Nikki's Legacy

By allowing social status, skin color, and money to be the main defining factors of a person’s worth, that person struggles to live an open and ambiguous life. A woman cannot define precisely who she is and what she represents until the moment of her death, though she is constantly surrounded by criticism and the stereotypes of society. If a man or his community have already decided that he is superior, worthless, or content when he has only lived a portion of his life, he will struggle to maintain this rigid identity for himself, resisting even small or positive changes in himself.

A significant event in one's life forces a person to reevaluate their current situation and decide how they will adapt to a new situation, or cause them to look back on the steps they took to get into that situation. In life as well as in the literature Crosswalk In The Rain, and THE TENT DELIVERY WOMAN’S RIDE, people have to adapt to what is happening in their lives, despite conditions they may have been through in the past. In life at some point there will be crossroads that a person must cross, they can either look back at what they have done to end up in that position or they can look forward and see what they must do to continue moving forward.

As everyone in life goes through tragic moments in life some of us have to pushed a little harder and have to straighten up in order to have successful life. At the end of the book they say a quote that I truly feel is correct “ Read these words, absorb their meanings, and create your own plan to act and leave a legacy” by Tavis

A comment from Beatty when he’s explaining the breaking down of society also clearly shows their society’s ability to forget people’s lives and how they lived.“‘Let’s not quibble over individuals with memoriams. Forget them.’” (60) It’s easy for people nowadays to restrict someone’s life down to just a page or two in memoriams and this is something Beatty brings up in his rant. Bradbury is speaking about how forgettable and unimportant someone is after death. People hear their neighbor died and go to the funeral but in the end their neighbor’s life is just gone and ended and their memoriam is just thrown to the trash and they are

“In the dawn there is a man progressing over the plain by means of holes that he is making in the ground. He uses an implement with two handles and he chucks it into the hole and he enkindles the stone in the hole with his steel hole by hole striking the fire out of the rock which God has put there. On the plain behind him are the wanderers

Life, the existence of an individual human being. All humans have the desire to “exist” as one would say, to become influential in this world. But is it not possible to exist once one is gone? Famous film director Alfred Hitchcock argues that characters are more important dead than alive. In this life, in order to become important or even cared about, one must die. Death has become the key to success because everyone misses those who are gone. Literary work such as Macbeth, A Lesson Before Dying, Are You Worth More Dead Than Alive? and, How the King of Pop Made 1.5 Million, have proven that not only characters but humans hold more value once they are dead.

Many authors use storytelling as a vehicle to convey the immortality of past selves and those who have passed to not only in their piece of literature but in their life as an author. In Tim O’Brien’s work of fiction The Things They Carried, through his final chapter “The Lives of the Dead,” O 'Brien conveys that writing is a matter of survival since, the powers of storytelling can ensure the immortality of all those who were significant in his life. Through their immortality, O’Brien has the ability to save himself with a simple story. Through snippets of main plot event of other chapters, O’Brien speaks to the fact the dead have not actually left; they are gone physically, but not spiritually or emotionally. They live on in memories as Linda lives on in the memories of O’Brien and as many of his war buddies live on through his stories. He can revive them and bring them back to the world through his writings and through these emotions or events he experienced with them and with their deaths can make them immortal. Through the reminiscent stories of Linda and O’Brien’s war companions and himself, O’Brien conveys that storytelling allows people to reanimate others who have died and past selves to create an immortality of humans.

She gave it to him as “a token of her truest feeling for him” (13). This pebble to him represents friendship that they share. He thinks of their friendship as “Sun and waves and gentle winds all love and lightness” (S7) (13). The sun and waves represents how happy he is to have her as a friend. When he thinks of her picking up the pebble from the sand he felt the departure of (S8) “where things came together but also separated (13)” The sand represents separation they may be in yet he feels her

     Indeed, we toil the best of our days, and “fritter away our lives by detail. ( )”, in order to earn the perishable items we acquire by destroying the ever resilient gift we have been given. We all live “meanly, likes ants… ( )”, and we forget to stop and look at our lives from a different perspective. In fact, our minds are constipated with thoughts we entertain to feel important, and do the job, to once again achieve greatness through our “things.” Our lives are so complex for such unjust reasons, and we all ponder the question that a wise man once asked, “why, should we live with such hurry and waste of life? ( )”

The world of Ernest Hemingway’s “Big Two-Hearted River” exists through the mostly unemotional eyes of the character Nick. Stemming from his reactions and the suppression of some of his feelings, the reader gets a sense of how Nick is living in a temporary escape from society and his troubles in life. Despite the disaster that befell the town of Seney, this tale remains one of an optimistic ideal because of the various themes of survival and the continuation of life. Although Seney itself is a wasteland, the pine plain and the campsite could easily be seen as an Eden, lush with life and ripe with the survival of nature.

