Book Report: To Have and Have Not Harry Morgan is the central character of Hemmingway’s To Have and Have Not. Morgan plays the role of protagonist though he does not always act with “good” motives or goals. The book deals with the downfall of his life beginning with a murderous secret run from Cuba and ending in the bloody death of Morgan after suffering a gunshot to the stomach. 1. Appearance: Morgan is a rugged fisherman who spent his life doing various seafaring activities. The long days under the sun on deck has given him a dark skin tone. His appearance describes visually the tough violent world in which he thrives. His looks are almost a uniform for the criminal underground scene where he lives his life. The author uses his wife watching him leave their home as a vehicle to describe in detail his physical appearance. “ She watched him go out if the house, tall, wide shouldered, flat-backed, his hips narrow, moving, still, she thought, like some kind of animal, easy and swift and not old yet, he moves so light and smooth-like, she thought, and when he got in the car she Nelson2 saw him blonde, with the sunburned hair, his face with the broad Mongol cheek bones, and the narrow eyes, the nose broken at the bridge, the wide mouth and the round jaw, and getting in the car he grinned at her and she began to cry.” (Hemmingway 128) Also worthy of notice, halfway through the book Harry losses his arm in a gunfight with some Cuban patrols on a liquor run. 2. Words and Actions: Harry Morgan gives validity to the idiom, “Curse like a sailor.” He fights like one too. Morgan is the quintessential smuggler. All his actions seem violent and towards the ends of making money. His actions are done out of necessity or desperation. This is seen clearly in the way he handles a client of his, a client that knows too much. “He put his hand in his pocket and reached the money out toward me. I reached for it and grabbed his wrist with the money in his hand, and as he came forward on the stern I grabbed his throat with the other hand.” (Hemmingway 53) His actions are brutal and direct. Even towards close associates he seems ruthless. He came very close to killing a friend of his that sneaked aboard his ship for a ride back to America.
The first impression we are given of the American cop is that he is a gorilla. The poet states “built like a gorilla.” The poet uses a simile to show that the cop is big built and often scary when on the job, like a gorilla. The cop is also referred to as being thick fleshed in the poem. “thick-fleshed.” This makes the reader think of him as a strong, tough, intimidating person who doesn’t stand for any trouble. Another idea given in the poem about the cop is that he is experienced in his job and has been in trouble before. MacCaig does this by describing two scars on his face. “with two hieroglyphs in his face that mean trouble.” This metaphor that the poet uses gives us an idea that the cop has had a violent past and that future offe...
By using imagery and diction, the author shows that Quoyle feels depressed and suffers from lack of confidence because of his scruffy appearance. Quoyle “was buried under a casement of flesh, and his head shaped like a crenshaw.” Even though the author can just express that Quoyle is
At the beginning of the passage, Matheson uses a simile in order to illustrate the man's throat. In lines 1-2, the man's throat is described as "clammy turkey skin." The author then uses this comparison to make the reader feel disgust. Similarly, the same man is portrayed as having a grip "like skeleton fingers" in order to create a repulsive effect on the reader. Matheson provides personification in line 8 when he says "the sea [is] imprisoned under canvas," and uses a metaphor to characterize the sea as "roaring to escape." Both of these descriptions give the sea human qualities
As Coral is struggling with her grief over her deceased son from the Vietnam war, Gow represents Coral’s longing for her son through the foreshadowing of, “That boy! In that blue light the shadows on his face and neck were like bruises. He looked so sick yet so wonderful.” This demonstrates her vision of Tom substituting her son through her soliloquy. Coral’s relationship between her husband, Roy, is very strained. Gow employs this through the patronising tone of Roy towards Coral, as he “thought he [I] told you to wait in the car” as it shows the responder’s that Roy is in control of their relationship. Coral’s strained relationship is further connoted throughout the play, Gow uses a simile to what Roy thinks of Coral, that she is “going to behave like a ghost” further enhances the disconnection of Coral with Roy and the world. Through the allegorical mise en abyme, “The Stranger on the Shore”, Tom has shown Coral the realisation of her faked American accent, “I’m walking, I’m walking” to her normal self, as she is finally “walking” away from her son’s death, which brings Gow’s character Coral to her transformation of a new self and more profound knowledge. In the scene where Coral is holding the shells, it symbolises the vulnerability of Roy. Gow has illustrated this when he “leans towards them and buries his face in the
