...“You will never win your freedom, you cannot escape fear.” The radio played with zero disruptions no static, no sounds. Nothing ever interrupted the transmissions no movement, no voices, no nature. There were plenty of people to disturb the calmness, yet no one ever did. They were all afraid, afraid of what the autarch could do to their families and themselves. “Aaron?” my mother’s soft voice snapped me out of my thoughts. “The transmission is over. It’s time to start walking to the hexahedron,” she spoke quickly and quietly. She too was petrified of what the autarch and his night shadows -or shades, as we call them- could do. I sigh deeply and rise from the uncomfortable chair I was sitting in. All people are required to sit while the transmission runs which was 5 times a day. My mother scurried out of my room with me following behind her. We walk past Jeremy’s old room. It is still as lifeless as it was 4 years ago when he was taken and killed. He was fearless and because of it he was brutally murdered by that devilish person we all follow. I too am as fearless as my brother; but I am not as strong as he was. I refuse to fight, when that horrid person came with my brothers dead body at our door he gave us one very specific warning “No one overcomes fear, no one is allowed to defy me” I remember it vividly. I can still hear his menacing voice ringing in my ears. I do not try and fight the shades, I cannot overcome them. That is the difference between me and my brother. I cannot...
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...Dealing With Loss When I got the news, I was all the way on the other side of the country. I knew that he would be gone soon, I prayed that somehow he would hold on until I was able to see him one last time. The overwhelming feeling of guilt overcame me. Although, it was hard, I was able to cope with the loss of my father by keeping myself busy and the love and support from my husband. Living an active lifestyle has always been a stress reliever for me. When my dad passed away I tried to find anything and everything to keep my mind busy. Whether I would go for a jog, play outside with my son, or clean the house. I never let my mind rest. It was exhausting at times, but I was able to keep myself from becoming depressed. My husband has always...
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...Loss of Education Despite my Mother constantly telling her children to attend school and graduate, none of them, not even I, managed to properly go to school. Out of eleven children, not one earned a diploma. The unfortunate reason behind this failure was our poverty. From a very young age my siblings and I made the decision to work under the sun and neglect school. We did not put our education to the side because we didn’t value it, we put it aside because there was a huge necessity for basics items like food, shelter, and clothing. School became more of a burden when there was nothing to eat and no money to survive on. I had to start working at the age of seven to provide some money for our household. Unfortunately, my job often conflicted...
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...Sometimes, when I see something out in public or something on T.V. that I seen or had when I was a child, it just hits me and I think of the house that I grew up in and all the memories along with it. I think about making friends with the neighbors and all the memories I had with them. I wonder where are they today? Why don’t we talk anymore, what happened to us? When I think of the house I grew up in, I miss it so much. So much innocence was in that house along with my family. I felt like everything was perfect. Even though I lost my innocence at an early age and began to see how difficult life can be, the home where I grew up molded me into the person I am today. I have many pleasant memories of living in that house, my parents were always there for me, and I want to provide a home like that for my children someday. Living in this house and experiencing everything that it had to offer really molded me into the person I am today. Everything that the house symbolized in my eyes before it was torn apart is what I want for my family in the future. I witnessed a perfect family that lived in a perfect house ending up being torn apart and the innocence was ripped away from my being. When everything did fall apart for me and my family, I wish none of it happened, I wonder where would I be today if certain things didn’t happen. Would I be more successful and be completely somewhere else than where I am today? Every time I think about this particular home that I grew up in and my...
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...When I received a letter from my principal inviting me to attend the end of the year department awards, I was doubtful that anything more than an honorable mention would come from it. I was graduating a complete year early, and due to this I wasn’t allowed to be in the running for titles such as valedictorian or my school’s tradition of being “knighted”. I went that evening with my family to the ceremony and was shocked to see my name in the program as receiving the honor cord for excellence in foreign languages. I started studying French during elementary school and took French classes up through my senior year including the AP test. I ran the French club as the president in complete French for two years and even went on a two-week immersion...
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...Mother Copes with Loss of Brother “I have learned not to take things for granted. Life can change in an instant”. At 5:10 pm, on April 8th, 2005, Nicole Greiss received a phone call telling her that Justin Breen and Jeffrey Rentschler had died at 4:50pm. Jeffrey Rentschler was Nicole’s cousin and Justin Breen was Nicole’s 16 year old brother. This happened in Bernville, PA on a backroad on a cold rainy spring day. This is something that Nicole still copes with today. “I had a childhood filled with love and laughter. Not only was he my brother, but he was my best friend. When I heard what happened, it is almost as if the world and my heart had stopped. It never really started back up”. Nicole Greiss is nine years older than her brother Justin. Justin was born on January 13, 1989, whereas Nicole was born in 1980. When Justin was born Nicole was 8 years old about to turn 9....
