...it can be fatal and result in poor decisions and complicated situations. That extra responsibility can come in many different varieties, for example by taking on the role as a mother for your younger siblings because of absent parents, or as in this story being given the authority of a town and licence to kill when you don’t feel old or wise enough for it. In ”Shooting an Elephant” we have a first person narrator. For instance: “I was hated by large numbers of people. ” The “I” easily gives away our narrator. In the informative text at the beginning of page 1, we are told that the author George Orwell was a police officer in the Indian Imperial police force from 1922 to 1927. The plot in the story indicates that it is his own experiences he has written down. The story is written in past tense, most likely because Orwell is looking back upon his time in Burma, this contributes to the feeling of reading through a diary. Orwell uses everyday language, but he also makes long descriptive sentences I assume that this is the result of him being a writer, because he is trained in drawing his readers in with his lush descriptions. Another trait which makes the story seem like an extract from a diary is the way his sentences are built like a train of thoughts, he tells us about the order of the events, but also the feelings he felt at the time, and how he feels about it now. Take for instance this sentence: “I did not even know that the British Empire is dying, still less did I know that...
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...that since they are physically more capable than women, they are inherently also more important. Obviously that is not the case and this sexism tends to create a powerful barrier between males and females. Thankfully, modern day culture has vastly diminished the discrimination of women while resorting to more politically correct viewpoints. Though in the early 1900s when “A Rose for Emily” was set, the Deep South still considered women as major inferiorities to men, which is made evident in “A Rose for Emily.” I disagree with William Faulkner and how he utilizes his short story “A Rose for Emily” to portray his view that women are second-class citizens. “When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house…” (Faulkner, 217). Here in the very first paragraph of the story I quickly became aware of the writer’s intention to go out of the way to present the idea that women are of less moral value than men. Faulkner could have simply stated, “When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral,” but he decided instead to elaborate and give the specific reason for each gender’s attendance. I highly doubt that the outlandish accusation of Faulkner – to say that all the women were so self-conceived that they attended the funeral mostly for personal gains, is true. But even if that fact was true, there is no possible way the...
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...They will think it is strange to like Barney if you are in high school.” thinks the student to himself. Have you ever made decisions, or not made decisions, based on the pressures of society? A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is a story about a woman named Blanche, who is an extreme example of the people in this world that live their lives the way society dictates. She has a young, predetermined wedding, feels pressured to take over responsibility for a farm, and develops personal/mental problems in the process and is ostracized from her hometown. She desperately goes to her sister for help far from home, but things are not much different for her there, as most people here also judge and live based on society or “peer pressure.” She begins to find hope in a newfound relationship with her sister, a chance for love with her new boyfriend, and a chance for happiness to start over; however, all these dreams are quickly crushed by the menacing forces of people’s fear of not fitting in and doing what’s accepted, as well as Stanley, the main person who is opposite of all this. In this world, most of the characters, mainly Blanche, made the mistake of living and making decisions the way society would expect them to, meaning Freud’s third part of the subconscious, the element of the superego, is mostly present. Blanche is the character who most portrays this element, the element of the superego. She is not, however, the only one. This story takes place in a world where most...
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...Zora Neale Hurston’s use of language in her short story Spunk allows the reader to become part of the community in which this story takes place. The story is told from the point of view of the characters, and Hurston writes the dialogue in their broken English dialect. Although the language is somewhat difficult to understand initially, it adds to the mystique of the story. Spunk is a story about a man that steals another man’s wife, kills the woman’s husband and then he ends up dying from an accident at the saw mill. Spunk believed that it was Lena’s husband, Joe Kanty, who shoved him into the circular saw, and the people in the village agreed that Joe Kanty had come back to get revenge. The language used by the characters helps to establish the setting of the story and gives the reader an understanding of why voodoo is a plausible explanation for the outcome. “Looka theah folkses!” is what Elijah Mosley states to the others in the store. This is the first indication that the characters in this short story are not the most educated, and are probably from some small backwoods town. We quickly get confirmation of this when we learn that he is alerting them that Spunk Banks, a giant, brown-skinned man, “who aint skeered of nothin’ on God’s green footstool”, is sauntering up the one street in the village, with a small pretty woman clinging lovingly to his arm. Clearly, the store is where people hang out, and everyone knows that the woman with Spunk is Lena Kanty, Joe’s wife...
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...2014 Into the Wild, Chris McCandless Analysis In Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer tells the story of Chris McCandless, a man born in an affluent family. McCandless allowed his wandering thoughts and moral code guide him in a way that lead to certain death. His parents, Billie and Walt McCandless set him up for an impressive, promising life. Chris took this promising, successful future and spun into a journey filled with idealist literature and danger that skewed his world view. Chris McCandless is often seen as a narcissistic, deeply-misplaced young man that betrayed the emotional trust of his parents. He was not the ideal hero, nor was he a fool. He was rather an idealist, applying his beliefs in order to shift his purpose, unable to be influenced by the forces in his life, such as his collegiate endeavors and his family. “At long last he was unencumbered, emancipated from the stifling world of his parents and peers, a world of abstraction and security and material excess, a world in which he felt grievously cut off from the raw throb of existence.” (Krakauer, 22). McCandless frees himself, despite being chained to the rabid chaos of the urban, modern world. The story of Into the Wild communicates that it is important to follow your own path, in spite of external opinions. Chris McCandless was a pompous fool taking into consideration the decisions he made throughout his short life. He burned all of the money his wallet, and gave the remainder of his Harvard law money to...
