Sweet Dreams
“The Sleep” by Caitlin Horrocks is a short story, written in the first person. In this short story the Rasmussen family lives in a small town called Bounty, which seems to be someplace that is very dark and cold in the winter season, most likely someplace north. The Rasmussen family are going through hard times with the sudden death and the tragic loss of Al’s wife and their children’s mother. The family decides to take the winter season off from work and school in order to sleep, Al seem to believe that this will help heal the family. The people of Bounty see how well the sleep worked for the Rasmussen family, so some of them decide to do the same thing the next winter season. People usually sleep when they are depressed, the
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winter season can sometimes make people depressed because of the short days, and many people do not find too many things to do during the winter season. While the families sleep through the winter season, much healing is going on. The sleep that people are doing in this short story have some consequences, but seems to be good for all of them involved overall. The Rasmussen family go through a tragic loss. Al’s wife Jeannie gets killed by a resident of Bounty, named Reggie, who was driving drunk. Reggie ended up going to a juvenile detention center. There was a lot of snow on the ground also, so this may have been a part of the accident. Nobody in the small town wanted to tell Al that the snow on the ground may have also caused the accident, along with the drinking that Reggie was doing. Al needed someone to blame for the accident, and Reggie was one of the reasons for the death, so Al only blamed Reggie. Al came up with the idea to make a heater that would run off from grease. Eight months after Jeannie died Al decided that his family was going to sleep through January and February, they were going to “hibernate” (pg. 870, Paragraph 1) and wake up in the spring season. Al gathered his friends and neighbors together for a meeting to let them know what his plans were. When everyone showed up at the house they noticed that Al had everything all planned out, he had all the beds ready, food, drinks, and vitamin C pills. (pgs. 869-870, Paragraph 2) He showed them the heater that he had built that ran off grease. (pg. 870 Paragraph 2) Al made good points about why he and his family were going to sleep. (pg. 871, Paragraph 4) Some of the neighbors were concerned about the children’s schooling, but the children were ahead of their classes so Al did not see where they would fall behind in school, and if they did fall behind it would not take too long for them to get caught back up. Al tried to explain to his neighbors that NASA was talking about doing a study with the astronauts while they are in space so that they do not end up going stir crazy while in space. (pg. 872, Paragraph 1) He explained to them that he was not trying to get them involved in his families sleep, he just wanted them to be aware of what he was doing. While the Rasmussen’s slept, life went on in Bounty.
The neighbors would tiptoe into the Rasmussen’s house to check on them, but everything seemed to be fine, the neighbor’s thought that they actually looked cozy. (pg. 873, Paragraph 3) The town of Bounty was going downhill, for example there were very few jobs due to many stores closing, the High School had been shut down, and the roof of the feed store collapsed. The farmers still did their work on their farms, going to sleep would not be an option for them as they could not just let their farms go downhill, and someone had to be awake to take care of the animals. The librarian stayed awake in order for people to be able to go to the library and take out library books, or even go to the library for story time. When Al and his family awoke from their sleep they felt rested, like all of the weight had been lifted off from their shoulders. Not everyone understood the look that Al had, except for the parents of people’s whose children had gone off to college or work and returned with the same look. “Albert had found that look in his sleep.” (pg. 873, Paragraph 4) The townsfolk asked them what it was like. Al described one of his dreams about being in Eden. Al asked the townsfolk what he missed while he was sleeping, the neighbors described many bad things that had happened so Al asked if anything good had happened. For the Rasmussen’s being asleep for two months, they did not miss very much. The families in Bounty started to get comfortable with this new way of life. Families started getting together and sleeping in households all together in order to save on heating costs. One young girl that was part of the sleep, came out with straighter teeth and had lost quite a bit of weight. One of the families noticed how much their food bill had gone down, and also their clothing bill. The sleep started to get longer, before they were going to sleep after Christmas, towards the end they started going to sleep around
Thanksgiving. Parents were pretty happy of course, because of the money that they were going to save on not having to buy Christmas presents. There were of course tragedy that had happened, with one family a space heater caught their house on fire, and they lost their home. Al decided to move him and his family into a farm with another family in order for everyone to get their rest, people would be able to take turns taking care of the farm animals this way. News crews came into the town to see what exactly was going on, after watching the newscast the Bounty community realized that their town is in shambles, what they also realized is that it has been for a very long time. Later on, a crew came in to make a documentary of the town. There are some consequences to the sleep, but there seems to be more good than bad that comes out of it. Al decides to try to hibernate then the rest of the town decides to sleep through the winter season into the spring season. There are many awful things that have happened in the town starting with the death of Al’s wife, and then the closing of the High School, stores closing, and roofs collapsing. The sleep has actually helped the town out more than anyone would have thought that it would. The sleep seems to have made the townsfolk in Bounty better neighbors.
