Julia Gibbs In Our Town

An important idiosyncrasy of Emily's that will help the reader to understand the bizarre finale of the story, is her apparent inability to cope with the death of someone she cared for. When deputies were sent to recover back taxes from Emily, she directed them to Colonel Sartoris, an ex-mayor that had told her she would never have to pay taxes, and a man that had been dead for ten years. Years before this incident, however, after her father had died, she continued to act has if he had not, and only allowed his body to be removed when threatened with legal action. Considering the fate of her lover's corpse, one suspects she would have kept her father's corpse also, had the town not known of his death.

The day after her father's death, the women of the town went to give their condolences to Miss. Emily. To their surprise, Miss. Emily was "dressed as usual" and had "no trace of grief on her face (Perrine's 285)." Emily told the women that her father was not dead. Finally after three days of trying to hold on to her father, "she broke down, and they buried her father quickly (Perrine's 285)." The town's people tired to justify Miss. Emily's actions, by saying that she had nothing left, and was clinging to the one thing that had robbed her for so long they convinced themselves that she was not crazy.

A great example of a character who was unable to attain his dream was dear Lennie. Lennie was one who didn’t expect much from life. All he hoped for and desired was to be able to pet the soft coats of rabbits and be able to tend

Not all American dreams end tragically, but in some cases it does. This idea could be broken down by the stories of The Great Gatsby and Bodega Dreams. Whether Jay Gatsby tries to reinvent himself or Willie Bodega tries to reinvent Spanish Harlem, The Great Gatsby and Bodega Dreams run parallel towards a common outcome. Bodega and Gatsby 's ambition to live their American Dream is thwarted by love, which led them to a fate they did not understand. There are three points that I will discuss to support this claim. Bodega and Gatsby had an American dream. Their dreams were thwarted by love. Their demise was love that made them

For example, when my grandmother was young, she used to dream about being surrounded by a loving family. She was an orphan. She often tells me stories about how she would lie awake at night dreaming about just that. Many kids in her orphanage used to tell her that none of them were ever going to have a life like that “Why would we?” they said, “can you not see not even our parents wanted us!” Despite all the harsh words, she kept on dreaming and overcame all her obstacles and has reached her goal. Even though your goals might seem impossible, if you dream big you might get just that.

Most believe that the American Dream is the perfect life, with a house and white picket fence. While this type of life may be an attainable plan, human nature causes us to always want more, so even with the “perfect” life, there is still always a goal left to be reached. Many famous celebrities who seem to have anything and everything right at their fingertips often end up committing suicide. proving that on the outside it may seem as though they achieved the American Dream, but there was still something more that they didn’t have. There is a common saying that goes “you only want what you can’t have.” So while people may dream their way into getting things that they desire, the grass remains greener on the other side.

Scott Fitzgerald gives another example that portrays the true facet of this concept. At the end of the novel, Nick Carraway reveals, “I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn’t believe it would come, and perhaps he no longer cared. If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream” (p. 161). This insight effectively marks the end of Gatsby’s American Dream. The narrator carefully suggests that Gatsby might

Since Capote is trying to give a retrospective of how easily a life can be changed, he uses a simplistic diction to effortlessly bond with the reader and aid them in viewing their own life. He vividly describes the clutters ordinary last day with words and phrases such as, “in a hurry” (25), and “always has time” (25). Capote employs with the phrases “always has time” and “in a hurry” that the Clutter’s have all the time left in the world, and they are living their lives but not to their fullest. By the utilization of simple words the correlations between the Clutter’s simple life is able to be shown in an effective manner. Putting importance on every unimportant detail of the Clutter last day is what Capote does to try and reinforce the idea to the audience that nobody knows when their last day

When Miss Emily refuses to respond to a government letter regarding her taxes the Board of Alderman comes to visit her. When she comes in she is cold to the gentlemen, showing her lack of social skills which in many cases is a factor in mental Illness. Also before Miss Emily makes the guests leave she tells the, that if they still think she has taxes they need to "see Colonel Sartoris," (Faulkner 149) who has been dead ten years. This statement by Miss Emily could be seen as her minds unwillingness to live in the present. Her mind belives what it wants which is also the case after her fathers death. We see in the book that after her father’s death and her subsequent breakdown, Miss Emily was “sick for a long time." This could mean the state that Miss Emily refused to believe her father was gone. Right after the death of her father, the ladies of the town come to Miss Emily’s home to offer their condolences, and they observe that she had “no trace of grief on her face” (Faulkner 151). The inability to either feel or demonstrate appropriate emotion, is a classic symptom of mental illness. More explicitly, Miss Emily insisted to the visitors that “her father was not dead” (Faulkner 151). For this reason, Miss Emily would not let anyone remove her father's body until three days after her father should have been buried. Finally the third day “she broke down” and let the townspeople remove the body quickly

In Of Mice and Men, George and Lennie have a dream of living on their own in the countryside. They wanted to have their own place to live off of. But their dream did not happen. Hopelessness is what all three stories come to. There seems to be no hope in the end of these stories whatsoever. The Great Gatsby ends with Gatsby being killed for a crime he did not even commit, and the girl he spends his life doing everything for ends up not fulfilling his idea of his dream. There is no hope in the end for Gatsby at all. In “Winter Dreams”, Dexter’s dream of Judy comes to a crash when he finds out that her beauty is gone. Since she did not fulfill his dream, he realizes that his dream is over, and that there is no hope for him to keep dreaming. And in Of Mice and Men, once Lennie kills Curley’s wife, George realizes that their dream of living on a farm by themselves can not happen. He abandons all hope for it, and has to make a big decision on Lennie's fate, kill him himself peacefully, or let the others kill him in a less peaceful way. There is no hope for Lennie, and George realizes it, so he ends up shooting Lennie

In the book “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry, there were characters whose dreams were stated, some of which were shattered by greed and misfortune and others which would eventually come to be true. The first dream that came about was Walter’s dream of one day owning and maintaining a liquor store. He would do anything to attempt to get his dream to come true, but his mama wanted anything but that to happen. His mama had a dream of her own though, she dreamed of one day owning her own house, where her whole family could stay comfortably. She dreamed this because in the apartment that she resided in was too small, and dumpy, as Ruth called it. Her grandson Travis had to sleep on the couch, and all

When her father passed away, it was a devastating loss for Miss Emily. The lines from the story 'She told

Emily had depression and was dealing with it in her own way by closing herself off. Looks could be very deceiving and in this case, Emily surprised the town when she died. The townspeople realized that there was more to her than they thought and were quick to judge.

Once Miss Emily’s father died, she didn’t want to let go. She had no one to love and lover her back. The only love and compassion she knew was her fathers. With him leaving this world entirely, I think she didn’t want to believe he was dead. She wanted to hold on as much as she could. “She told them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days… Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly.” Again, Miss Emily’s necessity for love made her unconscious of the real world, wanting to hold on to something that was not there.

Emphasis, these days, seems to fall too heavily on humanity’s need to push, to dream, to work to achieve a lasting happiness. People seem to forget that everything they’ve ever been, known, and have yet to experience moves. People seem to forget that life is change.