Motifs And Techniques Used In Ashfall By Mike Mullin

According to Wikipedia, a symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow us to go beyond what is known or seen by creating links between concepts and experiences. They help create a better understanding of the plot, theme, or characters in literature. For example, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding consists of several symbols. The novel is about a group of British boys who are stranded on an island with nothing but their knowledge of human civilization. They try to create a society of their own, but it begins to subside as they descend into savagery. Symbols like the conch, the beast, or the painted masks help reveal their true nature. However, the most important symbol is the fire. Golding uses the fire to paradoxically represent savagery, destruction and most significantly hope of rescue. He describes the fire as technology that menaces destruction if it gets out of control, yet ironically it also symbolizes the boys’ connection to human civilization.

In the beginning of the novel, a group of boys are stranded on an island resulting in the creation and decline of a civilization, and an uprising of savagery. Fear is an essential element of the story illustrated through foreshadowing, symbolism and diction. The young boys are terrified by a beast on the island. With fear rippling through the group, sheer chaos, savagery, a break in civilization, and a loss of innocence ensues.

Ashes, Fire and dust are recurring motifs in the novel. Analyze passages that reference ashes fire, and dust in any form from candlelight flames to heaps of ashes. You must discuss the motif here. What do fire, ashes, and/or dust represent beyond the literal in the passage.

I started reading the book Ashfall because it seemed like it would have been a good book about survival. I love reading book that makes me want to read more. Just by reading the summary of the book Ashfall I was wanting more.

It shows how much tragedy and hardship can affect the human mind. It also shows how

silence, isolation, and consequences. The most important and the one that appears the most in the book is consequences. The author presents these themes in ways to help the reader learn more in depth about the characters and the author. While also learning lessons about real life situations.

I think the book has a lot of symbols, many of them dark. One example is all the blood that was thrown into the book. I noticed that in almost every situation that Grady was thrown into, there was some kind of blood involved. I think the blood symbolizes all that Grady was willing to pay or give up in order to get to where he was going. Another symbol would be at the very end of the book how in most sunsets, they symbolize a happy, bright ending, but in this book, I thought it was in contrary to most other endings.

A good example of these symbols is the titles of the three different parts of the book. These symbols relate directly to the book instead of real life. These three parts are The Hearth and the Salamander, The Sieve and the Sand, and Burning Bright. The Hearth and the Salamander, for example, deals with Montag's struggle at his home and with himself. The Hearth and the Salamander deals with this because the hearth is a symbol of the home and a salamander will get rid of its own tail and grow it back which is what Montag is doing with his life.The Sieve and the Sand deals with Montag struggling with remembering the knowledge he has been cramming into his head. He can't remember anything about what he has read, just like how a sieve can't hold any sand that is put in it. The Hearth and the Salamander deals with Montag's struggle at his home and with himself. Burning Bright deals with Montag destroying his old life and starting again. He does this by burning his old life

Symbolism is when concrete things are used to represent abstract ideas. Symbols can be any person, place, or thing that the reader believes represents more than what it literally is. Authors can use symbols to help the reader get fully immersed into the plot. Symbols can also help identify motifs or themes that run throughout the story. In Naomi Novik’s Throne of Jade, the Allegiance, a ship, is used as a symbol of tension between countries, specifically China and Great Britain.

I choose to use a silhouette of a naked hung from a noose to represent snowman's sexual desires and morbid curiosity with death. The reason the background is so colourful and distracting is to show his slow descent into insanity; I choose to blur it because Snowman made his lover and best friend into deities to the "children of crake" and to me deities and gods are mysterious and shrouded in fog,

My favorite reading reading assignment would probably be when we read “Duffy’s Jacket”. I liked that story because it created great suspense, and at the end of the story it was ironic. The end was the complete opposite of what I was expecting. To describe this book, I would say it is suspenseful, ironic, and the plot was created very well.

Mike Mullin’s Ashfall had a communion in which the protagonist shared steaks with two other characters, his neighbors. I recall that before the characters ate steak, they were eating salad, food that wasn’t enjoyable to the protagonist, which would very likely be unenjoyable for the other characters as well. While eating the steaks, the protagonist thought of the steaks as heavenly, or great. These neighbors of his were united with the protagonist as they ate food, sharing the joy of the succulent steaks after eating salads for the past few days. Although this communion has a bigger purpose, or idea. The communion symbolizes that while all hell is breaking loose outside, the protagonist isn’t the only one facing it. He has people that

Natural disasters are as the name suggests, disastrous. Some can erase entire cities and kill many. For example, volcanoes can bury cities in molten lava and many are lucky to escape one’s eruptions. Also, avalanches, normally caused by the weight of people in the mountains, are almost unsurvivable and reduce mountainous cities to rubble. The Eruption of MT. VESUVIUS illustrates how destructive and terrifying the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius was to those who survived. The article details that the volcano was showing signs of eruptions, but the people of pompeii didn’t know what these signs meant. During the eruption, some people ran while some people stood behind, hoping this nightmare would end. Unfortunately, The majority of the people

I suppose in considering the themes, I would include the idea that small and seemingly insignificant events can suggest bigger implications. For instance, as Virginia Wolfe portrayed in “Kew Gardens” small incidents like witnessing a couple eating a picnic can have major significance for drawing out past memories. Another major theme would be the power of memory (past) to influence our present conditions, such as a setting in a café (like Earnest Hemingway’s “A Clean Well-Lighted Place” or the narration in Ford’s The Good Soldier. As to symbols, Kern has mentioned that a broken watch is often times utilized as a symbol, to suggest the stopping or slowing of time. I haven’t personally seen this symbol in any of our stories that I remember, but

Everyone reacts differently in moments of crisis. Some people turn to others to fix the situation, some people give up on themselves entirely, and some people cling to hope. Hope is a tricky thing to grasp; it can lift people up to achieve the unthinkable, or cause people to parish all together. In class we read “Of Clay We Are Created,” a story about a news reporter, Rolf Carle. There is a horrific volcanic eruption that has wiped out an entire Latin American village and Rolf is one of the first reporters to arrive by helicopter. Once there he stumbles upon a young girl named Azucena who is stuck in mud and can’t find a way out. Rolf resonates with Azucena and gives up on reporting the tragedy, and instead sticks by her side while she struggles with the possibility of life or death. In class we also read “Zaabalawi.” In this story the narrator, is stricken with a deathly illness. He concludes the best way to heal himself is to find the mysterious, almost God like man, Zaabalawi. The issue is that no one knows where Zaabalawi is, but only where he has previously been. In both “Zaabalawi” and “Of Clay We Are Created,” the narrator and Rolf are faced with crisis. However, both stories take a different direction with handling the conclusion of their situations. Rolf sees himself in Azucena and believes helping her will erase the pain from his past, while the narrator seeks Zaabalawi to find a cure for his illness. Both characters take action towards crisis and remain hopeful,