My Sister Lives On The Mantelpiece Reflection Essay

The use of multiple layers of narrative in Jane Yolen’s- Briar Rose is highly effective in communicating the story and the story and themes concerning Gemma’s past experiences of the Holocaust and Becca’s quest for truth and fulfilment of her Grandmother’s legacy. Yolen uses a number of voices or accounts of events to give the reader a dramatic sense of the extent and the horror of Gemma’s experiences. The fairytale story, Becca’s quest and Joseph Potocki, all add richness of detail to the novel as a whole. Techniques that incorporate this include symbolism, allegory, intertexuality, narrative structure and language.

When defining the possible limitations of the “Empathy and (Film) Fiction”, it is in high priority to consider the experimental set in the research and the film examples Neill provides in the essay. The set of examples the author uses in the essay does correspond only to the award-winning or highly-rated films that are assumed to be “good” in evoking the empathetic or any other emotional response. This excludes possible alternative response to “bad” or “not-so-good” films. In addition, Neill does not cover many other cases of the empathetic response to the fictional character; thus he ignores the complex set of emotions the audience usually expresses (e.g. the antagonist as the main character, disgusting scenes etc). As a result, deficiency of the elaborate experimental set generates more questions in the issue. At the same time, however, the strength of

The first passage reveals the parallel suffering occurring in the lives of different members of the family, which emphasizes the echoes between the sufferings of the father and the narrator. The narrator’s father’s despair over having watched

In George Saunders essay “thank you, Esther Forbes”, he describes how an author who he read during his youthful age helped him to understand why and how sentences can be important. The essay is written on a more personal note about a nun named Sister Lynette who helped Saunders to develop his perception of sentences. In third grade at St. Darmian School, Saunders was given the novel “Johnny Tremain” by Esther Forbes and that was a turning point for him. This was because the book provided him with a different understanding of the joys of reading as well as writing. On the other, “escape from spider head” helps in providing an analysis of the strengths of a man being put to test. The limits presented in the story are classified as physical, emotional as well as moral. The theme of the story is searching for humanity which makes the readers ask themselves, what makes us human? According to “escape from spider head” humans are considered to be innately empathetic in nature and they are considered to be people who are against the infliction of pain as well as discomfort which is caused on another innocent human being. The aim of the essay is to elaborate more on the connection existing between “Thank you, Esther Forbes” and “Escape from Spiderhead” in terms of the details presented in the two stories.

Do you think it is ethical to design and conceive a child that meets specific genetic requirements?

In which way is sympathy measured? Do we consciously decide who we evoke pity for? Or is it subconscious in which once emphasizes with another being. “Be Careful. Later on you’ll have to decide what sympathy they deserve” (1). Barbara Kingsolver begins the novel “The Poisonwood Bible” by warning the reader to be weary of the sympathy the Price family warrants. The opening of a novel is a handshake, the author’s first impression on us as a reader, and in the opening lines of Poisonwood Bible Kingsolver is quick to grasp the reader's attention. The first interaction is loaded with foreshadowing, symbolism and a dark, brooding tone. Quite similarly the ending of a novel is the author’s goodbye, and provides the reader closure, or lack thereof within a novel. Kingsolver escorts the reader out of the life of the Price family with closure and reassuring. Ruth May echo’s Orleanna in the beginning to leave the reader with erie closure.

shows that authors use multiple techniques to help the reader relate and further empathize with the characters. Empathy helps us better connect to the world and people around us, and often times sparks the need for change within people. The most effective of these tactics is the use of appeals. These examples further prove the argument that authors use appeals such as ethos, logos, and pathos to evoke empathy in their

My Sister's Keeper is the story of Anna Fitzgerald, who by the age of thirteen has undergone many blood transfusions, numerous surgeries, and multiple bone marrow transplants. “Most babies are accidents, not me. I was engineered, born to save my sister’s life.” At the beginning of the movie Anna explains that she as conceived to be a donor for her sister, Kate. Kate is a 16 year old with renal failure due to a very rare form of leukemia. The girls' parents expect Anna to donate her kidney to help her sister. Instead of donating the kidney, Anna files a lawsuit against her parents for the rights of her own body so that she could not be forced into the surgery against her will. This causes mixed reactions between Anna’s parents, Brain

This story begins to drive the sense of emotion with the very surroundings in which it takes place. The author starts the story by setting the scene with describing an apartment as poor, urban, and gloomy. With that description alone, readers can begin to feel pity for the family’s misfortune. After the apartments sad portrayal is displayed, the author intrigues the reader even further by explaining the family’s living arrangements. For example, the author states “It was their third apartment since the start of the war; they had

The interplay of dark and light motifs underlies the narrator’s most recent hardship. On his way home on the subway, the narrator comes across his brother’s name in a newspaper and “stared at it in the swinging lights of the subway car, and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside” (Baldwin). Riding in the light of the subway car, the author makes the non-suspecting narrator subject to suffering, unguarded by the protective cloak of the outside darkness. Made vulnerable by the exposed light and people surrounding him, the narrator is hit harder by the unexpected news than if he had read it in the darkness of his private room. Under the “swinging lights,” the narrator is not prepared to cope with the troubling news. This emphasizes the importance of light as a symbol for one’s need of camouflage to properly cope with tragedy.

Besides the intuitive black-and-white graphics, Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close displays a series of gripping texts that range from profound seriousness to adventurous lightheartedness. The story follows through the footsteps of a nine year old boy named Oscar Schell after his father passed away from the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. Oscar is left traumatized and is constantly unhappy with himself and others. Through his story, Oscar illustrates how to forgive himself from the feelings of regret, loss, and emotional strain. Furthermore, he provides an explicit example showing that even after a painful heart-rending experience, one can overcome fear and transcend grief.

“The Book Thief” presented a story filled with various themes that comprised a powerful plot line. Although there were many themes in the story, there was one that stood out to me more than others. In the process of reading the book, the theme of suffering affected me the most. The definition of the word suffer is to experience or be subjected to something bad or unpleasant. Different characters within the story are subjected to dreadful feelings and are therefore suffering. Through my analyzation, I observed the three different types of suffering that the characters experienced: guilt, feelings of emptiness, and anxiety. The characters of “The Book Thief” experience these three types of suffering in different ways.

During the time that I’m reading the novel, there is abundant of psychological descriptions and conversations, but it is hard for novel readers to see and feel directly what is happening except for imagination. First, by observing the tone of the novel, the text can’t pass the difference and the changes of

Indeed, reading starts with an initial idea spawned by the author, but it is the reader’s responsibility to interpret, ponder, and absorb this idea in a beautiful and meaningful way. For example, a quote from one book could be lackluster to one reader and have little to no effect on them; however that same quote can move another reader to tears.

, the characters in the story often show emotions whether it be externally or internally. The