Romulus My Father Notes for Belonging Essay

I have lived in only one location my entire life: Edwardsville, Illinois. A peripheral suburb of St. Louis, it stands as the rare oasis of people in a desert of corn, pinned in its own personal bubble. Due to this blend of time and isolation, I developed a natural familiarity with my hometown. But, throughout my childhood, I longed to break free from the confines of the bubble and venture outward. However, this changed last summer, as I walked through Richards Brickyard, our family heirloom, that my great-grandfather, Benjamin Richards, founded over 120 years ago. I felt these childlike sentiments slip away. The bubble that had surrounded me for so long began to vanish, and the picture that it had been obscuring was slowly revealed.

In the town of Grover’s Corner Wisconsin, there lies a small farm town with all the small town aspects. The newspaper editor runs the newspaper from his own house as the doctor runs the clinic from his house. The small town being shown through the combination uses of one building, giving off the small town feel, “The town hall and post office combined; jail’s in the basement” (Wilder 4). The younger men have the jobs of delivering the milk and newspapers in the morning. “Joe Juniors getting up so as to deliver the paper” (Wilder 6). In Our Town there is Irony among the fact that the Joe Crowell graduated from the head of his high school class and his college class, then went and died in the war. Throughout the story, the author Thornton Wilder uses mood and tone to really help describe and explain what the play is telling us.

Murray describes a journey into an unknown Sawmill town. As he drives “through town” you experience the various aspects of life in a rural area and the observations he makes. From “lithe men working” on cutting down trees and making planks and “weatherboards” out of cut down logs. To women, “sweeping her front step” and doing other various jobs around the houses. You capture the emotion and loneliness being represented of the people living in the town “as you speed away” and the men sit their “thinking of the future”.

People and the landscape are inextricably linked and consequently each play a role in shaping the other. The texts we have studied show the implications for the individuals present based on their treatment of the landscape, highlighting the connection between the two. Both Judith Wright in her poems “Brother and Sisters” and “The Hawthorne Hedge” as well as Michael Wilding in his short story “As Boys to Wanton Flies” showcase the emotional ties between the individuals and the landscape. Both composers, through their chosen text demonstrate how the individuals are connected, influenced and shaped by the landscape showing that they are not merely inhabitants but are a part of their chosen landscape. This has been done to highlight the involvement

The section begins with a description of the town, “After rain, or when snowfalls thaw, the streets, unnamed, unshaded, unpaved, turn from the thickest dust to the direst mud”(Capote 1). By including these details in the description of the town it shows that the town is a very old fashioned town that is behind the societies that are in more developed, larger cities in America. Capote goes on, “The bank closed in 1933, and its former counting rooms have be converted into apartments”(Capote 2). With the bank having been closed around the time of the depression it shows that the town no longer trusted the government after the banks failed them and they do all their business between themselves. The town is a very closed off from the national system and the only connection they have is through their post office. All these descriptions cause the town to be a perfect picture of a safe, rural community where nothing bad happens and people all depend on each other.

After reading Our Town often readers will conclude that Wilder criticizes our lack of appreciation for life. On the contrary, Wilder completely obliterates the idea that such admiration is remotely possible, and presents the reader with an ultimatum surrounding life’s appreciation in which neither option is ideal.

In addition to including the most boring of details, Capote uses a great deal of imagery to describe the town and its residents. Focusing mostly on visual appeal, he describes the "sulphur-colored paint" and "flaking gold" to reveal the town's appearance and has-been status. Portraying the area as one that has seen better days, Capote writes about the "old stucco structure" that no longer holds dances, the crumbling post office, and the bank that now fails to serve its original purpose.” Combining visual imagery with hints of desolation, Capote attempts to reveal the gray and boring nature of the town through its appearance. He does not, however, rely only on visual details; in describing the local accent as "barbed with a prairie twang," he uses both auditory and visual appeal to make one imagine a ranch-hand's tone of voice and pattern of speech as he describes the events of his farming days. The "hard blue skies and desert-clear air" contribute to a feeling of emptiness, an emotional vacancy that seems omnipresent in the small town. Finally, even "the steep and swollen grain elevators" that represent the town's prosperity are seen in a solemn and mysterious light, as Capote makes certain to mention that the townspeople camouflage this abundance without explaining why they choose to do so.

