In the stories “Gwilan’s Harp” by Ursula K. LeGuin, “The Washwoman” by Isaac Singer, and “The Last Leaf” by O. Henry, the characters experience great loss. Each of these stories’ most tragic moment happens when an important character dies. “Gwilan’s Harp” portrays the loss of Torm, Gwilan’s husband; however, the author creates redemption at the conclusion. The touching washwoman’s demise in “The Washwoman,” though heartbreaking, reveals an excellent moral lesson. Lastly, “The Last Leaf” not only includes good applicable themes, but also the unpredictable fatality of Behrman, of whom no one thinks very highly and yet has a great effect on the reader. Overall, these authors achieve their goals of teaching ethical principles through stories …show more content…
Even so, this short story, too, sets misfortune as one of its themes. A Gentile washwoman, the main character, enters the life of a Jewish family and shows strength when she faces difficult circumstances. “Only God knows all the old woman had to endure each time she did a wash!...The old woman did not want to become a burden, and so she bore her burden” (Singer). This washwoman perseveres through trials, and when her health dwindles, she manages to faithfully return all the laundry before she passes away. All the Jewish families she launders for gain a solid friendship from her in spite of their religious …show more content…
Henry, Johnsy, a young painter, grows ill with pneumonia. Thinking her final days draw near, she begins to count down the leaves on the ivory vine outside her window. When the last one falls, she believes she, too, will fall. While Sue, a good friend, cannot find a way to dissuade Johnsy’s silly idea, the gruff neighbor holds the key. Despite the fact others think of him as old and drunk, Behrman foretells a coming masterpiece of his. “The last ivy leaf...never fluttered or moved...[because of] Behrman’s masterpiece – he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell” (Henry). Later, Behrman died of pneumonia since he created his masterpiece in the icy rain, but his death saved Johnsy and demonstrated his true, caring, and sacrificial
Sandra Cisneros’, “The Monkey Garden”, uses juxtaposition and personification to provide ominousness to her vignette. For instance, a bit after Esperanza first entered the garden following the family moving, she noted the “hollyhocks perfumy like the blue-blond hair of the dead”, comparing aromatic flowers to dull colored locks from the deceased, foreshadowing that there must be an upcoming negative event of some sort involving death. The foul use of corpses’ hair color to describe a fragrant plant is placed to accentuate their clear differences. Cisneros also uses personification to establish an ominous mood to this piece. For example, after stating the garden was taking over itself, the “flowers stopped obeying” their designated areas.
Literature that stimulates the feeling of pity, sympathy and sorrow is Pathos. The two pieces of literature express pathos in different lights, showcasing a rollercoaster of emotions for the reader. John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men and Christie McLaren’s article “Suitcase Lady” both expose heartache and social inequalities to deduce the feeling of commiseration. The bleak hardship of life affirms the heartache through Lennie and the Suitcase Lady. Lennie is loyal to George and is terrified of upsetting his friend.
Blues burst from the shadows of the buildings, contrasting with the vermillion glow from the nearby windows, while sickly greens still lurked in the curtains, illuminating his whole being. Clinging to the curtain in the middles of the chaos, he looks toward his apartment, not in fear, but in euphoria. I first saw Conrad Felixmüller’s Death of the Poet Walter Rheiner near the end of my sophomore year of high school. The past year and a half had been hard for me. Freshman year I struggled in AP World History.
Joan Didion is an author who was part of the New Journalism movement during the 1960s and ‘70s which was a change from the traditional styles (Rustin 1). As a member of the New Journalism movement, Didion used stories and real-life events to explore sensational events that occurred in the sixties and seventies. Using imagery to centralize her ideas, Didion boldly informs the reader on the subject of morality and gets him/her engaged with the text. Didion’s use of gruesome imagery resonates with the idea of survival-based morality because in the most physically painful and emotional situations, people are defined by the actions they take. Joan Didion positions her view by providing symbolic imagery including the blazing desert, the nurse who travels one-hundred and eighty miles of mountain road for an injured girl, the sheriff’s deputies who search for a kid, and the painting by Hieronymous Bosch illustrating the diverse concept of morality, all which construct the exaggeratingly annoyed tone of the essay and deliver an idea that survival is central to morality.
