Gravel by Alice Munro

In the poem “Loch Ard Gorge” by John Foulcher he represents his vision of the world by describing a place called Loch Ard Gorge where there is a constant battle between life and death with death slowly winning. He does this by describing the Gorge in a way that compares life and death with the sea and the land, two places which can not exist without the other yet are difficult to reconcile.

“Day of the Butterfly” by Alice Munro is a story involving two girls and their short lasting friendship. In their sixth grade class, Myra does not socialize. She spends most of her time taking care and watching her little brother Jimmy. For the first time in years one of her classmates, Helen, feels slightly bad for her and makes an effort to connect with her. Right after their meeting, Myra is sick with leukemia and she becomes the most talked about person among her peers. They visit her in the hospital bringing gifts and kind words. Helen also brings a gift for her but feels that everything her classmates have given Myra are “guilt-tinged offerings”. They have similarities and differences. Myra and Helen are both are poor and

The author of Green Gulch conveys that when in a group, one can be overwhelmed by pressure that brings them to savage extremes. After being lost, a young boy joins a group of kids he has never seen before. The group is nice and offers to bring the boy home. They stop at a sanctuary of a pond. There is a turtle in the pond that is violently murdered by the boys after one decides to throw a rock. Then, the group turns on the new boy. They beat him maliciously and leave him stranded on the road to get home. As, the boy look backs he can’t think of what went wrong, “They stood in a little group watching me, nervous now, ashamed a little at the ferocious pack impulse toward the outsider that had swept them.” Obvious from the boys’ reactions, it was the fault of the group impulse. After the murder of turtle, the adrenaline and riot of the group caused them to turn on the next vulnerable target. They were not acting as they should have, and the realize that afterwards. They were nervous. Even though there is not immediately an adult around, they are nervous because society has conditioned them to behave. They are also ashamed. The shame shows that they are nice boys. They feel bad. This shows that the vicious group mind set was so strong that it came over there good personalities and conscious. However, there is only this slight remorse after the fact. This does not make up for the brutal murder and beating that they had dealt. Being in a group turned them into

In Alice Munro short story “Boys and Girls” is about a young girl confused in life about herself maturing into a young women that takes place on a fox farm in Jubilee, Ontario, Canada with her parents and her younger brother. The character of the young girl that is not specified by a name in the story is struggling with the roles that are expected by her peers of a young women in the 1940’s. This young girl has been helping her father on the fox farm for many years in which brought so much of a joy in her life. As she gets older, as well and as her younger brother Laird grows older, she is starting to realize that her younger brother will be soon be taking over the roles and responsibility of taking care of the animals. Then her mother and grandmother points out the anticipations of her to start acting more like how a young women of her age should present themselves and this has great emotional effects on her, and at the end of the story she shows a final act of disobedience against her father, but it only shows the thing she resist the most, her maturing into a young women and becoming her own person.

Darkness at Noon, written by British novelist Arthur Koestler in 1940, is a criticism of Stalinism and the methods used by the Communist Party in the USSR. The novel was set in 1938 during the Stalinist Great Purge and Moscow show trials. Even though the story depicts actual occurrences, it does not specifically name either Russia or the USSR, but the characters do have Russian names while other generic terms are used to depict individuals and associations. For instance, the Soviet government is alluded to as "the Party" and Nazi Germany is alluded to as "the Dictatorship." Joseph Stalin, a terrorizing dictator, is represented by "Number One." The novel is a strong and moving picture of a Communist revolutionary caught up in the terror

Equality between men and women is not always accepted in society. In the previous era, men were seen as the person who had the rights to rule over others and who could work outside the home. But the woman was seen only as a woman from home, she had the responsibility of taking care of the children, doing all household chores and her opinion was never considered. In Alice Munro story “Boys and Girls “, the narrator of the story is a girl who lives on a fox farm with her parents and a younger brother but her character is seen between the conflict with society and her desires because the difference of role that plays each genre.

Alice Mead published Year of No Rain on May 8, 2003.She wrote a book about three friends; Stephen,Wol, and Jairo, She made wrote about them going through hunger and thirst in their village and they can’t attend school because the village’s school due to the civil war between the northern soldiers and the southern soldiers,when the bombs exploded Stephen's Mother told him and his two other friends to run away so they won't be captured by the enemy soldiers.They’re on a journey and they all have to help each other survive. Sometimes you need teamwork to get over an obstacle.“Your mother should have let Naomi come with us.They kidnap girls, I heard.”He thinks She might’ve gotten kidnapped by the soldiers and it would've been better if She came

