Time is one of the basic components of life that one does not often stop to dwell upon. Each second marks a transition in an individual’s life, but it is rare for someone to consider the true magic of this small measure of history. In Tom’s Midnight Garden, Philippa Pearce examines the concept of time in a truly unique manner as she tells the story of a child who comes to terms with time in an extraordinary manner. As Pearce crafts this beautiful yet simply written novel, she intertwines both a moving plot and universal ideas in order to reveal more than meets the eye in terms of the power of time. The novel revolves around a young boy by the name of Tom Long who, in an adverse situation is shipped away from his home to live with his childless Uncle and Aunt for the summer. While Tom is disgruntled by the notion, he comes to adjust his views when he discovers a magical garden that opens his eyes to new experiences and feelings. With the discovery of this mysterious world in the garden, Tom is forced to decipher the power of time, companionship, and imagination and through this journey, he evolves from the childish, inconsiderate young boy he once was into one with a more mature and sensitive outlook on his own life and the world as a whole.
The novel opens with a scene of a desperate, aggravated child being sent away from his home due to a contagious disease. Tom Long’s brother Peter has been stricken with a case of the measles and to protect Tom, his parents have decided it would be best for him to spend the upcoming weeks with his Uncle Alan and Aunt Gwen as Peter recovers. From the onset, it is obvious to the reader that Tom is extremely displeased with the notion of leaving not only his family and home, but also the ...
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... eventually realizes it can only temporarily satiate his desire for knowledge and friendship, and that eventually, he like all other people, must grow up and move on to new passions and explorations. The entire book in fact returns to this idea many times as Tom has to grapple with the meaning and importance of time. In the same way that Tom must solve the problems he faces, all people must learn to answer the seemingly unanswerable questions of life. At some point or another, we all face situations that seem impossible, but as Tom comes to learn there is always a reason or some explanation for the route life takes. As Tom constantly questions the concept of time and reality versus imagination, we too must ask the same questions for, as Pearce asks many times throughout the novel, “What is time?” (Pearce 168) and how can the seemingly impossible really happen?
“Story of an Hour”, written by Kate Chopin presents a woman of the nineteenth century who is held back by societal constraints. The character, Louise Mallard, is left to believe that her husband has passed away. She quickly falls into a whirlwind of emotions as she sinks into her chair. Soon a sense of freedom overwhelms her body as she looks through the window of opportunity and times to come. She watches the world around her home run free as nature runs its course. Louise watches the blue sky as a rush of “monstrous joy” shoots through her veins (Chopin). She experiences a new sense of freedom. Although she sometimes loved her husband, his “death” breaks the chain that keeps her from experiencing a truly free life. Thoughts over times to
After feeling ostracised by the township, the alienated Brennan family are driven to leave the town of Mumbilli at 4:30am. With hardly any peer support, Tom begins to lose his sense of security, resulting in his transformation into an unconfident teen who is afraid of public opinion. It is no wonder that Tom is unable to move on in his new town as he is being held back in fear of revealing his past. Burke tactfully illustrates Tom’s emotional kaleidoscope through phrases such as “I felt the knot snap” and “my guts landing at my feet” (Burke, pg 172) when reflecting on the accident. On the contrary, with encouragement from family members, Tom begins to step out of his comfort zone and face the future that is to come.
Tom Robinson is unable to use his left hand due to a job accident. Mayella took advantage of Tom, she knew he would help her because he was a nice man. Mayella was not taught respect while growing up, Tom, on the other hand, was amiable. Mayella is anxious about her father and what he does to her. Some readers might be anxious too, but might confess to what their father is doing to them.
...ve interest was free born and wished to marry her. However, after Harriet?s attempts to pursued her master to sell her to the young neighbor failed she was left worse off than before. Dr. Norcom was so cruel he forbade Harriet anymore contact with the young man. Harriet?s next love came when she gave birth to her first child. Her son Benny was conceived as a way to get around Dr. Norcom?s reign of terror. However, this is a subject that was very painful for her. She conveys to the reader that she has great regret for the length she went to stop her Master. Along with her own guilt she carries the memories of her Grandmother?s reaction to the news of her pregnancy. Clearly this was a very traumatic time in Harriet?s life. In light of these difficult events Harriet once again found love and hope in her new born son. ?When I was most sorely oppressed I found solace in his smiles. I loved to watch his infant slumber: but always there was a dark cloud over my enjoyment. I could never forget that he was a slave.? (Jacobs p. 62)
It is commonly said that “life’s too short”, but it feels even shorter when one is forced into the next stage of their life pre-maturely. Alejo Carpentier’s journey through time in Like the Night explores not just the cycle of time, but also the cycle of life. Readers are transported from Ancient Greece, to the Spanish conquest of the new world, to the European Empire, to the First World War, and finally back to Ancient Greece. Instead of focusing on battle strategy, the front lines, or shell-shock; Carpentier writes on loss of innocence. While writing on the night before leaving home and the innocence lost in the sudden transition from boyhood to manhood, Carpentier also toys with loss of sexual
...was the hardness of his terms. He accumulated bonds and mortgages; gradually squeezed his customers closer and closer; and sent them at length, dry as a sponge from his door"( ).The local problem is a stepping stone to present the universal; one, which is the subject of greed, science everyone is tempted by greed. Moreover, the narrator remains in omniscient point of view to make readers know what others think about Tom: "Her voice was often heard in wordy warfare with her husband; and his face sometimes showed signs that their conflicts were not confined to words. No one ventured, however, to interfere between them; the lonely wayfarer shrunk within himself at the horrid clamor and clapper clawing; eyed the den of discord askance, and hurried on his way, rejoicing, if a bachelor, in his celibacy. After reading this passage, readers gain a bad impression of Tom.
