Jealous Husband Returns Parrot

The father “[sustains] the illusion that [the son] was I (the father), and therefore, by simple transposition, that I was my father (the father’s dad).” Since the father is clogged up with his reminiscence, he seems to forget who he is. The confusion the father gets is due to the fact that he cannot accept that he is getting old. It is something that is so surreal that he believes he is “living in a dual existence [between his son and himself].” During their fishing trip with the father and son, the father realizes that it was “the arrival of this fly that convinced [him] beyond any doubt that everything was as it always had been, that the years were a mirage and there had been no years.” However, the father begins to feel “dizzy and didn’t know which rod [he] was at the end of.” It shows that the father is trying to distinguish himself from the past and the present. He is trying to convince himself that he is the past; but in reality, this is the present in which he is no longer a child. The father tries to drift off to the past so he can forget about the realities of who he is. His present time, as an adult, is trying to realize that time is in fact a continuing process where one has to move on from the

In Robert Olen Butler's, "Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot", the narrator finds himself unable to trust or communicate with his wife because of his own vulnerability and fears of losing her. Tragically it was his fear that killed him in the end; while trying to spy on his wife and the new guy from the shipping department in his bedroom, the narrator falls from a tree dying instantly and ironically is reincarnated as a handsome Yellow-nape Amazon Parrot. Although parrots can mimic sounds or words they hear, it seems there is only more of a communication gap between the two as fate reunited them together now as a widow and a pet bird. By the end of this story the differences in the narrator as a

In the story the father didn’t understand his daughter which made their relationship rocky. In the text it says ‘‘...watching him get out of the truck and walk toward me, noticing that there was no smile on his face but still feeling my body move toward him, my arms opening for an embrace, something rising in my throat. My father stopped and held out his right hand.’’ This quote shows that the father had a hard time showing his emotions to his daughter. In the end of the story they bonded over a bird and the father began to understand his daughter.

The bird then returns to his former place in the cage, the speaker emphasizing the pain in the bird’s “old, old scars”, imparting that the bird has attempted to escape in this manner multiple times in the past. From the line in which the speaker says “And they pulse again with a keener sting,” which refers to the bird’s scars, the reader can assume that the “keener sting” is a fire in the bird’s wings fueled by determination to achieve freedom, and that the bird will continue attempting to escape relentlessly. The speaker states that he “knows why he beats his wing”, meaning that he knows the forces that can drive a creature to harm themselves in the process of trying to achieve something, and he has come in contact with those forces in his life.

The story begins with the narrator trying to convince his audience that he is not mad, but then proceeds to tell us how he killed the old man because he hated his eye. The narrator is telling about how every night he goes into the old man's room to murder him, he tries this for about a week, but every time the narrator creeps into the room the old man's eyes are closed and the narrator cannot see the hideous eye and therefore cannot murder the man. The seventh night however, the old man had trouble sleeping and the narrator heard the heartbeat of the old man and this filled him with rage. He murdered the old man by placing the heavy bed on top of him. After killing the old man, the narrator dismembers his body and places it into the floor boards. The narrator’s neighbors heard the sound and called the police, who come to investigate the narrator's house. Being confident in his work of hiding his sin, the narrator gladly tours the policemen around his house and into the room of which the old man’s body

"Because the truth was simple, not a long-drawn-out record of flowered shifts, tree cages, selfishness, ankle ropes and wells. Simple: she was squatting in the garden and when she saw them coming and recognized schoolteacher's hat, she heard wings. Little hummingbirds stuck their needle beaks right through her headcloth into her hair and beat their wings. And if she thought anything, it was No. Nono. Nonono. Simple. She just flew. Collected every bit of life she had made, all the parts of her that were precious and fine and

What really is going on? The author is clearly stating what happens in the life of a hummingbird all the way to death. It gives details of the death and why the death is occurring.

Publica fama, what today’s society would call hearsay, was what everybody knew, so it was socially accepted as reliable (Fama 17). The husband’s actions put a stop to the lovers’ nightly talks but not before she sent the body of the bird to her love with a message explaining why she could no longer speak with him. Thus proving how strong the ideology of women being subservient to her husband in all regards.

The speaker also talks of Nell, his ex-wife. Though there were things that annoyed him about her, he still speaks fondly of her. For instance, he remarks, "That's why Nell was good to have ‘round. She could be a pain in the ass, you know, like making me hang those stupid bells, but mostly she knew what to do." This allows the reader to see that the loss of his family has had a deep impact on him. He misses his wife and son and speaks of how families should be together, though his never will be again. This is what provokes him to do what he did next.

When someone looks up at a bird they see something soaring through the sky free from the world’s troubles. Through out man’s history they have been trying to find a way to be as free as birds and learn to fly. Unfortunately it has been an unsuccessful feat for man to accomplish. Although man has never really been able to fly on their own, they are able to fly with the help from a little machinery and ingenuity. Macon Dead Jr, or milkman, the nickname he adopted because he nursed from his mother, the protagonist of Song Of Solomon by Toni Morrison, had been trying to fly all of his life. But until he discovers his family’s history and his self-identity he unable to discover the secret that has

Carver also emphasizes the contradictions within the characters themselves in the story, which illustrates the uncertainty of love, and how there is not a clearly defined approach to understanding it. Returning to the topic of Terri's previous marriage, Mel, her current husband, complains about his failure to understand how she could refer to that abusive relationship as love. However, later on when she corrects him while he is talking, he turns to her and asks her to "shut up" (Carver 767). Another important contradiction which takes place throughout the entire story, is how the four friends are discussing a subject which they all have had bad experiences with, since they have all been divorced and remarried. The contradictions throughout Carver's story symbolize how love can also contradict itself, and trying to understand love is impossible since so many particular cases can negate specific examples of love.

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.

However, two vibrant changes occur as the story progresses —Coyotito, his son, getting stung by a scorpion and Kino’s discovery of the pearl—broaden Kino’s horizons and outlook on the world. As Kino begins to strive for wealth and education for his son, the simplicity of his life becomes increasingly complicated by greed, conflict, and violence. Kino’s character then falls through a gradual decline from a state of innocence to a state of corruption and disillusionment. The factors promoting this decline are ambition and greed. Thus, when going got tough for Kinoo and he had to escape town he faced a lot of hardships, since he had to go into hiding and the only immediate help he had was from his brother. This had an adverse effect on his personality as he became increasingly negative, given the way he hit his wife shows how the pearl preoccupied his mind to such a great extent that he grew indifferent to everything else as evil and restlessness eloped him. In addition to these social changes, Kinoo, after attaining the pearl was on the move to gain economic sustenance, but not being able to find the right price to sell his pearl got him feeling even more uncertain and disappointed but he continued to strive and was reluctant to give up because he wanted everything in his reach for his son, who he consequently ended up losing in the

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

However, once more, “there interposed a Fly” (12), interrupting not only the silence but also the narrator’s mind which is trying to calm before the fear of death. This is because, the fly act as the last string the narrator can hold on to, or in other words, the last string that will connect the narrator and the world. With all her possessions assigned to others, the narrator does not own any physical possessions and she is also standing on the margin of losing her life. The sound of the fly buzzing and the sight of the fly flying around the room allow the narrator on the deathbed to know she is still alive and existing in the world as a human being. The fly, when seen from the positive or the optimistic point of view, can act as a symbol of hopefulness, for life existing in the same room with death can be interpreted as fly blocking and stopping the door of death from opening.