Analysis Of Flora And Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures, By Kate Dicamillo

The Wild Trees is a book by Richard Preston about a small group of botanists that are curious about what the canopy of the redwood holds. The redwood tree comes from the sequoia family and is the largest single organism in the world. A group of people that include Michael Taylor, Steve Sillett, and Marie Antoine. Michael Taylor came from a wealthy family. His father did not want Michael to grow up spoiled. He tried to raise him as a middle class child who did not get whatever he wanted. Eventually when Michael went to college he did not pass his classes and decided to change his major. Michaels father was not very happy about this and gave him one last chance. Eventually when the time came again, Michael did not complete his classes for the

The following passage is an excerpt from Katherine Anne Porter’s short story “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.” Read the passage carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze how such choices as figurative language, imagery, and dialogue develop the complex emotions the character is feeling.

The answer to that question is family. Both men have great senses of family; Ulysses has a wife whom he loves and six daughters that he fights to keep custody of over the

Early in their lives, two young sisters, Ruth and Lucille, experience loss and abandonment from the men in the family. Their grandfather had died in a train derailment into Lake Fingerbone before they were born, and their father leaves them while they are very young. Then their mother commits suicide, but not before dropping the girls off on their grandmother’s porch. Moreover, then, “she sailed in Bernice’s Ford from the top of a cliff named Whiskey Rock into the blackest depth of the lake (23), again into Lake Fingerbone. After only a few months their grandmother dies leaving the girls to the remainder of the family, a collection of eccentric females. The girls deal with all of this by relying on each other. Soon, their great Aunt’s,

In Eugenia W. Collier’s short story, “Marigolds” Collier uses the literary devices Internal Conflict and Juxtaposition to show the theme. The author uses internal conflict to show the theme of “some things change over time” (in paragraph 41) the narrator claims that “I had never heard a man cry before… I did not know men ever cried”. That shows the theme because she has never seen her dad cry and sob but he cried because overtime the suffering and the circumstances of being poor. Another example of internal conflict is where the narrator states that “ I recall that devastating moment when I was suddenly more women” (paragraph 2) she is saying that over time she matured and grew up because of certain situation. The other device the author

Eugenia Collier, the author of the short story Marigolds makes great use of literary devices such as imagery, diction, flashback, and juxtaposition in a way that creates a voice for the narrator that conveys both the regret over, and possibly the longing for her childhood. The diction, that is, the vocabulary choice is expertly combined with imagery, or the unique descriptions and sensory details, in order to allow the reader to formulate the experiences and the surroundings of the narrator's childhood in their imaginations. Flashback is used to allow the narrator to not only explain how she viewed the events of her past as a child, but to compare these views with her adult feelings of the same events. Juxtaposition aids in further explaining the connection between the setting and emotions of the main character, creating a better picture of the narrator’s life. These elements all combine to construct a narrative that effectively conveys the coming of age theme.

“The Flowers” by Alice Walker is a very well written yet short and sweet story that paints a very vivid picture of main problem the times. It expresses the reality of the lynching of the African American community in a way that is very easy to understand. Alice Walker uses vibrant details to bring to light the severity of the problem and what people of that time period went through. The story also showcases a deeper meaning that does not necessarily revolve around lynchings but represents the loss of childhood innocence. “The Flowers” explains the reality of racism and lynchings of the time while also providing an inner lying message about one’s coming of age and loss of innocence.

The story is set in a usual suburban neighbourhood during the summer in the 21st century. Flora lives with her mother in a decent house with a backyard and we see this in “Flora ran through the tall grass and cleared the fence between her yard and the Tickhams’ in a single bound”. Furthermore, her father lives in a flat of an apartment complex and we see this in “Flora’s father never walked through the hallways of Blixen Arms”. In addition, Flora and her father visit a restaurant for lunch which can easily be found in real world and we see this in “The Giant Do-Nut smelled like fried eggs and donuts and other people’s closets. The dining room was full of laughter and donut dunking”. With those examples we can clearly see that the setting of this story was in modern day

Social status often establishes one 's credibility and integrity within a society. The power that social status has, encourages people to heavily focus on it. With this focus on social status ever pressing, one’s identity often gets intertwined with and reliant on their place in the hierarchy of society. People become fixated on one idea they have of a person in a certain social class, that anybody who breaks out of specific stereotypes may often cause anger amongst others. In the short story “Greenleaf” by Flannery O’Connor, the main character, Mrs. May, is obsessive about the way others perceive her and her place in society. Mr. May’s identity is so strictly tied to her desire to get to a higher social class and her notions how society

I thought about going back to Wellpinit. I blamed myself for all of the death. I had cursed my family. I had left the tribe, and had broken something inside all of us, and I was now being punished for that” (173). He carried the guilt of his sister’s death; “I had killed my sister. Well, I hadn’t killed her. But she only got married so quickly and left the Rez because I had left the Rez first. She had burned to death because I had decided that I wanted to spend my life with white people. It was all my fault” (211). He took on the burden of responsibility for the death of his sister; she was killed in an accident when she was drunk; what happened to her wasn’t Junior’s fault. As result, he was terrified of losing his father, “Please God, please don’t kill my daddy” (203). Then Junior got some guidance from his father and some words of encouragement from his mother, and Junior began to understand that he made the change in his life for the better. Junior wasn’t the reason her sister died, but he had inspired her to follow her dreams as well.

Growing up, William did not have the typical life of a child. William was an illegitimate child, and his father died while William has very young. The age of 8 years old, William had to take his fathers place as the Duke of Normandy. Violence was all around William, as his those around him end up dead or murdered. Corruption faced William as well,

          In an attempt to reflect the girl's changing awareness of her social identity and femininity, Munro weaves in a young sorrel mare, Flora. As the expectations of the girl's pending role in society grow, Flora takes up residence in the stable and adds an "air of gallantry and abandon" (470) to the girl's sheltered life. Just as the girl experiences confusion and angst, "Flora [is] given to fits of violent alarm" (470) of more of tangible nature. An approaching crossroad in Flora's life, namely her death, parallels the crossroad of identity the girl is facing. With the realization of Flora's death, the girl adopts "a new wariness, a sense of holding-off, in [her] attitude to [her] father and his work" (473), causing her to question the very foundation of her social opinions up to that point. By allowing Flora to escape through the gate, the girl symbolically opens the passageway to her feminine side. Even in its futility, this act sets the

People often hesitate to accept what they do not understand. In the absence of love and compassion, it is no question that fear, ignorance, and hatred, all contribute to a melting pot of negativity in the world. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, is about the love and friendship cultivated by a young boy and a black slave on the Mississippi River. Despite the pair’s differences, they are able to endure the struggles and difficulties that the toilsome journey brings. Mark Twain, in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, emphasizes the shift in Huck’s view towards slavery by contrasting Huck’s initial tone of reflectiveness to his assertive tone, both collectively addressing the issue of racism in society.

There comes a point in one’s life when they must recognize the hardships placed upon them, and instead of being ignorant of those hardships, they must confront them head-on. In “Marigolds”, a short story by Eugenia Collier, the main protagonist, Lizabeth, encounters various struggles that come with living in a poor town in rural Maryland during the Depression, allowing her to learn more about growing up and accepting reality with all its flaws. Lizabeth is a 14-year-old girl who feels a conflict between her inner child and her inner woman, as she is unable to do anything that satisfies both sides of her. She feels too old to be a child, yet too young to be a

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.