The Housekeeper and the Professor is a novel written by Yoko Ogawa, and published in 2003. The story is a bout a mathematician who is the professor in the story. The professor suffered from a brain damage after a tragic traffic road accident, and he can only produce 80 minutes worth of memories. The professor forgot everything about his former life, but could only remember numbers, since he had a passion for mathematics. The story is told from the narrator’s point of view (the housekeeper). The narrator was to take care of the professor who asked her to let her son come direct to his house after learning that she had a 10 year old son who used to wait for her at home till late night after school. Later on, the professor grew fond of Root, the housekeeper’s son, despite the fact that he had lost his memory. The novel progresses with the professor, the housekeeper and her son having a great relationship, and living as a happy family.
The Housekeeper and the Professor is a story about the relationship between the characters. The story has three character, the professor, the housekeeper, Root, the housekeeper’s son, and the professor’s sister in-law (the wife to his late brother). The professor is a 64 year old former university professor who specialized in number theory (Ogawa 46). He is depicted as a mathematician who loves children, and the Hanshin Tigers. After his accident, he could not remember much, but only new memories for 80 minutes only. The author’s portrayal of the professor is very moving; he has lost his memory, but can never forget about numbers. After he was injured in a car accident, he has to live his entire life communicating through mathematics. Apart from communicating using mathematics, and despite the fact ...
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...rough the eyes of the narrator, and the professor. The professor only found solace in mathematics, but after getting a new housekeeper, he was able to change his shift and became fond of the housekeeper and her son, together with mathematics. The author shows the reader how numbers can be magical, and how they can build a bond between people. The professor’s love for numbers was infectious because, the housekeeper’s son was able to grow fond of mathematics, and ended up becoming a high school mathematics teacher. The professor and the housekeeper were introduced to each other anew, and afterwards, here was a beautiful relationship that blossomed between them. In essence, The Housekeeper and the Professor is a lovely, intriguing story that no one should miss out reading.
Works Cited
Ogawa, Yoko. The Housekeeper and the Professor. Deckle Edge: Picador, 2009. Print.
Robert, who is an esteemed mathematician is the father to Catherine, who is only 25 years old. Hal is the romantic antagonist, more like a nerd, sometimes charming. He is most uncertain about Catherine’s scholastic abilities. Hal discovers a pad in a drawer with profound calculations. He falsely assumes the work is Roberts. In reality, Catherine had written the mathematic proof. But no one would believe her. She now fights to provide proof that the proof was written by her.
Let me begin this paper by introducing you to two people who live among many others in this world. One is an Electrical Engineer and the other is a labourer . According to the world , there is alot of difference in these both . A lot of things vary among them. One is highly educated and the other is not. One works in an Air conditioned office where as the other works in burning sun. The engineer earns in hundreds of thousands where as the labourer earns in hundreds. But there is one thing in common in both of them.There is one thing that is smiliar . Both are earning thir living. Both are working to live their life . No matter how much they earn, but they are doing it to go thorugh this world.
The world is filled with many different types of societies and cultures. This is due to the fact that many people share dissimilar beliefs and ideas, as well as diverse ways of life. People lived under different circumstances and stipulations, therefore forming cultures and societies with ideas they formulated, themselves. These two factors, society and culture, are what motivate people to execute the things that they do. Many times, however, society and culture can cause downgrading effects to an assemblage if ever it is corrupt or prejudiced. Society and culture not only influences the emotions individuals have toward things like age differences, religion, power, and equality but also the actions they perform as a result.
would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper
	"It mattered that education was changing me. It never ceased to matter. My brother and sisters would giggle at our mother’s mispronounced words. They’d correct her gently. My mother laughed girlishly one night, trying not to pronounce sheep as ship. From a distance I listened sullenly. From that distance, pretending not to notice on another occasion, I saw my father looking at the title pages of my library books. That was the scene on my mind when I walked home with a fourth-grade companion and heard him say that his parents read to him every night. (A strange sounding book-Winnie the Pooh.) Immediately, I wanted to know, what is it like?" My companion, however, thought I wanted to know about the plot of the book. Another day, my mother surprised me by asking for a "nice" book to read. "Something not too hard you think I might like." Carefully I chose one, Willa Cather’s My ‘Antonia. But when, several weeks later, I happened to see it next to her bed unread except for the first few pages, I was furious and suddenly wanted to cry. I grabbed up the book and took it back to my room and placed it in its place, alphabetically on my shelf." (p.626-627)
Marilynne Robinson gives voice to a realm of consciousness beyond the bounds of reason in her novel Housekeeping. Possibly concealed by the melancholy but gently methodical tone, boundaries and limits of perception are constantly redefined, rediscovered, and reevaluated. Ruth, as the narrator, leads the reader through the sorrowful events and the mundane details of her childhood and adolescence. She attempts to reconcile her experiences, fragmented and unified, past, present, and future, in order to better understand or substantiate the transient life she leads with her aunt Sylvie. Rather than the wooden structure built by Edmund Foster, the house Ruth eventually comes to inhabit with Sylvie and learn to "keep" is metaphoric. "...it seemed something I had lost might be found in Sylvie's house" (124). The very act of housekeeping invites a radical revision of fundamental concepts like time, memory, and meaning.
