Alex Webb's Dislocations: A Literary Analysis

Because they are something then you can not see it or touch it, but it always twinkle and shining in your memory. We no longer see it surely and clearly. It just marks a good mark in our memory forever. But does those old days such good? We have better science and technology today; We have countless goods in our market;We have better medical care and education today. Why we still love those old days? I think we know the answer. Our feeling about those old days are not just good or better. It look more like a vision then fraud by our memories.This vision does not mean “want”. It look more like someday you meet your first crush, you won’t fall in love with her or him anymore, but you want just talk to her or him.When you meet her or him after so many years, you get a special feeling.This feeling bring you back in time. In the real world you two are having some insignificant chatter.In your memory you sitting at the old school playground. A smiling girl stand in the warm sunlight.She has a bright eyes and long neck. You speak to her with confidence and composure.She looks up into your eyes. Your cheerful mood such as the leaver on the trees,sing with the wind in spring. Your face seem like more handsome than usual.Someday, you willing to do anything for this vision.Someday, I willing to do anything for this vision. Because we know can not go back to that afternoon; we can not sitting at that old school playground again;

Chuck Klosterman, in the article “Nostalgia on Repeat,” there is two sides of nostalgia, how it can be good and bad for you. Klosterman, gives examples from both sides. Memories are the past, it is ok to remember them and think about them, maybe even smile from them, just don’t live there. Looking at the past can hinder growth, if a person cannot move on from it and wants to keep reliving that part of their life. The Authors purpose is to shine light on both sides of nostalgia, it is not all bad to remember the past and even flash back to it. However, trying to relive the past is not all good either. It stunts growth and keeps a person from living their life in the now. Chuck Klosterman, writes in a casual tone for those readers that are too

Nostalgia is the feeling of missing the past. In “Grape Sherbet” by Rita Dove, the speaker develops this feeling by using past-tense verbs. The speaker also uses family to show that she misses the past. Furthermore, the speaker indicates the fleeting nature of time by using themes of death. The speaker in “Grape Sherbet” by Rita Dove has an attitude of nostalgia.

The Past, an ever growing pool of time, is always biting at the heels of a person. It reminds him of what they have done wrong, done right, or when he did nothing. For most people, recalling the past leads to loose ends and blanks where memories should be. No matter how much a person may want to return to the past, it is not possible. It is lost forever. These forgotten moment lead to uncertainties and confusion in the present, and chaos in the future. Forgetting the past leads to spirals, spinning downwards as people look to what they have lost. They retrace their steps hoping to find a sliver of who they are and what may become of them. In the poem, Itinerary, Eamon Grennan shows how an individual searches through his past, but can never return to it. Through the poem and with a personal experience I will explain how individuals deal with uncertainties in their pasts.

Although many may not believe it until it happens to them, time can pass by so swiftly that one won’t even register it at first. Yes, time passing is a part of life, but the realization of it is another story within itself. “Forgetfulness,” a poem by Billy Collins, and an excerpt from “Once More to the Lake” by E.B. White both provide a clear example of how fast time can go by. In Collin’s piece, he puts together many various ideas one can forget as their life moves incredibly fast. Likewise, in White’s “Once More to the Lake,” the narrator struggles to understand how quickly time really passed and how his son is so similaralike to him. Both of these pieces of writing use X syntax and X diction to develop the common theme of annihilated time.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Even we live in the moment. It’s also a scene of crossings, bridging past and present. People struggle ahead but often obsess themselves with the past and present.

