Morning In The Burned House By Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood’s collection of poems, Morning in the Burned House, could just as easily have employed morning’s homonym—mourning—in the title. The overriding theme of loss and some of its sources and consequences—aging, grief, death, depression, and anger—permeate this collection and, in particular, Section IV which is a series of elegiac poems about Atwood’s father.

Regina Barecca’s poem “Nighttime Fires” explains a complex view of the narrator’s father. This poem recalls a part of the unnamed narrator’s life that she is still trying to understand it in her adulthood. This poem illustrates the long lasting impression that was made on a little girl, whose father seeks satisfaction by watching the destruction that is caused by the nighttime fires. The poem creates imagery in the audience’s mind of a father’s character, as his grown daughter still remembers the events that took place when she was five years old. This poem is about a father, who is a victim of the economic downfall that leads him to be without a job; yet, his actions and behaviors are very unusual and unforgivable. The disappointment with the society that has made him unsuccessful in Regina Barreca’s “Nighttime Fire” tells us the thoughts that the speaker has towards her father.

In William Faulkner’s Barn Burning, Abner Snopes is a main character and father of Colonel Sartoris Snopes (Sarty), who is also a main character. Abner is a very poor looking man, unclean and unshaven. He always seems to wear the same thing, a dirty white button up shirt with a dirty black hat and coat.

Should one kill a man if it meant saving himself? What if one had to do so by repeatedly drowning the other? And what if it meant saving a group of people? All Circumstances are subject to the five ethical codes depicted in “A Framework for Thinking Ethically,”(Santa Clara University, (2008)) none of which are written in law nor anywhere else, but instead reside at the foundation of each individual. Amidst all else, it is by plucking the strings of different moral codes that Margaret Atwood writes “Bread”; She illustrates various morals which some would consider unlawful and others would consider ordinary. Essentially every action boils down to a root cause, that root being one’s morals.

Escape Fire is a documentary directed and produced by Susan Froemke and Matthew Heineman that examines the rising costs and sustainability of the United States healthcare system which has been predicted to cost $4.2 trillion annually within six years (Heineman & Froemke, 2012). This documentary compares the broken U.S. healthcare system with a forest fire crew. A firefighter was in jeopardy of dying in a forest fire and saved himself by intentionally lighting a fire that burned the fuel in his surroundings. He was one of the few survivors thanks to this “escape fire” which is an example of how the answers to a crisis can be found among us.

Socially isolated individuals fundamentally can not function in society as sufficiently as those with rich social lives, lacking the mental requirement of expression, all thoughts and feelings remaining internalized. A morbid study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology (Vol. 109, No. 2, pages 186-204) showed that socially isolated individuals were two to three times more likely to die during the nine year span the study took place over than those who had fellowship from peers. Ellen from the short story The Lamp at Noon is a perfect example of the effect referenced in this study; the weather acts symbolically to show her isolation from the rest of the world, the consequence being the loss of her own

The Woman Upstairs is a novel that holds deep deception at its heart. Deception triggers and promotes Nora 's anger ,it has shaped Nora 's angry character from the very beginning . Nora has been deceived by her own-self ,her society and when she has found a family she could trust , they brutally betrayed her too.Even the title of the novel The Woman Upstairs is deceiving , one would immediately think of the madwoman in the attic, the 19th century’s best-known "woman upstairs" In Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Bertha Mason the protagonist is the first wife of the master of Thornfield Hall, who has shut her away and has opened the door to more than a hundred years of impassioned feminist criticism, “People don 't want to worry about the Woman Upstairs”.(Bertha 95) To the contrary , Nora describes The Woman Upstairs as an unmarried school teacher who is approaching forty without having accomplished anything she set out to do ,causing the sparkle of suppressed passive anger from the early beginning of Nora 's adult life .Like someone scratching an infected wound, Nora returns to the phrase “the woman upstairs” again and again:

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was valuable because it opened the eyes of American citizens to the harsh reality of slavery and proved its need for abolishment. Harriet Beecher Stowe proved the wrongness and cruelty of many southern slave owners by mentioning the splitting up of slave families in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In the beginning of the book, Stowe developed the nasty and feelingless character of Mr. Haley, a slave trader. He decided to buy Harry from Mr. Shelby and wanted to separate the young child from his mother without considering the impact it would have on their family. Stowe also explored the cruelty of slavery in the scene where Simon Legree beat Uncle Tom to death. She used Legree as an example for many southern slave owners who brutally acted the same way in real life. Stowe was very bothered by the fact that slave owners were willing to kill their own slaves and was able to share her hostile feelings with many others with her book. Through Stowe’s examples of family separation and death, she was able to show Americans how ruthless some slave owners could truly be. This compelled both Northerners and Southerners to fight for the abolishment of slavery.

In the tale Barn Burning, the author William Faulkner formally known for his short stories with a constant theme of Southern Renaissance, racism and modernism uses these themes as a constant reference throughout the story. Faulkner focuses in depth on the antagonist, Abner Snopes and his actions and how they impact other characters throughout the story. I believe Abner was continuously portrayed as a negative character throughout the short story by Abner’s aggressiveness towards everyone he comes in contact with, Faulkner’s depiction of Abner’s selfishness, and his jealousy for those around him and what he did not have.

w. Whilst Emily thinks it will prove to Damon that it was her dad (at this point, Emily is doubting even her own father), Damon

In “To Build a Fire”, the author Jack London uses three fires to express the overall theme of pride. The unnamed man goes on a journey in freezing temperatures which leads him to make stupid decisions. The first fire the protagonist creates restores his pride he has in himself. London states, “for the fire was beginning to burn with strength”.

You awake upon hearing the screams of others outside your house, the smell of smoke invading your nostrils. Your instincts take over, immediately informing you of the flames consuming your house. You quickly decide to dash on out, having no time to bring any possessions with you. As you escape the unbearable heat, you join the onlookers outside, and watch your house go up in flames. Something akin to this happened to Anne Bradstreet, a puritan writer who wrote the poem Upon the Burning of Our House that highlighted this tragedy.

In Jack London’s short story, “To Build a Fire,” a man attempts to reach his destination across the Yukon wilderness. The cold and wintery setting is used to create the conflict of whether the man will make it to the campsite and transitions the mood from calm and uncaring to fearful. It also manages to convey the message that overzealousness can lead to failure.

In this essay I am going to discuss the plot, the narrative technique, characterisation, the style of the text, the setting and the difference of themes. Once in a House on Fire covers the story of a mother, Lorraine, and her three daughters, Andrea, Laurie and Sarah, who lose their father and husband in a freak accident. A red-faced man steps in for tea and is introduced as there new daddy, a drunk who molested and beat up Andrea. Later Lorraine remarries again and this time her husband beats up all three girls and lorraine and even in one case sends the girl’s mother into hospital. They were once a close-knit and loving family who were forced into a life with abuse, poverty and the effect of depression.

“To Build a Fire” by Jack London, is a story based on a human’s inability to overcome the forces of nature. The story’s theme surrounds perseverance, even in the presence of a foolish decision. The character’s determination to face freezing weather, no matter how hard things get, shows that no matter how hard things got for him, he wasn’t going to give up. As the story goes on, the story depicts the characters ultimate decision to give himself a meaningful death. When faced with the forces of nature, the character decides to face his death with dignity and lay down next to a warm fire until death overcomes him.