Spoon River Anthology Analysis

In the short allegory “The Birthmark”, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a newly-wed couple becomes consumed by the existence of a small birthmark on the wife’s face. When the wife, Georgiana, allows her husband Aylmer, a scientist, to remove the birthmark, both realize that Georgiana will inevitably sacrifice her life for the sake of its removal. As the story progresses, so does the confliction of the newlyweds as they realize exactly what the birthmark symbolized to and for each other. Hawthorne’s hallmark use of symbolism also provides a ‘perfect’ glimpse into the mindset of two themes of psychological conflictions: perfectionism and codependency. Hawthorne seems to share this story as a possible moral of the hidden pathos we place upon the ones we love, and the invisible marks or standards we place upon ourselves for the ones we love.

In “The Author to Her Book,” Bradstreet is inundated in indecision and internal struggles over the virtues and shortfalls of her abilities and the book that she produced. As human beings we associate and sympathize with each other through similar experiences. It is difficult to sympathize with someone when you don’t know where they are coming from and don’t know what they are dealing with. Similar experiences and common bonds are what allow us to extend our sincere appreciation and understanding for another human being’s situation. In this poem an elaborate struggle between pride and shame manifests itself through an extended metaphor in which she equates her book to her own child.

Waking up one morning thinking you are going to die can be very life changing, but not for Leah Levitawitz, a woman who is so miserable with her life that the sign of death does not faze her. By Leah being stuck in her old ways makes her bitter towards the world. Leah once thought of the world as a dark place, being unhappy, bitter, and resenting the people who had helped her; but had a change of heart once the warehouse was moved and the window was fixed. In the story, “Windows,” written by Bernice Morgan, Morgan demonstrates how being stuck in the past can have a negative effect in the present.

Writing can be frustrating when a writer like Gail Godwin knows her capability without expressing her true potential on the first draft. Godwin’s watcher replies to Godwin’s writing in regard to her writing that reads “fail”. Ironically the person that failed the writer was the writer herself. A writer needs these emotions to create new and possibly better ideas by branching

Sonja Livingston is a talented and unique young writer who uses an unusual structure in her work. Structure is the form that an author’s writing takes; how the sentences are formed and how they are placed together to create the work. In Ghostbread, her award-winning novel, Ms. Livingstone uses a freeform chapter structure that, while roughly in chronological order, is not necessarily linear. In chapter 3, Ms. Livingston speaks of her father, “I had no father” (6), and then in chapter 4 she speaks of a childhood friend, “My favorite person should have been Carol Johnson.” (7) Through the course of the book, Ms. Livingston chronicles her life from birth to age 18, but it is not a strict telling; she meanders and explores events as they are remembered, not bound by a rigid timeline. The structure of her work is unconventional and through that unconventional structure she gives the reader an experience that is more like poetry than a conventional novel. Towards the end of Ghostbread, Ms. Livingston contemplates the effect that her miscarriage and the revelation of her sexual activity will have on her relationship with her mother with this passage, “Sex. Pregnancy. Men. What were they to her? Failure? Freedom? Power? Paths she followed, but did not prescribe. At least not aloud.” (212). The use of partial sentences and imagery are elements commonly associated with poetry and it gives

Tim O'brien's "On the Rainy River" is a true story told by a 41 year old of his life at the age of 21. The fact that O'brien is writing this 20 years later adds a new aspect to the story. He describes himself as a young man with the world in his back pocket. O'brien has just graduated from Macalester College and has a free ride to Harvard. Unfortunately, his storybook world collapses when he receives a draft notice for the Vietnam war, a war that he has "taken a modest stand against"(44) in 1968.

Arguably the most popular poet in America, Billy Collins provides readers with two types of poetry that is nothing like typical poetry. One of his unique styles is writing as if the poem could be read like a novel. The other type brings humor and whimsy to his work, yet he hints at a seriousness that lies beneath the surface. Both styles of poetry are easy to read, but take a second look to realize what the Collins is intending the reader to understand. Billy Collins is an exceptionally talented poet whose writing at first can be taken to be a simple comedy but when read more carefully, it can be interpreted as a far more complex script. First readings of the poems I Chop Some Parsley While Listening To Art Blakey's Version Of Three Blind