By using the idea of sacrifice, Authors ‘Shirley Jackson’ and ‘Ursula LeGuin’ both express how an act of sacrifice can determine the fate of another human’s life, and how one’s sacrifice can affect another person’s life in the short stories ‘The Lottery’ and ‘The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas’. The authors both use similar writing techniques, but the morals of the societies are different. In the short stories “The Lottery” and “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” you have two communities that both seem to be the perfect society in a way. “The Lottery” has an opening feel of kids playing and a big huge festival where everyone is having a good time.
Despite the guilt inside, the speaker chooses to let the feeling consume her rather than share it with her beloved grandmother. When the leaf changes colors, it will symbolize the balance of the two worlds of college and the speaker’s Appalachia
She uses sinful characters that have fallen out the God’s grace to get her message that one’s outward appearance does not matter to God, what matters is that a person has God living internally in their heart.
as in her final moments the narrator recalls her earliest connection to the landscape. A key theme throughout the poem is the importance of embracing nature, emphasized by the metaphor of the “fine pumpkins grown on a trellis” which rise in towards the “fastness of light”, which symbolizes the narrators own growth, flourishing as a fruit of the earth. Through her metaphors and complex conflagration of shifting perspectives, Harwood illustrates the relationship that people can develop with landscapes, seeing both present and past in
Alice Walker uses imagery and diction throughout her short story to tell the reader the meaning of “The Flowers”. The meaning of innocence lost and people growing up being changed by the harshness of reality. The author is able to use the imagery to show the difference between innocence and the loss of it. The setting is also used to show this as well.
“The only building in sight was a small block of yellow brick sitting on the edge of the waste land, a sort of compact Main Street ministering to it and contiguous to absolutely nothing” (28). The apartment is simple, because the Wilson’s are simple people, living apart from the drama of the two eggs. The closeness of the Wilson’s home to their business represents George’s dedication to his work, while Myrtle sees it a as constant burden from which to escape. They live in the valley of ashes, a place ruined by the pollution and excesses of the rich, just as the Wilson’s lives will be ruined by the rich. Their home lies under the watchful painted eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg.
Today, most people would assume that the reaction to a loved one’s death would be immediate grief; however, that would not be the case in the late 1800s. In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of An Hour” women were expected to grieve differently than men. The story conveys the main character Mrs. Mallard’s distress and joy after she discovered the supposed death of her husband. The story does not demonstrate Mrs. Mallard following the stages of grief that would be expected when grieving over her husband. In spite of the fact that Mrs. Mallard was grieving she was likewise encountering joy and satisfaction since she then realizes that she is currently free.
Date TMA received: Date returned: TUTOR’S REMARKS: Content Language and Organization Earned Mark EL121: The Short Story and Essay Writing TMA: Fall Semester 2015 - 2016 The ending of every short story represent a great significance for the short story itself.
Throughout the story, the narrator hints towards smaller instances that symbolize the central theme of the story—absence or the loss of love. The recollection of painting over the wallpaper in which the narrator says, “I thought of the bits of grapes that remained underneath and imagined the vine popping through, the way some plants can tenaciously push through anything” (Beattie 108) symbolizes how their love was unable to
In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” demonstrates the personal growth of the dynamic protagonist Louise Mallard, after hearing news of her husband’s death. The third-person narrator telling the story uses deep insight into Mrs. Mallard’s thoughts and emotions as she sorts through her feelings after her sister informs her of her husband’s death. During a Character analysis of Louise Mallard, a reader will understand that the delicate Mrs. Mallard transforms her grief into excitement over her newly discovered freedom that leads to her death. As Mrs. Mallard sorts through her grief she realizes the importance of this freedom and the strength that she will be able to do it alone.
Louise’s victory in accepting her husband’s death is a feeling that she now cannot live without. The ultimate death of Louise Mallard is one that represents physical and emotional defeat. In this dramatic short story, Chopin uses imagery to sew together a tapestry of emotions all encompassed in an ill-stricken widow. Works Cited Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour.”