In the detailed story of an impoverished family during the late 1900’s, Jeannette Walls describes her experience from the young age of 3, up until adulthood. The family of 6, with Rex Walls as the father, Rose Mary as the mother, and her three siblings, Lori, Brian and Maureen, were constantly moving throughout the country with little to no food or cash. The memoir shows how dysfunctional the family was, but never seemed to force the reader to condemn the parents. In a life of poverty, the have to move for own to town, and often lived in various mining towns. Although they each found something they learned to love (like Jeannette’s rock collection) in the desert, they had to leave them behind once Rex’s alcoholism only worsened, and they ran

By the late 1960s, nearly all Valley dwellers except for those who had arrived very recently had had enough of the unbridled development of the Valley. And therein was the problem—those who arrived after the end of the War only understood what they saw when they came on the scene. They did not see and, at least by the early 1960s, could not fathom, what had been here before they arrived. All they saw when they arrived was that the Valley was nicer than Detroit, or Pittsburg or Chicago, or wherever they came from. The way things looked upon their arrival was their reference point. So it was not until the Valley had become an endless landscape of housing tracts, strip malls, and paving with little or no visual relief, and smog so bad in some places that it made you sick, that the voters finally moved to stop the

With the same command of language and imagery, Capote details the success of the agricultural community who had for “…the last seven years…[experienced] droughtless beneficence (5). In essence, the community has experienced much success financially. Capote provides further interpretation of the community’s success: “The farm ranchers in Finney County, of which Holcomb is a part, have done well; money has been made not from farming alone but also from the exploitation of plentiful natural-gas resources... its acquisition is reflected in the new school, the comfortable interiors of the farmhouses, the steep and swollen grain elevators” (5). The society which Luce discusses in his 1941 essay, one which represents ‘the abundant life,’…produced by ‘free economic enterprise’” (qtd. in Foner 863), is representative of Holcomb. In essence, the citizens of Finney County were, for the most part, living the idealistic American life.

The author could have just said that the town was old; however, Lee continues on to describe the town in detail using words with timeworn connotations. This gives the reader an even deeper understanding on the town which seems lost in its own primordial time where the view from the street remains as unchanged as the view of the people themselves.

It is known that unlike the urban areas, residents of rural areas report a higher satisfaction. This is because of the place centric values that Miss Daisy was able to obtain. The close geographic proximity of family and friends made Miss Daisy’s life much easier. For example, her son lived really close from her home and would visit often to check up on her. Another example is that Hoke was able to drive through a storm to bring Miss Daisy some coffee and some company. Miss Daisy had a high involvement in local activities such as going to the Jewish service, playing Mahjong with friends or even going to hear Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. give a speech. These availabilities gave her a community satisfaction as well as personal life satisfaction.

When Willy and Linda purchased their home in Brooklyn, it seemed far removed form the city. Willy was young and strong and he believed he had a future full of success. He and his sons cut the tree limbs that threatened his home and put up a hammock that he would enjoy with his children. The green fields

This is demonstrated at the end of the play when Theseus decides that “ [He] will overbear [Egeus] will,/These couples shall eternally be knit.-”(4.1.186-187). This demonstrates how Theseus seems to be affected slightly by his propinquity to the world ruled by feelings and emotions , as he decides to exonerate Hermia for her disobedience and allow the Lovers to join himself and Hippolyta on their wedding day. The woods are a rich symbolic place in literature: they are a going back to nature, a return to something which is simple and unsophisticated. The forest is a place of freedom as opposed to the restrictiveness Athenian the law of society, where one can break the rigidity of concentration of the city

In addition to the theme of the story is also Ambivalence can be seen in several of the character. Among Antonius character even though he left the army in the war to follow Cleopatra, but he expressed regret that can be seen in the famous speech.