John Audubon's Okay For Now

He finds these birds atop Mrs. Windermere's fireplace. The analogy these birds create is very different than that of the Arctic Tern. Doug sees his family within the print. The analogy itself is the comparison of the birds and his family. In the print two of the birds are swimming away, this is a representation of Doug’s father and brother. Doug represents the younger bird. “It was looking like maybe it wanted to swim where the other two birds were, but maybe not. And anyway, he was afraid to try.” Okay for Now pg.54 Showing that Doug is torn between staying with his mother and going off with his brother and

Watership Down, written by Richard Adams in 1970, is a story centered around rabbits. The two main characters are Hazel and Fiver. When Fiver senses that there is danger in the warren, Hazel and Fiver go to the leader of the warren, Threarah and tell him that all of the rabbits must leave the warren because of danger. Threarah says it is too risky to move all over the rabbits and insist that there is no danger. Regardless, Hazel and Fiver decide to leave the warren and look for a new home.

One of the main differences between humans and animals is opposable thumbs. Aside from that, humans and animals have a lot more in common than you would think. We hunt for our food like wolves do. We care for and look after each other like elephants do. Our parents protect us like male lions do. In fact, humans and chimps act so much alike it's scary. Lennie in Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is often compared to an animal when speaking about his actions and body features. Even though John Steinbeck uses animal imagery throughout Of Mice and Men to help show that Lennie lacks common sense, the animal imagery is also used to show the reader that Lennie is innocent and childlike, and has a great work ethic.

One species of bird in the story which acts a symbol is the oriole. “The oriole nest in the elm was untenanted and rocked back and forth like an empty cradle… and now

The use of animals as a way to represent humans is a very common theme with African storytelling. In “Lion-Child and Cow-Child”, both of the main characters are on a journey to leave their animal pasts behind. Lion-Child and Cow-Child are stuck in between, and are neither completely human nor completely animal. In order to complete their rite of passage, they must completely remove themselves from their animal pasts, in this case breaking ties with their animal mothers, in order to reach adulthood. The animal images comment on the fact that in the beginning these characters are not yet in harmony with nature. In “The Romance of the Fox”, mirroring is utilized to represent the connection between the boy and the fox. The fox is representative

In the story The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst, the author shows many similarities between the narrator's little brother Doodle and an exotic bird. While reading through the story the young boy is not thought very highly of. No one including, the doctors, ever thought Doodle would live past a couple days. But Doodle did just that, he lived for 6 whole years. His parents even named him William Armstrong, because they thought it would look good on a tombstone. His brother later renamed him Doodle because with that kind of name no one would expect much from him. Doodle had many obstacles growing up and didn’t really fit it. While going through life Doodle was constantly trying to prove that there was a reason for his life. Doodle’s brother tried very to have a normal little brother, so he pushed him in many ways to enable him to do normal things. Doodle could not stand up or crawl and when he did he crawled backwards, earning him the name Doodle. The brothers says to Doodle, “Aw, come on, Doodle,” I urged. “You can do it. Do you want to be different from everybody else when you start school?”

Bird with the broken wing. - the bird was flying in circles, representing Edna’s thoughts in her ind swirling and her dwelling on trying to escape but not being able to.

“Our mouths opened and shut and we froze where we sat. I suppose we could have honked and waved and it wouldn’t have raised any more pandemonium than this poor mother already had to deal with but instead we held perfectly still. Even Turtle, after a long minute or two the quail got her family herded off the road into some scraggly bushes” (96). The birds are significant symbolism in this book. They often appear in the book to symbolize Turtle; Kingsolver did this to show Turtle is a strong survival instinct child. First, when Taylor took Turtle to doctor and discovered that she has been abused and raped. As she makes this discovery, she sees a bird nest on a cactus. This shows that Turtle, in spite of her surroundings she keep persists. Also, when Turtle met the robber, a sparrow got caught in Lou Ann’s house, the bird getting scared shows the Turtle’s confusion and fright. But sparrow survives and leaves the house; this shows that even though Turtle is going through confusion she will survive. Finally, the quote shows the moment when Lou Ann and Taylor found a family of birds on the road. This quote symbolizes how Turtle is satisfied with her small family, feel safe, and she is happy.

Bird is a symbolic motif in Three Day Road that helps Boyden to establish character identities and relationships.

