The Hurt Man

The first motif of the story is Gravestones. Gravestones symbolize the literal and metaphorical silence in the story. Gravestones represent the literal silence as “for years that quiet company had mocked his restlessness,” and that “his desire for change and freedom... But now all desire for change had vanished,

The short story “Hurt” by Alden Nowlan offers a glimpse into the effect of childhood relations. The story is a recollection about the narrator, Skip’s, childhood friend, Stevie, and how he interacted with the people around him. Stevie lives a difficult life but learns from the hardships instead of turning bitter. The most influential relationship children have in their early life is with their parents. In "Hurt" Stevie's father does not take care of him and just let’s him do what he wants. This has made their relationship hard and has also caused Stevie to be very hard on himself. He is smart but afraid of others hurting him. However this fear has not prevented him from making friends with Skip, in their friendship he is very kind and teaches him about life. The way Stevie sees himself and his relationships with others have shaped him into an intelligent but closed off person.

For example, the first time death is symbolized in this story is when the family passes a graveyard. “They passed a large cotton field with five or six graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island. ‘Look at the graveyard!’ the grandmother said, pointing it out. ‘That was the old FAMILY burying grounds.’” (99). O’Connor purposely mentions the specific number of graves, one grave for each person in the car. She also mentions that it was a “family” burying ground. This symbolism foreshadows that the family will soon face death. When the family is driving through the town, the grandmother remembers the old plantation is called “Toombsboro”. This plantation’s name is brought up to remind the reader of death. Toombsboro sounds like the tomb, symbolizing the family will soon face their tombs. Another description that is given to symbolize the deaths is that of the Misfits car. “It was a big black battered hearse-like automobile” (103). A hearse is a vehicle designed to carry coffins for funerals. This description also foreshadows the death of the family before the Misfit arrives. Lastly, the “woods, tall and dark and deep” (105) represent the family’s death. The woods symbolize the unknown and fear we have for death, which is considered dark and deep. The Grandmother stood in front of the woods reminding us that death is always near and behind us. Just like the woods, death can be a scary thing

The last line in the poem “and since they were not the ones dead, turned to their own affairs” lacks the emotions the reader would expect a person to feel after a death of a close family member. But instead, it carries a neutral tone which implies that death doesn’t even matter anymore because it happened too often that the value of life became really low, these people are too poor so in order to survive, they must move on so that their lives can continue. A horrible sensory image was presented in the poem when the “saw leaped out at the boy’s hand” and is continued throughout the poem when “the boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh…the hand was gone already…and that ended it”, this shows emphasis to the numbness the child felt. The poem continues with the same cold tone without any expression of emotion or feelings included except for pain, which emphasizes the lack of sympathy given. Not only did the death of this child placed no effect on anyone in the society but he was also immediately forgotten as he has left nothing special enough behind for people to remember him, so “since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs”. This proves that life still carries on the same way whether he is present or not, as he is insignificant and that his death

When we think about our existence in terms of how we are humans, we take into account what happens in a typical human life. The universal qualities of human existence is the most prominent theme in the book. This theme is noticeable, multiple times throughout Our Town, by Thornton Wilder. One time the theme is shown in the book in the beginning, where the Stage Manager talks about the layout of Grover’s Corners. The same theme is repeated, when George and Emily are hanging out and they get ice-cream sodas. In another moment the theme is shown in its infancy stage, in the Stage Manager’s discourse about the twins being born in a Polish Town. The theme gradually culminated in the book, towards the end, where Emily’s funeral takes place. We

There is a great amount of death in this novel, both literal and figurative. The poverty stricken town of Norvelt is dying and most of the original townspeople have either died or moved away. Gantos says, “‘There are two hundred and fifty houses in five sections on this map with the names of the original owners. If you count up the red pins you’ll see that all but nine- eight now that Mrs. Slater has passed- of the original owners have died or left since 1934’” (Gantos 35). The empty houses in the town are starting to be sold and moved away to another town with the help of Jack’s father, so the town itself is not growing, but shrinking. This symbolizes that less and less people care to remember and learn from the past and their attention moves to different, more immediate events.

b) This play has several strong themes. Identify one of them. How does the symbol of the house contribute to the theme? Support your answer with two references to the play.

