Name: Mohammad Khan
Course code: EAC488SYA Imagination as a theme in “Bridge to Terabithia” by Katherine Paterson
“Bridge to Terabithia” is a very complex story that on a first glance deals with a very simple plot line, one revolving around two children and the everyday problems they encounter at school or at home. However, if we analyze it, we will discover that it is much, much more complex. It deals with a number of motives from family life and the friendship between a boy and a girl and death, among others. One of the main themes that continue to appear at various times throughout the novel is imagination. The children use imagination for various purposes, including how to deal with the problems they encounter and as a means of
…show more content…
The full definition of it in the dictionary states that imagination is ‘the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality’ (Merriam Webster dictionary). The act of imagining is therefore directly linked to reality, but it involves using the defamiliarization technique in the sense that it requires creating a world completely different from the one that can be found in reality. Imagination has a real basis in the sense that it has its roots in reality. This statement will be important in Bridge to Therabithia because the main part of the imagining act takes place in reality. The world the two main characters create is anchored in reality because it exists in their real …show more content…
However, when we consider the fact that the book with “the picture on the cover which showed a killer whale attacking a dolphin” (Paterson, 25) is a real piece of fiction, meaning that the book is real in our world, we can buy it and read it, but it is still a piece of fiction. Herman Melville’s story is invented, it is not real. Another very important aspect is the context in which Leslie is reading “Moby Dick” – in Terabithia, the imaginary land created by her and Jess. It is another key aspect of imagination that appears in the text to signalize the reader that he is now watching the children in their imaginary
Friendship can be shown through the words of anyone in any form, whether it is short or long, in a simple poem to a complicated novel, even in a simple common book such as, Bridge to Terabithia. The author, Paterson, uses many of reasonable literary elements in her book, such elements encompass: character, plot, setting, theme, style, point of view, and tone. These seven elements show us that friendship between the main characters, Jesse and Leslie, in Bridge to Terabithia, although interrupted by many everyday occurrences, can develop quickly, without one's realization. And that friendship, that was suddenly started, can be suddenly gone with the least suspected. In this instance, friendship is suddenly ended, there would be the
Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick, which was based off of Melville’s voyages. This book was mainly based off of the Essex whaler ship that sunk on account of a whale attacking the ship. There were very few survivors that were rescued and they told the story of what had happened. Moby Dick was originally titled The Whale.
Published in 1851, the story of Moby-Dick is not just the tale of one mans search for control over nature, but also the story of friendship, alienation, fate and religion that become intertwined amidst the tragedy that occurs upon the doomed Pequod. The crew itself are an amalgamation of cultures, from the cannibal Queequeg, to Starbuck, "a native of Nantucket." The Pequod can thus be seen as a microcosm for immigrants and whaling within America. In Moby-Dick Herman Melville examines both the exploitation of whaling and the reality of being born outside of America.
In the passage Moby Dick by Herman Melville, uses multiple strategies to create an effect on the reader. Melville uses diction, imagery, details, language, sentence structure, and tone and to make his effect on the reader much more engaging and interesting.
“What is Moby Dick about?” the librarian asked, and I gave the best response a stuttering 8-year-old could. “No no. What is it about? What’s the lesson that you learned?” My response was
Imagination is an intrinsic part of the human experience. It has the power to mold reality by defining the limits of possibility and affecting perception. Both Alan White and Irving Singer examine aspects of this power in their respective works The Language of Imagination and Feeling and Imagination. White delineates how imagination is a necessary precursor to possibility (White 179) while Singer primarily illustrates imagination's effect on human relationships, such as love (Singer 29-48). Despite their different focuses, White and Singer demonstrate the impact that imagination has on human perceptions of reality. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film Amelie explores this facet of imagination: the film
Moby Dick, a book about the voyages and pursuance of a white whale, was imagined by an incredible man. Herman Melville was a talented writer who wrote many fantasies and adventures, including Moby Dick. He’s most infamous for his work about the tale of the white whale and known less for his works of Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life and Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas. (“Herman
Herman Melville’s short story “Benito Cereno” or “The Other Moby Dick” as Greg Grandin, a contributing writer for Mother Jones magazine, refers to it, is a fictionalized account of an encounter that an American ship captain and seal killer/trader by the name of Amasa Delano had in February 1805 in the South Pacific (Grandin). Delano, who was “quick to flog his men,” was “the sort of American sea captain Melville knew well and hated” (Stuckey 271). Delano chronicled his encounter in “A Narrative of Voyages and Travels, in the northern and southern hemispheres: comprising three voyages around the world, together with a voyage of survey and discovery in the Pacific Ocean and Oriental Islands” (Boston, 1817). Arguably one of Melville’s best works, “Benito Cereno” in all of its ambiguity is more than a fictionalized account of a seafaring vessel and its less than admirable captain, it is a historical reflection of what was happening in the world during the time it was written.