At first, the parents decide that they are lucky to have their little girl. It was just "a chain of lucky events" (Munro 469) that kept their child from drowning. The narrator begins the "could have been's" and the if only's" that life is full of. Dwelling on the other possibilities does not remove the reality that does exist. It is like "laying your finger on the wire to get a safe shock, feeling a bit of what it is like, then pulling back" (Munro 470). If the "what if's" did happen the narrator realizes that her life could had been changed drastically in a matter of

“Big Two Hearted River”, a semi-autobiographical short story by Ernest Hemingway, is a story about the main character, Nick, returning to Big Two Hearted River in order to recover from his inner wounds. Nick Adams goes on a journey alone in nature for a therapeutic purpose as he suffers from PTSD. However, Hemingway purposely avoided any direct discussion regarding to Nick’s mental wounds. The absence of the discussion is contributed by Hemingway’s writing style, the Iceberg principle. Hemingway focuses explicitly on what occurs on the surface without mentioning actual theme. This indicates that the theme of self-healing cannot be uncovered by simply looking at the text itself. In order to comprehend the actual theme of the story, the character development of Nick must be examined. This is possible since Nick Adams is a recurring character of Hemingway’s stories. The two preceding stories of “Big Two Hearted River”, “Now I lay me” and “A Way you’ll Never Be”, directly discusses Nick’s suffering from shell-shock and how he comforts himself by returning to Big Two Hearted river in his mind. The two short stories will be analyzed and connected to “Big Two Hearted River” in the essay first. This will provide a strong understanding of Nick’s psyche and the reason behind his return to nature. Then, “Big Two Hearted River” the short story itself will be carefully analyzed.

Within this novel, Morrie embraced his mortality with “love, acceptance and open communication” as he gave the reader a glimpse into what he considered to be “The Meaning of Life.” Using Mitch Albom as a vessel to pen his “own culture values,” Morrie was able to define the contradictions between others vision of “popular culture values” and his style of truly living through “life, death and reincarnation.” With the use of materials obtained from the course, this writer was able to summarize various observations about Morrie’s “final lecture” on life, death and family amidst his perceptual understanding that reorganized “aging as growth and not

Connell utilizes the strength of the story by combining the setting with mood to observe the reaction of the characters when the environment around them changes. For example, as the "poisonous [air]'; engulfs the yacht, it gives Whitney "a mental chill; a sort of sudden dread'; as Rainsford and him sail precariously towards the island (62). Whitney, frightened by the grim nature around him, feels like a wounded bird fighting for its life among the hungry predators hiding in the unknown. The shroud of darkness completely surrounds not only Whitney, but the entire yacht which leaves him in a state of anxiety because of what lies in cover amid the dreadful island. Furthermore, as the eyes of Zaroff scatter over the island, searching for Rainsford, "Rainsford froze there, every muscle tensed'; afraid that the eyes will see (73). With shelter high above in the trees, away from Zaroff, Rainsford awaits for the perfect moment where he will jump down from among the sky and pounce on Zaroff like a leopard killing its prey. Consequently, while Rainsford keeps repeating the moment of victory inside his mind; the self-confidence, overflowing out of his veins, develops into uncertainty. Since Zaroff possesses the island and with his military expertise, scouts the island for any advantages in hunt; Rainsford fears that Zaroff will counter the surprise attack and kill him, making the hunter become the prey. When Connell interweaves setting into mood, the method he uses touches

Even though, jerry wants to be accepted and in control of his life, the harsh reality is Jerry’s identity wants to be with his mother. Further throughout the story the tunnel is shown as the symbol of the story; letting the reader know that Jerry senses that it is the door to his identity. Additionally, the chronological structure is effective throughout the story in showing the process of growing up and an insight into Jerry’s transformation. Moreover, the 3rd person omniscient narrator and formal register presents the character of Jerry and his mother in a distanced way and without a biased perspective. This suggests the sense of detachment and alienation that Jerry is starting to feel from his mother as he is growing up and wanting to make his own choices. The story is firstly introduced with a description of the mother carrying a bright striped purse. It was this and other uses of describing Jerry’s surroundings with the use of bright colours symbolising jerry’s childish world and thoughts. In addition, the thought of jerry’s childish thoughts shows his struggle to establish his own identity. The author writes that Jerry goes swimming “over a region where rocks lay like discoloured monsters under the surface”. The simile shows that even though Jerry wants to be independent and swim alone in the bay, he’s terrified of being alone in the water and not seeing his mother again. Briefly, Jerry learns that you cannot