In Donna Tartt's novel, "The Secret History", she uses the setting of Bunny's murder site to divulge the deceptive and dangerous life Richard Papen starts for himself in Hampden. Will this life he has chosen lead him to the life he wanted or will he be haunted by regrets? The Sunday of the murder, in April, stood still and oppressive. A silent and musty forest, a deep ravine with deeper secrets and at last a purifying snow that would soon melt away leaving a shocking revelation. When seen in Bunny's murder site, Richard's underlying emotions are the cause to a grave mistake that would change his life forever. The heavy woods, the deep ravine, and the chilling snow are all important settings within Bunny’s murder site. Each setting represents …show more content…
The woods, the ravine and the snow are all symbols that can represent an idea. The woods represent seclusion, the ravine represents a solution and the snow represents a sudden and ongoing change. The woods are uncertain, hidden, silent, threatening and lifeless. These qualities can symbolize Richard’s transformation once he moved to Hampden. Richard started out uncertain about the Greek students; he became one of them and found himself quietly learning about them. They let him in on a secret that now threatened him as well and ultimately he ended up helping them take a life. The ravine simply symbolizes the vast change in Richard’s life and how far down anger can bring someone when they refuse to let it go. The snow symbolizes how quickly his transformation took place, how his life in Hampen, especially the murder, possessed a dreamlike quality and how his past will always return with an ever chilling presence. To bring these symbols and ideas to life Tartt uses vivid imagery. The woods, she describes as being “surreal”, “forbidding” and “stagnant” with a damp smell of decay that is heavy in the air (265). The ravine, she expresses chillingly as being “raw” and “treacherous” with its deep “plunge” to the earth below (265). The snow, she peacefully describes as white “big silent petals” that were “dreamy and soft” and looked like “white bouquets segueing into snowy …show more content…
Throughout the novel there is a constant tug-of-war with tension and peacefulness, with enjoyment and disgust. The setting at Bunny’s murder site enhances the story by showing the reader the cold and despicable things people are capable of and the harsh reality of the tale. Richard tells the story with somewhat of a nonchalant attitude about a sinister act. However, the setting and its vivid description reminds the reader just how vile the group and Richard can be. Richard reveals the cold truth about his lack of horror and shock during the murder and how if it had taken place a couple months before he might have felt otherwise (277). He explains how he just stood there and watched Bunny fall swiftly, faster than “thirty-feet per second”, and it was just over (277). This setting draws the reader in through the imagery used by Tartt. Her passionate and enchanting descriptions pull the reader in and keep them captivated and spellbound for the whole
Similarly, Frost also uses descriptive adjectives to portray a significant moment in time, which creates imagery for the reader. In “Stopping by a Woods on a Snowy Evening” Frost uses the rule of three by listing the adjectives “lovely, dark and deep”. This, along with the alliteration in “dark and deep” creates a powerful image of the woods. By doing this, Frost is being metaphorical as the woods themselves represent solidarity and peace “He will not see me here” the personal pronoun “he” meaning society or God. Essentially, Frost is saying that when one steps out of life’s routine, it can be “lovely, dark and deep” which comes across as mysterious and unusual. It could also be said that because the three adjectives used are simple, they can be accessible for anyone to relate to.
The mood of the speaker changes to guilt as the speaker and her mother realize they would "crawl" with "shame" and leave an "emptiness" in their father's heart and yard. The author negatively connotes "crawl," "shame," and "emptiness" to invoke a more serious and shameful tone. The beginning of the conveyed a more matter-of-fact and pragmatic tone, but changes into a more sentimental one by the end to convey family is more important than the money. The symbol of the tree represents the family, and connects it to their father's hard work and dedication to the family. If they were to cut it down, it would be symbolic of their betrayal. Imagery of the tree is used to describe the freedom and beauty of the tree as it "swings through another year of sun and leaping winds, of leaves and bounding fruit." The tree represents their family bond and how strong it is even through the "whip-crack of the mortgage."
[Lead in sentence/Hook] “Son of a Trickster,” by Eden Robinson, is the story about the coming of age and rough period of adolescence of a young Aboriginal boy. Through her novel, Robinson is able to convey a message that the Aboriginal people, mainly focusing on the Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations, are dark and grating societies of Canada. In order for her readers to understand her perspective of the society, she first demonstrates the selfishness of the societies with the symbolism of raven along with its traits and attributes. Secondly, she uses supernaturalism which shows the mysterious and deceiving society of the Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations. Lastly, the connection of Jared’s relationships with his peers reveal the negative influences, trends, and issues within the Aboriginal societies. Overall, all these factors contribute the darkness of both reality and the story.
In many fairytales, we are given characters who set out on an adventure to better themselves whether they know that they are on one or not. In A.S. Byatt’s “The Thing in the Forest” we are taken on such an adventure, but this is more than just a children’s fairytale. Through figurative language we are shown that the main characters, Penny and Primrose, are dealing with more than just a creature in the forest, and that with this use of symbols as a way to express a larger meaning to objects in the story, we better understand how Penny and Primrose are dealing with being away from their family during a time of war in England.
