Adrienne Rich - Diving Into the Wreck

Layton begins the first stanza with the setting of “afternoon foreclosing,” which conjures the idea of the end of the working day, both through the time of day and also through the diction of “foreclosing,” a term used in business and law (1). In this manner, the swimmer is introduced through his association with civilization, a point reinforced by his initial position on a “raft,” a symbol of civilization in itself (2). It is an “act of war” against his fellow man, therefore, when the swimmer dives from his raft, to break away from society to join nature (3). This act of rebellion is eroticized as the defloration of the sea, through the “opening the spray corollas,” and the

Richard Van Camp shares the story of Torchy and his series of events that takes the reader along to see and feel the tragedies of Torchy with his past and current experiences. In the short story “Mermaid” by Richard Van Camp, the author explores the realm of a true tragedy in this story through the use of the Aristotle style of the elements of tragedy displayed by the means of Torchy’s series of unfortunate events through willing blindness, dramatized actions and pity developed for the character throughout the novel. With a closer look one can identify Peripeteia among many elements of tragedy found within this novel.

Equality is something we humans crave for when we are in a time of hardship. When we are being discriminated against, we feel the utmost pain and the need for freedom. Discrimination has lingered since the beginning of time, and ending it is impracticable. A French novelist, Honore de Balzac proclaims, “Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.” Here, Balzac is acknowledging that an individual is born a free man and is just as equal as any other man. But, an individual will never be fully equal as they desire. Some parts of society will try to act superior to a certain quality of someone’s life, like their race, religion, culture, etc. This statement proves to be valid in Khaled Hosseini’s novel,

Adrienne Rich uses many poetic resources in her poem "Diving into the Wreck." In this poem a diver goes on a trip to investigate a shipwreck in the socially accepted schema. Rich shifts the role of the hero and the strategy for success in her second schema. In the second schema the hero goes on a journey where she discovers her true identity, both female and male.

In the Heart of the Sea, is a book that can transport us to a different time, where there is adventure, but also suffering. It is the story of a tragedy, that contains many other stories inside and just with the first chapter- if we read between the lines- we can discover more than just the history behind the title, we can also discover the situations, the problems and the culture that let us know how things worked many years ago. It is not a fairy tale, it is the beginning of what happened in the heart of the

In his essay, “Come Back to the Raft Ag’in, Ed Gentry,” Betina Entzminger argues that at the heart of James Dickey’s Deliverance lies the search for a lost masculinity in today’s world, told through the lens of the protagonist’s canoe trip. He asserts that Ed understands the societal pressures upon each gender, forces that compel us towards the stereotypes that pervade our culture. Further, Entzminger believes, “Despite the fact that Ed sees these constructions as constructions, he is unable to rise above them” (Entzminger). Ultimately, Entzminger posits, “Ed dutifully destroys that which challenges his own and his community’s conceptions of gender and sexuality, and he finds comfort in his return to his community at the novel’s close”

Both the ‘Odyssey’ and ‘1001 Nights’ feature male protagonists who traverse the seas, and the concepts and themes of men seafaring is common throughout most canonical texts. For example, the allusion of Odysseus’ difficult journey is made when a minor male character in Apuleius’ ‘The Golden Ass’ describes his seafaring adventures as being ‘positively Ulyssian’ (‘Ulyssian’ thus being a reference the Roman naming of Odysseus) (pg 29). Furthermore, both texts share themes, such as: seafaring, the supernatural, trials and tribulations, tradition, belief systems, and the geographical setting and pride in the protagonist’s home city play a key role to the overarching plots of the texts in the sense of the protagonist’s endurance and motivation to both leave and return home. Likewise, the supernatural is used to further the plot of both texts.

Through this insightful book, we see Mark Drolsbaugh?s struggles to survive underwater, and we eventually emerge from the sea and breathe fresh air with him as he finds the wisdom, courage, and skills necessary to treasure both land and sea.

Rather than exploring lighter tones in her stories, she can only express herself through trauma. Let’s now explore what methods Danticat uses to explore such literary cliché’s within ‘Children of the Sea’.

“The Open Boat” is a short story written by Steven Crane about four men stranded on a dinghy after their boat had sunk over night. The men were struggling to stay alive because it seemed as if they had no hope for survival. The four stranded shipmen were a correspondent, an oiler, a cook, and a captain. The theme of the story is that man has no control over his destinies and that nature controls everything. Naturalist themes prevail in Stephen Crane's “The Open Boat” as it demonstrates naturalist literature through the struggle that nature throws at the men. Naturalism arises throughout the men’s constant battle between their surrounding environment and keeping

For the most part humans are all born in the same fashion, they have opposable thumbs, a pair of hands, a pair of legs, a brain, and a heart. Looks can be deceiving however, not all infants are created equal. Statistically speaking, the overwhelming majority of the seven billion humans on earth will pass away as a member of the same socioeconomic class they began. In fact, society predicates itself on living a better life than their family who came before. Society takes part in a never ending race to further itself on a socioeconomic level from the generation before knowing full well that the majority will not achieve such goal. That in itself is a testament to how difficult the task of altering identity is. Malcolm Gladwell’s Power of Context echoes many of the same progressive principles preached in the early twentieth century, he believes external factors such as the aspects of environment are the greatest determinants of identity. Barbara Fredrickson argues in her book Love 2.0, that change comes from within. Frederickson believes that biochemical alterations of the human body can occur by increasing “loving potential” (119). An increase of such potential has a profoundly positive impact on human health . As nice as it may sound Fredrickson 's theory leaves her readers with far more questions than answers and in fact plays more into the hands of Gladwell’s “power of context”. Fredrickson offers vague descriptions and uses contradictory language in regards to

“We are all the same, no one is better - no one is less. We are all struggling to survive; be kind.” That’s the rhetoric my parents so heavily ingrained in my mind. I was raised to take this passive ideology and grow my life out of well intended passivism. “Same” became the degradation of different; “Struggles” became insignificant and rooted in the pretense that everyone faces the same challenges. So, I went through the motions - stagnant and unmoved. Racism became unreal, unfathomable and unlogical. I looked at St. Louis, my home, without truly seeing the deep existence of division - the deep truth of what it really holds. Like the Van Boucle painting, a common motif of mutual death can be seen in the life of my home town. His strokes paint dead turkeys all vaguely touching each other, as they are set up in different positions. Some are further away from others, but all are at least a part of a pair. Like this image, the oil spills into blood and death touches us all; linking our existence; linking the streets of St. Louis.

It’s easy to tell that the ocean is a mysterious and isolating place from all of the tragic tales we hear from sailors both real and fictional. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and an anonymous author’s “The Seafarer” are quite similar in that they both revolve around said tragic tales told by sailors. However, there seem to be more commonalities between their themes, tones, and messages rather than their seaward-bound settings. But before we can discuss these similar settings and deeper themes, we have to tackle their origins.

“Survival is the ability to swim in strange water” (Herbert). Due to the length and complexity of the story written by Stephen Crane, many themes are present. However, the most prevalent theme throughout the story happens to be survival in the brawl between nature and humanity. In order to understand the four characters from “The Open Boat,” one must examine the motivations, strengths, limitations, and conflicts. Each character from the story has their own personality, ideas, and struggles to conquer while battling ferocious waves and obstacles as they attempt to get from dinghy to shore.