“The Man in the Black Suit” by Stephen King is about a nine year old boy, named Gary, who has an encounter with the Devil in 1914. One Saturday, Gary goes fishing in Castle Stream, trying out his new bamboo fishing pole in the “troutiest brook he’d ever fished.” After catching a nineteen inch brook trout, Gary falls asleep while watching the clouds. Gary is woken abruptly by a tug at the end of his fishing line and suddenly realizes that there is a bee sitting on his nose. All of a sudden, there is a clap and the bee tumbles off Gary’s nose and onto his lap. He then looks over his shoulder to see who clapped and notices a man standing behind him wearing a black three piece black suit. “I knew right away that he was not a human being, because his eyes were the orangey-red of flames in a woodstove.” The man tells Gary that he came with bad news that Gary’s mother died from a bee sting, and he believes the man. Gary states “we always believe, on some level, the worst things our hearts can imagine” because Gary’s brother …show more content…
Dan was killed by a bee sting, making death a life-like possibility, and the Devil is very convincing. “I believed he had been standing there in our dooryard, looking in the kitchen window, as my mother fell to her knees, clutching her swollen throat.” Gary is very upset about what was told to him. For a young boy who had lost his brother Dan from a bee sting, it is the most tragic news to hear that his mother died as well. Gary believes the man because he already went through the trauma of this brother’s death. Dan’s passing indicates that death can occur anytime, whether you’re young or old. Another reason why death is probable is that Gary knows how heartbreaking it is to lose a family member, especially since his mother is in denial. “A year had gone by, and still my mother wouldn’t hear that. She said it was something else, had to have been, that no one ever died of being stung by a bee.” Everyone handles death differently and since Dan died from a bee sting, it is likely for Gary to believe his mother died the same exact way. Like most of us, Gary believes the worst things our hearts could imagine because of how convincing the Devil is.
The Devil is described as having orangey-red colored eyes, “sharp teeth in a cannibal smile,” and a long pale face. This description would be terrifying to any nine year old child, which makes Gary believe the Devil since he is so creepy looking. Another reason why the Devil is so convincing is how detailed he explained Gary’s mother’s death. “The bee flew in the window and lit on her neck. She slapped at it before she even knew what she was doing.” This implies that the man wearing the black suit was looking in the kitchen window while Gary’s mother was stung. “Do you know what Candy Bill did? That little rascal licked away her tears.” Gary believes the Devil because of how well he described Gary’s mother falling to the ground with tears streaming from her eyes. The Devil also knows the name of Gary’s little black Scottie dog, Candy
Bill. Gary winds up escaping from the “Devil” and runs towards his house to find his father walking down the road. Gary and his father run towards each other and Gary tells his father about what the man told him. Gary’s father states that his mother is okay, but Gary does not believe him and says that he has to see his mother. When Gary and his father get home, his mother is standing at the counter where she was when he had left the house. Gary is relieved that his mother is safe. Gary thought the worst in his heart because he loves his mother very much, and would not want anything bad to happen to her.
Wait Till Next Year is a book written by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Wait Till Next Year is a book written in Goodwin’s point of view set in Rockville Center, New York. The book begins with Goodwin’s father teaching her the scorekeeping rules of baseball in the summer of 1949. After her father taught her how to properly record a baseball game she would sit in front of the radio and listen to the game every day and would record everything each player did during that game. Then when her father would arrive home from work she would relay to him all that had happened during the game of that day. As Goodwin looks back on this in her book she begins to think that it is because of these times with her father that she has a love for history and for storytelling.
Tom Walker’s devil is a dark-skinned man with red eyes, red sash, and an axe. Tom was a malicious, greedy person who dealt with the devil in order to gain some wealth. He and his wife would fight constantly day after day. Tom was not a wealthy person
(p. 44); "Who came to you with the devil?" and ".perhaps another person in the village?" (p. 45). A few of his faults are that he judges too much by appearances, ".you look as such a good soul should" (p. 37); ".a claim so weighty cannot be argued by a farmer," (p. 99); and he uses people to question other people.
Arnold Friend could possibly be a symbol of the devil. Friend tries to be kind and tells Connie he will take care of her and everything to try and get her to come with him. Oates says, “His whole face was a mask, she thought wildly, tanned down onto his throat…”; this could symbolically be connected with the devil. The devil would never be out in the open he would be in disguise. McManus also talks about how Friend is related with the devil. “Friend’s suggestion is that if Connie’s house was on fire, that she would run out to him, may also suggest symbolism. Fire being associated with devil.” This is a great symbol of Friend and the devil because fire is most definitely associated with the
Many people think that reading more can help them to think and develop before writing something. Others might think that they don’t need to read and or write that it can really help them to brainstorm things a lot quicker and to develop their own ideas immediately (right away). The author’s purpose of Stephen King’s essay, Reading to Write, is to understand the concepts, strategies and understandings of how to always read first and then start something. The importance of this essay is to understand and comprehend our reading and writing skills by brainstorming our ideas and thoughts a lot quicker. In other words, we must always try to read first before we can brainstorm some ideas and to think before we write something. There are many reasons why I chose Stephen King’s essay, Reading to Write, by many ways that reading can help you to comprehend, writing, can help you to evaluate and summarize things after reading a passage, if you read, it can help you to write things better and as you read, it can help you to think and evaluate of what to write about.
Americans were incarcerated during this time for acts of violence. Police officers would brutally beat those in involvement with the movement if they refused to go along with the social norm of the society and so on. Others were perhaps jumped by white men when the blacks came off as being ‘disrespectful” to their way of living. The acts of Civil Rights continued until Jim Crow laws were uplifted.
