Analysis Of Aimee Bender 's Willful Creatures

Animals by Simon Rich is an outstanding short story which takes a unique perspective on the everyday life in a classroom. The story is written from the point of view of a hamster who spends his tortured life entrapped in a cage. From the first point in this story, it is clear that the purpose of the writing is not to understand the hamster, but rather to analyze the different actions of the people, and to discover that how they act towards the hamsters reflects on their character. It is curious to view the everyday interactions of people through a different set of eyes, that is done by humanizing the narrator’s perspective. Based on the actions of the many people and the treatment of the class pet, the author suggests that human nature is very much a product of the financial circumstances a person is subjected to.

Within the novel Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell each of the six short stories collectively depict society through themes commonly shared. These themes are discrimination based on an individual or groups gender, age or race; along with having a powerful group display predation on a weaker minority; and the idea of people selfishly working for the greater of themselves as apposed to the community. Although separate ideas each intertwines and influences the others, allowing readers to create an understanding about society in general.

In the short story “Living Like Weasels” authored by Annie Dillard, the role of a small, furry, brown-colored rodent’s life develops an extreme significance as the story progresses. According to Dillard, the life that a weasel lives is care free and passionate. Weasels are very tenacious creatures and what they have their eye set on something they want, they go and get it. Also, when Dillard says “The weasel lives in necessity and we live in choice” in “Living Like Weasels,” the words can be deeply felt by the reader; we are able to not only feel Dillard’s passion for this underlying opinion of hers, but readers can also develop their own view on what she is saying and find evidence to prove their thoughts (121). The way that everyday

In the novel Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler paints a picture of a dystopia in the United States in which the current societal problems are overly exaggerated into the worst-case scenario. Butler describes a world plagued with high unemployment rates, violence, homelessness, a flawed police system, and a crumbling education system. Butler focuses the story on the poor and the homeless by only giving characters with this background a voice in order to show the reader that society’s views and stereotypes of these groups are flawed. Butler shows the lack of attention they receive and over exaggerates the problem in order to show the extreme consequences if it is not properly addressed.

For example, in American society, African-Americans can be held back because of people’s racism and also disabled people can be subject to similar discrimination. Society as a whole is good, but it is also woven with bad. Golding represents this perfectly with the creepers. The book shows how society, symbolized by the creepers, can be restrictive when it says, “I can’t hardly move with all these creeper things.”(Golding 7). The creepers impeded the boys’ progress both physically and mentally. A society that holds people back cannot progress and without progress it is doomed to fail which is what happened to the tribes in the Lord of the Flies.

How do the differences of people in a society affect its conflicts? In “The Scarlet Ibis,” by James Hurst, Doodle is a disabled adolescent boy who is considered “lower” than most of the people in his world. In “Harrison Bergeron,” by Kurt Vonnegut, the government forces everyone to be of equal skill level and mental capacity by wearing handicaps or objects that will impair their positive traits. Doodle is a character with inferior qualities than the rest of his society, whereas Harrison is a character born with superior qualities than the rest of his society, and their differences affect the way that they address the conflicts within their society.

I can still remember waddling around the elementary school halls in my Grinch costume for the Dr. Seuss parade. I was in 1st grade at the time there was Dr. Seuss music playing on the intercom. I always thought Dr. Seuss or Ted Geisel (his real name) stories were only nonsense words and rhyming, but now I know that his books are so much more than nonsense words and rhyming. Some of his books are The Sneetches, The Lorax, and to think I saw it on Mulberry Street. The social issues connect to the real world, they include discrimination, the destruction of trees and parents trying to eliminate childrens’ imagination.

In Whale Rider, Antigone, and The Long Walk Home, the authors of these tales laid the foundation for their stories with flawed characters who must make ethical choices with the knowledge they are given. The authors show the consequences of the characters’ decisions and how having social equality for all creates (or, would have created) a more suitable scenario for all the characters. Each of the stories has a disadvantaged character who resists rules to create impartiality and manages to succeed (even though it might result in their death). Although they all have justice brought forward at their ends, the stories have slightly different mindsets on how justice should be achieved. Collaboratively, the stories suggest that people should try to understand each others’ points of view in order to provide justice, which in turn allows for freedom.

The short story “Greenleaf” by Flannery O’Connor tells of Mrs. May, an old, bitter, and selfish woman. She thinks badly of everyone around her, including her own two sons. It also compares her family to that of the Greenleaf family, who Mrs. May sees as inferior to her. O’Connor unveils the story of Mrs. May and her demise through the use of point of view, character, and symbolism. She uses the third person omniscient view to give the reader a sense of Mrs. May’s character, and the symbols of the bull, and the conflict between the bull and Mrs. May to show Mrs. May’s destruction as well as give the story a deeper meaning of God’s grace.

I believe that introducing this story and the difficulty for students to image what prejudice may be like or feel like would benefit students from reading this story. Although the major theme of this story is in regards to social issue and post slavery I also enjoyed the themes of generosity, dishonesty and selfishness could also be

As one begins to integrate into society, many roles and expectations are placed upon one. Such expectations often restrict one’s path towards happiness, in the end causing resentment and even unwillingness to live. In the novel The Handmaid's tale by Margaret Atwood, and Wreck-it Ralph written by Jennifer Lee and Phil Johnston, the characters are unhappy due to the roles forced upon them. At the beginning of both texts the protagonists are presented with society pushing them into strict roles which they must fulfill, which in turn causes them to be dissatisfied and even appalled with aspects of their lives. Eventually, they take action and work towards breaking society's expectations of them. Ultimately, both of them achieve self contentment. Thus, in order to achieve happiness with oneself, society’s expectations must be broken.

These two authors strongly go in depth with these main themes and create connections with audiences as they also display different parts of their short stories as a recreation of their own personal lives. The dehumanization of the people from the

Animals not only represent the dark side of the human psyche but also the more clueless and oblivious side. Animals such as the little dachshund in Dahl’s The Landlady can be symbolic of how a human does not de-evolve into a savage animal state but instead a domicile tame pet type state when exposed to seemingly safe environment. Unlike in The Tell Tail Heart, Dahl’s The Landlady give the reader an opportunity to see the paradoxical side of the human psyche that deals with feelings of security in times of stress instead of the honing of primitive flight or fight

Little Bee, by Chris Cleve, is a novel that explores unthinkable evil, but simultaneously celebrates its characters in their ability to transcend all that weighs them down, including their pasts, their secrets, and their flaws. For the character of Little Bee, identity is inescapably tied to ethnicity, nationality, gender, race, and class. A representative passage of the book that explores Little Bee’s point of view (both its unceasing optimism and stark realism) occurs in the final chapter: Little Bee is awoken from a good dream, and then comes the ominous first sentence, “There is a moment when you wake up from dreaming in the hot sun, a moment outside time when you do not know what you are” (Cleave 258). Little Bee is questioning her

One significant theme that is present throughout the story is the one of unequal rights for African Americans. One instance of social injustice is described in the very