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...My Incompetent Boss Over the years I have worked with many people. Most of these people were pleasant to work with, real team players. However some of the people I worked with made my blood boil, constantly making the job difficult. But there was one person I will never forget, Jeff Lander. Jeff Lander was the most incompetent person I have ever worked with. Jeff made me lose money, constantly complained and would try to get people he did not like fired. Jeff Lander made me lose money on a daily basis. To being with, I was a cleaner for Shawnee Villas resort in the Poconos, Jeff was my inspector. Because Jeff would not arrive on time, I was forced to wait for him. Jeff was responsible for telling me what houses I had to clean. I waited 10 minutes, 20 minutes and hour, still no Jeff. This was extremely frustrating since I got paid by the amount of villas I completed in eight hours. When Jeff finally arrived, he did not have the proper paper work. I asked what happened to it and he proceeded to tell me some long story about how his girl friend threw it out the window while they were arguing. I did not care, I just wanted to start working already. But I was forced to wait even longer while he went to the main office to get new paper work. Once we were finally ready to go, Jeff drove all of the cleaners to the villa’s, at least I thought he was. He wanted to making a quick stop to the deli and get coffee, the stop was not quick. As I walked in the store I heard Jeff demanding...
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...exist only to exist and serve no purpose, but his neighbor claims that the wall is key to maintaining their relationship. Both Shirley Jackson and Robert Frost play with the idea of blindly following tradition and how it can be harmful. This short story and poem are similar because in both, there are people who refuse to question tradition; while they differ because the consequences of ignorance are much greater in “The Lottery”. “He only says, “Good Fences make good neighbours.” Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder if I could put a notion in his head: “Why do they make good neighbours?”” The message Robert Frost tries to convey in this poem, is that breaking free of tradition if one feels the need to do so, is not wrong. He’s trying to tell the reader to be the one who questions things rather than just blindly following someone else’s beliefs or customs. In the short...
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...The Motive behind the Murder Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Cask of Amontillado” describes Montresor’s deadly revenge against his friend Fortunato who he claims has insulted him. Since readers are unable to find the precise explanation of Montresor’s abhorrence of Fortunato, most of the readers conclude that Montresor is insane and unbalanced. However, this interpretation fails to explain the character of Montresor and goes against the intricate details of the plot. The short story’s emphasis on the elaborate murder shows Montresor’s sophisticated philosophy of revenge, which is “No one insults me with impunity”. The motive of his vengeance is because of Fortunato’s arrogance and his insulting Montresor, who is indeed equal or even superior to him. Since Fortunato can remember neither the coat of arms nor the motto of Montresor, it is logical to say that Fortunato comes from a less prominent family than Montresor. The conflict between Fortunato and Montresor arises from the sensation of incongruity between their current social standing and their right to prominence by virtue of their origin. Fortunato regards Montresor’s family as less prominent than his family because Montresor is not an active participant in the life of local aristocracy. When Fortunato noted how extensive the vaults are, Montresor tells him that he came from a great and enormous family. However, Fortunato cannot remember Montresor’s coat of arms and his family motto. At that time, the display of a family’s...
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...An important conflict in the short story Mr Van Gogh by Owen Marshall is that between Mr Van Gogh and the collective society of the small town. He is seen as an outcast from the town's society due to his intense passion for art, specifically for the artist Van Gogh's work. This leads to him being judged by the rest of the townspeople and dismissed as some crazy old man just because his passion is not a widely-accepted one, like horse-racing or politics. Ultimately this leads to the destruction and dismissal of his creativity, shown by the townspeople destroying his house and the glass artworks inside that Mr Van Gogh had spent many years perfecting without really appreciating it or even trying to protect it. The townspeople's attitudes against him is important due to the fact that it is a prominent theme in this work (and others of Marshall's such as The Fat Boy) as Marshall writes about the...
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...The Blind Followers In the short story "The Lottery", the author, Shirley Jackson takes the reader to a town where the lottery is not something anyone would want to win. Every 27th of June a small town gathers in their town square and pick pieces of paper, hoping not to get the one piece of paper with a black dot on it. The town has done this ceremony since the town was established. Most of the people have forgotten why they even do this ceremony. The twist with this lottery is that the winner gets stoned to death by the towns people in a sort of ceremonial way. Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" raises the issue of following traditions and ceremonies blindly without question. The characters in Jackson's short story are all following this tradition blindly and without question. All the characters form up that morning at the town square, just like Marines being called to formation at the beginning and at the end of the day. Without any hesitation or uncertainty they all come, husbands, wives, children, and the elderly, all show up as if they were all just going to see a show or ride rides at a carnival. Being a town of just over 300, most of the characters know each other and as they begin to arrive women start catching up on the local gossip and the men start to talk about harvest and things that men talk about. When the director of the ceremony arrives and starts to call out names, most of the people are eager in a way and as the names of the head of households are...