In the story, A Child Called It, by Dave Pelzer narrates his traumatic childhood abuse through the lenses of a mere ten year old child.The book accounts of terrifying, disturbing tortures inflicted on a young boy who is starved, stabbed, smashed face first into mirrors, forced to eat crap from his brother’s diaper, forced to drink ammonia/chlorine, and burned over a stove by an alcoholic, insane mother. Dave is the oldest of his brothers and the only one to receive abuse from his mother.The abuse started as Dave was four years old with minimum punishment and quickly escalated to life threatening punishments as the years passed. The punishments grew to physical and emotional abuse and neglect from his mother. The neglect escalates to rarely
Many refer to it as the Lord of the Flies, Simon, though, offers a different approach to the matter. Regarding the beast, Simon’s “inward sight the picture of a” man “once heroic and sick”. This gives proof to Simon wisdom, making him stands on a superior level in terms of intelligence and philosophy from the other boys. Simon recognizes the beast’s true identity when he attempts to explain to the boys that there is no real beast, it’s only the fear of themselves. "What I mean is . . . maybe it's only us.” (Golding 89) However, his “effort fell about him in ruins;” as “the laughter beat him cruelly and he shrank away defenseless to his seat.” (Golding 89) The response Simon receives show that the audience is not ready to accept the meaningful truth, that the fear of themselves causes a deception among the boys to create an illusion of a fleshly beast. Simon is willing to persist on a quest of unraveling the false beast, because he wants the boys to face their fear, the beast within themselves. Along the way, he comes face to face with the Lord of the Flies, literally described as a severed pig’s head impaled upon a stake, “a gift for the beast” (Golding 137). The encounter consolidates the idea that the real beast is more about the concept of evil, which is what the figure represents, than a physical creature that can do harm to the community. Fearing that
Regularly in life, it is important to perform at your best, and in other occasions, duties seem too much for some. Both, the narrator of the Yellow wallpaper, and Dave, protagonist of “The Man Who Was Almost a Man”, have to comply with duties that deal with submission to authority, and high expectations from society. Furthermore, In order to deal with their frustrations, the protagonists find symbols that lead to freedom, and use them to acquire their desires. For instance, the narrator of the “Yellow Wallpaper” canalizes her frustrations through the wallpaper that covered the room where she had to be secluded, due to a hysterical condition caused by her duties in the society she lived in. Furthermore, Dave thought that he could find freedom through the power of a gun. Due to their longings for freedom and respect, the
He comes to terms with this through his mental struggle with his Lord of the Flies, which is interestingly a direct translation of “Beezlebub,” another name for the devil. He sees the evil inside the children, and in his wariness to not overtaken by it, is killed by those who were not wary enough. Simon’s character development is compounded by the revealing of his implied epilepsy, his decidedly noble ability to express opinions through turmoil, and his hallucination and revelation with the Lord of the
The next character is the man who Brown meets up with in the woods. This man is described as, "one who knew the world, and who would not have felt abashed at the governor's dinner table or in King William's court" (Kelly, 191). This man can be seen as the devil. He possesses features that illustrate him as the devil. For example his walking staff is described as having "the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent" (Kelly, 191-192).
In the story “Where are you Going, Where Have you been?” Joyce Carol Oates tells us about a fifteen year old girl named Connie. Connie is confronted by a young man who is trying to persuade her to take a ride with him. He introduces himself as Arnold Friend and kindly asks her to come with him but she refused. He then threatens Connie and her family. She is then forced outside and leaves with Arnold Friend. Arnold Friend clearly symbolizes the devil through his physical traits, his knowledge of Connie, and his power over her kind of like he was hypnotizing her to go with him.
“Young Goodman Brown”, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, delves into the classic battle between good and evil; taking the protagonist, Goodman Brown, on a journey to test the resolve of his faith. Goodman ventures out on his expedition deep into the sinister forest, in order to repudiate the attempt of the devil to sway him from Christianity; a test he believes his devout faith is prepared to confront. Goodman Brown is forever altered in ways unforeseeable by taking a stroll with the ultimate antagonist, the devil himself. The prevailing theme in this literary work, which is common in Hawthorne’s gothic writing, is the realization that evil can infect people who seem perfectly respectable. Throughout the course of his journey, Goodman Brown discovers that even highly reputable people of Salem are vulnerable to the forces of darkness.
Six years ago a little girl from my church approached me and asked why the devil existed, and why bad things happen. At the moment I was a little perplexed and did not know what to say. All that came to my mind was that humankind needed a scapegoat to blame for the occurrence of unfavorable incidents. Blaming adverse conditions on the devil is the easy and obvious way out of any situation. All one has to do is to say that the devil was the cause of the situation and wash his hands of the entire problem. At twelve years old, I thought that humanity used the devil as a way to elude responsibility and to ignore the consequences of its actions.
In “The Man Who Was Almost a Man”, the search of power and the coming of age is the key theme in the story because the main character Dave puts himself in a situation where he feels that’s he can’t stand up to the wrongs that he has done. Richard Wright father an uneducated farm worker left home when he was six, so he was raised without a father. Growing up he had a tough childhood due to his mother illness. He and his brother later moved to Mississippi where he was heavily influenced by his grandmother, therefore he displays the coming of age without a father figure in his poem “The Man Who was almost a Man”. His works compares to my life because I have done things in the past that made me feel powerful like a man but I was just doing these