Alistair MacLeod has a unique style of writing in the story, “The Boat”, which is composed of fairly simple words to present the reader with a smooth read. The context of the passage is witnessed in the eyes of the narrator, and it voices the dedication of his father; whom works diligently as a fisherman with his son following his footsteps. The excerpt from the story relates to the story as a whole since his father carried on the tradition of fishing at sea from previous generations - despite his appreciation for books, he gave up on his dreams for the sake of family heritage. MacLeod describes the father in the story with detail about what he was wearing “rubber-booted heel” (228), his age “sixty-five” (228), and also reveals facial features
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” utilize character responsibilities to create a sinister plot. For Hawthorne, protagonist Young Goodman Brown must leave his wife at home while he partakes in a night journey. For Poe, ancillary Fortunato covets a pretentious manner towards his wine tasting skills, and after being ‘challenged’ decides to prove his expertise by sampling Amontillado. Hawthorne and Poe showcase a theme of darkness but differ in their approach to the setting, characters, and fate of entrapment.
“None of them knew the color of the sky.” This first sentence in Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat” implies the overall relationship between the individual and nature. This sentence also implies the limitations of anyone’s perspective. The men in the boat concentrate so much on the danger they are in, that they are oblivious and unaware to everything else; in other words, maybe lacking experience. “The Open Boat” begins with a description of four men aboard a small boat on a rough sea. The central theme of this story is about confronting Nature itself. “The Open Boat" is Stephen Crane’s account from an outsider’s point of view of the two days spent in a small boat. The correspondent is autobiographical in nature; Stephen Crane was shipwrecked off the coast of Florida while working as a war correspondent. The correspondent in “The Open Boat” portrays the author. Mainly through the correspondent, Crane shows the power of nature and how one man’s struggle to survive ultimately depends on fate.
especially incapable of trusting people who didn't libe the same life, like his son. He is very cold-hearted
In any novel worth reading there is use of basic rhetorical devices like symbolism, allusions, etc. Nathaniel Hawthorne viewed strongly abroad as excellent author for many reasons but none as prevalent as his use of symbolism. Hawthorne uses repetition, motifs and symbolism to poetically approximate allusions almost within every word of his book “The Scarlet Letter”. Symbolism is the adhesive in “The Scarlet Letter”, other than maintaining the reader’s interest, it also makes allusions to other famous works such as the bible, and he uses it to transition the exposition throughout the book. A white man standing next to an Indian was wearing “… clad in a strange disarray of civilized and savage costume” (45) symbolizing the linimal position of the character in the story and in life. Although this symbol has one clear layer it also has a bi-layer to represent a different meaning. The matter that Hawthorne forms epic amounts of symbol s would have formed a problem if he hadn’t made it easy to depict the differences between his concrete symbols and his abstract symbols through repetit...
James Hurst is the author of the heart breaking short story entitled “The Scarlet Ibis”. “The Scarlet Ibis” is a short story about two brothers; one brother is healthy, while the other is physically handicapped. The short story is centered on the idea that the older, healthier brother’s selfishness and pride ultimately led to the death of his younger brother, Doodle. Numerous quotes throughout the story demonstrate Hurst’s use of symbolism and foreshadowing to portray and predict Doodle’s untimely and heartbreaking death.
This essay considers the perspective of James Trammell Cox as presented in his essay: An Analysis of the Blue Hotel Cox begins his essay by discussing naturalism and Crane's fictional style. He suggests that Crane's technique "is that of the symbolist rather than the naturalist in that he carefully selects his details not as pieces of evidence in a one-dimensional report on man but as connotatively associated parts of an elaborately contrived symbolic structure." Basically the thrust of Cox's argument is centered around the degree to which Crane displays the characteristics of a naturalist writer.