Christopher is a very special fifteen-year-old, as he has Autism and he, does not like to be touched. Christopher also and dislikes the color yellow very much. However he likes the color red, and he believes that if he sees a number or red cars in order, then it will probably be a good day. Christopher likes prime numbers so each chapter is a prime number instead of being numerically ordered. Christopher only lives with his father as his mother has died two years ago. After his mother died, his neighbor Mrs. Shears used to come over to cook for them. She would also clean and organize the house for them. Christopher and his father never hug as he does not like being touched, however sometimes they let their hands meet and touch each other’s thumbs and fingers. Christopher does not actually like proper novels; instead he likes novels and books on math, science, and mystery novels. Christopher also has a good teach...
Narration is one literary element of a story that controls the meaning and themes perceived by the reader. The author uses this as a way of putting themselves in their writing; they portray a personal reflection through the narrator. We see this in pieces of literature, such as Charlotte Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, an intense short story that critics believe to be an autobiography. Charlotte Gilman wrote this piece in 1892, around the time of her own personal mental depression, after the birth of her child. This story invites the readers into the mind of a well-educated writer who is mentally ill, and takes you through the recordings of her journal, as her mental health deteriorates so does the credibility of her writing. The author uses the element of the narrators’ mental health to create a story with different meanings and themes to her audience. Gilman uses the role of an unreliable narrator to persuade the audience’s perception of protagonists’ husband John and create a theme of entrapment.
Crucet says, “I don’t even remember the moment they drove away,” but unlike the author’s family, mine left after I moved in, they did not stay the whole first week into my classes. After the first day of being alone, I wish they
The older brother, the narrator, finds himself struggling at the beginning of the story. While riding the subway, he reads in the paper that Sonny has been arrested for possession of drugs. During his day of teaching, he reflects on prior years with Sonny and their past adventures as young boys. He remembers Sonny's "wonderfully direct brown eyes, and great gentleness and privacy." The narrator sees his brother as a good boy, not "hard or evil or disrespectful." He wonders how many of his algebra students are similar to Sonny in appearance and personality along with his drug habits. This comparison allows the older brother to conclude that Sonny was probably not arrested on his initial use of drugs. It also allows the narrator is see that Sonny may be like most of the other young boys in Harlem.
At the beginning of the story, in plot “A”, John and Mary are introduced as a stereotypical happy couple with stereotypically happy lives of middle class folks. Words like “stimulating” and “challenging” are used repetitiously to describe events in thei...
Like walking through a barren street in a crumbling ghost town, isolation can feel melancholy and hopeless. Yet, all it takes is something like one flower bud to show life really can exist anywhere. This is similar to Stephen’s journey in The Samurai’s Garden. This novel is about an ailing Chinese boy named Stephen who goes moves to a Japanese village during a time of war between Japan and China to recover from his disease. By forming bonds with several locals and listening to their stories, he quickly matures into a young adult. Throughout the novel, Gail Tsukiyama shows how disease forces Stephen into isolation; however, his relationship with Sachi and his time spent in Matsu’s garden lead him out of solitude.
“The third day- it was Wednesday of the first week- Charles bounced a see-saw on to the head of a little girl and made her bleed,” (1). In the short story “Charles” written by Shirley Jackson, Laurie, the main character of the story, is a young kindergartener who is able to run around causing trouble at school and at the same time, pretend that it is only another boy in his class that is making the trouble. “Charles” teaches you that parents do not know everything about their child even though the child lives in the same house as them. Laurie’s parents do not know what he is like at school. Laurie is flamboyant, and arrogant yet creative and those characteristics make him the perfect troublemaker.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s literary work “The Yellow Wallpaper” expresses a dominating relationship between a husband and a compliant wife and her gradual decent into insanity. The wife, suffering from postpartum depression, is secluded from societal influences in attempts to return her to a healthier state of mind. She is not allowed to write or think in her isolated room and over a course of three months becomes more dysfunctional as she is entrapped in what she describes as a former nursery. Her determination to go against her husband’s and physician’s restrictions ultimately makes her surrender into madness because it symbolizes her escape from oppression and resistance from the treatment she is subjected to. Critics may claim that the insanity that the wife suffers from was not the cause of her treatments but existed early in her childhood and that the room in which she occupies is in an insane asylum. However, over the course of time her seclusion makes her fixate on yellow wallpaper in her room. Eventually her fascination of the wallpaper becomes an obsession and she begins to fantasize of imprisoned women behind the paper. By the end of the story she can no longer distinguish fiction from reality and eventually looses any sanity that she held in the beginning of the story. Additionally, the isolated treatments provided by her husband plays a great role in her breakdown and her animalistic behaviors exhibited upon her husband’s return.
Rachel walked into that stuffy class early that morning just to talk with Mrs. Price about the red sweater incident that took place the day before. The motivational posters on the wall did not motivate her one bit into talking to Mrs. Price. As she arrived, Rachel saw Mrs. Price typing away on her computer not even acknowledging her as she walked in. “Mrs. Price I really need to tell you something.” Rachel mumbled shyly. Mrs. Price glared at her with a piercing look on her face. Soon after entering the classroom rachel’s hands started to get sweaty.