A Single Shard Sparknotes

Surviving trees grow buds that turn into apples, that shows that they are alive. When it shows the tree you can see that is is noticeably different from the ones in the forest, I think that this shows how being adopted changed his life.

“Chapter 9” of A Single Shard begins with the author, Linda Sue Park, placing Tree-ear in emotional distress. Working for Min for the better part of a year has been tough and adventrous for Tree-ear, consequently he feels that it is now time for Min to teach him how to make pots. In this culture, it is traditional for potters to only teach their sons the potter’s trade. Unfortunately, Tree-ear is not Min’s biological son, therefore Min will not teach him.

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."

The Sapphires by Wayne Blair is an award-winning film, which explore the lives of four aboriginal women Gail (Deborah Mailman, Julie (Jessica Mauboy), Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell) and their cousin Kay (Shari Sebbens) throughout their journey and role in the Vietnam War. A range of film techniques such as settings, characters, conflicts and symbols are used to explore prejudice towards their indigenous heritage, with a variety of film techniques as well.

The diction in the excerpt is an essential component to the dramatization of the plot’s central incident. Jewett uses rich language to intensify the simple nature of the main character Sylvia’s journey up a “great pine-tree.” For example, in describing the tree, the narrator uses personification as he mentions the “huge tree asleep yet in the paling moonlight.” The use of personification harkens back to those universal moments in childhood in which everything alive had human feelings, and creates an emotional attachment between the reader and the tree. Jewett also uses other figurative language, like similes, to relate the grandeur of the tree to the audience. She writes, “It [the tree] was like a great main-mast to the voyaging earth…” In comparing the tree to the great mast of a ship, the author invokes feelings of awe at its size.

Analyse how the use of film features shaped your response to one or more themes in the film.

The oak tree is used to symbolize Ethan in the novel. The connection can be seen by comparing the characteristics of each. The Oak tree is seen by the characters in the novel as a solid, unchanging, and immovable object. The same can be said about Ethan. He has always has and probably always will live in Starkfield.

At the end of the story, Lae Choo is finally granted the paperwork to collect her son after ten harrowing months. However, her expectations of a perfect reunion would soon be crushed. As the caretaker walks Lae Choo to Kim, she discusses his behaviors at the mission nursery school. She mentioned how difficult he was to manage at first, but how “’children so soon forget, and after a month he seemed quite at home and played around as bright and happy as a bird’” (Far 1727). With this change of behavior, Far draws a parallel between Kim and the American rejection of Chinese culture. His difficult behavior when he arrived at the mission nursery could be seen as his retainment of Chinese culture. However, at the end, he is happy and is compared to a bright and

The book opens up to an adult Gene, visiting his old school years later. He comes back after fifteen years to get closure. He visits the buildings that were once so familiar to him, and reflects on how he’s changed, and the constant state of fear that had been so familiar then. But the main reason for his visit is to see the tree. There is a tone of regret as he remembers what happened so long ago, and how it all started.

One example of the theme being supported is on page 54,” And he began beating him with an iron bar. At first, my father simply doubled over under the blows, but then he seemed to break in two like a tree struck by lightning.” Wiesel creates the scene with the simile and when analyzed deeper its relevance to the theme is apparent. A tree is a symbol of strength and fortitude something that in relation to us is everlasting but when

Leper, while recounting the events that lead up to Phineas’s fall from the tree, describes the whole ordeal with striking imagery. The reader can clearly visualize exactly what he saw -- how sunbeams graced Gene and Phineas’s dark silhouettes as they stood on the limb, and the black, solid mass that was the tree itself. Enhanced with similes such as “black as death” and “like golden machine-gun fire”, the whole passage really comes to life.

Not much is given about his early life and family structure, except that he had three brothers. Since he could not afford to attend a university in Korea, Kwon applied to work on Hawaii’s sugar plantations. In 1905, the year that the Korean labor supply to Hawaii was cut off, he successfully immigrated as a seventeen-year-old sugar plantation laborer with the hopes of fleeing poverty (Pai 4, Takai 238). Approaching his mid 20’s as a young bachelor, he was working as a yardboy for a Mr. Hackfeld when his picture bride sailed across the ocean. Afterwards with the help of a friend, Kwon took up a more respectable job as an apprentice upholsterer at the Coyne Furniture Company. As years passed and he became noted as one of the most prestigious upholsterers in Hawaii, the company he was working for shut down, causing him to lose his job in 1928. Young Soon Han states, “The most viable businesses would be the same ones they [Koreans] did before, because…they have only this experience” (249). Just like the solution to the Korean liquor storeowners who lost their businesses in the L.A. riots, Kwon’s solution was to get back into the same business. The only difference was that this time he was an entrepreneur.

Cloudstreet is a mystical hymn of each character’s journey to finding peace and redemption within their lives. From separate tragedies, the Pickleses and the Lambs come to Cloudstreet seeking a fresh start. Winton’s exploration of a mystical journey to redemption is represented through the complex relationship between Fish and Quick Lamb. Their relationship is ridden with guilt, despair, a sense of mystical hope and a fervent desire for freedom, ideas that are widely important for the maintenance of human hope.

Crane-man, one of the lead characters in the novel A Single Shard, undergoes several changes from the beginning to the end. Two of his main traits are his selflessness and his independence. At the beginning of the novel, Crane-man is seen as selfless; because, although he is crippled, he takes in a young orphan named Tree-ear. There are many ways Crane-man shows his selflessness. For an example, when Tree-ear went on his long journey, Crane-man made Tree-ear take all of the food instead of giving half to Crane-man.

This passage is adapted from Wayson Choy’s ‘The Jade Peony’ and portrays the fear of a young boy who has recently lost his mother. The reader is able to infer the situation from the passage despite it not being clearly mentioned. The reader infers that the passage is about a juvenile boy who sits beside his dying mother and is then taken care of by family friends, predominantly the Chins.