Literary Analysis Of A Personal Narrative In Frank Sinatra's Gum

"Skipping", "humming", "loopity-loops", and "pirouetting" are silly things that everyone has done as a child, including myself. These reminders set me in a time machine back to my favorite days when the only thing important to me was my own happiness. Another less obvious reflection of a puerile mind is the "same story". In this tale of a young girl's game, Sandra Cisneros refers to a pretend play the girls have made up for their Barbie's' to act out. This play is referred to as "the same story" and really hit on what childhood playtime was all about. I remember doing the exact same thing as a child with my brothers (except we were cops and robbers), where we played out the same actions over and over, day after day. Cisneros recognized this to be common to all children and smartly places it for the reader to reflect on their past, as I did on my own.

Kelly Simon, the writer of “Frank Sinatra’s Gum,” presents the audience with a coming of age narrative. Kelly Simon demonstrates her use of imagery, characterization, and point of view to elongate and present the allegory in the narrative. She utilizes these rhetorical strategies to contribute to the inclusive meaning and endorses the audience to see her growth in her identity and self-image while also recognizing the characterization of Frank Sinatra.

A. Jeannette Walls, in her memoir The Glass Castle, demonstrates Erikson’s eight stages of development. Through the carefully recounted stories of her childhood and adolescence, we are able to trace her development from one stage to the next. While Walls struggles through some of the early developmental stages, she inevitably succeeds and has positive outcomes through adulthood. The memoir itself is not only the proof that she is successful and productive in middle adulthood, but the memoir may also have been part of her healing process. Writing is often a release and in writing her memoir and remembering her history, she may have been able to come to terms with her sad past. The memoir embodies both the proof

The friends of the narrator, however, do not hide in the imaginary world of childhood and are maturing into adolescents. Sally, “ screamed if she got her stockings muddy,” felt they were too old to “ the games” (paragraph 9). Sally stayed by the curb and talked to the boys (paragraph 10).

Throughout her speech, Kelley tactfully connects with her audience through her use and transitions of the modes of discourse. The combination of the modes allows for her to let the audience feel the exigence of the speech in various fashions. Kelley initiates her first implementation of the modes of discourse in the very beginning of her speech, in order to develop the audience’s understanding of the dire situation. This is done through the mode of discourse exposition. It is clearly evident when she states, “We have in this country, two million children under the age of sixteen years who are earning their bread. They vary in age from six and seven years… ” (Kelley paragraph 1). The use of simple exposition of the situation not only allows for her to establish logos in her writing but also a fed up and almost angry tone that she makes clear to the audience. That tone leads to more everyday speaking that makes her speech more relatable to the audience. All of the rhetorical aspects that are encompassed in the single example of exposition, leads to a momentous effect on the audience’s viewing of child labor, because in most cases the audience will tend to remember the first and last impact of a speech.

The trials and tribulations adolescents face as they shed their innocence and cross the threshold into adulthood is a universal issue facing young readers in all eras. The dazzling use of simile in Charlies’ statement “my exit from

Before detailing the events that take place between Sheba and the under-aged Connolly, Barbara assures the reader that she is merely the narrator, and that ‘This book isn’t about me’(Heller 4). Therein lies the most significant instance of irony that forms the crux of the narrative in Zoë Heller’s

Even as a full-grown adult, the author of The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls, still stands out as being different. Jeannette grew up in abnormal circumstances that some might consider neglectful or abusive. From her point of view, her upbringing was just her normal. Today, Walls is a successful author and public speaker. With her wacky stories, hearty life, and positive outlook, she is a likable character that has been formed and molded by her life experiences. Something that Jeannette and her family has dealt with throughout their life is appearing different than others around them. Being different, from looks to character, was a theme that proliferated Jeannette Walls’ book, The Glass Castle, just as being different

In the memoir by Jeannette Walls, “The Glass Castle”, the author shares the bittersweet and slightly humorous story of her dysfunctional family and destitute upbringing. Walls grows up with a family that is always on the move and stricken by hunger. In the memoir, Walls writes about her memories of moving from one place to another with her eccentric mother, her alcoholic but intelligent father, and her three other siblings. Walls used language that was quickly understood to describe the happenings in the book. When I read the part where Rex brought Jeannette to a roadside bar so that he could earn the money that he owed her, I felt so disgusted and angry at the father.