“The Open Boat” Four men drift across a January sea in an open boat, since they lost their ship some time after dawn. Now, in the clear light of day, the men begin to grasp the full gravity of their situation. Realizing that their main conflict will be man versus nature, in this case, the raging sea. In the short story “The Open Boat,” Stephen Crane gives an itemized description of the two days spent on a ten-foot dinghy by four men a cook, a correspondent, which is Crane himself, the injured Captain and Billy Higgens, the oiler. The men in the open boat show us that compassion for one’s comrade, unfeeling endurance, and courage are the true moral standards in a neutral universe. Characterization creates the setting in this story. It is said in the book that the protagonist’s personality sets the action or the setting in a story. The four men in this story make up the entire cast; there is no one protagonist. An all-knowing narrator writes this story, which is Crane. This story also enforces that this is a collective experience. The emotional support and the knowledge of the sea come from the injured captain. The strength and endurance comes from the correspondent and the oiler, which keeps them all, headed in the right direction. The cook is an example of the three that are ignorant about the raging sea. Characterization is a prime example of setting of this story since the characters make up the majority of the setting. The setting in “The Open Boat” creates the story. “A seat in this boat was not unlike a seat upon a bucking bronco, and by the same token a bronco is not much smaller. The craft pranced and reared and plunged like an animal.” These few lines help the reader to imagine the ...
Stephen Crane introduces Jack Potter, a simple newlywed man, on the luxurious train. Crane uses irony on the train ride because Yellow Sky is a very different atmosphere than the upper-class Pullman. Potter is with his bride, and the newlywed couple is completely out of their element. Jack Potter is wearing his new black clothes, and his wife is wearing blue cashmere with velvet and puffy sleeves. Crane uses theses new items to symbolize Potter becoming a new man. Potter demonstrates his insecurities and nervousness towards his new bride and upper class surroundings. He finds a topic for conversation that he is quite familiar with; his insecurities become hidden. “Later, he explained to her about the trains…” (2), as he tells her of his knowledge, his confidence becomes more obvious; “He had the pride of an owner” (2). With the couple being of lower-class parties, the fellow passengers look at them with disgust and snobbish attitudes. The negro porter specifically bullies the couple disguisedly, as he knows their uneasiness to their unfamiliar surroundings. “On other occasions he bullied them with skill in ways that did not make it exactly plain to them that they were being bullied” (2); the porter is aware of the Potters feeling out of place in this unfamiliar setting, and he feels superior in this situation, as he takes advantage of it. Stephen Cranes gives readers a hint of the humor in the story after explaining how the porter bullies the couple; “Historically there was supposed to be something infinitely humorous in their situation” (2). At last, the time for the Potters to enjoy their high-class meal arrives, and they receive quite different treatment than before. “The pair fell to the lot of a waiter who happened to feel pleasure in steering them through their meal” (2); unlike their previous experience with the porter, the waiter is also aware of their unfamiliar ride but approaches them with different intentions.
The story possesses amazingly vivid description. This attention to detail affords the reader the greatest degree of reading pleasure. Crane paints such glorious images in reader's mind with his eloquence. "The morning appeared finally, in its splendor, with a sky of pure blue, and the sunlight flamed on the tips of waves"(387). Artistic sentences of such caliber are not often found. The reader is left with a terrific vision of the perilous sea maintaining its beauty amongst the violence of the wind. "Their back- bones had become thoroughly used to balancing in the boat and they now rode this wild colt of a dinghy like circus men"(378). Here, again, Crane uses splendid detail to capture the essence of the chaotic situation.
Symbolism was used to express the Captains minds set. In the beginning paragraphs, the Captain is viewed as depressed, apprehensive, and insecure. The Captain viewed the land as insecure, whereas the sea was stable. The Captain was secure with the sea, and wished he were more like it.