More handpicked essays just for you.
Writing personal narrative reading and writing experiences
Being an effective student essay
Writing personal narrative reading and writing experiences
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Memories of the past hold a high level of importance in shaping who we are as people. Whether it be the memories of your first time trying to swim or learning how to read, certain memories stick with us for life. The poem “The Heroes You Had as a Girl", by Bronwen Wallace, has the speaker recalling a fond memory that presents itself again later in life when a significant figure from her youth reappears. The short story “Snow", by Ann Beattie, features the writer reminiscing upon a specific memory of a winter with her past lover, despite her memory being different from her lovers. These texts both contribute to the idea that an individual's memories are significant in shaping one’s perspective because memories serve as a way to reflect on the …show more content…
“Snow” tells of the writer remembering a winter in a countryside cabin with her lover at the time before they separated. While contemplating her past she writes “People forget years and remember moments, Seconds and symbols are left to sum things up.” (Page 2) This quote suggests that we remember specific moments in time for a reason, but what is that reason? I remember the first time I tried riding my bike without training wheels and I failed miserably, but kept trying. This memory stays with me because it served as a guide throughout my childhood until I learned how to bike properly, and the same thing applies to the story. She remembers that winter because it was a time in her life where she was living her ideal life, but eventually everything came crashing down and made her realise how wrong and stupid it was. That specific winter holds much more significance and value to her because she realised what went wrong and how to prevent it from ever happening again in the future. In the story she also writes how her lover had completely different memories of the winter that were more baren and less dramatic. I think that this is important to the overall theme because it shows that the winter was truly an important step in her life, whereas he brushes it off and makes it seem like just another relationship. I think that her story alone shows how significant specific memories are and how they shape our lives for the
Paula Gunn Allen’s poem Recuerdo is a poem of a woman’s memory when she was a little girl. The title Recuerdo is in Spanish meaning “I remember.” While visiting the Mesa Mountain with her mother either for a picnic or to gather up wood, she experienced an uninviting voice in the wind. In her memory, she wasn’t clear of what she heard or what it meant by the sound that she did hear. She couldn’t believe that something was in the wind that just didn’t sit well with her. The voice brought terror and tears to her eyes. Freighting her so bad that she couldn’t ask for her mother’s comfort to explain what she heard. She just stood there and let her mind wonder. What could be the reason for the terror in the wind? But instead of asking questions about her fearful thoughts she just stood there in the cold trying to warm up next to the campfire. “I wanted to cling to my mother so she could comfort me. explain the sound and my fear, but I simply sat, frozen, trying to feel as warm as the campfire (Allen).” She continues the poem with saying that she has never gotten over the memory that stuck with her from the terrified winds that spoke to her on that cold
“If the human race didn’t remember anything it would be perfectly happy" (44). Thus runs one of the early musings of Jack Burden, the protagonist of Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men. Throughout the story, however, as Jack gradually opens his eyes to the realities of his own nature and his world, he realizes that the human race cannot forget the past and survive. Man must not only remember, but also embrace the past, because it teaches him the truth about himself and enables him to face the future.
Assignment details: Analyze the components of the hero’s journey. Basically, support the argument that Jaws follows the epic hero cycle. Name specific examples from the movie and connect them to the hero’s journey. However, this is not a plot summary. You are not retelling the story, but selecting examples to support the analysis.
“Still Memory” by Mary Karr is a poem that depicts the distant, childhood memory that the author fondly recalls. Karr’s nostalgic diction and word choice is evident when she says, “…till it found my old notch in the house I grew up in…” In this section, Karr is dreaming, hoping to find a happier time in her life, her childhood. Throughout the poem, Karr is recalling a time when she was only ten years old, and shows how each of her family members’ mannerisms influenced her and her future in writing. What may only appear to be the family performing their daily routine, is much more beneath the surface. According to the lines, “My ten-year-old hand reaches for a pen to record it all as would become long habit,” these actions are what influenced her writing. For writers, inspiration can come from the simplest of elements, and for Karr, this happened to be her family.
The memories of an individual will give shape to their own identity and how they are able to perceive the world around them; memories allow an individual to look back at where they were and where they are now and to see the contrast of their current life. In the text “Ru”, Kim Thúy, the narrator, finds herself looking back at her memories of her life and dreaming for more. When she arrives at Mirabel airport in Quebec, she is awestruck by the peace and beauty of it compared to her past in in the refugee camps of Malaysia and war torn Vietnam. Throughout her visit, she is able to dream of her future outside of her bleak memories of her past, and imagine a future without the constant strife of living in a post war life. Kim is able to use her memories to shape who she wants to be and allows her to truly admire where she is and where she wants to go, setting a path for her to follow throughout life. In the text, “Ru”, Kim Thúy uses her own past and memories to demonstrate the idea that an individual's memories will shape who they are and show them a life they want to live, whether it is a memory they want to revisit or a memory in which they wish to leave behind. Kim’s present is influenced greatly by her past and allows her to appreciate the little things all that much
It also allows the reader to travel with Douglas as it dawns on him that these memories and their recollection are an intense aspect of life itself (pp. 7-9). After reaching this realization, Douglas takes on memory as part of his identity as well. He begins recording the events, rituals, and realizations that come with a new summer (pp. 26). These rituals are themselves a celebration of memory, repeating each year and allowing room for reminiscing over the events of the previous summer and the one before that. Some hold memory of more than the last time they were performed, like the bi-annual rug beating.