Union between two quarrelsome objects can be the most amazing creation in certain situations, take for instance, water. Originally, water was just hydroxide and hydrogen ions, but together these two molecules formed a crucial source of survival for most walks of life. That is how marriage can feel, it is the start of a union that without this union the world would not be the same. A Hmong mother, Foua took it upon herself to perform a marriage ceremony for the author of “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down”, Anne Fadiman. In this miniscule event, two cultures with completely conflicting ideas came together to form a union. In this union, an American was celebrating an event in a Hmong way, truly a collision of two cultures.
the surface structure of these poems appears simplistic, but subtle changes in tone or gesture move the reader from the mundane to the sublime. In an attempt to sleep, the speaker in "Insomnia" moves from counting sheep to envisioning Noah's arc to picturing "all the fish in creation/ leaping a fence in a field of water,/ one colorful species after another." Collins will tackle any topic: his subject matter varies from snow days to Aristotle to forgetfulness. Collins relies heavily on imagery, which becomes the cornerstone of the entire volume, and his range of diction brings such a polish to these poems
The Napping House (1984) is a children’s book that illustrates an interesting story about a family and their journey into attempting to get to sleep. Each page a new person or animal piles onto the last person. It starts with a bed in the house, then a granny, then child and so on. As the story builds suspense, the additions continue to decrease in size finishing with a tiny flea. Amazingly enough, the flea creates an amazing ripple effect by biting the mouse and the mouse is startled to say the least. The disruption startles the cat, which effects the dog and then the child and granny. Chaos erupts and everyone and thing that was piled on the bed is in the air with smiles on their faces. When the dust settles everyone is awake and the day
[Name] [Professor] [Subject] [Date] Amy Bloom's "Hold Tight" Some writers are born to give stories that intrigue and touch from beneath in the heart. Amy Bloom’s collection of short stories in her book “A blind man can see how much I love you” is a clear depiction of love and loss, of suffering and of endurance, and of struggles and survivals. One of her stories “Hold Tight” gives the readers insight in to the effects and influences of a the sickness of a mother on her daughter. The terminal illness may bring her death, but that may also bring about suffering of implacable nature in others that surround and comfort her. It is asserted that the vitality of the “mother's painting, "Lot's Wife", in Amy Bloom's "Hold Tight" can be compared to the meaning associated with Anna Ahkmatova's poem "Lot's Wife" in the sense that both women find importance in the destroyed city of Sodom, the physical pain of dying, and the story of Lot's wife herself. The destroyed city of Sodom is significant to both Amy Bloom and Anna Ahkmatova because it symbolizes the destroyed lives of the mother and of Lot's wife. In "Hold Tight" the portion of the mother's painting that is the destroyed city of Sodom is described by Amy Bloom as "bright and grim, were the sticky little flames of the destroyed city, nothing, not even rubble, around it." This is symbolic of the Mother's destroyed life because she was dying and her husband and daughter were becoming more dysfunctional the closer to dying she became. Bloom writes "more often than not, we'd end up back in the brown fog of his study, me taking a last few puffs with my legs thrown over his big leather armchair, my father sipping his bourbon and staring out at the backyard." The husband and daughter are dealin...
The Big Sleep - Characterization of Vivian and Carmen in the Movie and the Book
The husband describes the moment by saying, "I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn't feel like I was inside anything" (357). The previous information of how he saw the world to be and how he sees it now gives him a feeling of a connection with a higher being, more than just Robert. Yet he describes himself being separated (unconnected) from his body, free from this cage that has him materialistic and prejudice to the not-normal. The husband finally sees the world in a more liberal way than what he thought it to be, than what the stereotypes of society told him it was.
