Analyzing Oskar's 'Incredibly Close'

    Abstract: According to A Handbook to Literature, motif refers to a "recurrent repetition of some word, phrase, situation, or idea, such as tends to unify a work through its power to recall earlier occurrences" (264). One such type of motif which has seemed to receive less critical attention is Ellison's treatment of birds.   Hence, my aim in this essay is to examine the references to birds in Invisible Man, attempting to show how Ellison uses the image of the bird to symbolize various forms of entrapment.

Among other animal imagery, birds appear frequently throughout the story in times of crisis. The birds often foreshadow dangers that lie ahead. For instance, when Robert's team takes a wrong turn, "the fog is full of noises"(80) of birds. Then the birds fly out of the ditch and disappear. Robert and Poole know that "[there] must be something terribly wrong...but neither one knew how to put it into words. The birds, being gone, had taken some mysterious presence with them. There was an awful sense of void--as if the world had been emptied" (81). The birds return and when Robert nears the collapsing dike and "one of the birds [flies] up cut[s] across Robert's path" as if it is trying to prevent him from going any further. Robert does not heed the warning and almost dies in the sinking mud.

Birds appear frequently throughout the story, especially in times of crisis. The birds often present themselves as omens for dangers that lie ahead. For instance, when Robert's team takes a wrong turn, "the fog is full of noises" of birds (80). Then the birds fly out of the ditch and disappear. Robert and Poole know that "[t]here must be something terribly wrong...but neither one knew how to put it into words. The birds, being gone, had taken some mysterious presence with them. There was an awful sense of void--as if the world had been emptied" (81). The birds return and when Robert nears the collapsing dike, "one of the birds [flies] up and cut[s] across Robert's path" as if it is trying to prevent him from going any further. Robert does not heed the warning and almost dies in the sinking mud.

What symbolic roles do birds play in our lives? What roles can they play? Are doves always peaceful? Are chickens always scared? How are birds used as symbols in literature? Or more importantly, what is symbolic about the birds in The Scarlet Ibis? While many readers have different ideas on what the birds represent, after reading meticulously it can be seen that they stand for Doodle and his death. The short story The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst is about two brothers named Brother and Doodle. The birds in The Scarlet Ibis represent Doodle and his death because death are mentioned when birds are, Doodle and his death is connected to the birds in many ways, and Doodle is comparable to and even called a scarlet ibis.

The writer makes use of diction to express his feelings towards the literary work and to set the dramatic tone of the poem. Throughout the poem, there is repetition of the word “I”, which shows the narrator’s individual feeling of change in the heart, as he experiences the sight of hundreds of birds fly across the October sky. As the speaker effortlessly recounts the story, it is revealed how deeply personal it is to him. Updike applies the words “flock” and “bird” repetitively to the poem, considering the whole poem is about the sight of seeing so many birds and the effect this has on a person. When the speaker first sees the flock of birds in lines 8-10, alliteration is applied to draw attention to what the narrator is witnessing. In line 29, Updike

The author defines imagery by manipulating the environment to reflect characters’ emotions and describe the importance of sacrifice. When the father quits the house with the cat, Bedard describes that “[t]he kitchen light went off, and the house darkened.” (57) These details inform us that a big moment of fear and tension is felt inside the house, especially the little

As Cole stared at the tiny bodies, sadness flooded through him. The sparrows were so frail, helpless, and innocent. They hadn’t deserved to die. Then again, what right did they have to live? This haunted Cole. Did the birds’ insignificant little existences have any meaning at all? Or did his (82)?