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...We all have that moment in life when something awful happens that it terrified us. A few years ago, I have suffered from driving anxiety after a minor accident. During the time, I was still learning to how to drive. A few weeks prior to my driving license behind the wheel exam. I took my dad’s car to take my brother to the market near my house without my dad supervision in the car. On way to the market, one car made a sharp left and hit me while I was going straight. I was so scared because I did not know what to do and I still not have my license yet. My hands were shaking. So I decided to drive away, and went home. It shocked me and I was terrified of driving. I told my dad that I do not want to drive anymore. My dad always takes me to places like work, school, etc. One day, I saw my dad looks so exhausted from work, and I know it is time to stop bother him. I decided to relearn everything and to face my fear. A month later, I finally got my license. Driving has been one of the most rewarding thing I have done. The freedom to go anywhere is great, I enjoy driving, and I am glad I was brave enough to face my fear and overcame it. Some may ague that failure is a bad thing; because it is considered to be unsuccessful, and a shameful step back. It is the last thing people should have in their life. Many say why they should repeat their failure; first failure will let them know what does not work. That is because we have been taught at the young age that failure is bad, and right...
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...call his name. In this poem, identity is not seen as something that is solid and concrete but as something that is situated and constructed by others, a glimpse of poststructuralist view on identity. Recently, language learning has been seen as participation and negotiation of self (see Higgins, forthcoming; Kinginger, 2004; Lam, 2000; Morita, 2004; Ohara, 2001; Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000; and Solé, 2007 among others). The trend is resonated in the growing interest in language learner identity and the studies in narratives. In this paper, a case of heritage language learner will be investigated upon the theoretical frame of poststructuralism. Narrative inquiry will be used to analyze how she negotiates her learner identity. The purpose of this paper is two-fold: First, by looking at the struggle a language learner makes to acquire her heritage language, I reclaim the centrality of identity in defining heritage language learners. Second, to widen the horizons of narrative studies to the cyber space as it provides an ample source of easily accessible data and it has become one of the commonplace media of daily communication. Heritage Language Learners and Identity To refer to the Heritage Language Learners (HLLs), various terms have been implemented such as ‘native speakers,’ ‘quasi native speakers,’ ‘bilingual speakers,’ or, from the dissatisfaction with the prior terms, ‘home background speakers,’ and ‘heritage language speakers’ (Valés, 2005: p. 412). There has not yet been...
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...The Gender Politics of Narrative Modes I want to challenge two linked assumptions that most historians and critics of the English novel share. The first is that the burgeoning of capitalism and the ascension of the middle classes were mainly responsible for the development of the novel. The second is that realism represents the novel's dominant tradition. [note 1] I want to propose instead that, as surely as it marked a response to developing class relations, the novel came into being as a response to the sex-gender system that emerged in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. [note 2] My thesis is that from its inception, the novel has been structured not by one but by two mutually defining traditions: the fantastic and the realistic. [note 3] The constitutive coexistence of these two impulses within a single, evolving form is in no sense accidental: their dynamic interaction was precisely the means by which the novel, from the eighteenth century on, sought to manage the strains and contradictions that the sex-gender system imposed on individual subjectivities. For this reason, to recover the centrality of sex and gender as the novel's defining concern is also to recover the dynamism of its bimodal complexity. Conversely, to explore the interplay of realist and fantastic narratives within the novelistic tradition is to explore the indeterminacy of subjectivities engaged in the task of imposing and rebelling against the constraining order of gender difference. ...
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...Otherness: Essays and Studies 1.1 October 2010 Haunting Poetry: Trauma, Otherness and Textuality in Michael Cunningham’s Specimen Days Olu Jenzen Early conceptions of trauma are intimately linked not only with modernity but specifically with the height of industrialisation (Micale and Lerner 2001). This is converged in the opening of Specimen Days particularly in the image of an industrial accident at the ironworks where a young man is killed by the stamping machine. His young brother, replacing him at the machine after the funeral, then experiences an apparition of the dead brother still trapped inside the machine, which leads him to believe that all machines house entrapped ghosts of the dead. Writing on the Victorians’ anxieties about internal disruption caused by the advent of the railway, Jill Matus (2001, 415) has pointed out that, Freud himself remarked in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), [that] there is ‘a condition [which] has long been known and described [and] which occurs after severe mechanical concussions, railway disasters and other accidents involving a risk to life; it has been given the name of traumatic neurosis’ (12). Freud’s remark brings to the fore the traumas of the industrial age as both individually and publicly experienced and negotiated. This condition of trauma as private and public, individual yet also societal is held in tension throughout Cunningham’s novel. Reflecting on the otherness of trauma and its vexed relationship to representation...