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...Topic: Medium-stakes assignment Order code: 81586685 | | | | | | Pages: | 1, Double spaced | Sources: | 1 | Style: | APA | | Order type: | Coursework | Subject: | English | Academic level: | Not specified | | | Language: | English (U.S.) | | Order Description The English class that I am taking right now is a bit different with other college level English classes. Before you start working on my assignment, I want you to read the course description of my class. Course Description: Texting the World brings together literary and nonliterary texts and considers how the same theme plays through them via analysis, evaluation, and creation of said texts. This particular section of ENG 200 is devoted to the theme of The Sea. Artists and writers have long found inspiration from the sea. In this course, we’ll examine representations of the sea throughout history, with an emphasis on contemporary and classical literature, as well as art, poetry, scholarship, and film. Through reading, writing, and discussion, we’ll consider the ways the sea, and what it encompasses and represents, can allow artists and writers to explore the human condition and show us something about our own values, attitudes, and beliefs. Assignments are designed to help you use writing as a learning tool and to improve your written communication abilities. You will be asked to complete a variety of low-, medium-, and high-stakes assignments, including informal writing tasks...
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...Love is something not easily or even completely understood, infatuation is the common ideal that everyone does want or have a hidden temptation, but it’s to only look but not touch, but how far can temptation turn into desire. In Zora Neale Hurston short story, The Gilded Six Bits, Marriage and Betrayal are something the heart can handle ever so much. Marriage creates a bond an institution, Betrayal can tear the most delicate flower into dust, it violates a type of trust. Hurston gives an example, three stages of a marriage, Love, Admiration, Betrayal and Forgiveness in this story. The character Joe Banks love his wife Missie May, her infidelity puts their marriage strengths on the front line. What irony lead Missie May desire snd believe in something she didn’t...
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...About Me I was born in Sussex in 1954 - far too long ago. I was an extremely dreamy and shy child, and I used to used to wander round muttering to myself and playing games with imaginary friends. My parents had to shout - "He's in the land!" to explain to people why I apparently couldn't hear what they were saying to me. I did very badly at school - I was daydreaming too much to concentrate on anything much.. It wasn't until I was pretty nearly grown up that I started to think that the world around me might be at least as interesting as what was going on in my own head. I did poorly at school, although occasionally teachers would think I had a lot of promise. In those days we had an exam called the eleven plus, which you did just before you went to High School. If you were a clever kid with a good brain, you passed and went to Grammar School to learn brainy things, and if you were a dumb kid, you failed and went to Secondary Modern School and learnt how to do things with your hands. I was a kid with hands. I went to Secondary Modern School. I wasn't very happy at my new school. I remember having a lousy teacher there, who bawled me out for doing a story in a way she hadn't ordered - I'd done it as a diary. She was furious! - called me out in front of the whole class and made a fool of me. So, she got no good stories out of me. My parents moved again, to Reading in Berkshire. This new school was going comprehensive - children of all abilities were to go there. I got on...
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...Many kids in the world suffer from emotional pain and not having the freedom they deserve. One such person is Squeaky, the protagonist of “Raymond’s Run”, a short story written by Toni Cade Bambara. Squeaky is a very diligent person, but like everyone else’s life, she has to live with difficulties. For example, she has to deal with Gretchen and her gang—bullies who include one of her former friends—until she betrayed Squeaky. She also lives with her overbearing mother who always expects her to behave properly and conform to society's gender stereotypes. Similarly, the song “Believer” by Imagine Dragons closely relates to and describes one person’s emotional pain and the search for independence. Both the song lyrics and “Raymond’s Run” reflect...
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...Conflict of The Lottery Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery”, portrays the old, barbaric practices of culture. The story was truly horrifying and shocked many readers. The piece reflected one of the most horrible practices of human history that traces back to the beginning of mankind. Winning a lottery is usually a great accomplishment, in this story it is completely opposite. The story began with a beautiful setting “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green” (247). As the story begins to develop the story becomes more and more strange. When Mr. Summers arrives and enters the town square “The villagers kept their distance, leaving a space between themselves and the stool, and when Mr. Summers said, "Some of you fellows want to give me a hand?" there was a hesitation before two men” (247). Tessie Hutchinson had forgotten that the lottery was being held that day and arrived late and joined her family in the front. The townspeople humouredly welcomed her into the lottery. The lottery had begun and Mr. Summers addressed the crowd "Now, I'll read the names--heads of families first--and the men come up and take a paper out of the box. Keep the paper folded in your hand without looking at it until everyone has had a turn. Everything clear?" (248). The lottery began and the townspeople became nervous, “The people had done it so many times that they only half...
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