Tillie Olsen's Yonnondio
In contrast to many other Depression-era novels, in which the teamwork of the common man is seen as society's glue, Tillie Olsen's Yonnondio looks with great admiration at one family's struggle to keep above water. Through the travails of a coal-mining/farming family, Anna Holbrook becomes the one constant in a society that turns man against himself, and where fortune is evanescent.
The thirst for something stable is evident as the children show their awe of the physical world. As an adult explains the stars to Mazie, Olsen writes: "As his words misted into the night and disappeared, she scarcely listened‹only the aura over them of timelessness, of vastness, of eternal things that had been before her and would be after her, remained and entered into her with a great hurt and wanting." (33) The present, the words describing the stars, hold no intrigue for Mazie; the idea of a permanence stronger than the Depression does. Two pages later, Olsen writes of Mazie stripping corn silk: "Šshe would dream of weaving it into garments incredible. But the tassells withered, grew brown and smelly, and she had to throw them away." (35) Her actual life results only in death, and she must again call up something enduring, "a poem learned from Old Man Caldwell." (35)
Olsen views the Holbrook's struggle as heroic. Says Caldwell, "'Mazie. Live, don't existŠBetter to be a cripple and alive than dead, not able to feel anything. No, there is more‹to rebel against what will not let life be.'" (37) It is this very nobility that allows the Holbrook family to survive past expectations. Life is filled with hurdles, most coming from other people. After learning about different natio...
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... emotional resource for the split family. The last passage reveals Mazie's mixture of compassion and strength necessary for survival in the dusty, cold world: "Her hand on the arm around him was open and tender, but the other lay fisted and terrible like her father's that night in the kitchen. Till the dayŠ" (152) Olsen has faith in the family; they have waded through hardship after hardship, encountered abandonment and death, and still they will wake the next day. Survival here is not accomplished by reliance upon others, but on one's own reserve of will. This is a stark departure from Steinbeck's and others' views on the Depression; nonetheless, both schools of thought hold tremendous sympathy for the lives full of misery about which they wrote.
Work Cited
Olsen, Tillie. Yonnondio: From the Thirties, Delacorte, 1974, reprinted, Dell, 1989.
John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath is one of the most influential books in American History, and is considered to be his best work by many. It tells the story of one family’s hardship during the Depression and the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s. The Joads were a hard-working family with a strong sense of togetherness and morals; they farmed their land and went about their business without bothering anyone. When the big drought came it forced them to sell the land they had lived on since before anyone can remember. Their oldest son, Tom, has been in jail the past four years and returns to find his childhood home abandoned. He learns his family has moved in with his uncle John and decides to travel a short distance to see them. He arrives only to learn they are packing up their belongings and moving to California, someplace where there is a promise of work and food. This sets the Joad family off on a long and arduous journey with one goal: to survive.
Whether you are a first time home buyer or a seasoned home buyer, it is important to be aware of the requirements, policies and procedures that could potentially assist you with your home buying needs. As frequently evidenced, the housing rules keep changing. The government keeps proposing new funding programs and the stipulations that need to be met by buyers are ever changing. Staying abreast on these details will help ensure you have a smooth and valuable home buying experience.
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Physiological Basis of disease: DMD is the commonest and most serious form of the dystrophies. The gene responsible for dystrophin which, when absent, causes DMD. Amount of dystrophin correlates with the severity of the disease (i.e., the less dystrophin present, the more severe the phenotype). Since the gene is on the X chromosome, it primarily affects males, and females who are carriers have milder symptoms ( www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000705.htm).
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John Steinbeck's Compassion for the Loneliness and Isolation Suffered by Ordinary People in Of Mice and Men
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Every great writer creates powerful images and presents story lines that draw their readers deep into the pages of their books, however; any writer would be hard pressed to do so without incorporating their own feelings, trials and tribulations into the plots and John Steinbeck is no exception. Through his appreciation for adventure and willingness to indulge in it, Steinbeck found a myriad of fascinating people in addition to experiences that he was eager to share. Past various negative criticisms and frequent rejections of his work, he manages to provide relatable characters capable of deep connections to those who enter into the realms of his tales. John Steinbeck's early life experiences influenced his portrayals of women, his love of the land, and his intimate connection to the plight of lower social classes, themes which translate into his work.
Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s
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