Analysis Of Mario Garcia 's ' Rationalizing Malibu '

The text “Letting the air into a relationship: Metaphorical Abortion in ‘Hills Like White Elephants” by Wyche David aims at analyzing and synthesizing the short story by Hemingway “Hills like White”. The analysis would provide new knowledge to readers of the short story or provide the readers with a new point of view of analyzing it. The subject of the text is to present his ideas on the short story and well as critique other critics who had previously critiqued it. The story illustrates broken relationships of Hemingway and the pain it caused him, which led him to write the short story. The whole text is therefore an analysis and synthesis of the short story written by Hemingway.

Paradoxes, in literature, are often employed by writers to emphasize the themes. Their true nature could be rather confusing, as they could be used in many ways. However, when analyzed at their fundamental levels, it is noted that paradoxes convey more profound ideas. Similarly, in The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger’s use of Holden’s paradoxes that overarch the entire novel emphasizes the apparent theme of identity by pointing out Holden’s problems and struggles. Salinger attempts to evince societal effects of an individual’s behaviors to the readers.

In Sherman Alexie's “This is what it means to say Phoenix, Arizona” a man named Victor finds out that his father has passed away. Being next of kin, Victor is responsible for gathering his father's assets together, which requires him to make an out of town trip. In order to accomplish this Victor needs help. This help comes from the town outcast, Thomas Builds-the Fire. Victor and Thomas were childhood best friends but as they grew older, Victor turned his back on the one that always looked out for him. A trip to gather his father's remains turns into a journey of reviewing his life and choices.

“The Swimmer,” a short fiction by John Cheever, presents a theme to the reader about the unavoidable changes of life. The story focuses on the round character by the name of Neddy Merrill who is in extreme denial about the reality of his life. He has lost his youth, wealth, and family yet only at the end of the story does he develop the most by experiencing a glimpse of realization on all that he has indeed lost. In the short story “The Swimmer,” John Cheever uses point of view, setting and symbolism to show the value of true relationships and the moments of life that are taken for granted.

In literature, a character’s unique perspective on common human experiences can both engage the reader, and vastly contribute to a text’s endearing value and significance. The Catcher in The Rye offers a rich portrayal of such themes as, the impact of alienation as a form of self-preservation, resistance to change, and the psychological effects of unresolved grief. By telling the story directly through the first-person narration of Holden Caulfield, Salinger offers an unusually in-depth perspective of an emotionally complex character, who is struggling to find his place in the world. Unlike many coming of age stories, the reader of Salinger’s novel is left with a strong sense that Holden will continue to struggle with the protective wall of

Punished was written by Victor Rios and published in 2011. Rios wrote the book to chronicle the challenges young black and Latino boys faced within their improvised highly criminalized neighborhoods. Rios grew up in Oakland California and lived in what was considered the ghettos mainly a minority poor community; he was also a gang member with his fair share of trouble. Rios began looking for answers to the plights he and his community faced after the murder of his friend while they ran from a rival gang member. A conversation with the police whom Rios claimed told him they wanted the gangs to kill each other off made him seek answers to the prevalence of violence that plagues his community.

The life as a coast guard living in a lighthouse on a desolate coast, seems simple and easy, maybe even taskless, but for a man with a troubled mind, and an incurable fixation, existence seems like an unavoidable entropy. He gazed into the divided scene in front of him, the horizon splitting the

J.D. Salinger’s world-renowned book The Catcher in the Rye and director Sean Penn’s dramatic feature film Into the Wild both give us a unique perspective of society through a collection of descriptive imagery and riveting plot development. Both materials present us with protagonists Holden Caulfield and Chris McCandless, whom are deeply encompassed by self-introspection and who seem to be on a quest to find true happiness and meaning to their bland, corrupt lives. A recurring theme in both works is the process of discovering one’s true identity, which can only be achieved through a journey of spiritual self-discovery.

This essay will explore the function of the narrative which helps the readers to perceive the meaning of the narrative. It will do so in terms of the point of view, narrative voice as well as the structure of the narrative. Furthermore, the setting of the story will be another focus which exploits the generic convention which reflects the social anxiety behind the story at the time. I

In both “Greasy Lake” and “Life After High School” the protagonists are both subjected to external conflict that forever changes their course in life. With so much emphasis on the differences between individuals these days, it is imperative that people recognize this powerful commonality between the spectrum of humanity. Two completely different people living completely different lives are somehow still directly linked through the intrinsic nature of life. Even though the narrator from “Greasy Lake”, Joe as he will be called from simplicity sake and Sunny from “Life After High School” are separated by gender and culture, both share the commonality of a metamorphosis as the direct result of an external conflict. Regardless of the shape or appearance of this metamorphosis, I purpose that both Joe and Sunny are of the same element that only differ in structure and appearance due to the differences in both the stimuli and base parameters in their life.

