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Symbolism as a literary tool essay
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The Breaking of Ice at the Skating Party
The night of the skating party hold events that is romantic, symbolic and tragic.
Two versions of the story told by two people present at the skating party share insight into the versions they believe to be true, except one story teller has a few secrets that has laid guilt on his mind for over thirty years. Merna Summers’ The Skating Party holds a lesson in love and life; Nathan and Winnie Singleton’s stories are different, Winnie believes Nathan tragically lost his ‘wife to be’ in a skating accident, when in reality Nathan loses a love, no one else but him knows of. Nathan’s thoughts on the mood of the night, and his indirect statement referring to his tragic episode will reveal why the narrator considered it peculiar that Uncle Nathan had never married and who he was really in love with.
Winnie’s version of the skating party is accompanied with darkness so beautiful that Nox the goddess of night could be present; the night ski fluttered with moon light and cloud, the bon fire’s demon like reflection quivered over the frozen water. Friends and family dance with one another oblivious to anything outside their magic ice-land. As the night advanced, people went up to the house where the party would continue; two young ladies went in opposite directions of everyone else and went through the thin ice.
“Near the fire, people heard their [the two girls] cries for help. A group of men skated out to rescue them.” (Summers pg. 190-191)
At the front of the line was Nathan Singleton, and coincidently the two girls being saved are his wife to be Eunice and her sister Delia, the party was being held for both Nathan and Eunice on the account of their up coming marriage; and now Nathan is linked with several other men from the party trying to save his fiancé and her sister. Winnie tells the story of her brother in-laws encounter with death.
“Your uncle Nathan risked his life, my mother said…
There was no way on earth he could save both girls.”
(Summers pg.191)
Tragically, Nathan did not save both girls, during the ordeal the moon was hiding behind the clouds and Nathan could not make out faces, he grabbed the first set of hands he could and the other pair went under without a trace. Winnie and everyone else share the feeling of, how ironic and sad; we all know Nathan wanted to save his love Eunice.
Prudence Mackintosh has three sons who are grown up now that she raised in Highland Park. All three boys are different. Her oldest son is very well organized and willing do anything she asks him to do, her middle son is very disorganized, and the youngest son is very adventurous. Mackintosh supported them in their decisions and always helped them know how to chose right from wrong. Mrs. Mackintosh wrote a story about when her oldest son he didn't want to play football anymore, and how all the other boys made fun of him. To help him, she wrote a story telling how not all boys had to play football to be tough.
Each of these tales tells the same theme, but goes about in different ways getting us to the loss. When we observe Goodman, we observe a young, newly married man. The language the story uses in the beginning gives us the feeling of youth and innocence. His wife is described as she “thrust her pretty head into the street, letting the wind play wit...
Nathan Detroit is also a protagonist because he starts the journey of Sky and Sarah by starting the bet with Sky in an attempt to get $1000 for his crap game. During the play the audience also follows the story of Nathan's fourteen year engagement with Miss Adelaide, who desperately wants to marry Nathan and has already wrote her mother that the two are married and have several children. In the end, Nathan is no longer able to escape from marrying Adelaide after she overhears him sayin...
Amory attended school in Minnesota and lived with his Aunt and Uncle for two years after his mother had a nervous breakdown. Not a big fan of school, Amory was invited to a party hosted by a young lady named Myra. As all young boys become infatuated by pretty young girls Amory was no different and tempted Myra into kissing him. A gentle and subt...
Cottino-Jones sums up love and the community in this story in her book. She says, "the lovers in this books are constantly faced with violence, death and isolation when their affairs come into conflict with society’s rigid behavior codes "(Cottino-Jones, 79). Lack of communication and social factors made everyone in the story unhappy or dead.
Esther Greenwood was a scholarship student attending an all-women’s college in New York. While in school, she wrote for a women’s magazine under the supervision of her editor Jay Cee. Writing was her passion and she especially loved poetry. Unfortunately, the college life and New York City were not exactly what Esther had thought they would be. She always found herself being a third wheel or the outsider of the group. This may have been the spark that began her battle with depression. Either that, or the realization that her childhood crush Buddy Willard, a medical student at Yale, was a hypocrite. He and Esther had known each other since a very young age through the church and their parents had intended for them to eventually be married. After Buddy invited Esther to attend Yale’s prom, they began spending a lot of time together until she found out that he had lost his virginity to a sleazy waitress. This contradicted everything Buddy was and had claimed to be. His whole good and pure act was flawed whenever Esther discovered these facts. She was especially hurt, because they were very competitive with each other and she now wanted to lose her virginity so as to no...
