The Grace That Keeps This World, by Tom Bailey, is an enthralling novel about the Hazen family who have lived in Lost Lake their whole lives. In this novel Kevin Hazen, a young man of 19, is searching for where he belongs in the world and in his own family. He wants more for his life than the life of survival that his parents have lived their whole lives. The story of the Hazen family is centered around the first day of deer season. For the Hazens, this hunt is more than just a sport. They use the meat of every deer they shoot to help them survive through the winter.
Traditionally Kevin, his Father, Gary Hazen, and his brother, Gary David, all go out on the first hunt together at two in the morning after a breakfast of homemade pancakes, but this year is different. Kevin wants to break free from the life of his family and doesn't want to go on the hunt with his father and brother. He can't comprehend why his father is so set in his ways and Kevin doesn’t want to live his father's life. Gary is a forester and finds it important to work hard to most provide for his family and to conserve nature. Kevin, like most kids, doesn’t understand his fathers way of thinking, and wants to live his own life. A life away from Lost Lake. Kevin attempts to break free of his fathers lifestyle by attending a nearby college, in hopes to eventually become teacher. Gary isn't happy with his son's decision to go to school and Kevin can't understand his fathers views, which causes the two to butt heads throughout the novel. But a tragic accident suddenly leaves Kevin fighting for his and his fathers lives. Having to use the knowledge and skills that his father had taught Kevin suddenly suddenly realizes his dad was right after all.
Bailey tell...
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...ce with his family. He continues to study and work towards reaching his dream, but he begins working hard to support his family. He understands why his dad tried to teach him all of the things he felt were pointless or unfair. Just like when Odysseus finally makes it home to his family, Kevin finds his way home to his. Although at first Kevin felt that home would be leaving Lost Lake and stepping away from his fathers lifestyle, he later found that he was wrong. This new home was unexpected, he would have never predicted this being the out come of his life. But never the less, he was home. Our Odysseus, in The Grace That Keeps This World, goes through struggles, but in the end finds his way home. Bailey ingeniously writes his novel as a modern-day odyssey, with our tragic hero Kevin pushing through all of the problems that come his way to return home in the end.
...ut Jake in a confused state of his life. His love has always been the river, giving him hope, peace, friendship, brotherhood, and love. The river gave him everything but has now taken away his only brother for no reason at all. No matter how much he tries to get away from his past, the river is his life and has become his home.
There, Chris discovers that his father lives a double life with his ex-stepmother, Marcia. Chris rages about, “ divorcing them as my parents once and for all and never speak to either of those idiots again as long as I live" (64). With an untrustworthy family, he feels outcast and useless. He then only can relate to other outcasts for the remainder of the novel. When he gets a chance at conversing with ‘everyday’ people Chris rants about how ‘fake’ they are. Maybe his trip was his final destination because he eventually realizes he has nothing to come back to. He never plans for the future, just the present scenarios, like sending away $24,000 to charity. When the trip was coming to an end, it overwhelmed him, remembering all the things he still angers him. The trip to El Segundo, California, also arose a very dark: “Two years after Chris’s birth, Walt McCandless fathered another child with Marcia” (64). Chris feels tremendous rage and hurt by this secret. He feels his life is a lie because unveiling this unpublished mystery brings skepticism to everything else surrounding his inner circle and family. Lastly, Chris is extremely heart-broken that his father wasn’t satisfied enough by him. Chris is the type of personality that will go over the edge of sanity if no one is there to stop him. When he leaves his family for good, he was out in the
In Homer's epic poem, the Odyssey, the main theme is the reunification of the family, as Odysseus struggles to return home and rejoin his wife and son. Throughout the Odyssey, we are shown examples of families: good ones that prosper and bad ones that do not. As Telemakhos struggles to become a man and Odysseus struggles homeward, the concept of healthy family life is stressed. At the end, when all conflicts are resolved and Odysseus is reunited with wife and son, the lesson that a united family can overcome any obstacles is shown and is one that today's families should heed.
The Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus and his both literal and figurative journey home to Ithaka. When the great king, Odysseus travels to Troy on the account of war, many obstructions hinder him from returning home. During his absence, his deprivation of being a father to his son, Telemachus, causes great disappointment. Without a father, his son strives to grow and mature yet he has not the slightest idea of where to. However, as Telemachus struggles to reach manhood and his father struggles to return to Ithaka, their seemingly separate journeys are connected. They both learn values that turn a boy into a man and a great man even greater. In the epic poem the Odyssey, Homer uses parallel rites of passage with Odysseus and Telemachus to develop the importance of the father son-bond.
