The Lamp At Noon Analysis

Egan also describes the physical effects of the Dust Bowl, in which many children and weak adults suffered, from diseases such as dust pneumonia, livestock’s insides were packed with soil, thus blocking their stomachs and so they died of starvation. People couldn’t hug or even hand shake because the static electricity was enough to knock someone down. He also described the way of life they had, in which in order for dust to not leak into houses, they had to seal cracks around the windows and the door with wet sheets, and however the next day they still had to throw away the soil with a shovel. In order to discharge the static electricity in cars, they had to trail chains. Many were affected economically when they started losing their savings; banks, schools, and businesses closed. Black Sunday, on April 14, 1935, became the worst dust storm ever witnessed. Egan describes the story of a man who was lost in this storm; he became blind for the rest of his life. Temperature raised up to 141 degrees, such weather increased the population of rabbits, grasshoppers, tarantulas, and black widows. These insects were killed with boiled water and, “on Sundays, a mob of people with clubs herded rabbits into a corral and smashed their skulls.” Egan shows a similarity between the homesteaders’ thirst for extreme harvest and the grasshoppers devouring the rest of what was left in the plains,

Didion personifies the wind as almost an unknown epidemic. Similar to when an unknown disease goes viral, all walks of life are affected. Didion clearly states how teachers, students, doctors, to physicists, to generally everyone becomes unhappy and uncomfortable during the winds. She does not write of how the wind caused fire to ravage the shrublands, but she writes of the symptoms it inflicts on the people. Didion mentions all the after effects of the wind and the harm it can do like inflict paranoia. She mentions how the fear-stricken victims of southern California are paranoid like her neighbor that refuses to leave the house and her husband who roams with a machete. Didion’s personification of the wind focuses on a fearful and distant light.

"Although there was evening brightness showing through the windows of the bunkhouse, inside it was dust". This shows that the light tries to get in but never manages to penetrate the darkness. This is important to the themes of the story because workers' hope for a future farm is just like the light while the cruel reality is like the darkness. Their efforts to realize this plan is just like the light trying to penetrate the darkness, but their dream

The effect that the landscape has on the characters is very significant. Through the use of figurative language, Kent is able to covey the landscape and how it emphasizes many of the emotions felt by the characters. In the text characters live in Icelandic society where long distance communication is hard and fast communication is even harder. With the weather being the way it is; bitterly cold and oppressive, it reflects on each character and their emotions felt through the book. Particularly the oppressive snowfall throughout the text leaves the characters feeling claustrophobic and confined. In turn this allows each character to express these feelings in their own individual way. Margaret, the mother is trapped in her own house in a repetitive cycle of her own making. Agnes is caught in her own inner turmoil, and Margaret’s daughters are also trapped in a cycle, fated to live a

Also, ‘the sun threw a bright dust-laden bar through one of the side windows’, this represents that the little hope in the bunk house only helps to further illuminate the darkness and harshness of society. In a setting, such as the ranch, where dreams are suppressed and suffocated, they take on a greater importance and significance to the mens lives, they rely on the dreams to get by.

John Berendt’s novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil follows a New York native reporter as he investigates in Savannah. The story tells us, the readers, how the people living in Savannah deal with a murder case between a well-known man and a well-known hustler. The book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil shows the reader the various speakers, the impersonal tone, and the occasion of the trial.

Marriage, the central part of the lives of the main characters, is viewed in opposing ways through their actions. Susan's, Edgar's wife, description of what Edgar's love did for her involves the contrasting natural elements of snow and heat, also the elements of

The Russian Revolution and the purges of Leninist and Stalinist Russia have spawned a literary output that is as diverse as it is voluminous. Darkness at Noon, a novel detailing the infamous Moscow Show Trials, conducted during the reign of Joseph Stalin is Arthur Koestler’s commentary upon the event that was yet another attempt by Stalin to silence his critics. In the novel, Koestler expounds upon Marxism, and the reason why a movement that had as its aim the “regeneration of mankind, should issue in its enslavement” and how, in spite of its drawbacks, it still held an appeal for intellectuals. It is for this reason that Koestler may have attempted “not to solve but to expose” the shortcomings of this political system and by doing so

