Swamp Angel: The Essence of Life

Twyla went from being prejudiced herself to accepting Robert for who she is and then realizing that they will always be on opposite sides. Roberta went from accepting Twyla to becoming prejudiced herself. When they saw each other again at the tree store, Roberta finally let out her worries to Twyla. She told Twyla that she did want to hurt Maggie but wanting to do that had left her feeling guilty (19). This left both girls actually wondering what did happen to Maggie. Finally realizing that their prejudiced ideas were

Anne Tyler’s “Teenage Wasteland” is a story about a modern day family of four and the relationship issues they experienced with each other. The story is presented in third person limited; however, the reader is shown much about how the mother of the family feels and the troubles she experiences in her relationships with her husband and children, primarily her son Donny. Daisy is portrayed as a mother who worries that she had failed Donny because of his continual disobedience toward the authority figures in his life. Donny is a teen who constantly misbehaves in school and in the story is described as “noisy, lazy, and disruptive; always fooling around with his friends, and would not respond in class.” (188). These behaviors lead Donny to

Despite an expanded outlook on the world, Luke and Anna find themselves in a place of vertigo as they struggle to come to terms with the harsh world that is Garra Nulla. The metaphor “some days she feels like a fly caught in an invisible web” establishes a visual of one who is confined by their negative experiences, unable to escape, whereas the description of “an invisible web” depicts an image of an unexpected challenge that has impacted on Anna’s initially idealistic view of country living. However, despite the couple’s dislocation and the destructive yet regenerative bushfires an overall feeling of hope at the end of the novella is reassuring. Lohrey delineates this through the symbolisation of the black swans at the closing stage of the novella. “Look”, she says, “the swans are back.” Representing a return to normality in their world as the re-emergence of the swans metaphorically represents the return of hope. The omniscient narrator reveals Anna’s inner dialogue “Ah, she says so you are leaving us. So you are on your way at last. But it’s okay, it’s alright; yes, she thinks, I am ready for this…” displaying that they are finally able to attain comfort over the grief of losing their son. Despite Anna’s and Luke’s negative experiences, the responder attains a feeling of reassurance as through the distinctive images created we observe a return to normality and ultimately a positive feeling of

My Antonia, by Willa Cather, is a novel about Jim Burden and his relationship and experiences growing up with Antonia Shimerda in Nebraska. Throughout the book Jim reflects on his memories of Nebraska and the Shimerda family, often times in a sad and depressing tone. One of the main ways Cather is able to provoke these sad emotions within the reader is through the suicide of Antonia’s father, Mr. Shimerda. His death was unexpected by everyone and it is thought that homesickness is what drove him to take his own life. Homesickness was surely felt by Mr. Shimerda, as it was by many, but it was the failure to adequately find a way to provide for his family that sent Mr. Shimerda into a

There comes a point in one’s life when they must recognize the hardships placed upon them, and instead of being ignorant of those hardships, they must confront them head-on. In “Marigolds”, a short story by Eugenia Collier, the main protagonist, Lizabeth, encounters various struggles that come with living in a poor town in rural Maryland during the Depression, allowing her to learn more about growing up and accepting reality with all its flaws. Lizabeth is a 14-year-old girl who feels a conflict between her inner child and her inner woman, as she is unable to do anything that satisfies both sides of her. She feels too old to be a child, yet too young to be a

In Sea Oak, George Saunders applies satire to examine social classes. Specifically, he utilizes the narrator’s aunt, Aunt Bernie, to explain a valuable lesson: one should appreciate what they have by making the most out of it. It is essential for us to acknowledge what we have, on the grounds that one day it might be gone. Inside Sea Oak, Aunt Bernie experiences two lives: a before life and an after-life.

In her short story, Good Country People, Flannery O’Connor employs all the elements of humor, irony and, paradox intermingled within the system of Christian belief in evil and redemption. This is no more evident than in the character of Joy, the daughter, who had lost a leg in a hunting accident at the age of 12 and who now has a wooden leg in his place. Throughout the story, it becomes increasingly clear that Joy’s physical affliction is closely paralleled by a spiritual one as well. As the narrative unfolds, the great lengths Joy has gone to recreate her inner self, her soul, are revealed in painstaking detail. It appears she has succeeded in fashioning her own soul into a spirit that is as hard and unyielding as the prosthesis that now takes the place of her missing naturally soft and flexible appendage.

