...addiction are often noted in the writing and poetry of some postmodern authors. In the poetry of Allen Ginsberg “Howl”, short stories by James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues” and Raymond Carver, “Cathedral” talk of alcohol and addiction exist. Reading the poetry of Ginsberg and the story by Baldwin, obvious references are made to inebriation and addiction, more subtle notations are described in the work by Carver. In the story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver the narrator drinks too much and seems unable to effectively communicate with his wife. Drinking and smoking marijuana goes on throughout the story telling. The short story “Cathedral” portrays individuals isolated from each other for various reasons. It appears that the maladies suffered by the narrator and wife provide reasons for inebriation and addiction. For example,” So when the time rolled around, my wife went to the depot to pick him up. With nothing to do but wait—sure, I blamed him for that—I was having a drink and watching the TV when I heard the car pull into the drive. I got up from the sofa with my drink and went to the window to have a look”. The narrator begins to drink while waiting for his wife and the blind man to arrive from the train station. In this quote the first indication of drinking start. As the story progresses drinking and marijuana smoking occurs throughout. Drinking occurs after the characters are introduced and engage in brief conversation; the narrator describes the scene “Let me get...
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...the ending 4. In a short essay (150-200 words) discuss what you can do to help a friend or partner who is an alcoholic. ------------------------------------------------- Summary “Grove” is an American short story written by Erin Brooks Worsley in the year 2006. The story takes place in Florida, in a town called Frostproof. The main characters are a woman and a man without any names. They are a couple in a relationship. In the story they are visiting his parents. The woman has a drinking problem. The man is married to another woman but is still in a relationship with the main character. They are going out on a lake where they have an argument about their future. The man really wants to have kids, and his wife is not able to. He would like the woman to stop drinking, because pregnant women do not drink. The man’s mom knows what all this is about and talks to the woman about the problem. In the end the mother asks the woman to leave. Characterize On of the main characters is a woman who is visiting her boyfriend’s parents for the first time. It sounds like she grew up in the city, why she is not used to mosquitos opposite to the man who grew up near a lake. In the story we hear about the woman’s drinking problem and how it conflicts with the man’s wish to get children. The woman is several times confronted with her problem but we get the feeling that she doesn’t look at it as a problem; she is happy about it and don’t want to quit drinking. The other main character...
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...Grove In the short story ”Grove”, there is written by Erin Brooks Worley, we read about a first-person-narrator, that is a girl. She has some confrontations with a guy and his parents. The story takes place in Florida, in a town called Frostproof. Here lives the guy, but the author never mention his name. It is always I, he and she in the story. Here he lives nearby his parents. We also do not know the names of the parents. The guy has a strange relationship to a girl, there is the first-person-narrator. First you think, she is his girlfriend, but then she says in the text: “I never asked him to leave his wife”, and later in the text the first-person-narrator says: “He likes kids, I say. And his wife can’t have them”. Therefore, they are trying to have a kid, because his wife cannot make kids, so I think that they do not have a relationship to each other. The guy’s mother seems not to like the first-person-narrator, but he’s father like her. The girl seems very insecure; while she is apologizing a lot, and the guy says that, she has to stop apologize so much. The girl is also an alcoholic, and one night she sneaks out on the bathroom, where she is hiding some whiskey in a shampoo bottle. She is trying to conceal, that she has a drinking problem, but the guy knows that she is a alcoholic. He get also very upset, when she hides liquor in his parents bathroom. One day when the girl are alone with the guy’s mother in the living room, the mother says to the girl, that she...
