These lines extracted from N Sott Momaday’s “The Way to Rainy Mountain” aptly depict his conception of the reader’s role within this multi-genre text. “Literary Texts”, as famously articulated by Terry Eagleton, “are code-productive, code-transgressive as well as code-confirming…they may teach us new ways of reading , not just reinforce the ones with which we come equipped”. ( Eagleton, 116). Reaffirming this analogy, Momaday’s “The Way to the Rainy Mountain” empirically proposes to transgress old codes, disintegrate decisions, eventually leading to a creation of polyphony within literature by simultaneously performing “eternal happening”. Momaday has incessantly stressed upon his ideology associated with the powerful act of imagination. In an essay entitled “Native American Attitudes to the Environment”, he advocates “…we are all….at the most fundamental level what we imagine ourselves to be…..”. ( 80). The same intonation is reiterated in his proverbial lecture entitled “ Man made of words” where he eloquently elaborates “ “ We are what we imagine. Our very existence consists in our imagination of ourselves”. (3). This very notion finds a stance in the prologue of “The Rainy Mountain” where he proficiently assimilates his idiosyncrasies dealing with the creative power of imagination …show more content…
(Iser, 9)This hypothesis emphatically propagates the phenomenological reader response theory to decipher the process that co-relates the literacy work “The Way to the Rainy Mountain” to help us in identifying the openness portrayed in the text and the extent of reader participation. As one continue through the work, Iser says that having modified and undergone a retrospective effect on what has gone before, the reader strongly out-strips the actual causes of the
Initially Mai holds a negative perspective in “Mai closed her eyes and tried to recall her father's stories— but they rang shallow against the dense roaring slabs of water she'd just seen.” The hydrographia personifies the natural elements creating a pathetic fallacy, which reflects Mai’s initially pessimistic attitude as her hope is crushed by the harsh reality of her experiences on the boat. However, this provocative experience catalyses a transformed perception, as upon reaching the shore she thinks: “The boat would land - they would all land.” The epistrophe of “land” and high modality of “would” shows her renewed hopeful perspective, which would not have been possible without physically experiencing the harshness of being on the boat. Thus, the ability for discoveries to be far-reaching and transformative is seen through these provocative and confronting external experiences that transform individual perceptions.
Momaday creates a since of nostalgia when discussing about his grandmother and the rainy mountain. The author gives a vivid description of what the mountains and canyons looked like in Montana which helped set the mood of the essay from the beginning. From reading the essay, I also felt a sense of sorrow when describing the Kiowa people and their culture. At the end of the essay, Momaday’s mood felt content because he got to see his grandmother’s
Imagine yourself shipwrecked upon an uninhabited island. The experience of being stranded will cause you to pose many questions, with the possibility of only one of those questions to being answered. One answered question is: what is the purpose of literature? Northrop Frye, within “Motive for Metaphor”, uses the analogy of being within an uninhabited island to examines the purpose of literature by connecting it to the purposes of language and their use within the different worlds and levels of the mind Frye sees present.
In his essay, Rodriguez shows all four characteristics of expressive writing which are self-definition, emotional responses, the expression of values, and subjective language. Rodriguez defines himself as someone who struggles with the validity of reading and learning to read. He states books were “unquestioned”. Rodriguez asked, “What was the connection between reading and learning? (172)? “Did one learn something only by reading it .“(172) He was made to think he should value books as a friend when he found reading a “chore”. Still, he values the opinion of others and “basked in the praise” by reading for academic approval. His narration of learning to enjoy reading is an emotional roller coaster from the loneliness of reading to the pleasurable joy he learned through experience. Thus the title of the book makes sense,
I"The Importance of the Act of Reading" by Paulo Freire, describes the importance of the act of reading beyond numerous experiences in his life as a child, a teenager, and an adult. Freire begins his article by taking readers back to where he was born, in his home city Recife, Brazil. He uses very itemized imagery to describe the trees, the house and the atmosphere of where he grew up and how the text, words, and letters were incarnated in the series of things, objects, and signs. He describes the trees, the house and the atmosphere of where he grew up and how the text, words, and letters were incarnated in the series of things, objects, and
The short story “On The Rainy River” is written through the perspective of O’Brien in present day and as a young faced with a draft notice for Vietnam War. In “On The Rainy River,” O’brien portrays the importance of bravery in an individual through the use of symbolism, powerful tone, and reflective point of view.