In literature, the truly memorable characters are those special individuals that arouse powerful emotions in the reader. Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick presents a man who is undoubtedly among the unforgettable characters of literature: Ahab, sea-captain of the whaling ship the Pequod. At first, Ahab is a mysterious figure to Ishmael, the narrator of the tale. Despite the captain’s initial reclusiveness, Ishmael gradually comes to understand the kind of man that Ahab is and, most importantly, the singular obsession he possesses: finding the white whale, Moby Dick. The hunt for Moby Dick (and, correspondingly, the idea that Moby Dick represents) is the critical component of Ahab’s personality, and Melville makes that all-important idea known to
Herman Melville’s Moby Dick is more than facts about a whale; he tells a story about a Ishmael’s whaling voyage. Ishmael’s voyage changes who he is and it will leave him with memories that he will never forget. At the beginning of the novel, Herman Melville gives an abundance of detail on Ishmael’s character. He writes, “having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world” (p.1). The readers learn that Ishmael sails for the money and for the adventure.
The novel, Bridge to Terabithia, written by Katherine Paterson is about a tale two young kids, Jess Aarons and Leslie Burke and their adventures together. In this wonderful book, the author focuses on the struggles as well as the positive aspects of being an outsider during adolescence. By choosing to create a story about social acceptance, Paterson is able to connect and relate to children and teenagers of all kinds all around the world.
Herman Melville’s novels, with good reason, can be called masculine. Moby-Dick may, also with good reason, be called a man’s book and that Melville’s seafaring episode suggests a patriarchal, anti-feminine approach that adheres to the nineteenth century separation of genders. Value for masculinity in the nineteenth century America may have come from certain expected roles males were expected to fit in; I argue that its value comes from examining it not alone, but in relation to and in concomitance with femininity. As Richard H. Brodhead put it, Moby-Dick is “so outrageously masculine that we scarcely allow ourselves to do justice to the full scope of masculinism” (Brodhead 9). I concur with Brodhead in that remark, and that Melville’s
Moby-Dick is considered to be one of, if not the, best novels in American history. Harper & Brothers first published it in 1851 in New York. In England, it was published in the same year under the title, The Whale (“Moby Dick”). Melville explores topics and themes that were scarcely spoken of and never even seen in a novel. In the novel, the Pequod, which is the ship, is named after a Native American tribe that was exterminated when the white settlers arrived. It is a symbol of death and doom and foreshadows event that occur later in the novel. Melville brings some very controversial themes to light in the novel. Revenge is one of the main themes of Dark Romanticism and Melville uses it to drive every action taken by Ahab. This is seen early on in the novel as Ahab explains to the crew why he has a peg leg and that he wants to enact his revenge on Moby Dick (Melville 160-161). “Moby Dick is, fundamentally, a revenge tragedy. It’s about one man’s maniacal obsession with vengeance. It’s about finding an object on which to pin all you anger and fear and rage, not only about your own suffering, but also about the suffering of all mankind” (“Moby
A View From The Bridge examining tension and conflict within the play. The two scenes that I have chosen for my coursework, which I think are exciting and interesting are: 1) End of act one Pg 38-42 2) End of play Pg 59-64
Herman Melville, in his renowned novel Moby-Dick, presents the tale of the determined and insanely stubborn Captain Ahab as he leads his crew, the men of the Pequod, in revenge against the white whale. A crew mixed in age and origin, and a young, logical narrator named Ishmael sail with Ahab. Cut off from the rest of society, Ahab attempts to make justice for his personal loss of a leg to Moby Dick on a previous voyage, and fights against the injustice he perceived in the overwhelming forces that surround him. Melville uses a series of gams, social interactions or simple exchanges of information between whaling ships at sea, in order to more clearly present man’s situation as he faces an existence whose meaning he cannot fully grasp.