Analysis Of The Article 'Beating The Winter Blues'

Throughout the text, Michael mentions the snow. Considering the book’s about a blizzard, that’d be normal, right? However, in my view, the snow symbolizes something, like dreadful times. Scattered around, the context surrounding the snow can be interpreted as how you feel during those times. For example, later in the book, when the students realize just how bad it is, they explain it as, “There was no higher ground, no place left for us to go”(Northrop 158). Here, a relation to people feeling as if there’s nowhere else to go, so they’re trapped in the horrible event occurring can be made. Results tend to be mourning over those poor times in people’s lives. Similarly, Michael connects that to how we view bad situations. Early on in the book, description of the snow is showed as it being “small flakes”, “like grains of sugar… the flakes had fattened up and

Another effective technique the author uses is referencing examples of inherent dangers in regard to avalanches. The author references three cases in which avalanches occurred on ski areas to show how avalanches themselves are unpreventable from occurring. This helps benefit the argument since it emphasizes the reality of ski patrollers being helpless when avalanches occur and therefore something that is unavoidable.

“Who back East or down South could have conceived of a land where the temperature could fall eighteen degrees in just three minutes?” the author stated. (Laskin, 39) This actually occurred in the nation’s history. It is somewhat expected to have some days where one has to bring a light jacket for later in the day because it is predicted to get cooler. “Who would have guessed that farmers and school children could start their days in shirtsleeves, without heavy overcoats, only to experience wind chills that night that were forty degrees below zero?” the author wrote. (Laskin, 39) The people who had to endure the freakish drop of temperature and monster of a blizzard definitely did not predict any of this could ever happen. Had the people been

January Thaw describes the close of winter through a few signs: the melting of the snow, the wake-up of the hibernating skunk, the grieving of the mouse over his flooded tunnels, bundles of rabbit hair and their newfound “freedom from want and fear”.

span of a winter with in the United States alone? (CDC, 2105) This same illness has around 3,000 people admitted into british hospitals yearly. (CDC, 2105) Norwalk virus, also called Norovirus after the renaming in 2002, is the most common stomach bug but is still very dangerous. This virus has killed more than 200,000 children in developing countries and affects so many people within one winter, which is why the Norwalk virus is called the Winter Vomiting Illness. (food safety, 2105) The Norwalk virus is very preventable, but can do damage.

Trapped in the depths of an arctic winter, there’s more to fear than just the cold.

Throughout the book, there is a significant connection with winter and the main character, Lia. Winter in the book is a symbol of how she is broken and physically sick from her disorder anorexia. When Lia goes to the same motel her best friend, Cassie died in, she struggles to become stable with her disorder and considers extreme choices that affect her later in the book. Lia says,“If I really want to die, right now….I could walk into the blizzard and lie down in the snow and bleed out. Hypothermia and blood loss is like going to sleep”(265). Lia is going through an ongoing battle with herself that makes her view on life careless. Anderson uses specific words like “hypothermia”, “blizzard” and “snow” to emphasize the symbolism of winter in the main character’s life throughout the book. The snow being frozen and penetrating explains one of the symptoms of anorexia, which is feeling cold. In addition to this, Lia’s mentions of topics relating to winter is her way of expressing how she is in a frozen state of being dead and alive, all from her disorder. However, at the end of the book, Lia has overcome this past, saying, “I am thawing”(Anderson, 278). This implies how the past of Lia’s ongoing battle with anorexia has made her discover who she was a person at the end of the book. This also expressed how winter is the symbol of how she has struggled with

I cannot not taste the winter. Not really. Its shrilling torment silts my palate as if fire drew breath upon the vein—I was born from the womb to frozen ground. My life dangling from the crusted branches of the famed Frost pines as my mother severed me from the heat of her body. Within the confines of her fingers, she gave me over to the mountains claws, lifting me to coddle at her biting breast. My pulse agitated by the glacial rumblings echoing deep within the ribcage of The Furies drank until my bones no longer shivered—until the crust of my skin became peppered with frost. Such is the physiology of all children of the North born under a banner of snow, and such as I am. Thus, I cannot taste the winter. No one person can ever rightly digest

Slipping on black ice can cause severe injuries. In Canada Winter also means the days are shorter and the nights are longer, therefore, there is minimal sunlight and it's pitch black by 5:00pm. Winter creates many interruptions in our daily lives such as flight cancellations and delays and blackouts. This makes it difficult to continue on with your

Cold climates have proven to be associated with a range of health risks including frostbite and hypothermia. According to a study by Gasparrini et al (2015) published in The Lancet, cold temperature is responsible for advancing approximately 7.29% of deaths between 1985 and 2009 for 13 countries including Canada. Elderly people are at a particularly high risk for cold-related mortality due to mental, cardiovascular, and respiratory illnesses. Elderly people are more vulnerable to hypothermia as the body’s ability to regulate temperature and sense cold lessens with age. Additionally, many elderly people are not able to communicate when they are cold or are not mobile enough to get to warmth. A global meta-analysis by Yu et al (2011) involving almost 13 million elderly deaths concluded that for each 1 ºC decrease in temperature there was a 1-2% increase in

The picture of the surrounding for the readers is a territory of a snowed land with caked iced springs that is endless treacherous and deathly. “The man’s causal response to the cold to be at best naively reckless and at downright stupid.”

So what causes it? Understanding the underlying causes may help one beat the winter blues or lessen the chances of it.

social disruption, or loss of human life. The major problems that winter storms cause are power outages

Surviving the winter is a thought constantly stuck in the father’s mind. Moving south, makes him feel like there is a light at the end of a tunnel. As this thought becomes reality, a vast house appears on their way. ”The boy wasn’t doing well “(McCarthy 102). As the first winter signs start to appear, lack of food supply and tiredness make the father and the boy feel wrapped in many struggles. Boy is trying to keep that thought in the father’s head, thinking that he will find a solution. “ I’m really hungry ”(McCarthy 103). Feeling the outside pressure of the surroundings, pain in his and his son’s body he decides that they must recover, and find new supplies.

Throughout the entirety of the book the weather outside is very cold and and the ground is always covered with snow. At first this seems like a happy thing and makes the reader think about the holidays, sledding and family, but as the novel progresses and people complain about the bitter cold, how it impedes travel and it essentially shuts down starkfield, it starts to get tiring and depressing. At the end of the book, after the accident Ethan was complaining to Mattie and Zeena about how cold it was inside the house, he said "My, it's cold here!”(151) The cold symbolizes the lack of emotion and activity going on in the house and in a way that room represents starkfield when it becomes cold, nothing is happening in the room . The main reason that the narrator went into Ethans house in the end is because they got stuck in a violent blizzard and they couldn't go any further , frome was becoming too tired to move on and “The bitter cold and the heavy going had nearly knocked the wind out of me” (21). It reminds the reader of the more depressing, taxing side of winter and how its the season where everything is dying off and how there is almost no sign of life anywhere. Winter in Starkfield sucks up the little enrgy in that town like a black hole and leaves a withered depleted skeleton of the town that used to be there .