New York vs. Willow Springs in Mama Day Essay example

It is impossible to interpret Gloria Naylor’s 1988 novel, Mama Day, in one way. There are multiple standpoints that a reader can take in explaining various events that occur throughout the book, as well as different ways that the characters in the book interpret these events. The author never fully clarifies many questions that the story generates so as to leave the readers with the opportunity to answer them based on their own personal experiences and beliefs. The multiplicity of perspectives in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day is embodied in the legend of Sapphira Wade and the dynamics between logic and the supernatural and between George and Cocoa.

Upon reading the first few sentences of the paragraph, one can easily assume E. B. White has inhabited New York once before. His capability in drawing three New Yorks established his familiarity with the city and its various versions. This is implied when he states, “There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts for its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter--the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something” (White). Coming from the perspective of the author, it adds an authentic value to his words and description of the types of people who live in New York. The individuals who exist in each of the version contribute to New York’s remarkable essence

As a young person, I don’t really notice how quickly the world changes and advances around me, because I’m changing and growing right along with it. Lillian Boxfish, the elderly title character in the novel Lillian Boxfish Takes A Walk by Kathleen Rooney, does. Her age, a focal point in the novel, allows Lillian to view the world as she remembers it, while at times preventing her from appreciating as it is. On New Year’s Eve in 1985, Lillian decides to ring in the new by remembering the old with a walk around her beloved New York City. As she walks, she thinks of the city as she once knew it and sees the city it has become, reliving memories both good and bad. In particular, Lillian is struck by how easily the city embraces new culture and ideas and forgets the legacy of what came before. Through Lillian’s journey, I learned that while it’s important to appreciate the past, you cannot neglect the present.

In the book “Code of the Street” introduction, the author Elijah Anderson gives you an outlook on how a city can go from wealth and poverty in just five miles. Anderson’s ethnographic portrayal of urban life in black America through a journey down Philadelphia’s historic Germantown Ave, which connects the appreciation of newly suburban Chestnut Hill and Philly’s main line with the generally less civil society of Germantown proper and its outlying ghetto’s, where a code of the street old as poverty and oppression itself governs the interactions of both willing and unwilling members. The story starts in Chestnut Hill which is often called "the suburb in the city," and finishes in the Northern Liberties subdivision.

Recently, I have learned that urban settings creates an opportunity for intimacy with one another; however, in “Bartleby, the Scrivener” written by Herman Melville, that was not the case. He describes the nature of the world of work and business through concrete description of the scenery. The story is set on Wall Street in New York City which had become the core of American business life during the 1850s. The setting is a critical component of Bartleby, because it emphasize the author’s concern about the effects that an environment has on American society. Bartleby’s environment separated him from nature and the people around him. To illustrate Bartleby’s detachment from society, he worked in “a corner by the folding-doors” behind a screen and has a window that “commanded at present no view at all” (1489). A creation of emptiness in the business life was molded. The setting indicates a sense of isolation and failure to connect; however, it establishes the relation between the walling out of Bartleby from his boss, passive

When Paul, the main character, decides to abandon his childhood home to travel to his ideal city of New York, he eventually succumbs to the bitter reality of his own struggle with depression. “It was the old depression exaggerated; all the world had become Cordelia Street” (Cather 21). In Paul’s Case, by Willa Cather, the author writes of the depression-ridden Paul who attempted to convince himself that his appreciation and admiration of his dreams were nothing less than ideal, but they ultimately morphed into obsessions that failed. Despite Paul’s limited glimpses into his greatest hopes of living a life well beyond his current lifestyle, it was one he eventually realized he could never attain. Paul believed he could convince himself and the world, that Cordelia Street was where he started, but the lavish life of a New Yorker would be where he—not only deserved to be—but where he was meant to be. Despite his efforts, he ultimately fell. The aspects that made Paul resent Cordelia Street were aspects he discovered everywhere else—including New York City.

By using numerous references to places in New York City in the essay, Didion allows the reader to feel as if they are there in New York as she was. The vivid imagery, descriptions, and allusions to places in New York allow the reader to connect with Didion and the feelings she felt as she progressed from a young and naïve girl to an indifferent and depressed woman. Didion included specific references in the essay in order to precisely capture her life in New York City and depict her perspective on the places she mentions to the reader. The references let the reader view the city in Didion’s eyes, as well as better understand her evolving emotions about New York.