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...attitude to the girlfriend it isn’t quite good. She doesn’t like his new girlfriend and want her to say that she isn’t feeling well and that they need to leave earlier. The short story tells us about relationship, emotion, respect and drinking because it’s the relationship to everyone in the trailer we are hearing about but mostly the man and his girlfriend and their emotions that are stock. They have some big problems for example that she is drinking and he actually doesn’t care. He only says that she isn’t aloud to drink in his parents’ home. We know that the girlfriend has a big problem when we hear that she turn on the bathroom light and open the shower door and drink whiskey from her shampoo bottle. When people have to hide something we know that they have problems – she just can’t take a whiskey bottle, she has to hide it in a shampoo bottle. The man want to have kids but his wife whom he has left couldn’t have kids and his new girlfriend whom is drinking won’t stop drinking and she says, “Pregnant women shouldn’t drink”. His hope to have kids isn’t big unless he finds another way to have them. He affects very sad[->0] and despairing and we actually don’t hear about what his like on the outside besides that he is tall. He’s also a little bit strong because he wants his girlfriend to stop drinking...
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...A visit to his parents The short story “A visit to his parents” was published in 2006. The story takes place in Frostproof in Florida, where a woman is visiting her parents-in-law with her boyfriend. The main theme in the story is: “things aren't always what they seem”. Other themes are drinking problems and love despite flaws. Frostproof sounds like a perfect place and when the boyfriend’s father let them try his two motorbikes, you’ll get the impression that everything is perfect. The parents-in-law live at a nice place with perfect surroundings and the two motorbikes indicate that the family is quite wealthy. But this perfect picture ends fast. On the second day of their visit the boyfriend crashes on his motorbike. She holds the horn down so his parents will come out and help, but he pushes her hand away and tells her that holding the horn down just will scare them. She says that she is sorry and he replies: “You can stop apologizing. I’ve heard it enough”. The fact that he says he has heard it too much, shows that he probably has had a lot of disappointments in his life before and therefore he has heard those words many times before. At night when everybody is asleep she sneaks outside to drink whiskey of her shampoo bottle. She uses a shampoo bottle instead of a real whiskey bottle to hide her abuse. But at the same time she says that she doesn’t’ care if her boyfriend detect it. On the one hand she hides it, but on the other hand she doesn’t. In the morning...
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...girlfriend. But it’s like a mysterious because he wants his girlfriend to be with him as a comfort and then again he won’t her not to touch him. When we hear the mother’s attitude to the girlfriend it isn’t quite good. She doesn’t like his new girlfriend and want her to say that she isn’t feeling well and that they need to leave earlier. The short story tells us about relationship, emotion, respect and drinking because it’s the relationship to everyone in the trailer we are hearing about but mostly the man and his girlfriend and their emotions that are stock. They have some big problems for example that she is drinking and he actually doesn’t care. He only says that she isn’t aloud to drink in his parents’ home. We know that the girlfriend has a big problem when we hear that she turn on the bathroom light and open the shower door and drink whiskey from her shampoo bottle. When people have to hide something we know that they have problems – she just can’t take a whiskey bottle, she has to hide it in a shampoo bottle. The man want to have kids but his wife whom he has left couldn’t have kids and his new girlfriend whom is drinking won’t stop drinking and she says, “Pregnant women shouldn’t drink”. His hope to have kids isn’t big unless he finds another way to have them. He affects very sad and despairing and we actually don’t hear about what his like on the outside besides that he is tall. He’s also a little bit strong because he wants his...
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...life, was also a writer and published short stories, as well as a novel “Save Me the Waltz” (cite Columbia Encyclopedia). She eventually became mentally ill and suffered numerous breakdowns, resulting in more than one visit to an insane asylum. An alcoholic in debit, Fitzgerald died at only 40 years of age, on December 21, 1940, from a heart attack. (cite James West article). Born on September 26, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald later attended Princeton University and enlisted in the Army. He was a prolific writer who produced more material than most realize. By the time of his death he had written five novels, approximately 170 short stories, 11 plays, 96 poems, as well as various articles, essay and reviews. (cite Robert Gale). The publishing of When This Side of Paradise in 1920 helped launch Fitzgerald, then only 24, into the world of literary greats, where his popularity sky-rocketed and he gained a reputation for being a spokesman for the “Jazz Age” of the 1920’s. (West article). Unfortunately, with the decline of the Jazz Age, so came the beginning of a down-hill slide for Fitzgerald as well. His and Zelda’s extravagant life style resulted in mounting debt and the stress of continually having to publish something new and noteworthy. Babylon Revisited was written in 1931 and published in the Saturday Evening Post and is considered by many critics to be one of Fitzgerald’s greatest short stories. It’s the story of Charlie Wales and his efforts to regain...
