Prelude To Jumping In The River Analysis

When the Canal was built towns all along the route from Buffalo to Albany prospered from the revenue and the attraction the Canal brought with it. Whether the Canal was being used for business people, immigrants, settlers of the region, or tourists, the border-towns all had some appeal to these persons. After some time the state was continually asked to expand the Canal from the original route to include connecting canal routes. However, the same towns along the route from Buffalo to Albany had already been established along the lines of the original canal. These towns would need to be relocated in order to obey these new requests. This presented a major problem because the people in these towns had formed a life around the Canal and many of them made their income based of the Canal. The inhabitants of the towns changed their mentality from not wanting the Canal to invade on their lives, to it being an essential part of their lives they depended upon.

This is a book about a young woman named Sundara who is from Cambodia. Chamroeun is a guy who Sundaras parents want her to marry because it is custom in Cambodia that the parents pick who their children will marry. Sundara falls in love with Chamroeun but that has to end because he goes off to fight in the war. It is about how she lived with a group of people (tribe) and one day Khmer Rouge came and tried to take over their village, Phnom Penh. Sundara, her family and the rest of Phnom Penh ran to a boat and they sailed away, planning to go to America. Back then people from different countries were lead to believe that America was a perfect place and you could be or do anything you desired, well that obviously isn't the

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.

Everyone has a desire, something that they want to achieve or obtain for them. Whether it is ethical or immoral, having desires is almost inevitable. Sometimes these desires make people go through tough times. Tragic occurrences such as death and broken relationships shape the lives of people positively or negatively. In the following essay, “Many Rivers to Cross” and the short stories, “Two Kinds” and “Everyday Use”, the protagonists of these texts struggle to achieve their desire, but because of those struggles the main characters do eventually come to a revelation.

Have you ever needed easier access to the essential items to stay alive? This is specifically what the residents of the North-East thought around the year 1817. Carol Sheriff argues in her book, “The Artificial River” that the residents of the canal corridor actively sought after long-distance trade and therefore consumer goods that markets brought to their homes. The fact that people supported the Erie Canal at all "suggests that at least some aspired to engage in broader market exchange" (p. 11). The transformation of this region because of the Erie Canal is organized around six topics, each of which is covered by a chapter. They include the; Visions of Progress, the Triumph of Art over Nature, Reducing Distance and Time, the Politics of Land and Water, the Politics of Business, and the Perils of Progress.

In “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, we are given a piece of art that simply will leave you clueless unless, you understand the pain and frustration the man is going through; when choosing what route he feels will give him the most joy. In the poem a man is walking through the woods and he comes upon a fork. He who wants to take both roads chooses the route that he feels is traveled less on. Little does he know that both road have been equally traveled on. He who travels on the route that has fresher leaves lies to himself, by convincing himself that he will come back and take the other route. Though it was a very stressful and a hard decision for the man to make, many people are put into very similar situations like in John Updike’s A and P and as well as in James Joyce’s Eveline. Both Sammy and Eveline find it troubling to make a decision that will change their life completely.

Although influences beyond one’s control as well as limited options command one’s decisions, it is the individual’s choice to “jump”. The act of being “pushed” is beyond Super’s control, whereas the act of “jumping” is a willful decision. Thus, explains MacLeod (2008), “in the end, perhaps the fairest account is that Super was pushed into jumping” (p. 257). While the argument can be made that the act of jumping is an individual’s choice due to individual agency, MacLeod contends that consideration must be given to the comprehensive push and pull components which inform a person’s judgment. This perspective is comparative to the rationale that some people inevitably are victims of their own circumstance.

The Secret River by Kate Grenville focuses on the characterisation of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians and social expectations each may have in the 19th Century. Throughout the entirety of the novel Grenville discusses characters and how each adjust to their new environments whether it be the Aborigines or the non–Aboriginal Australians.

