9/11 Short Stories

ii. Fire – “She was putting in a fire now, and he could no longer see her face.”

She struggles with accepting reality, even when there are clear signs of the truth. An example of this is when her father warns her about playing with fire after she burns their shed down and endangers her brother, saying “you all got a little to close to it today” (Walls 61). As her story continues she starts to see the consequences fire creates. After burning down a hotel, putting her whole family in danger she excepts the truth about what it does and slowly starts to further herself with it.During this time her parents actions start to affect her siblings in a worse way and she starts to have doubts about her father stating, “I listened to dad’s plans and tried to encourage him, hoping that what he was saying was true but I was also pretty sure it wasn’t” (Walls 171). As fire becomes more absent in her life so does the hope that her parents will succeed at improving their

The smoke is filling up more rooms. It’s very hard to see. We have two animals, but where’s the third? She’s nowhere to be found and it’s not safe to stay inside. My dad has breathed in so much smoke. “I just want to lay down Bailey,” he states. He can’t lay down, we are almost to the door. Sirens are blaring from the fire trucks outside. Volunteer firefighters are running in without gear on to try and fight this fire themselves. In a small town, everyone knows everyone and they want to do whatever they can to help out.

First, an understanding of how fire works is needed. When a fire burns, it devours everything in its path leaving the land bare. Later though, after the fire is gone, new growth springs forth that builds on the ashes and becomes stronger than before. The symbolism of fire is seen when Thomas’ parent’s house burns down and also when Arnold's trailer is consumed by the flame of Suzy’s fire. When the house burns and Arnold leaves, this represents a fire in its first stage of devouring everything in its path. Relationships crumble and they are left bare in soul. Regrowth happens as Victor sprang forth is able to receive his father and begins the process of forgiveness. Consequently, fire represents the themes of destruction and

Through this first incident, Jeanette’s mother, Rose Mary, encouragingly said, “Good for you. You‘ve got to get right back into the saddle. You can’t live in fear of something as basic as fire” (Walls 9). Soon then, Walls became “fascinated with it” (Walls 9) as she passed her finger through a candle flame, slowing her finger with each pass, watching the way it seemed to cut the flame in half.

The Glass Castle is a compelling memoir written by Jeanette Walls where she recalls some of the most prominent memories she has of her childhood. Jeannette uses imagery, symbolism, and varying tones in her writing which results in the realistic and exciting story of a young girl and her siblings growing up in poverty. While telling her story Jeanette uses vivid imagery as she tells her reader about her unique childhood. When telling her reader about her experience with getting burnt at age three Jeannette says, “I turned to see where it was coming from and realized my dress was on fire.

Danticat, Edwidge. “A Wall of Fire Rising.” The Norton Introduction to Literature: Portable Tenth Edition. Ed. Alison Booth and Kelly J. Mays. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011. 232-244. Print.

“Where’s the fire ma’am?” the young man said. “ You get in there and answer that question for yourself, young man. I called you twenty minutes ago. Is our house about to burst into flames while we’re standing out here?”

“Look! Look at this fire! This terrible fire! Have mercy on me!” Some pressed against the bars to see. There was nothing. Only the darkness of night.

In the beginning of the Lord of the Flies, the fire is used as a form of hope for rescue and survival. When the boys first arrive on the island, Ralph decides that rescue should be their main focus. The boys build a signal fire to attract any passing ships. He puts Jack and his hunters in charge of keeping the fire going. One day the hunters let the fire burn out. When a ship passes without seeing the fire, Ralph panics because they have lost a chance at being rescued. Golding describes the aftermath of the ship passing, “The fire was out, smokeless and dead; the watchers were gone. A pile of unused fuel lay ready” (Golding 68). When this incident occurs, Ralph

It blazes with passion, burning everything that'll stand in its path, only to burn quickly or to die down slowly.

After Jeannette wakes up in the middle of the night with her two sibilings, Lori and Brian, asleep and her parents out of the hotel room she is awoken by an intense heat. As she discovers there is a fire on the curtains blazing she is “stuck.” In a sense that she doesn’t have the energy to yell or move to warn Lori and Brian. She is then “rescued” by her father who comes in yelling, which awakes Lori and Brian, wraps a blanket around Jeannette and carries her outside of the hotel room as he rushes Lori and Brian out. As they go across the street to a bar Jeannette begins to reevaluate all of her experiences with fire.

In Jeannette Walls’s The Glass Castle, fire is utilized as a symbol of destruction that unmasks inattentive parenting. At only three years old a young Jeannette Walls learns to fend for herself by cooking her own hot dogs; little does she know that “yellow- white flames” are tracing a “ragged brown line up the pink fabric of [her] skirt and climb[ing] [her] stomach” (Walls 9). Hence, through the alarming personification of the fire “climbing” and tracing a line up Jeannette, the image of fire symbolizes the neglect that Jeannette and her siblings face while growing up. Therefore, due to this early dramatic experience Walls established a mood which strikes dread, pity, and horror into readers’ hearts.

By using sight as a sense, fire has risen in the middle of the story. Specifically, the meaning of fire itself, is something being burned, or is going to be burned. In the same way, fire also spreads drastically everywhere. As it states in the book, “He saw a red light before him, as when the felled trunks and branches of a

The colors are astonishing. No longer does green dwell the trees. It seems the entire world is on fire. The bright yellow has mingled with the orange to create small flames, flickering from the branches of trees. They fall to the ground and ignite the earth. It has been said before that fire is pure and cleans everything it touches. It takes something broken and dead and gives it one last spurt of beauty. One last goodbye before it leaves forever. The bed of the fire is a deep blue, so searing it burns any who come near. The heat makes my eyes water and stings my uncovered face. I want to get as close as possible. To see the embers be swept with the glorious reds and royal blues. The heat is