novel. Throughout her life she suffered untold sadness from the death of her father to the introduction of her new stepfather. This essay explores Andrea themes of emotional, physical and mental abuse, which is prevalent throughout the text. The essay has an exploration of many specific language techniques and sentence types to build a negative impression of Peter Hawkins.
The values and perceptions of people in a public space and cause an internal struggle and can ultimately lead to long lasting effects. For instance, as previously discussed – Chico felt the need to reassert his masculinity throughout the novel because he felt Blanca wore the pants in their relationship. This immediately became a problem once people on the outside started sharing their opinions of what goes on in their private space. Furthermore, we have Blanca who bases her values and morals on the opinions and beliefs of the church. This is yet another example of how this particular public space alters one’s individuality. In many cases, both private and public spaces intertwine and the reader may conclude that this may cause tension for some characters. For instance, when Blanca urged the cops to come into her home, Chico did not like how she made this decision without asking for his approval. At this particular moment – both private and public space are overlapping and this caused conflict. The public’s perception of what a woman and/or man should be affects one’s identity. Berland and Warner’s concept of intimacy regarding personal and private space plays a huge role throughout Bodega Dreams. The intimacy of couples throughout the novel caused tension and disapproval from the individuals within the public space and might have even changed the reader’s opinion of certain characters. This novel may lead to reader to question – does intimacy truly effect people within both the private and public space? If so, why must the opinion of the public have long lasting, dramatic effects on our personal
To begin, Morrison establishes a healthy confusion by developing Beloved. Beloved is first introduced to the reader as the ghost of Sethe’s dead daughter. The ghost haunts Sethe’s house, 124. “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom” (3). Morrison creates abstract diction through the use of the word spiteful. The denotation of the spiteful
Filban said the home had a yard that was overgrown. “The trees and bushes were overgrown, and the house was dark,” Filban said. “And the windows were covered.” She and her sister slept in the front bedroom of the house. She remembers the bedroom having a large, floor-to-ceiling window. She said you could look out and see the wra...
Pictured on the back cover of the comic book "Ghost World," by Daniel Clowes, are the two main characters of the book in full color. This strikingly significant image, surely shrugged off by most Clowes' readers, represents worlds of diversity within the frames of the book. Sporting pink spandex pants underneath her goldfinch yellow skirt and a blue t-shirt to match perfectly, Enid seems to live her life outside the bubble. She's a very dynamic girl, especially interested in her surroundings and people around her. On the other hand, Becky is dressed like a "typical" girl, with a long black skirt and a white blouse, thus representing her conforming presence in the world. Becky is much more passive than Enid, going with the flow of things just living life. The contrasting personalities of Enid and Becky come ironically, being best friends. However, it brings out their defining qualities in the comic book while quietly calling attention to the values of life, what is real and what is not.
In The Princess and the Goblin, the author uses many literary devices to bring his writing to life and to illustrate specific moments in the story.
Mary Wroth alludes to mythology in her sonnet “In This Strange Labyrinth” to describe a woman’s confused struggle with love. The speaker of the poem is a woman stuck in a labyrinth, alluding to the original myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. The suggestion that love is not perfect and in fact painful was a revolutionary thing for a woman to write about in the Renaissance. Wroth uses the poem’s title and its relation to the myth, symbolism and poem structure to communicate her message about the tortures of love.
Under the orders of her husband, the narrator is moved to a house far from society in the country, where she is locked into an upstairs room. This environment serves not as an inspiration for mental health, but as an element of repression. The locked door and barred windows serve to physically restrain her: “the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.” The narrator is affected not only by the physical restraints but also by being exposed to the room’s yellow wallpaper which is dreadful and fosters only negative creativity. “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.”
The story begins as the boy describes his neighborhood. Immediately feelings of isolation and hopelessness begin to set in. The street that the boy lives on is a dead end, right from the beginning he is trapped. In addition, he feels ignored by the houses on his street. Their brown imperturbable faces make him feel excluded from the decent lives within them. The street becomes a representation of the boy’s self, uninhabited and detached, with the houses personified, and arguably more alive than the residents (Gray). Every detail of his neighborhood seems designed to inflict him with the feeling of isolation. The boy's house, like the street he lives on, is filled with decay. It is suffocating and “musty from being long enclosed.” It is difficult for him to establish any sort of connection to it. Even the history of the house feels unkind. The house's previous tenant, a priest, had died while living there. He “left all his money to institutions and the furniture of the house to his sister (Norton Anthology 2236).” It was as if he was trying to insure the boy's boredom and solitude. The only thing of interest that the boy can find is a bicycle pump, which is rusty and rendered unfit to play with. Even the “wild” garden is gloomy and desolate, containing but a lone apple tree and a few straggling bushes. It is hardly the sort of yard that a young boy would want. Like most boys, he has no voice in choosing where he lives, yet his surroundings have a powerful effect on him.
In Kew Gardens, Virginia Woolf takes advantage of the liminal quality of the short story in order to highlight the suspended world that she creates in the garden. For Woolf, the lyrical short story’s subversion of traditional narrative structure allows her to focus on creating a world rather than a plot. Further, the short story creates a liminal space by the very nature of its form. Caught in a space where it is not considered a poem or a novel, the short story exists as undefined. The liminality of the short story, however, is both liberating and restricting. Woolf explores this feature in order to suggest the unsustainable nature of Kew Gardens. While Woolf utilizes the form of the short story to create a liminal, impressionistic space that eradicates the boundaries between human and nature, she also uses the transitory quality of the short story to suggest that such a space can only exist for a short duration due to the restrictions of the imposing outside world.
The scene in Jane Eyre in which an adult Jane revisits her place of childhood residence showcases her emotional connection to the gloomy setting. Jane’s fatigued tone, specific placement of detail, and use of imagery upon entering the bedroom contribute to a building sense of both unsettlement and familiarity, taking readers through her thought process as she journeys through the room. The first two sentences of the selected passage use an exhausted tone to highlight Jane’s apprehension as she approaches the once frequently-visited space. In the opening sentence, Jane describes the bedroom as so “well-known” that she does not need guidance to locate it, and she states that she had “so often been summoned” to receive punishment in this room, immediately indicating that the area is very intimate to the narrator.