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...accepted participant. While the outsider identity may be thrust upon the individual, the individual himself/herself may hinder his/her assimilation and therefore be the cause of his/her own isolation. In both Margaret Atwood’s poem collection Journals of Susanna Moodie and Maria Campbell’s narrative poem, “Jacob,” protagonists Susanna Moodie and Jacob struggle as outsiders in their respective Canadian environments. Both protagonists are outsiders as Moodie is an outsider to the wildlife environment of the Bush and Jacob is an outsider to his Indigenous community; however, Moodie’s outsider status is a result of her personal fear of the unfamiliar, while external societal forces create Jacob’s outsider identity. Both outsider identities, while differing in causation, illustrate the negative impact Western ideology has on the new settler and Indigenous populations as the former’s preconditioned Western beliefs turn Canada’s natural environment into an adversary and the latter is pressed to abandon its unique cultural traditions. Through strategic word choice, both Susanna Moodie and Jacob are established as outsiders in their respective natural and social environments; however Moodie’s personal barriers cause her outsider identity, while Jacob’s outsider status is forced upon him by societal factors, providing a commentary on the destructive impact of Western ideologies. Atwood manipulates words to situate Moodie as an outsider to nature as she writes, “The moving water will not...
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...A mother leaves her daughter a map, but no legend to later unlock its true meaning. A relevant figure in this instance is Danielle Geller, a renowned writer of personal essays and memoirs who wrote “Heirloom.” Geller focuses on the idea that artifacts, especially heirlooms, can hold the weight of family traditions, memories, and even one's identity. In “Heirloom,” she explores how these objects represent connections to the past, even when those connections are filled with loss, pain, and complications. Geller’s essay analyzes how these heirlooms assist her in understanding and coming to terms with her own identity as she sorts through the remnants of her mother’s life following her passing. Pathos is evident throughout the essay as Geller deeply explores her emotional connection to her mother’s belongings and the memories they evoke. Geller sets the stage by describing a specific scenario in which she goes through her mother’s possessions, especially the family photos. Those images act as pathways between Geller and her mother’s past, helping her gain a better understanding of it. There are Already Vue moments where she can piece together a puzzle. Geller also mentions her resignation, knowing she would never be able to meet her mother’s parents—her grandparents—who have all unfortunately passed away. They are now merely pictures of family members whose names she will never know; a chronicle with no storyline. This emphasizes that heirlooms have the ability to inspire a connection...
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...Hosseini’s last book, The Kite Runner before. I'll try steer away from comparing the two books here. They're both very good reads and worth your time. But I will say that I consider A Thousand Splendid Suns to be the better of the two. The author's narrative style is stronger and less predictable and he stretches himself, very effectively, to look at the events of the last 35 years in Afghanistan from a woman's point of view. Hosseini does an excellent job of referencing the global and regional political issues in the story without making them a main plot point. The large events are a backdrop, a scene setting device that serves as a canvass for the personal tribulations the main characters endure. In doing this, he avoids being overtly preachy and opinionated. The result is a narrative that keeps its focus on the subjects of the story, while exposing the reader to the cultural and moral pitfalls of Afghanistan during this time frame and, more generally, of any authoritarian society. The story itself gives me new respect for the struggle of the Afghan people, particularly the women, and what they have endured over the past four decades. One point the story makes is that nobody in Afghanistan has escaped loss -- loss of family members, loss of friends,...
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...Blank Pages of Life… Dementia is a persistent neurological disorder that can be described in terms of a cluster of symptoms such as loss of memory, difficulty with thinking, impairment in language and problem solving. Dementia could become extremely severe which would diminish an individual’s ability to complete daily activities; it can cause mood swing as well as changes in behavior (Canadian Alzheimer’s Society). Dementia is a progressive disease, which means that the symptoms would slowly become worse resulting in increased damage to the brain cells, which can ultimately result in death. (Alzheimer Society Canada) Dementia is not a particular disease rather many diseases can cause dementia and the most common types are as follow: Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia, head trauma, fronto-temporal dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and Huntington’s disease. The symptoms of the above mentioned conditions are similar and they overlap. (Alzheimer...
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...and differences in using the 1st person narrative approach in ‘The Lammas Hireling’ and ‘The Deliverer’. In your answer you should consider the following: • The poets’ development of themes • The poets’ use of language and imagery • The use of other poetic techniques. Both Duhig and Doshi explore the use of a first person narrative in ‘The Lammas Hireling’, and ‘The Deliverer’. This exploration of the narrative technique has allowed both poets to develop ongoing personal themes, each accompanying a sense of sadness and moral injustice. In ‘The Deliverer’, the poet takes advantage of the first person point of view, as it serves to develop ongoing themes of infanticide in Indian Society. This technique of first person is ultimately very largely effective, as its direct approach generally heightens the emotion the reader experiences for the sensitive topic, as there is in fact no hiding or concealing the bitter truth, especially when it is written out in the direct form of a narrative passage. However, the way in which Doshi presents these views through the first person Narrative, is quite unconventional. Through the use of making the ‘Deliverer’s’ daughter the voice, the audience is able to view the tragic events from the eyes of someone who has personally been a witness. This in itself draws similarities with the way in which Duhig presents his narrator’s own personal story of life on a rural farm. He uses the first person narrative to tell the ambiguous story of how as a...
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