For example, the first time death is symbolized in this story is when the family passes a graveyard. “They passed a large cotton field with five or six graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island. ‘Look at the graveyard!’ the grandmother said, pointing it out. ‘That was the old FAMILY burying grounds.’” (99). O’Connor purposely mentions the specific number of graves, one grave for each person in the car. She also mentions that it was a “family” burying ground. This symbolism foreshadows that the family will soon face death. When the family is driving through the town, the grandmother remembers the old plantation is called “Toombsboro”. This plantation’s name is brought up to remind the reader of death. Toombsboro sounds like the tomb, symbolizing the family will soon face their tombs. Another description that is given to symbolize the deaths is that of the Misfits car. “It was a big black battered hearse-like automobile” (103). A hearse is a vehicle designed to carry coffins for funerals. This description also foreshadows the death of the family before the Misfit arrives. Lastly, the “woods, tall and dark and deep” (105) represent the family’s death. The woods symbolize the unknown and fear we have for death, which is considered dark and deep. The Grandmother stood in front of the woods reminding us that death is always near and behind us. Just like the woods, death can be a scary thing
The murder takes place in the house of the Maloney's. The house adds to the unexpected scenario fro the action to take place. A murder so gruesome would usually take place in a cold, creepy and dark place, not in a warm, homely, family environment. The atmosphere of the house changes from inviting and friendly to a tense and uneasy place after the murder has taken place.
Everything is not always what it seems. The things one sees in everyday life may have a deeper meaning to each individual person. A toy may have a deeper meaning for a child, a song probably means something deep to a teenagers, and a certain thing in a book may mean something entirely different to a writer. In Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, there are many symbols from trees to birds to gardens. The symbol of the poisonwood tree represents Nathan Price’s ignorance, pride, and cruelty.
You can tell that in the poem the season is fall because of the color of the wood. In the fall the color of the wood turns yellow which indicates that the poem takes place in the fall. The season’s representations of what time frame a person life is in. How spring represents how someone is at that kid stage of their lives and how they are getting ready to bloom into their personalities. Summer shows how people are at the fun stage of their lives. That teenage to adult hood part of life. Winter is that time of life when all the excitement has went away, kind of like the years a person is elderly. Here is a man that has had many outcomes from the decision he had made in life, so he understands how important it is to it is to make a choice and live with whatever comes after making the choices. In lines 11-12 the speakers says “And both that morning equally lay, “In leaves no step had trodden black”. When he says the leaves haven’t been trodden black indicates that the leaves haven’t been crushed from people stepping on them. So this means he was the only that have been on that
Throughout the film ‘Snow Falling on Cedars’ the director Scott Hicks has used symbolism to convey a number of his ideas. He used the fog and snow to symbolise hidden secrets, the sea to represent life and death, and he used the Cedars to symbolise a place of secrecy and protection. By using these three symbols, Scott Hick’s ideas could be conveyed without anything being said at all.
As she is developing, she is tantalized by the societal norms he represents. She is ready to give up the backwoods (a symbol of herself) for all he (a symbol of society) has to offer. Convinced of that, she sets off to find the secret of the elusive white heron and in order to find the heron, she had to climb to what was literally the top of the world for her, the top of the pine tree. The world from the top was different than the city and it was different from the woods at ground level. From the top her perspective about the world changed, it was vast and awesome, and she understood her place in it more than before. She understood it to mean more than to sacrifice her own self for the gifts this man had to offer that were tantalizing but incapitable with her personality and true self.
Frost lead to the belief that, “Two roads diverged in yellow wood” expresses indirectly that the season is Fall and makes the theme seems as if “he was falling apart”.
As we see Rabbit Angstrom struggle to keep apace with his given life, we are meant to see the social milieu that he lives in. Readers do get an acute sense of time and place, but what of it? Not that all fiction should strive for the Meaning of Life, but the feeling you get after reading 'Rabbit, Run' is that of caffeine rush which you know will fade. And it does.
This is significant because it emphasizes the melancholy and mournfulness that he depicts with imagery in the first stanza. Later on in the second stanza, he author describes the tree the narrator would have planted as a “green sapling rising among the twisted apple boughs”. The author uses visual color imagery of the color green to describe the sapling in order to emphasize just how young the newborn was when he died. Later on in the poem, the narrator speaks of himself and his brothers kneeling in front of the newly plated tree. The fact that they are kneeling represents respect for the deceased. When the narrator mentions that the weather is cold it is a reference back to the first stanza when he says “of an old year coming to an end”. Later on in the third stanza the author writes “all that remains above earth of a first born son” which means that the deceased child has been buried. They also compare the child to the size of “a few stray atoms” to emphasize that he was an infant. All of these symbols and comparisons to are significant because they are tied to the central assertion of remembrance and honoring of the dead with the family and rebirth.
When the Brush is revisited in section six, the quotation ‘a pleasant shade had fallen’, tells us that the atmosphere has changed. Also the animals tell us of a change as in section 6 the ‘beak lanced down and plucked it out by the head’ telling us of the water snakes death. This setting has altered than that of section one, where the animals were peaceful. ‘The rabbits sat as quietly as little grey, sculptured stones’ implies that they were minding their own business and safe as they were not scared of their surrounding until George and Lennie disturbed them. This is a large contrast between settings and tells us that in section 6, something must happen to explain the animals behaviour, implying a death.
The first landscape feature that is described are, “the tops of trees” (Chopin 203). Trees are commonly attributed to nature and the symbol of life. Although the author has attributed the trees in this story with the literary term personification, as the trees, “were all aquiver with the new spring life” (Chopin 203). The author has attributed the trees to movement as the protagonist begins to desire to be in the cycle of nature. The protagonist relates to the trees because the trees are no longer weighed down by the heavy snow, thus allowing the trees to grow again, which is similar to the protagonist, as she is no longer confined by her husband, but she desires to be rebirthed (Lucas). Consequently, the protagonist was learning her desires to participate in life as an independent individual and to have restrictions a memory in the past. Therefore, the protagonist is beginning to participate down the path of becoming