Literary Analysis Of The Man That Was Used Up

Archetypes are utilized to analyze the common patterns of human nature in literature and major motion pictures. In the poem Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, Gawain accepts the challenge the Green Knight has to offer and goes on a quest to redeem the honor of Camelot. The Green Knight teaches Gawain a lesson which changes his values. A number of archetypal situations occur in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that serve to promote Gawain’s moral development.

Edgar Allan Poe, an often misinterpreted literary mastermind known predominantly by his extraordinary tales of horror, the supernatural, forbidden love, madness, and mystery, is more than meets the eye. Though his genres of expertise may indicate otherwise, Poe was a very social person, having been raised as a gentleman, and he had more hands on military experience than any other major American author in history. As a writer, Poe gained a great deal of his inspiration from his surroundings. His stay in the army contributed significantly to his repertoire, said to have inspired some of Poe’s greatest works including “’The Gold Bug;’ ’The Man Who Was Used Up,’ a satire of southern frontier politics; ‘The Balloon Hoax,’ set along the

He maintains his focus on Greek myths not only because of the sheer number of myths around the world, making it impossible to interpret and clarify them all, but also because European men, who would have been familiar with the myths from Greece, write most of the classics we analyze. He explains that these myths are not only a part of them but also “so much a part of the fabric of our consciousness, of our unconscious really, that we scarcely notice” (Foster, 51). Which suggests that, we can recognize Greek myths even if we do not realize it. With this simple fact presented to us, we no longer wonder why allusions to Greek myths have been used since they emerged and are still employed today. Myths are often exercised as “overt subject matter for poems and paintings and operas and novels” but more often “writers have…borrowed from and emulated” these myths (Foster, 52, 53). Instead of explaining every detail about every character, place or moment authors rely on other stories, such as myths, to expand and develop their tale. The writer will subtly hint at myths and hope you recognize their allusions to these old legends. Since we established that, we know these myths, whether consciously or not, we can take these allusions and decipher any hidden meanings the author has for us, giving each story a new level.

In many works of literature, many archetypes (or symbols) are used to help the reader understand the story of a hero’s quest. In the Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, the hero has to go on a fatal journey to uphold the reputation of Camelot. While enduring that journey, Gawain has to conquer many trails. Gawain’s succession of trials leaves the hero, like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, a “sadder but wiser man.” With all the trials that Gawins intakes, many archetypal characters contribute to the theme of the story.

The story “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” was written by Richard Wright. Wright was born near Natchez, Mississippi. When Wright was five, his father abandoned the family so wright was raised by a series of relatives in Mississippi. Wrights education never went further than junior high school. Wright then moved to Chicago, where he joined the WPA Writes Project. Wright wrote many story’s in his time and was well known for them. “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” is about a kid who thinks is a man, so he goes out and buys a gun, then practice’s shooting it while working and ends up killing a mule then runs away. The theme of “The Man who was Almost a Man” symbolizes the coming of age, racism and self-deception of the kid.

Life changing situations happen all the time, but not a lot happens like they do in these three short stories. The text “The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury, “Contents of The Dead Man’s Pocket” by Jack Finney, and “The Leap” by Louise Erdrich, are all strong texts that show all risks have consequences. Even though the authors form their risks differently, they all have a lot in common. This text will help you get an understanding of the similarities and differences between the three stories through theme, setting, and character.

Though only two and a half minutes long and consisting of only eight shots, this scene from Jean Renoir’s 1937 film The Grand Illusion, efficiently and poignantly introduces both the characters and audience to the divisions–of class and outlook–that permeated European society during the Great War. Through visual, audial, and narrative devices, Renoir comments on the irony and foolishness of the pre-World War I aristocratic perspective on war.

Norman Bower, a character in The Things They Carried, reflects on the war by stating, “They wanted good intentions and good deeds” (150). O’Brien, however, creates stories which reveal the fact that not all war stories are dictated by courage and valor. Speaking of Courage highlights this idea by telling the story of a man, Norman Bowker, who realized

Even in the middle ages of literature, a story such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight had many aspects of Joseph Campbell’s view of the hero’s journey. In the story of our character Sir Gawain accepts a “Call to adventure” (Campbell 45) and goes on a quest that will go through many of the archetypes. Likewise, there lies one character, The Green Knight, that can be many of the archetypal characters in the cycle of the hero’s journey. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight dramatically demonstrates how a single character can play many archetypal roles.

The Man Who Was Almost a Man is a fictitious short story about an uneducated black boy's quest to become a man. Growing up in the early 1900's was a very hard task for most black people. The lack of education was one of the hardest hills they had to overcome to

Although some may argue that Mary Anne Bell was a symbol for overcoming sexist stereotypes, she was in fact a symbol for what soldiers transitioned through everyday--her change parallels and exaggerates their stories. O’Brien’s changing description of Mary Anne epitomizes the hypnotic effect that war has. Mary Anne was ‘a tall big boned blonde’ (89) an ‘attractive girl’ (90), ‘coy and flirtatious’ (91), but ‘the wilderness seemed to draw her in’ (100) and soon she ‘cut her hair short’ (92) and wore ‘a necklace of human tongues, [that were] elongated and narrow, like pieces of blackened leather, one tongue overlapping the next, the tips curled upward as if caught in a final shrill syllable’ (105-106). Mary Anne’s description of being ‘a tall

In Black Hawk's Surrender Speech," the author uses a variety of rhetorical devices including hyperbole, analogy, and diction to support the validity of his claim. He claims that he is not a coward, and explains how the white men have ruined him. To emphasize his point, a collection of rhetorical devices are used in his speech.

In William Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying and Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the atmosphere is ignorant and confusing because the characters are offbeat and unnatural. Moreover, both authors use symbolism to depict the bizarre atmosphere of their apocryphal works. Throughout As I Lay Dying, Addie Bundren’s coffin symbolizes the eccentric and unbalanced relationship of the Bundren family. Similarly, in “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the grandmother represents goodness and how it eventually can lead to death. These symbols influence and create the atmosphere of peculiarity in both pieces. The symbol of the coffin in As I Lay Dying and the symbol of the grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” create an unusual

It could be debated that the tale “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” written by Sir Thomas Malory, did not display moral courage within the text. However, it can be proven that it did in fact have moral courage, and this theme was developed through the use of characterization and conflicts.

Additionally, Poe is regarded as a pioneer in the science fictionn genre. In 1835, he wrote “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall”, a short story that tells how a man could reach the moon by using a balloom. In the tale, Poe offers great detail about technology, atmospheric conditions and so on, attempting to create a credible story. Then, he wrote other works exploring different topics of science and technology such as “The Man That Was Used Up” (1839) or “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” (1845). Thus, Poe opened the lines for the developmenet of modern science