In the book “The Glass Castle” by Jeanette Walls, Jeanette’s life has gone through many ups and down’s, all the way from her childhood to her adulthood. As Jeanette’s growing up she sees her Parent’s hopes and dreams slowly starting to elude away into reality. From the start of the book Jeanette’s parents, Rex and Rosemary have strong hopes of being rich from mining and sifting up gold in the dessert, through rexes “new Invention’s” to help detect the gold. But as time tells, Jeannette’s feelings and faith in her parents start to diminish away. Jeannette also starts to realize that her father is causing the problem. Towards the end of the story, Jeannette says to her mom, “Mom, you have to leave dad” (wells 188), and Jeanette’s mom is astonished of what she had said and asks why she suggested that, and Jeannette simply states that “He will bring all of us down” suggesting that they need to be on welfare. When Brian and Lori Begin digging the foundation for the glass castle that Rex had designed and promised them they were going to make, the idea quickly diminished into a fantasy once the hole started to fill with old rusty beer cans.

In the detailed story of an impoverished family during the late 1900’s, Jeannette Walls describes her experience from the young age of 3, up until adulthood. The family of 6, with Rex Walls as the father, Rose Mary as the mother, and her three siblings, Lori, Brian and Maureen, were constantly moving throughout the country with little to no food or cash. The memoir shows how dysfunctional the family was, but never seemed to force the reader to condemn the parents. In a life of poverty, the have to move for own to town, and often lived in various mining towns. Although they each found something they learned to love (like Jeannette’s rock collection) in the desert, they had to leave them behind once Rex’s alcoholism only worsened, and they ran

Harvey Fierson once said,“never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accepts no one’s definition of your life, but define it yourself.” Throughout life many people struggle to find who they are or the person they want the world to see. One can say this dilemma stems from the human need of belongingness, as demonstrated in Maslow 's hierarchy of needs. “Day of the Butterfly” by Alice Munro depicts this idea through the relationship, that is formed between the main characters Helen and Myra. Helen can be viewed as a dynamic and round character because her personality shifted a lot throughout the story. The reader was also allowed to see her battle with “self” from the beginning to end of the narrative. Myra on the other hand, would be a foil or static character. This is due to the fact that Myra remained constant and she was the reason behind Helen’s actions and thoughts. However for this analysis we will focus solely on Helen and how her character was affected and evolved. She was a very weak-minded, submissive, and scared individual, who later exhibit qualities of bravery. At the end we can see how she began to step into who she was as an individual. Now we will look at how Helen was affected mentally, socially and emotionally.

“The Glass Castle” by Jeanette Walls is an extremely captivating novel that really kept my attention throughout the entire story. It’s a fascinating story of growing up in circumstances that kept me shaking my head as I turned the pages. The Walls family is unquestionably one unlike any I’ve ever come across. The lessons and experiences that the children learned and endured were ones that molded their lives and established who they are today. Jeanette Walls goes through many descriptions of situations that she faced that people normally should not face. For most of her childhood, her family traveled from town to town because her parents always thought that they would hit it big, unfortunately her father was never ever to find a

Throughout many works of literature, characters are described to go through a rite of passage, developing the plot and solving conflicts. A rite of passage is when a character goes through life changes, realizing his/her flaws and maturing as a person. Walter Lee Younger is a man that goes through many different character changes, which cause conflict amongst the other characters. Once he goes through his rite of passage, he is able to fix his flaws and mature. In Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, characterization is used to portray that one must experience a rite of passage in order to mature.

She lost another love by the name of Oluf, could not find much work, and lost hard-earned money through a bad business investment. After all this peril she took Russell and Doris and moved to Baltimore. Another move equaled more stress, less money, and more struggling to get by. With what seemed to be the world against her, she made it. She remarried, bought a house, and became the success she demanded of herself. Every step of the way Russell was exposed to all the ups and downs. His mother’s life during those times shaped and influenced his own.

       As the tale begins we immediately can sympathize with the repressive plight of the protagonist.  Her romantic imagination is obvious as she describes the "hereditary estate" (Gilman, Wallpaper 170) or the "haunted house" (170) as she would like it to be.  She tells us of her husband, John, who "scoffs" (170) at her romantic sentiments and is "practical to the extreme" (170).  However, in a time

Society tries to place many rules upon an individual as to what is acceptable and what is not . One must decide for themselves whether to give in to these pressures and conform to society’s projected image, or rather to resist and maintain their own desired self image. In the story “Boys and Girls” by Alice Munro, Munro suggests that this conflict is internal and external and a persons experiences in life will determine which of these forces will conquer. In terms of the unnamed protagonist’s experiences in the story, it becomes clear just how strong the pressure of society to conform really is, as it overcomes and replaces the girl’s self image.