Commentary on Feet

The supposed “fire” that the two always carried with them, even if their hands were empty, the man’s acceptance that they are low on food and could run out any day, resulting in their slow and painful death from starvation, and the boy’s lack of prejudice whenever they came across a new person who could be a potential danger to their life. It’s mainly a reflection on the highest level, self-actualization, but there is also the occasional instance on them also reflecting the esteem level, depending on the perspective one would look on the instance. It shows that they have their own needs, which could very well be different that the rest of the world’s needs, which is mainly food and

The author uses imagery various times throughout the novel. One of the stories first talked about is of a man named Charles Monet. He had gone in a cave and touched things inside if the cave that could have caused him to become ill. After Monet became sick, he flew to Nairobi to seek medical attention. In the novel it states,” He coughs a deep cough and regurgitates something into the bag….

The strongest usage of metaphor in this poem is in the first stanza in the line “write their knees with necessary scratches”. While scratches cannot be written, words can, so this insinuates that children learn with nature, and that despite its fading presence in today’s urban structures, it is a necessary learning tool for children. The poet has used this metaphor to remind the reader of their childhood, and how important it is to not just learn from the confines of a classroom, but in the world outside. This leads to create a sense of guilt in the reader for allowing such significant part of a child’s growing up to disintegrate into its concrete surroundings. Although a positive statement within itself, this metaphor brings upon a negative

Illness is never a pretty scene, it can leave a devastating path of destruction. Illness embodies many complex meanings encrypted within a text, and it's rarely just illness. Sickness can show paralysis of a character, the character can be unknowing death, it can show symbolic immortal, or illustrate wholesome destruction. The French Revolution was a battle between the the wealthy and the poverty stricken, and with poverty comes disease. Illness illustrates many pictures, and the physical illness usually ends up a bonus to the story; this can be seen embodied within The Tale of Two Cities.

A book of horrors, fear and death. “The Plague” is a book by Albert Camus which weaves these emotions and events into one suspenseful tale. Each paragraph and section is written and structured in such a way as to give the reader insight into the feelings of the victims of the plague, and to show somewhat of a theme. The passage from section 4, part 4, line number 1 to line number 35 gives us a glimpse of the melancholy of the people of Oran to their dead loved ones to the extent that they do not attend All Souls' Day, for they were thinking of them too much as it was. Albert Camus fills this passage with figurative devices, including, diction, personification, pathetic fallacy, metaphors, irony and a turning point. The first two paragraphs

The first passage reveals the parallel suffering occurring in the lives of different members of the family, which emphasizes the echoes between the sufferings of the father and the narrator. The narrator’s father’s despair over having watched

Secondly, the speaker of the poem can be described as underprivileged, and this is shown throughout the entire poem. For example, line 1 of the poem it states "some are teethed on a silver spoon” and line 5 it states "some are swaddled in silk and down”. This shows that the speaker is not the same as the person who is teethed on a silver spoon or cared for very carefully. This inclusion also shows that the speaker was not born into a wealthy family and so the speaker must fight for what they need pertaining to themselves and the family.

The author uses a seemingly endless cycle of poverty to emphasize the cage in which the characters are trapped. As Lizabeth muses over her childhood, she recalls the daily cycle of how “each morning our mother and father trudged wearily down the dirt road and around the bend, she to her domestic job, he to his daily unsuccessful quest for work.” (1). Every morning began the same way, passed the same way, and ended the same way. Lizabeth feels trapped, forced to go through the same series of events for what seems to be the rest of her life, with the same people, in the same place. When the author pairs this with the “dusty” setting of the town and the time placement of the Great Depression, it creates an effect of hopelessness for the first part of the story. This is only furthered by Lizabeth continually returning to the idea that “Poverty was the cage in which we were all trapped.” (1). Lizabeth opens the story by first giving a description of her hometown as “dusty”, remembering the poverty and hopelessness. She then continues by referring to the cage of not having enough money, and the cycle that it put them through, and ends by alluding to her future being limited to her poverty.

Chapter One of of Jim Murphy’s book, An American Plague, opens with the quote, ‘About this time, this destroying scourge, the malignant fever, crept in among us” (Murphy 1). This quote is accredited to Mathew Carey in November, 1793. The term scourge is defined as, “a person or thing that cause great trouble of suffering,” and the term malignant is defined as, “tending to produce death or deterioration.” These are very strong terms with extremely negative connotative meanings. The figurative language which is evident in the quote at the opening of Chapter One is personification. Carey’s quote give yellow fever an eerie, human-like quality when he writes, “the destroying scourge, the malignant fever, CREPT in among us” (Murphy 1). CArey’s word choices and use of personification help to create a powerful image in the reader’s mind of the threat looming over the city of Philadelphia.\

Summary- In “Homeward Bound,” Janet Wu introduces her traditional Chinese grandma who she rarely knows and her bounded feet. The feet are the concrete example Wu uses to illustrate the incredible distance between she and her grandma, between the modern American culture and the old age in China. Wu feels cheated for the years she lost to spend with her grandma. However, she is looking forward to have more touch with her grandma who she has everything but nothing to say.

When the mother sends her child off to church, she brushes her hair, bathes her, and puts white shoes and gloves on her. This effort put into creating an image of beauty and peace in her child shows that the mother is trying to forget about the suffering of the people who are fighting for freedom that she is doing nothing to aid. When she sees her child this way, she feels that she has

In the poem the speaker tells us about how his father woke up early on Sundays and warmed the house so his family can wake up comfortably. We are also told that as he would dress up and head down stairs he feared ¨the chronic angers of that house¨, which can be some sort of quarrel between his father and his mother in the house. This can also lead the reader to believe that the father may have had been a hard dad to deal with. However the father would polish his son's shoes with his cracked hands that ached. This shows the love that the father had for his son and now that the son has grown he realizes what his father did for him. The sons morals and feelings have changed him because as he has grown to become a man he has learned the true meaning of love is being there for one's family and not expecting it to be more than what it is. Consequently this teaches him a lesson on how much his father loved him and how much he regrets not telling him thank

In The House on Mango Street, the vignette “The Family of Little Feet” first seems like a random story, and is often disregarded, overlooked, and labeled “insignificant” because the story is oriented around three pairs of high-heeled shoes that arealmost immediately thrown away. As a result, seems like an arbitrary story that isn’t connected with the other vignettes. However, after careful reading, the story is relevant to the story since the shoes are a symbol that helps us further understand the characters and develops a theme.

When it comes to reading literature the most challenging yet important task is to understand the purpose of the author's writing. In Romantic era literature understanding the emotions and thoughts that are created in the reader's mind are essential to gaining a clear message that the writer is trying to send. In Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “The Masque of the Red Death” the narrator immediately introduces the “Red Death”; a disease that has been spreading throughout Prince Prospero’s country; killing his people within half an hour of contracting the disease. Throughout the story the author continuously uses diction and syntax to create suspense and evoke a grim tone to the reader. In the “Masque of The Red Death” Poe produces fearful imagery in the reader's mind through creating a supernatural presence in the setting.

In terms of actual literary devices, multiple might be seen. Often, an illness is alluded to that the characters might not know about. There are many euphemisms in the book, as well as foreshadowing. Euphemisms include speaking about orgasms, very foul language, and even simple descriptions in the setting of the book. As for foreshadowing, all of which refer to the disease spreading across the world.