Decisions are shaped by one’s values and those values are not always correct. “A Secret Lost in the Water” by Roch Carrier, the narrator writes about the son that he has forgotten the “gift” that his father gave to him when he was young. His father taught him to dowse, but he did not value it, and lost his father’s treasure of knowledge. The son tries to dowse for a family friend who knows his father, but he fails at it; he is not able to hear the gushing water in his ears. He now regrets not valuing the important gift of dowsing water that he learned from his father in his childhood, and after he forgot it. The son valued writing more than his dad way of life so he made the choice of becoming a writer, he did not value it and ends up losing his “gift”. “The alder stayed motionless in my hands and the water beneath the earth refused to sing. Somewhere along the roads I’d taken since the village of my childhood I had forgotten my father’s knowledge” (page 106, Carrier). Now the son realizes that he has lost the gift his father gave him along his journey of becoming a writer. The son now regrets the decision he made of not continuing his father’s old-fashioned work.

In a later discussion, O’Brien said the chapter “On The Rainy River” is not a true story. The chapter is a fictionalized account of what would’ve happened if he ran away to avoid the draft like he wanted to. This same strategy was applied when he wrote “The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”. While O’Brien was in Vietnam, Someone likely joked about how easy it would be to bring a girl to their base. He takes the concept and makes uses it as a vehicle to discuss innocence. We are even told in the beginning to the chapter that the story comes from Rat Kiley who has a history of exaggeration and spicing up stories (Citation Needed for Paraphrase)

Kobe Bryant once said, “Everything negative - pressure, challenges - is all an opportunity for me to rise”. This quote is demonstrated in both A Night Divided and A Long Walk to Water as in both books the characters face great challenges that allow them to rise above others. In A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen Gerta and her family are divided by the Berlin Wall. Gerta’s oldest brother, Dominique, and father are in the west and Gerta her other brother, Fritz, and their mother are in the east. They decide to tunnel under the wall to get to the west for a better life and to get back to their family. This is their escape story. In the story, A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. Salva is in Sudan and his village is under attack by the rebels. He is separated from his family and must learn to survive the harsh conditions of Sudan to get to peace. The Salva’s family gets divided as and he is by himself. This is his account of his escape to the refugee camps. In both books, A Night divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen, and, A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park the authors use plot sequence to develop the theme, times of hardships and danger develop perseverance.

“And it hits me, not then, but today, thirty years later. Thirty years too late”(91). Those are the words of Jessamyn Hope when speaking about her experience with regret regarding her life’s decisions, the major theme for her essay. Her essay tells the story about how she failed to overcome two life challenges, one having a direct physical impact and the other having a delayed impact. The essay “The Reverse Dive” by Jessamyn Hope is a narrative essay looking to persuade its reader through the use of analogy, empirical evidence, and appeal to emotion that one should face their challenges while they can to avoid regrets.

A River Runs Through It is, deservedly so, the work that Norman Maclean will always be best known for. His 1976 semi-autobiographical novella tells what is really only a brief piece of the life story of two brothers who grew up together in the Montana wilderness; but the scope of this timeless tale of fishing, family, and religion extends beyond just a few months. It touches on the entirety of the complicated relationship between Norman Maclean and his parents, and his prodigal yet distant and troubled brother Paul. In masterful and stirring prose, Maclean examines the strength of their bond, and yet how neither he nor his family could keep Paul from self-destruction. Maclean also mulls over his and his family’s ideas about grace and man’s relation to nature. Maclean’s enthralling vision is delivered through the artistry of his writing, earning the book its deserved position as a classic of American literature. In 1992, a film adaptation of the novel was released,

Sometimes the hardest decisions are the most important, and are the ones that shape and sculpt your journey through life. Whenever I am faced with a dilemma, like whether to start a new episode of The Office on Netflix or to proofread my global history essay, I remember to take a step back to better analyze the situation which, at times can change my perspective.

Making decisions is no easy feat, especially when it comes to choices that have the ability to change the direction of one's life. Decisions like choosing what college to go to and what career path to head down are often encouraged to be deliberated as far as years in advance, solidifying the common belief that the more educated the decision, the better it is. English Canadian author Malcolm Gladwell challenges this notion by arguing that snap decisions made by the adaptive unconsciousness have the ability to be controlled and utilized to to become equally as powerful as conscious choices can be. Gladwell executes this message through a well written introduction split up into three parts; the first providing an extended example, the second