Coming of Age Analysis of Shucked: Life on a New England Oyster Farm Shucked: Life on a New England Oyster Farm by Erin Byers Murray is a great example of a coming of age novel. This memoir depicts Erin’s experiences and life changing lessons she learns as she works year round for the notorious and well-respected Island Creek Oyster Farm. Erin will undergo a life-changing journey, where she will test her boundaries, and experience many conflicts, trials, and epiphanies. She will step out of her comfort zone and immerse herself into the crazy oyster farm world of growing, selling, and eating the world’s favorite bivalve: the oyster. Erin seems to always be testing her boundaries in this book. She quits her cozy 9-5 city job as the Boston editor for a lifestyle website, to rise before dawn to preform back breaking work in any and all weather conditions (Murray 10). Erin describes the weather conditions for a typical workday on the …show more content…
She not only has to deal with the excruciating back pain from bending over all day, but she also has to deal with problems at home. Erin does not live in Duxbury, the town the oyster farm is located, so she has a hefty commute every day. In this Man vs. Man conflict, her husband, Dave, becomes angry that Erin never has any time for him because she works long hours and comes home exhausted after her full day of laborious work. Erin would try and explain her day to her husband, but she says, “…I tried to download my day to my husband, Dave, who admitted he understood only about a quarter of what I was telling him” (Murray 31). Erin also suffered from internal conflict. She came to a point in her life where she realized it was no longer on the right path. She use to be a food writer, but then changed her career to become the Editor of DailyCandy.com, where she slowly moved away from her passion, and now she feels empty and lost (Murray
Not an oyster bought from the reputable market, no Paul Greenberg ate an oyster he harvested himself from the shore of a Bronx outlet. In 2005, the United States imported nearly twice as much seafood as twenty years earlier. During that same time American seafood exports have quadrupled. Our narrator's travels took him to New York’s Jamaica Bay, Vietnam, to the Gulf of Mexico, and to Alaska’s Bristol Bay. During his trials Greenberg dove, he observed the effect of the BP oil spill on bayou country, he watched the salmon runs in Alaska threatened by a copper-mine, and played with shrimp in mangrove
In The Oyster Question, Christine Keiner utilizes environmental, agricultural, political, and social history perspectives to investigate the Maryland oyster industry and its decline throughout history to answer the question if the oyster industry should be privatized. She offers opposing viewpoints from scientists, politicians and local community members. She has managed to connect scientific history with environmental history with local history to bring together a comprehensive overview of the problems both past and present of the Maryland oyster industry. I think that Christine keener does an excellent job, not without its flaws, of laying bare how science and preservation is necessary to be understood as local phenomena, manipulated by
Bobby, a teenage boy is on a journey to “come of age”, he must due to certain circumstances like his newborn baby girl, whom he is raising practically on his own. Bobby know that to be a good father he needs to grow up.
The word Chesapeake, although there is some scholarly dispute, likely means “Great Bay of Shells” or “Great Shellfish Bay” in the language of the Algonquian Native Americans (“Oyster History”). This translation is appropriate and accurate to anyone familiar with the Chesapeake Bay and its rich history of oysters. The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States with over 150 rivers and streams flow into its basin. It measures roughly 200 miles in length, 3.4 to 35 miles in width and stretches across six states. The bay is home to over 2,700 plant and animal species, making it one of the most complex and productive estuary systems in the world (“Facts and Figures”). However, one species
When you think of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee what do you think about? On the second read of the novel you realize how many coming-to-age experiences there are. The novel shows part of growing up is learning about society but not necessarily accepting it. The author uses Dill’s character development and his conflicts his subplot regarding his family to express the theme.
The word Chesapeake, although there is some scholarly dispute, likely means “Great Bay of Shells” or “Great Shellfish Bay” in the language of the Algonquian Native Americans (“Oyster History”). This translation is appropriate and accurate to anyone familiar with the Chesapeake Bay and its rich history of oysters. The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States with over 150 rivers and streams flow into its basin. It measures roughly 200 miles in length, 3.4 to 35 miles in width and stretches across six states. The bay is home to over 2,700 plant and animal species, making it one of the most complex and productive estuary systems in the world (“Facts and Figures”). However, one species of animal stands out above the rest in its value and legacy to the Chesapeake region: the eastern oyster.