The tone of the story, objects, and the sentence structures help us relate to the dark theme. "Speaking softly the names of our dead" and "now that summer has long since fled and time has had its way." these quotes are examples of how the writer's word choice affected how we feel about the story. The two quotes listed in the previous sentence give a dark, like death, feeling. The first quote gives a sense of hearing reminders of those how have passed in the wind. The second quote gives an understanding of "how time has had its way" an abundance amount of things significant to the narrator happened during the summer like him helping his younger brother walk as well as helping him accomplish other things that everyone thought he would never be able to do. Now all of those memories seemed to have been ages ago when in reality it might have been only a couple of months ago. Thereupon the unfortunate event of Doodle's death in the middle of August making it seem as if time were flying by. "summer was dead, but autumn had not yet been born, that the ibis lit in the bleeding tree" this quote is foreshadowing awful events that are to come. We later find out that it had been in the summer when the two young boys bonded. It might have started with pride, but it ended with the forming of an improbable

The first sign of symbolism in the story is fire which in the book stands for all the death that happens. The first example of fire in the story is Madam Shcacter when she sees the fire outside of the train car. Next is the burning ditch of babies. They would bring in truckloads of babies and dump them into the fiery ditch.

As Part I begins, it is almost entirely told from the view point of a single character, while the remaining parts become more interconnected, switching back and forth between multiple points of view in the same chapter. If I had the time, I could impose a fictional map over an actual map of East L.A. and recreate the neighborhood based on description from the novel. On one street I would have the butchers and Ray’s shop. Another neighborhood will have Concha’s beauty shop or the Chinese cemetery. I can map out the living side of 1st street. Then, I could mark the movement of each character from chapter to chapter, indicating where their movement overlaps. I can mark the corner where the butcher witnessed Ben and the little boy get hit by a truck (114). I could mark the ministry where Ermilia throws a bone to a dog while Turtle witnesses the act (213). This mapping would produce physical intersections and lines that could be seen as the arteries of the book. I haven’t quite processed what it means that this mapping would lead to most of the main characters being in the same place at the same time. It could be seen as the heart of the novel, but what does it say that the heart of the novel ends in death? Perhaps, as Ermilia started to feel as she aimlessly and hopelessly navigated the city that night, despite all these arteries, interconnections, and possibility

Where are situated in hot day of August in Pittsburg, 1911. In a boarding house owned by Seth Holly and his wife Bertha Holly, two humble persons offering shelter

During the short story Mat is growing up. He is born unexpected but he is still very much appreciated. His parents watch him closely so he does not get hurt but this change as he becomes older. At the age of five, the household gets busier and Mat is now more independent.

This entire sequence symbolizes that in this seemingly pleasant and normal family town, is a dark and evil underworld. This theme is repeated and elaborated throughout the

The imagery shows the main point of the poem which is children going through a tough time when they are not supposed to and all they can do is cry at the moment. A symbolism that was found in the poem was the death of alice. The death of alice symbolize joy because Alice was able to escape the tough time children had to face. It says in line 54 “ death in life as best to have” this indicates that many of the children rather die because it is their only escape from child labor.

O'Connor purposely places “five or six” graves in that area to symbolize each of the family members. This scene foreshadows that all of the family members are put to death in a completely isolated area, surrounded by the thickness of nothing. The grandmother tells the family, “That was the old family burying ground. That belonged to the plantation” (O'Connor 268). Not only does her quote symbolize that their whole family will soon lay their, but it allows the son to inquire, “Were’s the plantation” (O'Connor 268). The grandmother responds, “Gone With the Wind” (O'Connor 268), this symbolically representing each of the family members at the end of the story as their souls have been let loose and set free like the wind.