He loved New York during the Spring. The emergence of people walking along the streets after a long, cold winter, the blooming of beautiful flowers, the way the sun tickled the streets and buildings with the promise of new beginnings. Why had he stayed away so long? That was a stupid question. Unfortunately, now, she was long gone and he would never see her again. He would never have the opportunity to explain.

In “The Duel” written by When O’ Henry which depicts the lives of two individuals from the mid-west who relocate to New York City. One studied business the other studied art their names were William and Jack respectfully these individuals came to New York expecting to have their cake and eat it too. Like many others, both of them thought that in their pursuit of wealth they could uphold the morals that they inherited from the west. William bent to the will of the city and there was no going back, like many others before and after him he has become “New Yorkized”

For some it is easy to see past the mirage and for others more difficult. Fitzgerald realized that the city lost the mirage, where he once saw beauty through all the troubles. He changed from a tourist view to a New Yorker point of view. There was a loss of magic that the New York dreams everyone soon ended. There are always ups and downs of city. He labels New York, his lost city because at the end of it all, through all the coming and going it makes people feel like failures as there is always someone that is better off. “New York was a city after all and not the universe...it has limits.”(Fitz 1). It changes people by showing that the city is actually

William stared over the expanse of greater New Haven from the top of the castle facing east. Black tendrils of smoke curled into the air from homes burning in the blighted suburban neighborhoods of North Haven and Hamden. In New Haven proper, tendrils of smoke from burning tires marking gangland territory twisted over the city and floated over Long Island Sound. William walked to the southern side of the castle and stared out towards Stony Creek. He wondered if his home on Roger’s Island had been spared the looting and vagrant raids of the past decade. He hadn’t visited the island in many years because The Movement no longer provided helicopter transportation, and ground transportation through New Haven and all along the shoreline was rife with highway robbers and gangs. William took a deep breath. The oppressively humid, hot, and stagnant air did little to refresh the capillaries in his lungs.

A warm gust of wind sweeps across the backstreets of downtown Soledad, stringing a few scraps of paper and cigarette butts along behind it. The breeze is steady; just as powerful as to cool the humid evening air. A lone, sitting streetlight casts a glowing orangey hue across the avenue towards old Suzy's place, which rests on the intersection of two unwonted roads, rarely acknowledged by those who lived in Soledad, but frequently visited by particular men of the working class. It is in this dishonorable setting that an unamused George sits down for a rest. The aubergine velvet chair in which he lays his figure is meant to be snug and smooth, yet it provides him little comfort to earlier events.

New York City has almost always been a center for people to move up both the social and economic ladder, even in the nineteenth century, where both Stephen Crane and Edith Wharton set their stories for two troubled and worrisome women. Stephen Crane created the beautiful but troubled Maggie Johnson, placed in lower class New York City, having finer sensibilities than those around her, most especially her mother and Pete, her lover. On the other hand is Lily Bart, Edith Wharton’s creation, who is also set in New York City but at the higher end of the social class spectrum, and has finer sensibilities than almost everyone

Novelist, Armistead Maupin, in his novel, “Tales of the City,” reveals the story of the citizens and residents in their journey through life while living in San Francisco. Maupin’s purpose is to convey that each resident has different experiences, but since they all live in San Francisco and associate with Barbary Lane, they are connected. He adopts an ardent tone for the resident to appeal to the similar feelings and experiences that the readers have. Maupin begins this journey to San Francisco with Mary Ann. A native Clevelander, who decided that she will stay in the city after visiting for five days.The story starts with the movement of each character in either their activity space or foreign land (San Francisco). Within the novel unexpected

She is making the city hers by the way she always call it my country, my picnic spot, my dog run, my gym, and so on. It is very personal and it also appeal to ones emotion when mentioning World War II and her father: ”My earliest memories are of summer mornings in Central Park with my father after he came home from fighting World War II,” (Line. 1-4). Mentioning the War especially wake the American readers feelings, because of their for ever honour to the American army. It is her personal memory from her early days, which again makes it to her city. Making the essay so personal give the reader Susan Cheever sympathy when her parents force out of the city, it is not an objective perspective to the situation, which is why she has a very negative perspective to the life in a suburb. Unlike many others is she feeling very safe in New York and central park, even when she was running around alone as a little child. Years after she was told that when she assumed that she was alone, her parent were actually watching her the whole time, so her parents defiantly did not have the same feeling about the city as