"You think because I am her mother I have a key, or that in some way you could use me as a key? She has lived for nineteen years. Over and over, we are told of the limitations on choice--"it was the only way"; "They persuaded me" and verbs of necessity recur for descriptions of both the mother's and Emily's behavior. " In such statements as "my wisdom ! came too late," the story verges on becoming an analysis of parental guilt. With the narrator, we construct an image of the mother's own development: her difficulties as a young mother alone with her daughter and barely surviving during the early years of the depression; her painful months of enforced separation from her daughter; her gradual and partial relaxation in response to a new husband and a new family as more children follow; her increasingly complex anxieties about her first child; and finally her sense of family balance which surrounds but does not quite include the early memories of herself and Emily in the grips of survival needs. In doing so she has neither trivialized nor romanticized the experience of motherhood; she has indicated the wealth of experience yet to be explored in the story’s possibilities of experiences, like motherhood, which have rarely been granted serious literary consideration. Rather she is searching for

Both “Hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” center around two women who are repressed by their lives’ circumstances. However, outside of their feelings, their situations could not be more different. Miss Emily Grierson is trapped in a life of solitude, despondency, and desperation. The girl, or “Jig”, is equally as desperate, but her repression is not born of loneliness or restraint—it is the child of her freedom. Repression comes in several forms, but it will suffocate and consume you.

Flannery O’Connor and Nathaniel Hawthorne are two American Literature short story writers. O’Connor’s short stories focused on the southern gothic genre which consisted of painful experiences with a spiritual angle. Nathaniel Hawthorne focused his work on the dark romanticism genre. Both of their works, explored conflicts between good versus evil and contain characters who discovered epiphanies which are sudden realizations or new perspectives. But the way that these two writers portray the epiphanies of their characters are very different but in some ways are similar. Flannery O’Connor brings her characters to a point where it is no longer possible for them to continue in their same manner therefore they undergo an epiphanal experience. Nathanial Hawthorne uses epiphanies in his characters to show a moment of truth where the main character has the opportunity to change his/her way of thinking or behavior. O’Connor’s use of epiphanies in her characters gives a more intense feel to the audience such as in the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” than Hawthorne’s approach to epiphanies in “The Birthmark”.

During the course of a person’s life, a decision is made as to which direction their life should follow. Most people are encouraged by their loved ones to make this choice for themselves. When Kelly Cherry was twelve, she announced to her musically devoted, string quartet violinist parents that she was going to quit piano lessons and become a writer, in response, “[her] mother said that she would rather kill [her] than have [her] turn out like [her] big brother, a beatnik. She ran to the kitchen to get [a] butcher knife” (“Kelly Cherry”). Needless to say, she was not supported in this career path. Throughout the course of her early writing career, she would hear that she “had no talent for writing” (“Kelly Cherry”). Still, she continued to write, occasionally quitting again and again, like a smoker, only to pick it up again (“Kelly Cherry”). Continually she told herself, “You are not a writer” until one day she revised this to, “If you don’t write your books, no one else will” (“Kelly Cherry”).

The Spoon River Anthology, written by Edgar Lee Masters in 1915, was a unique piece of work in both style and structure. There are over two hundred “stories” told by the dead people who once lived in the town of Spoon River. The lives and dreams of these people are written as poems. The poetry itself is an excellent example of early modernist style.

In “The Author to Her Book,” Bradstreet is awash in indecision and internal conflicts over the merits and shortfalls of her creative abilities and the book that she produced. This elaborate internal struggle between pride and shame is manifested through a painstaking conceit in which she likens her book to her own child.

In Jean Rhys’ novel “Good Morning Midnight” the reader is introduced to Sasha Jansen. Sasha is a run of the mill alcoholic who has seemingly been handed the most dreadful hand in life. Her husband deserted her, her child died, she is poor, and mostly—she is isolated and alone. Her viewpoints on the world, and herself, are very cynical and pessimistic. Sasha’s story details her downfall in a stream of consciousness narrative that takes the reader from one thing to the next and back again. It tells of the things she has sensed which leads to the inevitable end of hopelessness which causes her to suffer severe disconnection from the world around her. The problem is, absolute hopelessness is the best thing that Sasha could find for herself.

In Chapters Four and Five of A Room of One 's Own,, the focus on Women & Fiction shifts to a consideration of women writers, both actual writers and ultimately one of the author 's own creation.