Swamplandia Analysis

This story is mostly about a ten year old girl named Opal. she wants friends because she is new in Naomi, Florida. She also wants her mama, who left her when Opal was only 3 years old. In the book, Opal learned that she can’t hold onto something that wants to go.

Family In Jesmyn Ward’ novel “Salvage the Bones”, Ward uses a fifteen –year-old girl Esch as narrator to describe the 12-day life of a family living in Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, waiting for the hurricane comes. She wants to show that although they are poor, they can still form a family and help each other when emergency happens. She talks about the trivia happened in daily-life of that African American family and how the whole family prepared for the hurricane, in order to show the life and relationship of underclass African American people living in Mississippi.

The death of a loved one can result in a trauma where the painful experience causes a psychological scar. Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones explores the different ways in which people process grief when they lose a loved one. When young Susie Salmon is killed on her way home from school, the remaining four members of her family all deal differently with their grief. After Susie’s death, her mother, Abigail Salmon, endures the adversity of losing her daughter, her family collapsing, and accepting the loss of the life she never had the opportunity to live. Abigail uses Freud’s defence mechanisms to repress wounds, fears, her guilty desires, and to resolve conflicts, which results in her alienation and

In this story “The Bean Trees” by Barbara Kingslover we meet Taylor Greer, an average teenager from Pittman, Kentucky. Even though Taylor has never been through anything truly horrific in her life how can she truly understand how unpleasant the world can be? Taylor’s personal growth in the “The Bean Trees” is a part of an uncertain journey because Taylor is thrown into motherhood and forced to see the bad experiences people go through in life.

In the novel Salvage the Bones by Karen Ward describes the life of a family of 5 living in rural Mississippi, waiting for hurricane Katrina to strike. Esch Baptiste, being the only girl in the novel, showcases her motherly like attitude by taking charge and helping the family. Esch’s lack of knowledge from not having a mother forces her to think maturely to help aid the family to prepare for the hurricane. Her relationships with her brothers and Manny reveals different sides to Esch’s personality; allowing the reader to understand Esch’s character through the different relationships. Esch’s pregnancy also shows her motherly side to the story, as it is linked to her mother’s pregnancy

The characters in Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones are faced with the difficult task of overcoming the loss of Susie, their daughter and sister. Jack, Abigail, Buckley, and Lindsey each deal with the loss differently. However, it is Susie who has the most difficulty accepting the loss of her own life. Several psychologists separate the grieving process into two main categories: intuitive and instrumental grievers. Intuitive grievers communicate their emotional distress and “experience, express, and adapt to grief on a very affective level” (Doka, par. 27). Instrumental grievers focus their attention towards an activity, whether it is into work or into a hobby, usually relating to the loss (Doka par. 28). Although each character deals with

It is inevitable for someone to go through life and not ever have to feel the unfortunate feeling of grief. Eden Robinson provides a heart wrenching novel that gives readers the feeling of hope and doubt all at once. When a tragedy strikes it is in those moments that people show their true character. Although, when some people experience tragic situations they are never able to recover. Monkey Beach tells a story of a teenage girl named Lisa, who just so happens to face death, discrimination, and the spiritual world all at once. For Lisa she discovers who she is, ironically through the losses of others. Even though Lisa has to face many struggles in the novel, not only does it bring her closer with her culture, it lets her connect with people who have been disconnected.

The Everglades, a vast wetlands ecosystem made up of marshes and swamps, begins at Lake Okeechobee, a large lake in the center of Florida, and ends in the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Bay. It is nearly 50 miles across and 110 miles long (Hinrichsen), and when viewed from the air, appears to be miles and miles of shallow water flowing through thick mats of grass. This perception has earned it the name “River of Grass”. Although it does flow like a river, the flow is so incredibly slow that, from a distance, it doesn’t seem to move at all.

In Alice Sebold’s novel, The Lovely Bones, the Salmon family learns that their fourteen year old daughter, Susie Salmon, has been raped and murdered. Because of this her father, Jack, sister, Lindsey, and mother, Abigail, all go through their own respective journeys in order to accept this ordeal. During this time of grievance for Susie’s family, her father, Jack, believes that the person responsible for the murder of his daughter is his neighbour, a man named George Harvey, and reports this to detective Len Fenerman. However, Len Fenerman becomes too preoccupied with his affair with Abigail to aid Jack with his suspicions. Meanwhile, Susie’s younger siblings Lindsey and Buckley, try to learn how to cope with the loss of one of their very own, without their parent’s attention to aid them. In The Lovely Bones, Susie’s father, mother, and sister, all explore the theme of grief by going on their own pathways through the five stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, in order to come to terms with the brutal murder of their beloved Susie.

In author Cristina Henriquez’s novel The Book of Unknown Americans, the characterization of Alma Rivera is used to convey how grief and misery is magnified when all that a person had ever known has been taken away for some reason out of their control; it is only when they learn to give up control and forgive themselves, that they overcome the feelings of grief and guilt.

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.

A sibling is only missed once he or she has moved out. The donut isn’t nearly as good when it is being eaten, as it seems to be once it is gone. Things are easily taken for granted, as seen in Meredith Hall’s “Killing Chickens.” Hall incorporates her own personal stories, heartache, expirences, and family to reveal to the reader the act and effect of underappreciation. Through short syntax, imagery, and a distant tone, Hall shows how easy it is for things to be taken for granted.

Describing the Okefenokee Swamp are two very different passages. Both passages contain interesting ideas. However, one passage seems more statistical than the other. For example, passage 1 describes how big the entire place is. It basically gives you an overview of the entire place not just the swamp itself. Passage 2 describes exactly what is in the swamp. For example sentence 1 says, “Vast and primeval, unfathomable, unconquerable, bastion of cottonmouth, rattlesnake and leech, mother of vegetation, father of mosquito, soul of silt, the Okefenokee is the swamp archetypal, the swamp of legend, of racial memory, of Hollywood.” Yet, while describing what’s in the swamp area, the author gives off a feeling of suspense and then later in in the

The characters in Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones are faced with the difficult task of overcoming the loss of Susie, their daughter and sister. Jack, Abigail, Buckley, and Lindsey each deal with the loss differently. However, it is Susie who has the most difficulty accepting the loss of her own life. Several psychologists separate the grieving process into two main categories: intuitive and instrumental grievers. Intuitive grievers communicate their emotional distress and “experience, express, and adapt to grief on a very affective level” (Doka, par. 27). Instrumental grievers focus their attention towards an activity, whether it is into work or into a hobby, usually relating to the loss (Doka par. 28). Although each character deals with

This excerpt of Swamplandia, a novel by Karen Russell focuses on Hilola Bigtree, a performer who races alligators as she is watched by an audience and her family. It is in the point of view of the performer’s daughter, who has seen her mother perform before and is newly captivated each time. Since it is in her point of view, she is able to create an atmosphere where she can elevate her mother as an exquisite being. She has an admiration for her mother, both as a performer and in general, that is extremely clear. The tense narrative in the excerpt contributes to Hilola’s portrayal as indestructible. Russell portrays the narrator’s exaltation of her mother through the combination of generated and real tension by use of dark imagery and the contrast between her and the audience through sublime diction.