One of the women made the comment that Mrs. Wright used to be pretty and happy, when she was Minnie Foster not Minnie Wright. This is just the beginning of realizing that she was just pushed to far into depression and couldn't live up to John Wright's expectations anymore. The Wrights had no children and Mrs. Wright was alone in the house all day long. The women perceive John Wright to be a controlling husband who in fact probably wouldn't have children and this may have upset Mrs. Wright. They eventually find vacant bird cage and ponder upon what happened to the bird, realizing Mrs. Wright was lonely they figured she loved the bird and it kept her company. The women make reference to the fact that Mrs. Wright was kind of like a bird herself, and that she changed so much since she married John Wright. They begin looking for stuff to bring her and they find the bird dead and they realize someone had wrung its neck. This is when they realize Mrs. Wright was in fact pushed to far, John Wright had wrung her bird's neck and in return Minnie Wright wrung his.

Because of the supposed similarities between humans and birds, birds are a useful tool for authors wishing to symbolize human emotions or thoughts. Mynott offers that birds are often “distinguished partly by the different human emotions they seem to be revealing” (Mynott 282). He references several examples of the use of human-specific traits in the description of birds, such as “kind,” “stern,” and “astonished” (282). It is not such a huge leap from the attribution of such human characteristics, to “anthropomorphic misdescription” (282). The birds in The Ant of the Self are said to be looking “as though they [had] placed bets” on who would lose Spurgeon’s and his father’s confrontation. While Spurgeon is taking a stand against his father by ordering him out of the car and onto the shoulder of the road, the birds’ curious glances are exposing Spurgeon’s own thoughts. The birds, a symbol for Spurgeon, wonder whether he or his father will “go down in flames” (Packer 95). The caged birds, which are so capable of human expressions, are expressing Spurgeon’s thoughts. ZZ Packer endows the birds with a look of human quizzicality, having them glance from the nervous Spurgeon to his angered father. Spurgeon wonders whether he or his father will win, and the birds, as his symbol, express this.

The birdcage symbolizes the Wright’s marriage. It is breaking and past the point of recovery. “ Looks as if someone must have been rough with it” (Glaspell 875). Minnie Wright represents the bird, who is trapped. She is trapped in this marriage where she is mistreated. Though, Mrs.Wright is not killed, but her spirit is. Due to the isolation and neglect, Mrs.Wright’s spirit is killed. David Galens summarizes this drama in his article “Trifles.” He mentions “Neither woman can recall whether she actually had a bird, but Mrs. Hale remembers that Minnie did have a beautiful singing voice when she was younger” (Galens). Mrs.Peters and Mrs.Hale find the dead bird with silk around the neck. Mrs. Peters is in shock: “Somebody—wrung—its—neck” (Glaspell 115). Mrs.Hale does not know the Wright’s well, so she says “ I s’pose maybe the cat got it” (Glaspell 875). Mrs.Peters knows the Wright’s did not have a cat; therefore, the cat is a metaphor to John Wright. This bird is valuable to Mrs.Wright, because it was her only company throughout the long days when her husband works. The loneliness without the bird called for revenge. Minnie is tired of the emotionally abusive man she married. Mrs.Wright wrings John’s neck and kills him for all the things he does to slowly kill

James Hurst portrayed Doodle with birds. The two brothers were in Old Woman Swamp when Brother said, “Promise hung about us like the leaves, and wherever we looked, ferns unfurled and birds broke into song(7).” This quote can relate to Doodle because he was a joyful boy and dreamed big just like the quote said “birds broke into song.” Before Doodle could walk he wasn’t making his brother proud and once he did walk, he knew his brother was proud of him. There were moments in the story where Doodle could have been seen as a normal child but instead it was as if he was a bird.

Probably one of the most important uses of animal imagery in the book comes early on, when McMurphy describes the group sessions as a “pecking party”. McMurphy explains a pecking party to Acutes as:

Gary D. Schmidt uses metaphorical comparisons to enhance the reader’s understanding of a character’s development throughout the novel Okay for Now. Doug’s development coincides with his changing perception of the Audubon birds. The birds portray Doug’s feelings in important situations in his life. For example, Doug asks his father about the prizes from the trivia contest, and his father becomes very angry that Doug is questioning him. Doug is caught in the middle of a difficult situation just like the yellow Shank. He does not know whether to just stare “into this dark place” or “cross the river that divides him from it” (Schmidt 178). Doug went from being in the middle right into the darkness with one statement just as Audubon portrayed the