The more I spend outside reminiscing of my past while I look at my yard, the more I continue to feel nostalgic of my past, albeit many others would probably have the same memories of their past if they reminisced as long as I have today. I feel as though life does not get better as you age, but the best moments in life are experienced when we are young as these are also the moments we remember the most of. But it does not matter how I feel, for life keeps on going despite your feelings of it; I am reminded by this when I look at the insects and bugs waddling around in the grass just as I have seen it so many years before. I see people going to work and coming home from work everyday like a computer program that has been programmed to do one thing and do it correctly for the rest of their lives; it’s similar to all life and patterns can be seen everywhere, from the colossal trees towering over me to the miniscule insects crawling around underneath

As human beings that regret past moments, we often have the urge to try to reverse our mistakes by reliving the past. Unfortunately, as learned from The Great Gatsby we must leave the past in the past and live in the present, as attempting to relive the past is impossible. Gatsby, a man who hoped to attain his love, Daisy, through fixing the past promises, “I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before” (Fitzgerald 117). This hope of Gatsby’s was impossible, as Daisy had changed and moved on with her life, which resulted in Gatsby’s inability to obtain Daisy. So, remembering to live in the present allows for us to leave behind the moments of regret in the past which allows us to avoid demise similar to

Driving down Arizona Boulevard, I was going to my house. Passing through all the main businesses and stores, something came to my mind. It was memories, memories of my 17 years here in Coolidge. You see, I have always pictured myself leaving and moving as soon as I graduated and turned 18. Leaving my small comfort zone to go live in a big city somewhere. For a period of time, I honestly didn’t even want to say where I was from because I didn’t want it to define me. As I kept on driving, thinking about this, I realized I was actually being really closed minded. It was on that day, driving through all of my familiarities, where I changed my mindset. It was when I, in fact, left Coolidge, that I started to appreciate what it’s done for me and how it shaped me into whom I grew up to be.

New ideas derived from self-reflection enable us to develop in ways that are spiritually linked to the future. The inexorable passage of adulthood is established by the motif of time, indicating that life is continuously moving forward. The personification of time “guiltless minute hand” suggest that time is not responsible for our future, but we are. Additionally, the dysphemistic personification of “time was killed” foreshadows the cessation of childhood. Eventually, the

As humans, we are granted experiences that both enrich and alienate us; bits of our lives are taken from us but others are added to make us whole. Though, sometimes, we are taken from the bits of our lives, and have to

Do events of the past affect an individual’s life? How important are memories of the past for people of the future? Does the past, even relate to the future at all? To figure out the answers to these questions, one has to understand the impact that past events can do to one’s future. Events in the past are essential to an individual 's development and can change their perspective of life. As a matter of fact, you can see these questions being answered in Classical Literature, Modern Literature, Current Events and even Visual Rhetoric.

Nostalgia is America's fatal disease. We love to "go back," to talk of the good old days, to wish we could return to an era forever gone. This rhetoric that warms our hearts, though, is, ironically, the impetus for our national self-destruction. Nostalgia valorizes a past that never was, casts a dark shadow of distortion across the present, and prevents us from projecting a viable, sincere vision of a better future. When we, as a nation, say we want to go back to a time past, that's very often what happens, for such talk sends us into a regressive downward spiral that prevents critical social progress in America.

A 22 year-old man looks through his old VHS camcorder and sees himself as a child. While he reminisces the old days, nostalgia creeps in and starts to work its magic. As featured in Pirsig’s novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, “The past exists only in our memories…the present is our only reality” (Pirsig 222). The man is taken aback by how easy it was to be a child in his time period, and starts to dread and wish that things at the present could be simpler like the past. Nostalgia has performed a trance on the man. By remembering the past, it affected his current mood and thoughts. All from only

As Emerson perceived the world, “Man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoes to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time” (“Self-Reliance” 833-834). Even if a man finds himself with both self-trust and originality, he may never realize his true potential if he is preoccupied with past events or future fortunes. Emerson finds these obsessions to be utterly useless: “Discontent is the want of self-reliance; it is the infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend to your own work, and already the evil begins to be repaired” (838). In contemporary society, a willingness to “live in the moment” is highly regarded, especially among youth, yet this acceptance seems to wane with age. Nevertheless, excessive anxiousness and nostalgia are a waste of the potential that can be realized when the truths of the present are