The Grim Sleeper is one of the most gruesome serial killers cases known in United States. The case dumbfounded LAPD for years. The Grim Sleeper left fear in the women of Los Angeles especially African American women who were the target of this merciless serial killer and rapist. The Grim Sleeper case was infamous due to his string of murders spanning through almost three decades.The coalition launched a media campaign and set a monetary reward aiming to capture the killer. Motivations involved in serial killings are fears of rejection, power, and perfection. Serial killers tend to be insecure, and irrationally scared of rejection. Serial killers tend to avoid developing painful relationships. They are terrified of being abandoned, humiliated,
The Big Sleep Movie and Novel & nbsp; On first inspection of Raymond Chandler's novel, The Big Sleep, the reader discovers that the story unravels quickly through the narrative voice of Philip Marlowe, the detective hired by the Sternwood family of Los Angeles to solve a mystery for them. The mystery concerns the General Sternwood's young daughter, and one Mr. A. G. Geiger. Upon digging for the answer to this puzzle placed before Marlowe for a mere $25 dollars a day plus expenses, Marlowe soon finds layers upon layers of mystifying events tangled in the already mysterious web of lies and deception concerning the Sternwood family, especially the two young daughters. & nbsp; When reading the novel, it is hard to imagine the story without a narrator at all. It certainly seems essential for the story's make-up to have this witty, sarcastic voice present to describe the sequence of events. Yet, there is a version of Chandler's novel that does not have an audible storyteller, and that version is the 1946 movie directed by Howard Hawks. & nbsp; Hawks' version of The Big Sleep is known to be one of the best examples of the film genre-film noir. "
“Winter Dreams.” Short Stories for Students. Ed. Carol Ullmann. Vol. 15. Detroit: Gale, 2002. N. pag. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 23 Mar. 2011.
We all experience losses as we grow older in life. These losses are usually about our physical or inner self. However, sometimes these losses could be about how our relationships with others have been lost or changed due to growing up. For example, in the story How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez, four sisters suffer or experience losses as a result of growing up into older young women. All this started when the four sisters moved to the United States from the Dominican Republic at a young age. This affects the four sisters because they encounter problems or obstacles as they age into young adults. For instance, Julia Alvarez shows that growing up is a process of losing respect, sanity, and a loving friend.
Why is it that when individuals are faced with conflict, they often do not become demoralized by it but instead gain the confidence to overcome it? In the novel From Sleep Unbound by Andree Chedid, the author answers this question through the character Samya and the conflict she faces. Andree Chedid conveys an idea through Samya that individuals create an illusion of choice during hardships which allow them an alternate path to overcoming a conflict in their lives. By temporarily escaping reality, an individual sides with illusions to gain hope in times of hardship. From using this hope, an individual is able to isolate themselves from their weaknesses in reality and in turn,
In today’s society, childhood obesity is no big surprise, we are “used to it.” In “Young Kids, Old Bodies” by Alice Park we are shown many graphs and pictures and each depicts a different story depending on the page the reader is on. As the reader reads along each page the different pictures/graphs set the stage for the author’s words.
If you had to choice to travel on your own two feet only at night for hundreds of miles, with the risk of being killed on the spot by a soldier, or to be forced into a ghetto or concentration camp, losing all of your freedom, what would you do? In the novel Good Night, Maman, Norma Fox Mazer tells the story of a family who chooses to take the risk of leaving after they were torn from their home in Paris. Sharing this story will show how this book impacted me, some significant themes it held, and it will make it very clear that it was no walk in the park for these few holocaust survivors.
Nature is an essential part of life. From the start of Before Night Falls, nature is definitely essential to Reinaldo Arenas’ life. Nature centers around different parts of Arenas’ life and is intertwined in many facets of his life. From early childhood, with a cradle carved out of the earth’s dirt, to the end of his life, when Arenas hides from authorities amongst nature and finds solace in the moon. He even compares his love of Lazaro to nature. Nature supports Arenas through his life in a great variety of ways. It provides him solace through his life, is his means of sexual exploration and in the end prompts the title of his memoir. In Before Night Falls, Arenas shows his readers how essential nature is to his
Homesick I’ll be Home for Christmas is a huge Christmas hit by Meghan Trainor about complications in a person’s life impeding them from being home during the holidays but he/she promises their family or lover that they will be home for Christmas. The sensational hit by Meghan Trainor brings warm and loving memories of Christmas and what it's all about through different literary devices such as dialogue, imagery, and repetition. Throughout the song, Meghan Trainor used dialogue in order to create a mood of conversation. As for the first example (Trainor 1:2) “He said winter love is spreading everywhere”.