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...About a War Story The short story “Where Have You Gone Charming Billy” is about a new soldier in the Vietnam War. The author Tim O’Brien was a soldier in the Vietnam War and now he writes war stories. In his story, he tries to get you to understand different things about war. One of thing he wants you to know about war is what it's really like. Another of the things he tries to show you in his story is what it was like being there during the war. Another thing he shows in his story is that soldiers are afraid too. These are a few of the things that Tim O’Brien tells you about war in the short story “Where Have You Gone Charming Billy”. War is very painful. In his story, the soldiers were drinking Coca Cola that afternoon, not knowing that later that day one of them would die. The main...
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...Grove 1. Write a summary of Grove in about 150 words. Grove is a short story written by Erin Brooks Worley. The story is about an alcoholic woman that is visiting her boyfriend’s parents. The second day of their visit the boyfriend crashes on his father’s motorbike. After everyone falls asleep that night the woman sneaks out into the bathroom were her shampoo bottle, with her whiskey, stands. She takes a couple shots thinking her boyfriend won’t smell it and goes back to bed. The next morning her boyfriend tells her he can smell it. Later that day they take to boat and sails out at the lake, where he turns off the motor and they start talking about kids and how they can’t have any because of her drinking. At night, after they got back, the narrator is talking to her boyfriend’s mother, while the boyfriend and his father goes to the shop, who tells her she need to stop drinking. By the time the boys got back the boyfriend’s mother talked the narrator into going home. On the way home the narrator’s boyfriend turns off the light on the car and drives in complete darkness for a while. 2. Characterize the two main characters and their relationship. The narrator is an alcoholic woman, who is trying to find out what to do in her life. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone with her problem, but she does because she won’t be able to have children. The boyfriend is a bit quiet, he tries to overlook her problem but it’s hard when she smells of alcohol. He wants children, but can’t have...
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...An Essay on Yellow Many people often seek distraction from the small problems, which occur every day in our daily lives. To avoid these problems they use bad excuses like drinking or simply avoiding any kinds of conflicts. You can call it a defence mechanism so they prevent the feelings of hopelessness, guilt or feeling like a burden. In generally people are very yellow, they often tend to run away from their problems instead of facing them. Some people are even going as far as being suicidal, because they think it’s the only way to escape these problems. This is what the main character in the short story “Yellow” which is written by Peter Carty struggles with. In the story, we meet the main character Jon who is in the thirties He suffers from overweight but is in good physical condition for someone in his age. He is a second-string writer on a London listings magazine. He travels to Egypt, because the magazine wants him to write about scuba diving. Already in the start of the story, it is clear that he is afraid of confrontations. In the episode where the Egyptian porters tries to wrench his bags away, he shakes hands with each one and tip them with crumpled currency so they will go away. His relationship with his girlfriend isn’t going so well which is emphasized on page 3 lines 53-55: “They hadn’t paid for his girlfriend to come, either. Mind you, the way things were going that was properly a plus. The silence between them had multiplied, then lengthened into an empty...
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...why are many of them living in loneliness? Studies have shown that one of the primary sources to human happiness is the close and confident relation we can have to our fellow men. Therefore, the ability to communicate is crucial for how we will evolve in the future. Such issues are being handled in Richard Knight’s short story “Sorry for Disturbing You”, from 2008. In the short story, Michael Phelps is described as an old man, who one evening is knocking on Ian’s front door. He wants to borrow the phone so he can call a taxi. Phelps is intoxicated by alcohol and claims that he used to know the previous owners of Ian’s house, Edie and George Higham. Ian invites him in and tries to help him. To find what connection the drunken man has to this couple; he calls them, but without success. They will not help him at all: “Look, if he’s bothering you I suggest you call the police. I’m sorry he’s disturbing your evening but… I really must go. Sorry.” George Higham seems frustrated and dismissive towards Ian. This reaction is due to the fact that Edie Higman is the daughter of Michael Phelps. The reason why they do not stay in touch anymore is caused by Michael’s drinking problem. In addition, his family has rejected him. Furthermore Michael mentions that he should have been there for his daughter’s wedding: “It’s the alcohol you see. I should have walked her down the aisle you know.” Several times it is seen that Michael...