In the words of Sigmund Freud, “The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.” The legendary psychologist saw dreams as an avenue to study one’s underlying motives for action. Similarly, in literature one finds striking significance from the illusions of protagonists that often predict the nature of one’s psyche. Two such examples present themselves in Blanche, from Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, and the grandmother, from Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find. The former tale follows a lady without a home who finds herself reliant on her belligerent and bestial brother-in-law. The latter traces a family’s road trip South and their encounter with a wanted fugitive. Both Blanche and the grandmother find themselves tethered to their idealistic and often times hypocritical fantasies which signify their underlying mental instability and foreshadow their eventual ruinations. Williams and O’Connor examine their protagonists’ delusions through gender, clothing, and nostalgia.

The use of counter culture and ideology can provide unique perspectives on the issues faced by everyone, even those who do not acknowledge it. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh portrays a drug addict who rejects any conventions of normalcy in the pursuit of an alternate reality. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis does the same through the depiction of a rich and greedy Wall Street tycoon. This essay will closely analyze the themes of illusion and reality in Trainspotting and American Psycho. The relationship between the fantasy world and the “real” world in these texts are closely linked and aid the narrative in a criticism of social and structural issues. The texts are often criticized as glorifying drug use and violence however through analyzing the effect of narrative, drug use and culture on the characters reality and illusions will argue that the elements of drug use and violence help in the deconstruction of greed and popular culture in the texts.

Within this short story, questions of an existential variety are raised; Philip K. Dick ponders existence, reality, and what is means to be a human being. Reality, to my knowledge, is all that exist in the plane of the comprehensible. It’s contrast being all that is imaginary, delusional, abstract or unreal. In the story, the character Victor Kemmings is to live within the confines of his mind for ten years, after a malfunction within his cryogenic sleep chamber. The ship, his only companion, proposes that to retain his sanity he will lives through his memories. In these ten years, Victor bounces between the life he once had with first wife Martine and his childhood. What accompanies him is loneliness, fear, guilt, and a whole slew of neuroses.

In the short story “Rationalizing Malibu”, Mario Garcia portrays his characters as two conflicted men whose strange friendship helps lead them to the answers to their internal conflict. In this paper, the actions of Garcia’s narrator are interpreted in terms of Sigmund Freud’s theory of psychosexual development and the theory of repression. It is believed that the psychosexual development and theory of repression is unconsciously employed by the narrator as a way to prevent himself from dealing with past traumatic events, which led to the creation of Blaine. By using Freud’s psychosexual development and theory of repression, it is concluded that both theories are useful tools for understanding the narrator’s cause for creating Blaine. As a result of inadequately meeting multiple stages as well as repressing traumatic events, the narrator was driven to create Blaine, leading him to self-destruction.

“Big Two Hearted River”, a semi-autobiographical short story by Ernest Hemingway, is a story about the main character, Nick, returning to Big Two Hearted River in order to recover from his inner wounds. Nick Adams goes on a journey alone in nature for a therapeutic purpose as he suffers from PTSD. However, Hemingway purposely avoided any direct discussion regarding to Nick’s mental wounds. The absence of the discussion is contributed by Hemingway’s writing style, the Iceberg principle. Hemingway focuses explicitly on what occurs on the surface without mentioning actual theme. This indicates that the theme of self-healing cannot be uncovered by simply looking at the text itself. In order to comprehend the actual theme of the story, the character development of Nick must be examined. This is possible since Nick Adams is a recurring character of Hemingway’s stories. The two preceding stories of “Big Two Hearted River”, “Now I lay me” and “A Way you’ll Never Be”, directly discusses Nick’s suffering from shell-shock and how he comforts himself by returning to Big Two Hearted river in his mind. The two short stories will be analyzed and connected to “Big Two Hearted River” in the essay first. This will provide a strong understanding of Nick’s psyche and the reason behind his return to nature. Then, “Big Two Hearted River” the short story itself will be carefully analyzed.