Essay on A Thousand Acres Dialectical Journal

“We were lesser. Nicer, brighter, but still lesser… What was the secret? What did we lack? Why was it important?

“Can’t y’all talk about anything but food? There was a shocked silence. ‘Well, what else is

“The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away. Once there was this and that; and now- and the ship had gone.” Pg 91

She explained that they were going to find the host; they had not yet greeted him.

Chapter 5: Paul explains about how unsanitary the camps are, explaining that he and his friends had gotten louses (lice) in their head, and they try to attempt to get it off. Haie tries to cheer up the rest of the soldiers by telling them that he might have got the lice from the hospital, but he is the one who laugh the most, for 30 minutes straight. After trying to get the lice off themselves, they hear that Himmelstoss got in trouble for harassing the soldiers, and the magistrate’s son caught him in the action. Hearing the news that Himmelstoss got in trouble for his wrongdoings, Paul and the rest of the group start planning out what they should do or say to Himmelstoss when he comes back to the camp. When talking about what they should do

1) “They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment” (O’Brien 20).

In Book 1 of A Thousand Acres, Ginny’s contrasting diction in her narration highlights the stark difference in the appearance versus the reality of her character. Ginny is forced by society to act like she wants to be on the farm, and in reality, she feels trapped by the farm and desires to escape. Ginny’s describes the farm with negative diction, with the wind “soughing” and the hogs “clanking,” illustrating the commotion of the farm. However, she describes the farm also as “calm and safe,” showing that part of Ginny is afraid to leave her sheltered environment. The contrast in the diction illustrates the contrast in how the farm appears to Ginny versus the reality of the farm.

. I kept assuming he would understand what that meant, but on the third mealtime interruption, when I was clearly annoyed, the kid say, “You guys are doing this again?” I don’t mean to imply that there is hot, fresh food waiting for my husband and children at six o’clock every day. Yet I recognize that we regularly enjoy what many other families is unable to do, break bread together at an evening meal. It used to be that families sat down to eat dinner together most nights, but the bustling nature of contemporary life, including parents’ work schedules, children’s extracurricular activities and the ease of fast food, make the practice less common.

Brandon's mother reflected on the lack of furniture in the household on way they can't have family dinners together and why they are spread out when they eat.

He growls “make me my food now!” He grabs the table and flips it over causing a loud crash and all the plates to smash. They had been arguing for ten minutes first about her not watering the plants enough even though it had been pouring outside fit the last three days. Now it was about the food she had prepared for him.

We would exchange remedies and try to out do each other in recital of our physical miseries; gently we would complain, our vices soft and minor key and mournful as pigeons in the eaves troughs” (10-11). This quote shows how when you have so much time to think about what you could do

The essential part to a good family meal in my family is my mom grossing my brother out by talking about bugs at the dinner table or my sister and I fighting. If that does not happen at the dinner table it is a dinner not well spent. While it is a different story in Pride and Prejudice written by Jane Austen, there are severally meals I could have chosen from for this assignment but one that particularly stood out me was, when Elizabeth the main protagonist character has an uncomfortable dinner at Lady Catherine’s

Passage I left the reader with the impression that it was almost an family interaction. Everyone laughed amongst one another and enjoyed each other’s company. There was no rush to leave nor a desire to leave. Virginia even stated “ No need to hurry. No need to be anybody but oneself.” Most families that cherish one another feel this closely to each other. Passage II left the impression of everyone almost being forced there. No one is noted speaking to each other, only eating. Once the meal is over “everybody scraped their chairs back; the swing doors violently to and fro; soon the hall was empty of every sign of food.” Not one person wanted to stay any longer than they had to in the dining hall.

Some days we have more energy than others and are required to expend a certain amount of that energy or we will end up being a loose cannon. Often times we rush around like a mad man to expel that energy, other times we do something much simpler like clean a room or vacuum. We are almost always on our feet, and for what? To repeat the same thing day in and day out. Morley denotes this pitter patter of dread most of us feel with grace. “Unhappily we were born with a certain fund of energy. We have been hustling about for a number of years now, and it doesn’t seem to get us anything but tribulation” (Paragraph 3). We are always moving, we never stop and we begin to make a prison out of our mind. It is in this prison that the real cataclysm begins.

Once inside, I meander past the piles of gifts, greeting relatives along the way. I enter the kitchen and am immediately hit with the aroma of hoagies, chips, and orange soda – a feast fit for pigs. Dozens of family members surround the kitchen island, and it 's a