In order to pick up the slack of the other parent, both authors make sacrifices to ensure their children’s needs are met. Edelman feels like she was expected to reduce her work hours instead of her husband because of the gender roles forced upon parents in society today. Edelman became angry with the fact that she felt pressured to prioritize her husband’s career and give up her own career to care for their child. Edelman states “...there was something vaguely unsettling about feeling that my choice hadn’t been much of an actual choice”(51). Edelman also angrily states that the reason she was forced to give up her career was because “...he was ‘the husband’ and…his career took precedence...”(54). Edelman is angry at the fact that society made her believe her career was inferior to her husband’s. Bartels also makes sacrifices for his family. Bartels makes the sacrifices to take pressure off of his wife, who is constantly running their children around to daycare and
“The only thing you sometimes have control over is perspective. You don’t have control over your situation. But you have a choice about how you view it.”-Anonymous. Both Harper Lee and JD Salinger promote setting and character in order to demonstrate that coming of age requires a different perspective. Each of these authors apply these devices to the theme of coming of age through the main characters. Harper Lee, who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, displays these devices through her main characters, Jem and Scout. Very similar, yet very different, JD Salinger, who wrote Catcher in the Rye, portrays these devices somewhat differently through his main character, Holden. Many characters between the two books learned so much relating to the coming of age theme, but in the end these
The key coming of age scene i am doing is when Jem stood up to his dad and when Scout uses her brain instead of using her fists.This is apart of coming of age because it is about how Jem finally told his dad no that he wasn't leaving instead of how he would normally just do what his dad said and not argue about anything. This was in chapter 15 when Atticus was down at the jail house and he was protecting Tom Robinson from the lynch mob.
The article titled "The man with the snow job" appears in the Opinion Pages, The New York Times. Author, Gail Collins, opens her article with the question: “Who is to blame for this weather?” which hooks readers’ attention and makes them curious about what they are going to read. In her writing, Collins talks about the current snowstorm in the United States and how it is used for everyone’s advantage. She also points out how government officials such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Al Gore, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama use the occasion of snowfall for their own purposes. The author borrows images of global warming effects to discuss some controversial problems in the society these days. She applies the following elements to establish the
“The Bass, the River, and Sheila Mant,” by W. D. Wetherell, is an initiation story in which the symbols of fishing and Sheila Mant illustrate how the character of the narrator transforms from youth and innocence to sophistication and maturity. At age fourteen, it is typical for a boy such as the narrator to be beginning this transformation. Being innocent and naïve in a sense, the fourteen year old narrator gets an enormous crush on a seventeen year old girl named Sheila Mant and comes to believe she is what he loves most in life. For him, Sheila is a symbol of the maturity and sophistication he will eventually become a
The past few weeks had been hot, dry, and rainless. A drought. Rain had not fallen for three months. Though, despite the drought, the O’Leary family had been having an exceptional October. The O’Leary family consisted of Mrs. O’Leary, her husband and 5 children. Mr. O’Leary worked as a laborer, as Mrs. O’Leary kept with the cows and the children. The
In the socially stagnant post-war United States of the early 1950's, Mary Maloney is content with the routine she has established for herself as a homemaker. She spends each day anticipating the return of her husband, police officer Patrick Maloney. In this waiting period, she tidies up his house, prepares his food, and periodically glances at the clock until he arrives. For Mary Maloney, her husband's return is "always the most blissful time of day" (Dahl 24). Patrick's presence completes Mary, in that she is dependant on him both economically and emotionally.
Edelman opens her essay by recalling the countless hours early in her marriage in which her husband spent working (50). With his hours increasing, she unwillingly cut back on her own work hours to care for their child. Edelman then spends time sharing her disillusionment with the newfound reality of her
On a snowy and windy night, I was at Barnes & Noble in Green Bay with my friends, Alan and Karina. Christmas music played overhead, the smell of hot chocolate and freshly brewed coffee wafted over, the customers were kind and cheerful, and snow was beginning to blanket the parking lot outside. We were sitting near the cafe wrapping books to support their mom’s school fundraiser. I stared outside and remembered my mom’s warning of the large snowfall that was almost upon us. Around 7:15, the snowflakes were becoming larger and we could barely see outside the window.