Cherry Bomb Maxine Clair Analysis

The first instance that symbolism occurs is when the author uses Gaston, a bug that is found in a peach, who describes the father. “What’s he saying?” asks the daughter. The father replies “Well he’s a little confused. Now inside that house of his he had everything in order.” This excerpt from the story illustrates that Gaston is used to symbolize the father, and that he had his life all together, and now it has fallen apart. Another instance of symbolism occurs when the father explains “It’s where he [Gaston] used to live. Gaston is out in the world and on his own now.” The daughter then asks “He had everything, now what has he got?” The father answers with “Not very much I’m afraid.” These quotes symbolize the father is losing everything, like the bug, and does not have much money. The father takes into consideration of how he can relate to the bug. For example, he is on his own, with nobody close to him. The symbolism of the bug from the peach used in these quotes emphasizes that the father in this story does not have very much, and is lonely, yet he still can see the worthy in things. This description can relate to how he has an impact on his

Viramontes uses symbols as a way of illustrating the oppression women feel to the narrator. The sun, the moths, and the bird of paradise are symbols to represent aspects of life to the

Often, an author uses figurative language to build upon the story and to create a more meaningful message. The text,“A Private Talk with Holly” uses symbolism to express the main idea that

Prose EssayIn, “Cherry Bomb”, Maxine Clair uses dialogue through indirect characterization, point of view through indirect characterization, as well as the flashback structure to help the reader. Through the use of these literary techniques, the reader can better understand why these memories in particular stand outher in head. Through the use of dialogue, Maxine's interactions with her childhood friends help show the relationships she had with the people mentioned in this excerpt. “...and Mr. Calhoun still came around with that-old-thing of an ice truck. Our mother still bought a help-him-out block of ice to leave in the backyard for us to lick or sit on.” This quote from lines 9-12 illustrate for the reader that Mr. Calhoun was a friendly man trying to make ends meet by selling blocks of ice. We can also look at lines 19-25 for another prime example of how the author uses dialogue to help convey to the reader her relationships with various people during her childhood. “I kept a cherry bomb and a locked diary in the closet under the back steps where Bea, restrained by my suggestion that the Hairy Man hid there, wouldn’t try to find them. It was an established, Daddy-said-so fact that at night the Hairy Man went anywhere he wanted to go but in the daytime he stayed inside the yellow house on Sherman Avenue near our school.”, shows the reader Clair's younger cousin Bea was someone she couldn't share her cherry bomb with. It can be inferred that

For instance, when Willie regards an unusual man, in the text, it states, “No one seemed to pay him any mind. Willie was certain he had never seen a man so utterly alone. It was as if he were some spat-out piece of chewing gum on the pavement.” This portion of the text means that one man stood out to Willie because in the text we learn that his mother had advised him of looking at him, and because he was so “utterly alone” it caught his attention. The words “utterly alone” and “spat-out piece of gum” shift our mood into an uncomfortably dark position, which is what the author aimed to do. Further in the text, when Willie is preparing to eat, it states, “The plate lay on a plastic mat decorated with images of roses with diamond-like dewdrops. She also gave him a glass of milk and a folded napkin. She moved slowly.” This means that the mother was providing her son with food and a beverage, but she moves slowly because in the story we learn that "she seemed preoccupied with her own thought" because "she had been like that ever since Willie’s dad had abandoned them six months ago." The fact that Willie’s mother moved slowly set the readers mood into a stagnant and lazy mood. This is important because it emphasizes why the author chose to mention how one begging man was an outcast and how Willie’s mother was moving

The little girls observed, with horrified fascination…” The excerpt above displays just one symbol that is found within this story. The “thing in the forest” the two girls, Penny and Primrose, come upon can be symbolized as war

She was a freak show type of entertainment. The townspeople would throw meatballs into her mouth, just as they threw stones at the angel. It was something different for them to do. (page - ) The final example of symbolism I would like to discuss is the resurrection scene at the end of the story.

The tone in the story is intense since the reader don’t know what’s going to happen next in the story.The most intense part of the short story in the middle.The author Kate Chopin of “Desiree’s Baby” says “

Margaret Laurence's A Bird in the House is a collection of short stories that is rich in symbols and similes. Descriptions like "claw hand", "flyaway manner" and "hair bound grotesquely like white-fingered wings" are found abundantly in the writer's novel. The Oxford English Dictionary defines symbols as, "something that stands for, represents, or denotes something else (not by exact resemblance, but by vague suggestion, or by some accidental or conventional relation)" (reference). Yet, there is nothing coincidental about Margaret Laurence's diction and her usage of symbols in "A Bird in the House" and "The Mask of the Bear". These revealing titles effectively foreshadow the plot and character conflicts that occur in their stories.

Bernard MacLaverty has included plenty of imagery and symbolism into a carefully constructed short story. For example, when Miss Schwartz pointed out to him when the flowers had fallen off the tree and each week they inspected the swelling fruit, that symbolises the growing repitwa of music Danny is learning and also his growing relationship with Miss Schwartz. When Miss Schwartz says, “Lavish love and attention on growing things and they will not let you down”, shows how Miss Schwartz feels about Danny and how she’s trying to do what she thinks will keep Danny coming back to

In the first stanza of the poem the speaker describes the fearful dream she had. Bogan introduces the symbol of

Specifically, the double meanings of the imagery can be deciphered through examination of the writer's use of metaphors. Each of the descriptions about the bonsai tree can be applied to women. In the following

There are some symbols in the story. The most important symbol is the swan. From my perspective, the swan symbolizes the unnamed woman’s fear as described before. Another symbol could be the river. From my perspective, the river symbolizes freedom and life. The river’s symbolism is represented throughout the story, but mostly at the ending, when the woman lets the river drift herself downriver.

The symbols used in the poem all help show the overall message or theme by addressing the woman’s struggle to be happy. The woman’s desire to be a “blade of

For this story, there were mainly two symbols; the three men, Tom, Stanley and Harry are representing the power of men in that time and the woman with sunbathing is representing women power at that