Literary devices are important in short stories because in the story, it will help the readers understand things that may of happened, or irony with an object that is important to the character. By doing this, it helps the readers to understand the character more and their back story. If the writer didn’t show anything from the past when he was trying to add flashbacks then it will come across differently to the reader depending on the readers out take and their personal experience.
The plot of the movie starts out in the woods as Keller Dover and his son Ralph Dover are deer hunting on Thanksgiving. Keller is teaching Ralph how to hunt incase of a disaster in which he would need to use survival skills. The movie then takes you to the Dover household in a suburban neighborhood. It was very cold and rainy. The Dover’s were getting ready to go to a the Birch household for Thanksgiving dinner that evening. The Dover family starts to head out of the house when the their daughter Anna realizes she has still not found her whistle. Parents Keller and Grace tell Anna not to worry about it they have to go. The family arrives at the Birch household where the two families reunite. Franklin and Nancy and their two daughters Zoe and Joy. Ralph and Zoe are ...
“The Little Heidelberg” is the story of a small dance hall. The customers of The Little Heidelberg are typically older men and women, many of whom are foreigners who cannot speak English. One of these is El Capitán, a retired Finnish sea captain, who has been dancing with niña Eloísa, a lovely Russian woman, weekly for forty years. They have never spoken to each other because of language barriers. One day some Scandinavian tourists come to the Heidelberg. El Capitán hears them speaking his language and asks them to translate to Eloísa for him. In this scene it is the first time that anyone has ever heard him speak. Eloísa learns that El Capitán wants to marry her, and she says yes. The couple begin a celebratory dance, and as they start twirling Eloísa begins to turn “to lace, to froth, to mist” until she is first a shadow and then completely disappears (Allende, 179). In the magic of the scene, she twirls out of existence. Her disappearance seems to reflect the dreamscape nature of the scene.
It is the first time that Lizabeth hears a man cry. She could not believe herself because her father is “a strong man who could whisk a child upon his shoulders and go singing through the house.” As the centre of the family and a hero in her heart, Lizabeth’s dad is “sobbing like the tiniest child”She discovers that her parents are not as powerful or stable as she thought they were. The feeling of powerlessness and fear surges within her as she loses the perfect relying on her dad. She says, “the world had lost its boundary lines.” the “smoldering emotions” and “fear unleashed by my father’s tears” had “combined in one great impulse toward
The protagonist Hazel in ‘Yesterday’s Weather’ carries the insights of her slightly unhappy marriage and her motherhood. The story illustrates the occurrence of family gathering and how Hazel was affected by this particular trip. In this piece of the story, the readers will pick up on Hazel’s using the third person narration. “Third person limited point of view offers the thoughts and motivations of only one character” (Wilson, M & Clark, R. (n.d.)). That is to say, third person’s usage in the story is only able to give the set of emotion and actions. Therefore, limits the ability for the readers to see the insight of the other characters in the story.
Powder, a short story written by Tobias Wolff, is about a boy and his father on a Christmas Eve outing. As the story unfolds, it appears to run deeper than only a story about a boy and his father on a simple adventure in the snow. It is an account of a boy and his father’s relationship, or maybe the lack of one. Powder is narrated by a grown-up version of the boy. In this tale, the roles of the boy and his father emerge completely opposite than what they are supposed to be but may prove to be entirely different from the reader’s first observation.
Standing on the balcony, I gazed at the darkened and starry sky above. Silence surrounded me as I took a glimpse at the deserted park before me. Memories bombarded my mind. As a young girl, the park was my favourite place to go. One cold winter’s night just like tonight as I looked upon the dark sky, I had decided to go for a walk. Wrapped up in my elegant scarlet red winter coat with gleaming black buttons descending down the front keeping away the winter chill. Wearing thick leggings as black as coal, leather boots lined with fur which kept my feet cozy.
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...
McNair’s childhood when she sleepwalks to the pond as a kid. This is where Mrs.McNair always went to get away from things. This plays a big part when the little boy shows up in a dream like state. She is escaping to him, to the baby boy she connected with in the hospital. She is confused because the baby boy she connected with at the hospital wasn’t hers, yet she still dreams about him, about how he is doing. Mrs.McNair lost her own child and through a mistake in the hospital connected with someone else’s, who then had to be taken away from her. While she is dealing with that hardship her husband is never home during the week and is cheating on her. Yet society says she still needs to keep her prim and proper ways other wise she may cause uproar in society. On the other hand Mr.McNair was applauded for his actions, for sticking around with Mrs. McNair while having a mistress. He stayed the good guy throughout the story. While Mrs. McNair and other females during this time, were limited in almost everything that they did. Her actions reflected on her husband. The women of society had a duty to maintain this standard of perfection no matter what they were going through in their