... master finally made it home. While Odysseus was gone, the suitors in Ithaca wanted to take over, but Penelope and Telemachus persevered. Most of Ithaca have lost hope for Odysseus but still “Penelope does not believe that Odysseus is dead (Father and Son).” Penelope has not yet given up on Odysseus. She has remained loyal to him and did not let the suitors take over Ithaca. She stood up for her husband that she has not word of for 20 years. Her strong loyalty allowed Odysseus to rule his kingdom once again when he arrived home.
Odysseus and Aeneas both have an extremely different view of what the meaning of “home” is. They also have a contrasting value of importance on home. This is a parallel that follows them throughout their lives.
He was visiting his friend Wendell and Wendell’s mother began questioning him about his household. Wendell’s mother brought up to Kevin the fact that his father was married to two different women who lived right next door to each other. Not sure how to respond, Kevin shrugged her questions off. When he arrived home, he questioned his maternal grandmother about the oddity of their family dynamic. For better or worse, he was given the truth and Kevin explained to me he felt following that conversation “I think I grew up after that. The blinders were off and my relationship with my mother was never the same. I never trusted her after
trying to return home from war. Through tough trials and a rigorous journey, Odysseus uses his
Coming home after a prolonged stay anywhere is difficult for anyone. Life has a funny way of moving on regardless of our presence. Reestablishing ourselves in people lives that we care about is the most difficult. I believe that because of this Odysseus’ hardest struggle was finding his place back into the society and family that he left behind. Reuniting with his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus was a challenge far more fearful than the ones he encountered. When Odysseus was reunited with Telemachus, Telemachus was in utter disbelief as to his father’s identity even after seeing his transformation from a beggar to his actual form (16.215-220). With his wife Penelope, Odysseus was faced with the challenge of having strangers ransack his
revolve his whole life around this pearl. He begins to change from a poor but proud family man
He has grown up in the backwash of a dying city and has developed into an individual sensitive to the fact that his town’s vivacity has receded, leaving the faintest echoes of romance, a residue of empty piety, and symbolic memories of an active concern for God and mankind that no longer exists. Although the young boy cannot fully comprehend it intellectually, he feels that his surroundings have become malformed and ostentatious. He is at first as blind as his surroundings, but Joyce prepares us for his eventual perceptive awakening by mitigating his carelessness with an unconscious rejection of the spiritual stagnation of his community. Upon hitting Araby, the boy realizes that he has placed all his love and hope in a world that does not exist outside of his imagination. He feels angry and betrayed and comes to realize his self-deception, describing himself as “a creature driven and derided by vanity”, a vanity all his own (Joyce). This, inherently, represents the archetypal Joycean epiphany, a small but definitive moment after which life is never quite the same. This epiphany, in which the boy lives a dream in spite of the disagreeable and the material, is brought to its inevitable conclusion, with the single sensation of life disintegrating. At the moment of his realization, the narrator finds that he is able to better understand his particular circumstance, but, unfortunately, this
King Odysseus is at home, in Ithaca with his wife Penelope and his newborn son Telemachus. He is having a good life with his family and the population of greece. But then..
Due to this curse set on Odysseus by Poseidon, Odysseus faces many obstacles and challenges that impede him from ever reaching home, which is what he deeply longs for. Throughout this fantastic journey, Odysseus constantly refers to his deep desire to return home to his wife Penelope an...
spent a lot of time thinking how to get rid of the house and the farm and to abandon his family. The mother also wants to be free from home and her marriage life. She plans to sell the house and escape to Europe where she thinks dreams can be attainable. Family and home are no longer a source of security, tranquility, and happiness for parents; they are rather a source of misery and meaninglessness for their lives. They are unable to realize the true meaning of their lives and the intimate and warm relationship that characterizes the relationship between a husband and a wife in the space of the house. The father escapes this reality by abandoning his family. He isolates himself and drinks heavily to find himself at the end drowned in debts
Steinbeck masterfully sets up the story by creating an almost perfect family scenario to express the message that life’s good is within the simple things in the family structure, not in material abundance. The author attempts this by way of contrasting Kino’s ideal family life prior to the discovery of the pearl, his chaotic family life during his possession of the pearl, and Kino’s tragic family life after losing the true pearl, Coyotito, that led to the discarding of the worthless “Pearl of the World.”