Probably the most notable use of birds occurs when after ten years, Sula returns to the Bottom accompanied by a “plague of robins”(89). The word plague indicates that the birds represent a wave of sickness that Sula brings alongside her. The citizens of the Bottom recognize the birds as a sign of evil, but choose to accept its wickedness rather than try to rid of the robins. “But they let it run it’s course, fulfill itself, and never invented ways to either alter it, to annihilate it or to prevent its happening again. So also were they with people” (90). Here, Morrison is comparing the townspeople’s feelings both towards the evilness of the robins and towards the evilness of Sula. They welcome Sula’s return to the Bottom the same way they they welcome the birds. Sula’s personal experiences with wickedness are also acknowledged through the robins as Sula

Response: Tom has just come home for the first time in four years. His mother does not know that it is him standing in the doorway, and she only sees a dark figure. However, instead of blocking out all of the light, Tom is surrounded by it. This could symbolize that Tom is not a completely bad person because the light is all around him. His appearance brings joy to the family because he has been away for so long. Unfortunately, Tom's homecoming could also foreshadow some kind of unknown danger because Ma only sees Tom as something dark at first.

Because of the supposed similarities between humans and birds, birds are a useful tool for authors wishing to symbolize human emotions or thoughts. Mynott offers that birds are often “distinguished partly by the different human emotions they seem to be revealing” (Mynott 282). He references several examples of the use of human-specific traits in the description of birds, such as “kind,” “stern,” and “astonished” (282). It is not such a huge leap from the attribution of such human characteristics, to “anthropomorphic misdescription” (282). The birds in The Ant of the Self are said to be looking “as though they [had] placed bets” on who would lose Spurgeon’s and his father’s confrontation. While Spurgeon is taking a stand against his father by ordering him out of the car and onto the shoulder of the road, the birds’ curious glances are exposing Spurgeon’s own thoughts. The birds, a symbol for Spurgeon, wonder whether he or his father will “go down in flames” (Packer 95). The caged birds, which are so capable of human expressions, are expressing Spurgeon’s thoughts. ZZ Packer endows the birds with a look of human quizzicality, having them glance from the nervous Spurgeon to his angered father. Spurgeon wonders whether he or his father will win, and the birds, as his symbol, express this.

Pigeons are symbols that make Terry Malloy feel controlled. Also, pigeons are beautiful creatures that can be seen from power lines and in large fields too. When Terry Malloy works for the union, it was controlled by the MOB, and they took the workers money for themselves. So, in the story, the pigeons relate to Terry’s future because they relate to peace and freedom which Terry, does make a statement about being like one because he says, “they got it made, they eat all they want, fly around like crazy, sleep side by side, and raise gobs of squabs” (On the Waterfront). The last part about pigeons is that they make Terry happy when he is off work, and with them because he is away from the union and that he is not being controlled like a slave.

When the couple was at the bus-stop, they saw a dying bird, which symbolized their son, who was slowly dying because of his condition. The couple eventually learns that their son recently attepted to commit suicide. This symbolism was supported later in the story, as the mother shared how her son drew birds with human characteristics, as seen in the following passage: “that was when he drew wonderful birds with human hands and feet, and suffered from insomnia like a grown-up man” (Nabokov np). In fact, one of the son’s attempts in committing suicide was learning to fly, which shows how he considered himself as a bird. Due to this, the son viewed the sanitarium as his cage, so he wants to escape it.

At the bird’s appearance and apparent vocal articulation, he is at first impressed, then saddened. He compares this evening visitor as only another friend which will soon depart, just as “other friends have flown before” (58). But the raven again echoes quite aptly his one-word vocabulary, thus leading the man on to think more deeply about the possibilities that exist at this juncture. Somewhere deep inside him, he has realized that it doesn’t matter what question he poses, the bird will respond the same.

He wonders why the birds are just waiting in the sky as if they are waiting for a command, why they are restless, and he thinks it is strange that they are little birds and they are the type of the birds that normally keep to their own territory and don’t have a history of attacking people . When he looks out toward the coast, he sees the birds flocking in his direction and he believes that for some odd reason, they are going to come down to the

An idea that is expanded by Doris Lessing better demonstrates how “Flight” supports the characters in their courses of actions through their external and internal motivations. However, the means of reality and illusions within their ambitions that is in the short story is essential for the protagonist, the old man to progress as a character. Internal motivations that the short story supplies is impressions that include the old man capturing the “pretty, pretty, pretty” pigeons that were noted to be his favourite. In addition, the fact that Doris Lessing used extensive vocabulary and word choice to exhibit the “homing pigeons” resulted while using