Later approaching the tragedy of of the book, Tom displays another act of sub-human behavior, nonchalantly brushing off his affairs, “And what’s more I love Daisy too. Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time.”(201). Tom in a sense...
Mr. Tom is an elderly gentleman who lives in the country of England. He is quiet and keeps to himself. Throughout the novel Mr. Tom changes and becomes a new person. With the outbreak of war he is responsible for the care of a young evacuee, Will. He and Tom quickly grow to care for each other. Will is given into Tom's care with only the clothes on his back. Tom talks to Mrs. Henley, a local neighbor, and asks her if she would be kind enough to knit Will a jersey. She replied, "You ent gotta clothe em" but Mr. Tom was persistent and was able to get Will a new, thick jersey made (18). Tom takes real good care of William and does his best to look after the young child. While Will is around him, Mr. Tom isn't so deeply depressed about his wife and son, who have both departed. He is more social with the rest of the town and has a more happy expression. When the young evacuee is sent back home Tom worries, when he goes to check on him he finds him in startling health. He even breaks the law to get his frail body back into the country side with him. Mr. Tom is soon Will's adopted father, nearing the end of the novel Will notices something about Tom. "[He] noticed how old and vulnerable Tom looked" (317).
...allows us to see how Tom is so influenced by his unearned wealth which leads to a bloated perception of his own importance. Tom had grown up unappreciative of his wealth and realized the powers it held which to him meant he could have affairs as he was this man of affluence. Yet, Tom later realizes how Myrtle and the affair he spawned out of arrogance stemming from his wealth was crumbling. Myrtle had a different life from hers with Tom and with his need for power, “the shock had made him physically sick.” This shock shows how Myrtle not being reliant or dependent on him was a shock to him and so much so that it made him physically sick showing that when an individual doesn’t earn his wealth that wealth plays a much larger part in their decisions compared to those who earned their wealth.
...panic” as they slip “precipitously from his control”(125). He feels nothing constructive, but he feels panic, which is a typical reaction to being unable to cope with one's surroundings and situations. It is this moment which affords us most clearly a view of how Tom has been consumed by his ambitions.
The story begins as the boy describes his neighborhood. Immediately feelings of isolation and hopelessness begin to set in. The street that the boy lives on is a dead end, right from the beginning he is trapped. In addition, he feels ignored by the houses on his street. Their brown imperturbable faces make him feel excluded from the decent lives within them. The street becomes a representation of the boy’s self, uninhabited and detached, with the houses personified, and arguably more alive than the residents (Gray). Every detail of his neighborhood seems designed to inflict him with the feeling of isolation. The boy's house, like the street he lives on, is filled with decay. It is suffocating and “musty from being long enclosed.” It is difficult for him to establish any sort of connection to it. Even the history of the house feels unkind. The house's previous tenant, a priest, had died while living there. He “left all his money to institutions and the furniture of the house to his sister (Norton Anthology 2236).” It was as if he was trying to insure the boy's boredom and solitude. The only thing of interest that the boy can find is a bicycle pump, which is rusty and rendered unfit to play with. Even the “wild” garden is gloomy and desolate, containing but a lone apple tree and a few straggling bushes. It is hardly the sort of yard that a young boy would want. Like most boys, he has no voice in choosing where he lives, yet his surroundings have a powerful effect on him.
Change is evident as an idea in the novel when Tom is reunited with his childhood preache...
Part of Tom’s desire to leave is this treatment at the hands of his mother. In the beginning of the play, he loses his appetite because of his mother’s “constant directions of how to eat it” (923), and at one point she said that, in reference to books that she took from Tom, she “took that horrible novel back to the library,” (931) and that she “won’t allow such filth brought into [her] house!” (931). Part of Tom’s desire to leave is this treatment at the hands of his mother; another part is his job, and how monotonous and stagnant it is at the workshop. [PP2] Together, they leave Tom feeling trapped in his lifestyle of struggling through the days. He mentions to seeing a magician show at the movies, which sums up his feelings of
In Kew Gardens, Virginia Woolf takes advantage of the liminal quality of the short story in order to highlight the suspended world that she creates in the garden. For Woolf, the lyrical short story’s subversion of traditional narrative structure allows her to focus on creating a world rather than a plot. Further, the short story creates a liminal space by the very nature of its form. Caught in a space where it is not considered a poem or a novel, the short story exists as undefined. The liminality of the short story, however, is both liberating and restricting. Woolf explores this feature in order to suggest the unsustainable nature of Kew Gardens. While Woolf utilizes the form of the short story to create a liminal, impressionistic space that eradicates the boundaries between human and nature, she also uses the transitory quality of the short story to suggest that such a space can only exist for a short duration due to the restrictions of the imposing outside world.
Tom is a character many people in this generation can relate to. Although the play was written many years ago Tom is just like any other millennial from this day and age. He basically hates his job because it’s not fun. He can’t cope with the fact that he has to pick up all the slack his father left behind. He even seems to think that running away will fix everything. All of these things are very common in society today.