Using this analytical observation the author is pointing out that Simon is watching Sinatra’s every move for a mistake. The following sentence backs up the speaker’s idea that Frank Sinatra is not above everyone else because she states how Frank Sinatra ‘Missed’ (13). Even with this missed shot the narrator states how, “I was mesmerized. Like one of those squealing, moronic sheep that my father so despised” (15). Simon is referring to how she still seems to be conforming to what her father and her least like, those star struck fans that worship Sinatra.

Instead of acknowledging that adulthood scares and mystifies him, Holden invents a fantasy that adulthood is a world of superficiality and hypocrisy (“phoniness”), while childhood is a world of innocence, curiosity, and honesty. Nothing reveals his image of these two worlds better than his fantasy about the catcher in the rye: he imagines childhood as an idyllic field of rye in which children romp and play; adulthood, for the children of this world, is equivalent to death—a fatal fall over the edge of a cliff. His created understandings of childhood and adulthood allow Holden to cut himself off from the world by covering himself with a protective armor of cynicism. But as the book progresses, Holden’s experiences, particularly his encounters with Mr. Antolini and Phoebe, reveal the shallowness of his conceptions.

In J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories there are many tales centered on children, who are often depicted as a symbol of hope and connected with the values that stand in contrast to the ones typical of the adults corrupted by materialism. In my essay, I would like to concentrate on the portrayal of children in “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” and “Teddy”. Even though the way these characters are depicted is similar, a child protagonist in each of the stories is representative of different things. While Sibyl can be seen as a prototype of a childlike innocence, purity and simplicity, Teddy can hardly be considered a prototypical innocent child. Despite the simplicity of Sibyl’s thinking, her presence and behavior help the reader draw many complex

Holden’s narration in The Catcher in the Rye poses a fundamental problem in critically analysing the story. Holden’s first person narration provides a one-dimensional, biased interpretation that manipulates the reader. This uncertainty of the authenticity of the narration through a pervasive hyperbolic tone is exemplified when Holden exclaims, “…my parents would have about two haemorrhages apiece

In this paper I will be summarizing the graphic novel, Swallow Me Whole, and whether or not the concepts of James O. Young’s cultural appropriation and Linda Nochlin’s concept of genius are present in it. Nate Powell’s graphic novel, Swallow Me Whole, Powell depicts, the life of a young girl named Ruth and her step brother Perry. Their grandmother ever since they were kids has been sick and had various medical complications. It seems as though the two kids had suffered from depression ever since they encountered their sick grandmother, who seemed to mean a lot to them. The graphic novel begins with a particular interaction Ruth has with her grandmother and end with her and her family heading back home. Ruth seems to create a strong connection with her collection of dead insects and Perry with an imaginary wizard, which resides at the end of his pencil, which forces him to draw for him, driving Perry crazy at times. Eventually her grandmother gets better and moves in with her and her family. From there on, the graphic novel takes place during Ruth’s and Perry’s adolescence, during their lives in high school. Ruth and Perry seem to have issues at school, they don’t have many friends and Ruth tends to be tardy to class.

The character Hank Morelli from Frank Lentricchia's The Sadness of Antonioni shows the many complexities of his inner 'self' within the first two chapters of the novel, which is only expanded as the novel continues. The inner 'self' can be described as consisting of three separate but related domains; the experiential self domain, the private self domain, and the public self domain. The experiential self domain is the part of one's self where a person's unconscious and conscious feeling towards others reside, while the private self domain is the unconsious part of the mind where a person's thoughts about themselves grow and remain, and the public self domain is where other people's feelings about a person are noticed and acted upon.