Ray Bradbury has written several futuristic stories which portray the advancement of society. “There Will Come Soft Rains” contains technology in the house that we only dream about. Our current homes, compared to the house in Bradbury’s story, seem bland and helpless in comparison.
(…) the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air—look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire (…). What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
Archetypes are defined as “a typical character, an action or a situation that seems to represent such universal patterns of human nature.” (“Archetype”) The short story “On the Rainy River” by Tim O’Brien is about the internal struggle and the journey he faces after he is drafted to serve the army. The classical hero’s journey archetype is similar to Tim O’Brien’s journey in his short story, “On the Rainy River,” with the exception of the arc length and depth of transformation.
In Tim O’Brien’s fictional narrative “On the Rainy River,” the narrator faces the dilemma of avoiding the draft or submitting and going to Vietnam, a common predicament that many men faced after receiving draft cards for the Vietnam War. O’Brien displays the thought process of the narrator as he makes a decision, and near the beginning, the narrator describes certain qualities that he believes make him “too good for [that] war”(2). He lists off achievements like “president of the student body” and “full-ride scholarship,” arguing for the idea that he is “above” going to war(O’Brien 2). Through explaining what the narrator believes to be superior traits, the reader might begin to ask, “What types of people actually went to the war?” If the narrator feels that he was above going to Vietnam, there must be some preconceived notion of who was expected to serve. After seeing how the narrator reacted to his call to battle, a question is left of whether the draft was fair in relation to social classes.
In the movie Rain Man that was released in 1988 is about a character named Charlie Babbitt and his understanding of his brother Raymond Babbitt who suffers from autism.
In the three passages “The Way to Rainy Mountain,” “Thomas Jefferson's America, 1801,” and “Chief Joseph Speak” the Americans did the Indians wrong. The way the Americans treated the Indians were unreasonable. When Lewis and Clark went on there expedition there was already a little bit of congregation going on, therefore it made the situation worse when the Americans were trying to fight the Indians again. In the article “Chief Joseph Speaks…” it talks about all the Indians want is peace and the American are trying to find every little thing that they don’t like about the Indians, and pick a fight about it.
Outsider’s are usually an outlier of a group, and are viewing the group from an outside point of view, rather than actually in the action. Not being part of the group can oftentimes cause them to feel left out, because they don’t have a lot in common with the main group of people. In the short story, “On the Rainy River” by Tim O’Brien, the main character, who 's also happens to be named Tim O’Brien, is a young adult who happens to get drafted in the war two months after he graduates college. However he doesn’t believe in the war, and in college he even made a couple of editorials about how the war was wrong. Tim not
“Where what breathes, breathes / and what drinks, drinks,” the persona says (3,5). Natures relationships depicted in the first stanza are beautiful. At first, something as simple as the “islands” may seem unimportant (1). Once analyzed, its purposed is defined by providing a warm home for life to sustain. Without the “restless wind” and “incoming tide,” the animals could not sustain (4,6). Everything in the universe is interconnected.
There is perhaps no greater an example of exemplary Modernist writing than that of Ernest Hemingway. The Modernist movement defined itself with its opposition towards traditional American values. With a tendency to suggest rather than state, show rather than tell, and focus on questions rather than answers, the Modernist movement changed the course of American Literature, and one of the most influential members of that movement was Hemingway. Amongst a sea of notable works, Hemingway's “Snows of Kilimanjaro” serve as a testament to the subtle craft of the Modernist style of writing. The symbolism and dialogue within the “Snows of Kilimanjaro” is superb and helps reinforce the Modernist themes of Hemingway's writing. Hemingway frames Harry's wife in a way that negatively equates her with American wealth. Hemingway then suggests that such wealth ruins the natural gifts of a writer, symbolized through Harry's gangrene. This is further expanded upon with Harry's salvation in realizing that his writing is what was truly important, a salvation symbolized within the snow leopard and the mountains of Kilimanjaro themselves. Hemingway's symbolism is well constructed, and helps to illustrate the theme of the dangers of corrosion under wealth, while expressing salvation in purpose.