When Mary visits Twlya on Easter, the clothing that she has on is seen as inappropriate for chapel, the fact that she did not catch on to Roberta’s mother not wanting to shake her hand, and also the fact that she did not bring her daughter lunch, provide very clear examples of the failures Twyla sees within her mother. Using words like “simple-minded,” “twitched,” and “groaned,” before admitting that, she “could have killed her”(page 242). Twlya effectively links the failures she sees in her mother with Maggie’s disability. Viewing Maggie’s impairments as the physical representation of Mary’s undesirable traits gives the audience an explanation for why Twlya initially reacted negatively toward Maggie, whose physical shortcomings remind Twlya of the shortcomings she sees within her own mother. Taunting Maggie as a child was Twyla seeking vengeance upon Mary. She was only paying attention to Maggie’s physical traits, while her allowing her actual personality to go

Tim Winton’s funny and sprawling saga, Cloudstreet is an Australian classic novel which shows a tightly structured narrative that charts twenty years of cohabitation of two contrasting working class families, the Pickles and the Lambs, thrown together in misfortune to live under one roof in No.1 Cloudstreet. Winton paints a nostalgic picture of Australia’s post-war past, evokes a time and place that no longer exists. Winton’s characters are a “restless mob” who individually are finding one’s place in the world or in society and each are searching for the meaning of life. We learn about Fish’s and Rose’s characters through a flexible, shifting narrative (cyclical) structure and omniscient point-of-view that gives us access to their thoughts and feelings.

In the short story “Sea Oak,” George Saunders presents a family that is struggling with life in the poor neighborhood of Sea Oak. The narrator works as a male stripper in Joysticks, run by Mr. Frendt. The story also revolves around Auntie Bernie, who dies, resurrects, and dies again after advising the narrator, his sister Min, and their cousin Jade to adopt unorthodox and immoral means of making it in life. Two main themes that emerge in Saunders’ work are grief and loss that people suffer in life, and how the society teaches to deal with them, including the loss of a fruitful life, lack of wealth and success, as well as death.

The Canadian novel ‘Crow Lake’ by Mary Lawson, published in 2002, was awarded in Canada as First Novel Award in the same year it was published and won the McKitterick Prize in 2003. The author Mary Lawson was born and brought up in a small farming community in southern Ontario. After graduating from McGill University, she moved to England in 1968. She still lives there with her husband and sons, though she returns to Canada every year. The story took place in a small town called Crow lake in northern Ontario. In this book Kate Morrison, the main character, leads the reader through her journey for healing from past mistakes dealing with her family. At the beginning, Kate who is seven, and her siblings Luke, Matt, and Bo, experienced a tough time surviving after their parents were killed in a car crash, which impacted them for the rest of their lives.

Eleanor, the protagonist, undergoes a difficult childhood which cause many of her repressed feelings to be expressed through supernatural experiences that are ambiguous. She took care of her ill mother for 11 years, until she died. That affected her tremendously. For example, during Theodora’s supernatural experience, Shirley Jackson displays how Eleanor’s inner child managed to let her grow anger and jealously towards Theodora. Eleanor felt like Hill House was giving Theodora more

In Sea Oak, George Saunders composes a story that examines social classes by applying satire. He uses the narrator's Aunt Bernie to teach a valuable lesson about life. The valuable lesson is that one should appreciate what they have in life my making the most out of it. It is essential for people to acknowledge what they have, on the grounds that one day it might be gone. In Sea Oak, Saunders represents two Aunt Bernie’s, a before life Aunt Bernie and an after-life Aunt Bernie.

In her short story, Good Country People, Flannery O’Connor employs all the elements of humor, irony and, paradox intermingled within the system of Christian belief in evil and redemption. This is no more evident than in the character of Joy, the daughter, who had lost a leg in a hunting accident at the age of 12 and who now has a wooden leg in his place. Throughout the story, it becomes increasingly clear that Joy’s physical affliction is closely paralleled by a spiritual one as well. As the narrative unfolds, the great lengths Joy has gone to recreate her inner self, her soul, are revealed in painstaking detail. It appears she has succeeded in fashioning her own soul into a spirit that is as

Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets opening scene features violence, which is a taboo subject during the time period he wrote the piece; “His coat had been torn to shreds in a scuffle, and his hat was gone. He had bruises on twenty parts of his body, and blood was dripping from a cut in his head”(946). The three children experience abuse, both physical and emotional, from the mother and the father in the early chapters of this work. Stephen Crane states, [ Youse allus fightn’, Jimmie, an’yeh knows it puts mudder out when yehs come home half dead, an’ it’s like we’ll all get a poundin’ (949).] Furthermore, this abuse is evidenced by the following quote from Stephen Crane [The mother’s massive shoulders heaved with anger. Grasping the urchin by the neck and shoulder she shook him until he rattled(949).] Violence is a