In conjunction with the symbolic representation of Elisa’s life, the dramatic description of the environment can also be seen as a unique representation of the relationship conflict between husband and wife. Steinbeck’s foggy description demonstrates conflict through the following statement, "a time of quiet and waiting." This description is interesting because the fields are personified as waiting for rain, however, “rain and fog do not go together” therein lies the conflict just as Elisa waits for a positive change in how her husband treats her (Palmerino, Gregory J). Gregory P. further points out that, “The natural elements of the foothills ranch seem as unwilling to confront each other as the characters that inhabit its environs. Hence, fog and rain can be seen as the female and male equivalents to Elisa and Henry.” This only further solidifies the deep rooted troubles within Elisa and her relationship with her husband. The setting of the story is personified to act as a symbolic representation of the couple’s relationship (Steinbeck, John 337-338).

I know it is a bad thing to break a promise, but I think now that it is a worse thing to let a promise break you.”(Donnelly, A Northern Light, 374). The story A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly talks about a poor, hard working, and determined, sixteen year old girl named Mattie Gokey. One day while Mattie was working at the Glenmore Hotel she saw a hotel guest sitting on the porch crying; this guest name was Grace Brown. Mattie asked Grace “what's wrong?” and Grace gave her mysterious letters saying “burn them.” On July 12, 1906, Grace Browns body was found in Big Moose Lake. Grace was dating a boy named Chester Gillette; whom she hoped to marry. While on a date in Big Moose Lake with Chester, the boat capsized and Grace drowned. People

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck uses numerous literary techniques to advocate for change in the social and political attitudes of the Dust Bowl era. Simile, personification, and imagery are among the many devices that add to the novel’s ability to influence the audience’s views. Moreover, through his use of detail, Steinbeck is able to develop a strong bond between the reader and the Joad clan. This bond that is created evokes empathy from the audience towards the Joads as they face numerous challenges along their journey. The chapters go between the Joad’s story and a broad perspective of the Dust Bowl’s effect on the lives of Mid-western farmers in which Steinbeck illustrates dust storms devastating the land, banks evicting tenant

In John Steinbeck’s tragic, mangled novel, The Grapes of Wrath, the reader is shipped off into the heart of the great Dust Bowl in the American Midwest in the peak of American hardship. Through his use of realism in the era of the modern age, Steinbeck reveals the hardships that were faced by common American citizens during the Great Depression, and utilizes the Joad family in an effort to depict the lives of the farmers who had to flee to new land in the high hopes of a new and better life. The obstacles the family faces are similar to what countless other families had to face, with very little of the population able to successful thrive at the time. By utilizing the empowering endeavors unforeseen by these poor families and the meteorological catastrophes overlooking the Midwest, Steinbeck illustrates the nationwide panic faced by many Americans in an effort to delineate their confusion and uncertainty.

As the problems of their neighbors are broadcast into the Westcott’s living room, the weather outside begins to reflect the climate inside: "There were hundreds of clouds in the sky, as though the south wind had broken the winter into pieces and were blowing it north" (821). The Westcott’s view of society and of themselves is being changed from a beautiful, solid picture of appearances into many jagged, separate pieces that do not seem to fit together.

The land in this poem is very important to the development of the theme. So the Pauline Johnson spends most of the describing it. Pauline uses a unique structure similar to slow close up to emphasize all the features of the land and give them depth and color. In the first stanza she starts of with a shot of the skyline. Witch at first only gives an basic idea of the landscape, we know not of the bleaching skeletons of the never coming herd of buffalo. In the second stanza she zooms in add a whole new layer of nuanced description breathing life into anything that occupies the land. "Etched where the cloudland touch and die" In the

Judith Wright extensively uses the structure of her poems to convey many ideas and themes. The structure of a poem is crucial to delivering its key message as it determines both the tone and how the poem is read. She shows the reader throughout the poem how the dust, which is symbolic of the barren emptiness that has “overtaken… dreams” of beauty and comfort as well as financial dependence, will consume the earth if the current environment is not conserved and protected. Wright’s use of title emphasizes this point in the clearest way she can and re-enforces her major concept to the audience. Another example of how structure is used in this poem is juxtaposition. The first and second stanzas are strategically placed next to each other because of their greatly opposing descriptions. In stanza one, the new world of dust and wind, many negative adjectives are used, such as “harsh”, “grief” and “steel-shocked”. Stanza two, which talks about the past, contains a wide range of positive adjectives such as “good”, “kinder” and “beautiful”.