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...English III H Name Kevin Williams, Katie Sheehan, and Jenn Fassnacht Mr. Lynch Short Story Analyzer Short Story: The Corn Planting Author: Sherwood Anderson |Element for Analysis |Response/Evidence |Significance | |Basic summary of the story: |Hatch Hutchenson lives in a small town, where he marries a schoolteacher and they have a son named Will. The |-Glorify the small-town lifestyle | |Major action of the story in five to eight |Hutchenson family runs a farm even after their son Will goes into Chicago to attend school at the Art Institute as|- Stressing importance of keeping a connection to | |sentences. |a cartoonist. At the Art Institute, Will meets a young man named Hal Weyman and they become good friends. Hal |the Earth. | | |Weyman develops a strong relationship with the Hutchensons and visits them to read Will’s letters while he is |-Shows the distance created by industrialization | | |still at the school. Hal receives a telegraph notifying him that Will died in a drunken car crash, and Hal and the|and cities. | | ...
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...Short stories written in different time periods consist of many of the same styles/elements. The authors of these short stories have many hidden meaning behind their words. “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edger Allan Poe, the “Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and, “Cast of Amontillado” by Edger Allen Poe have similar styles such as, using symbolism to enhance and foreshadow the reading. The author in Cast of Amontillado uses symbolism through the meaning of the title its self “ Cast of Amontillado” since Amontillado mean wine, and in the story the plot mainly happen based on the characters drinking wine, I thought the name symbolizes the results/effects in an irony way or drinking wine in this story. Since the character lures the other character...
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...Short stories can be both fiction and non-fiction. Either way, the purpose of short stories is to convey a message, moral, or lesson. Setting often sets the mood and tone of the story. Characters in the story are usually affected tremendously by the setting. The setting is the time, place, day, or location in which the story takes place. The setting reveals clues to the readers as a sense of direction of what will happen next. The plot can be affected by the setting as because it affects what will happen throughout the story. The two short stories, “The Chrysanthemums” by John Steinbeck and “Hills like White Elephant” by Ernest Hemingway displays how setting can give hints to what can possibly happen, describe the characters trait, and effect the plot. “The high grey-flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and from all the rest of the world. On every side, it sat like a lid on the mountains and made of the great valley a closed pot” (Steinbeck 581). This quote is stating that the Allen’s foothill ranch was closed off to the outside world, they are living in a rural setting. The Allen’s lived in a neat white farm house with red geraniums...
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...Short Story Reader Response Title: what we talk about when we talk about love Author: Raymond Carver Theme Compose a complete sentence that states the author’s purpose (meaning or main point) in the story. What we talk about when we talk about love, written by Raymond Carver, talks about what true love is in everyone’s mind. Setting Describe the occasion, time, place, atmosphere, etc. Give details. The setting is very casual. Two couples are just talking during their spare time in the kitchen of one’s home. It is a good sunny afternoon, relaxed, and also not an annoying rainy or windy day. “My friend Mel McGinnis was talking.” “The four of us were sitting around his kitchen table drinking gin. Sunlight filled the kitchen from the big window behind the sink. There were Mel and me and his second wife, Teresa-Terri, we called her- and my wife, Laura.” Language Cite some quotations (at least three) that are particularly meaningful or interesting. Explain why you chose each. “He kept saying, ‘I love you, I love you, you bitch.’” Terri was memorizing what Ed said to her when he beat her. What Ed said was kind of contradictory. Did he hate Terri, or did he love Terri. In Terri’s mind, this is a different way to show his love, but as I know, this is love, while a sick way. The contradictory way he said can show this very completely. Just a several words, but readers can feel what kind of person Ed is. “‘Terri’s a romantic. Terri’s of the kick-me-so-I’ll-know-you-love-me...
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