Stephen Heavily On Sensory Experiences

But this is rooted into what his grandpa taught him. As a child, Stephen was reprimanded by his grandpa many times for not doing things right. When Stephen is deciding to go with the group from Settlers Landing, the voice of his grandpa reminds him, “Don’t trust anybody.” The relationship between Jenny and Stephen is awkward because he is at first angry with her. The fight caused Stephen to distrust Jenny, but his love grows as he sees how much Jenny cares for him. As the book progresses, we find fewer mentions of Stephen’s grandpa, and Stephen becomes more open. The setting in the book changes as well, from Stephen’s desolate salvaging world to a home with civilized things that modern America has, with the exception of one thing: technology. The reason that Stephen was able to relate with the people of Settlers Landing was because they did not have the pleasure to be lazy. This made the transition gradual and kept Stephen’s trust levels to not have sudden drops. The setting change also changed him because he has been so used to disappointment from his grandpa reprimanding him to his mom dying, to where everything seems too good to be

As one of their conversations comes to an end, Stephen thinks, “I remained silent. Unlike me, he doesn’t seem to need anything more. I guess all his years alone have left him comfortable with himself… Sometimes the house is so quiet I feel like the only noise that fills my mind is what I’ve created myself. Remembered conversations come back to me as if my friends and family were right here in the room” (17).

The narrative then shifts to how he describes her and his feelings of her in his notebook, they are summed up in a single word ‘Pulse’. Stephen’s growing attraction towards Isabelle become increasingly apparent with his awareness of the way she moves and noticeably how she eats and drinks. “Her white hands seemed barely to touch the cutlery when they ate at the family dinner table and her lips left no trace of their presence on the wine glass”.

When the author’s father passed away, Wes was in shock, he said, “everything around you vanishes, all you hear is wind filling your ear, all you feel is the wind on your skin.... Your mind all but empties.” (Moore, 14) He couldn’t think or do anything. He was lost.

In “Sinners of an Angry God,” Jonathan Edwards depicts God as almighty yet wrathful and hell as a grotesque eternal home for sinners. Edwards uses personification, simile, and metaphors to make people to return to the righteous path.

The minister they had once sought for comfort and solace has become a seductive, mysterious stranger with whom nobody can identify. The congregation feels as though Hooper can reach into their souls and see all the inadequacy and sin hidden within. As expressed in the story, "Each member of the congregation, the most innocent girl, and the man of most hardened breast felt as if the preacher had crept upon them, behind his awful veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought." Because of his vow, the minister is forced into a life of solitude, forever lacking satisfaction and comfort.

The inner change of mankind is always caused by the irresistible change of situation, which influences people’s cognition. Moreover, due to the change of perspective, people are more likely to accept things that they have resisted before. In the novel Boo by Neil Smith, the main character Boo is an isolated person who believes science . After he is shot at school, he undergoes tremendous changes after his death and starts his new life in heaven, which is a surreal place for Boo. Through the transition of death, Boo changes his perspective of life, allowing him to change himself through friendship and love, which are absent from his living life.

The prominence of a few themes - amputation, fate and death - create the catharsis required in a tragedy, mainly incidents which “arousing] pity and fear,” (definition). The repetition of these eerie and morbid themes keep them at the forefront of a reader’s mind, and put them in an uneasy emotional state, leading to a sense of catharsis at the end of the long, marathon novel. One main motif through the novel is that of amputation, and armlessness, which come to symbolize loss, helplessness, and the way in which sometimes one’s hands are bound, at the will of something greater. For example, after Owen accidentally kills John’s mother, he borrows John’s stuffed armadillo, a prized playing toy, and returns it without its claws, rendering it “USELESS TO JohN QUOTE,” which Owen means to signify “QUOTE ABOUT IM AM GODS MESSENGER.” This theme is touched upon many more times, and becomes somewhat of an obsession for Owen, who repeatedly removes or adds arms to female figures, including John’s deceased mother’s dressmaker’s dummy, a large catholic stature of a saint, which he desecrates. In irony, or perhaps a fate Owen had foreseen, the novel concludes with Owen losing his arms, protecting a group of Vietnamese children, in his last act of heroism. In addition to the theme of amputation, the theme of fate, and predestiny from God, is woven throughout, particularly perpetuated by Owen, who sees himself as God’s instrument. Owen consistently reminds John of the certainty of fate, and is angered when John does not share his blind faith. Owen believed “there were no accidents; there was a reason for that baseball - just as there was a reason for Owen being small, and a reason for his voice. In Owen's opinion, he had INTERRUPTED AN ANGEL, he had DISTURBED AN ANGEL AT WORK, he had UPSET THE SCHEME OF THINGS (page 102).” Is it Owen’s blind

He compares what he hears to a “sea that overwhelms” or basically complete silence. Edgar also wants us to imagine complete darkness, fear, and hopelessness.

“Could I change it if I wanted, can I rise above the flood? / Will it wash out in the water, or is it always in the blood?” (Mayer). A question posed by the artist John Mayer holds true for the characters in Flannery O’Connor’s most famous novel, Wise Blood. In this novel, O’Connor paints a picture of a small town in the heart of the Bible Belt and the internal struggle of its inhabitants. The protagonist, Hazel Motes, procures a twisted version of the Gospel and evangelizes to those who are made to believe they are lost. Yet, according to the teachings of Haze, this picture that humans are inherently sinful and in need of saving is false. In this novel, Flannery O’Connor uses inanimate objects to show the attempts of Haze to replace what he knows to be true. Enoch Emory, on the other hand, struggles with a curse he believes he was born with – wise blood. The prevalent themes of symbolism and imagery in Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood represent the inner battle between spirituality and the human nature of rebellion.

noises and the utter silence are eerie. Sydney Lanier explains that upon the entering of the Saint

Kesey’s most obvious biblical reference lies in his exposure of societal flaws. Chief Bromden, Kesey’s narrator, displays remarkable insight into these resemblances when comparing the psychiatric ward setting to Hell, itself. An instance

puts fear in all those who do not follow the word of God by writing about hell and the punishment

Imagine, he says, the urgency, the panic that causes a dying man to be ‘flung’ into a wagon, the ‘writing’ that denotes an especially virulent kind of pain. Hell seems close at hand with the curious smile ‘like a devils sick of sin’. Sick in what sense? Satiated? Physically? Then that ‘jolt’. No gentle stretcher-bearing here but agony intensified. Owens imaginary is enough to sear the heart and mind.

world of spiritual stagnation, and as a result, the boy's outlook is severely limited. He is ignorant and therefore innocent. Lonely, imaginative, and isolated, he lacks the understanding necessary for evaluation and perspective. He is at first as blind as his world, but Joyce prepares us for his eventual perceptive awakening by tempering his blindness with an unconscious rejection of the spiritual stagnation of his world.