The three sources I have selected are all based on females. They are all of change and transformation. Two of my selections, "The Friday Everything Changed" by Anne Hart, and "Women and World War II " By Dr. Sharon, are about women’s rites of passage. The third choice, "The sun is Burning Gases (Loss of a Good Friend)" by Cathleen McFarland is about a girl growing up.
All of these interactions evoke memory, ultimately through the quest of finding reality equal to that of her life in Poland. The comparison of Eva’s exile can never live up to her Paradise and therefore her memories of her past can never be replaced but instead only can be supplemented. Eva starts the memoir in the middle of the action on the boat to Canada. We instantly become aware of the situation and before we are presented with memories of the home she is leaving, she establishes the idea of memory. After hearing the Polish anthem after departing, Eva comments, “I am suffering my first, severe attack of nostalgia or tesknota – a word that adds to nostalgia the tonalities of sadness and longing” (4).
She shares the nature of her mother’s reactions to express the importance of ignoring rude and ignorant people; focusing on the positive events in life. This theme of ignoring negativity is expressed about halfway into Lucille’s short poem “memory”, where the speaker mentions that her mother shares a positive view on these memories. The speaker says, “though she tells it better than I do” (124), regarding the memories that the speaker is really bothered by. The speaker then goes on to share that it wasn’t “because of her charm” (124), but because her mother says “it never happened” (124). Instead the mother says she only remembers “buying you / your first grown up shoes / she smiles” (124), when talking with her daughter. Here, the mother is demonstrating a sense of maturity and sincere love for her daughter where she doesn’t want her to know about the injustices people cause. These lines are beautiful because she is protecting her child from the rudeness and callousness of ignorant others. Her mother is expressing that she is much better than those people who talk with rude generalities; she and her daughter can, and will, overcome any injustice brought upon them. The speaker uses her mother to demonstrate the theme that happiness can only be achieved when you ignore negative events that try to hold you
. This story embodies how the author saw her experiences that she had lived through.
Overall, Barbara’s memory conveys strength and hope even in difficult times. Barbara may not have fought physically, but showed resistance in other ways by continuing to live her life. She hopes explaining her story to others will stop similar experiences in the future. Using multiple gestures and the change in her manner of speaking, the motivation behind revealing to her story turns out to be clear.
A Feminist Perspective of Hero in Much Ado About Nothing Unlike the title of this piece suggests, Hero did not undergo her transformation in Much Ado About Nothing through magic. Rather, Hero was a victim of the double standards and illogical fears that the men of Shakespeare’s plays commonly held. The following quote sums it up quite well. In the plays female sexuality is not expressed variously through courtship, pregnancy, childbearing, and remarriage, as it is in the period. Instead, it is narrowly defined and contained by the conventions of Petrarchan love and cuckoldry.
In the novel A Fine Balance, many of the characters undergo massive changes in their lives, and all they have to show for it are their memories. Remembering past times was used as a way of coping, a way of overcoming fears, and a way for the characters to find themselves. The good memories, as well as the bad, played a huge role in the lives of the characters. Even though background knowledge about the characters wasn’t necessary, the characters’ memories add depth to the plot. Mistry uses memories in the novel to further develop characters like Dina, Maneck, Ibrahim, and Ishvar and Om.
The simple yet extraordinary emotion of nostalgia has been ingrained in mankind since inception. Every single individual has experienced this intense emotion at one point their life, sometimes even regularly. A feeling of sentimental longing for the past, sometimes referred to as 'looking back on the good old days' are typical of being in a state of nostalgia. Robert Frost demonstrates the natural emotion of nostalgia in his poems “Birches” and “The Road Not Taken”. Although both poems convey the feelings of wistful yearning for the days gone by, each poem addresses different kinds of nostalgia: the longing for a carefree, adventurous childhood of the past and the nostalgic reflection of life choices. Both poems make use of differing poetic structures—in addition to various poetic tools—to create the manifestation of nostalgia within their poems.
In the poem Piano by D.H Lawrence a man had some very vivid memories. The man went back into his memories because he missed his mother and the activity they constantly did. “childhood memories and longing to be a child again”. This helps readers feel the need to be a child again. another example is in the Poem winter sundays .