The Man Who Down The Dirt

“I am sorry, Salva,” Uncle said quietly. “Your friend . . .” A cold fist seemed to grip Salva’s heart (Park, 38). A lion had been hungry enough to approach the group as they slept. As Salva learned the terror that took his friend, the incident significantly affected him as he struggled to bear over it. It had been hard for him to accept on the loss of first his family and now friend. Leaving the airport felt like leaving his old life forever. Tears came to Salva’s eyes, but he blinked them away and entered his new life in America (Park, 96). Salva had come to the moment he wasn’t looking forward to. Wonder fills him as he explores America, yet his other life presents him with mixed feelings. Salva had always been the same, but has always been changing when it comes to his mental

In James McBride’s “The Color of Water,” a young James shaped an imaginary world for himself where he believed his true self was the boy who lived in the mirror. He sought this young man in the mirror, as an outlet for his poignant aggravation and a flight from his agonizing veracity. Thus, James could take out all his fury and irritation into the boy in the mirror, who would pay attention to him without any awful judgments towards him. On the other hand, James needed the boy to be a precursor of what he could be or cover in other life—his imaginary world—. “To further escape from painful reality, I created an imaginary world for myself...” (McBride 90).

Walls begins her memoir by acknowledging her first accident that she could remember and gives details about what all happened. She appeals to mournful emotions of the audience by describing the emotions and using very decisive word choice. “ I burned myself trying to make hotdogs,”(7) Jeannette uses a powerful diction in order to gather emotional sympathy from the audience. This outpouring of emotion from Jeannette conveys an emotional tone that the audience can connect with how Jeannette is feeling at the time.

Tim wants his reader to know that stories can help us heal from wounds that life has delivered. Paul Berlin started to try to move on from Billy’s death but that was hard to do. When the helicopter came to pick Billy’s body up he couldn’t stop laughing. He didn’t know why he was laughing at a time like that, but he

Taking another deep breath to help calm his nerves, John folded the letter and sealed it with some sticky tape. With his hands trembling he handed over his most private thoughts to Josie. After they had exchanged letters they said their goodbyes and went their separate ways. Once John got outside he looked up to the hazy sky and let out a shaky laugh full of relief. Maybe just maybe Josie would be the one to save him before it was too late. He hoped that she would open the letter before graduation and help him put back together the shattered pieces of his life. Because deep down that broken boy wanted to live more than anything in the

It was two days before Christmas, when Josephine opened the door to her 12 year old son’s room. Chay was the oldest of her four children, and the one she related to most. As Josephine sat down on the edge of the bed, Chay opened his eyes slowly. The dim light that seeped through the partially opened door revealed tears in his mother’s eyes.

With the intent of creating a structural detachment that reflects her own emotional detachment, Jameson, as author, puts together an orientation and complicating action that don’t appear to go together. On a September train ride, distant memories and thoughts blur past the grown Jameson’s eyes, such as “the journeys made feverish by unmanageable longings and ambitions, night journeys in wartime” (15) and continue to make their way to the forefront of her mind with a picture of “the darkened corridor crammed with young men in clumsy khaki, smoking, falling asleep, [and] journeys with a heavy baby in one arm” (Jameson 15). Before Jameson as adult can make her way back to her memory as a child, she must travel through many other memories of departures and journeys. This roundabout way in which Jameson brings her reader into her memories structurally reflects the detached feelings she has for herself as a child. It suggests a physiological separation between Jameson and herself because she cannot easily think about her past. These detached feelings are enforced textually when she uses the third person to refer to herself as “the child” (15) and to those presumably close to her like her mother, whom she calls “the captain’s wife” (16). By creating this structural and textual detachment, Jameson emphasizes her emotional isolation from herself as a child. Before speaking about herself as a child, she must search through her memories “like a knot of adders uncoiling themselves,” (15)  which suggests that it is painful for Jameson to reach back to her childhood

As I walk out of the building with my friends, a hand stops me. I turn around to see the judge, smiling at me.”You would make a truly outstanding lawyer.” before I have a chance to thank him, he retreats back into the courthouse. I continue on with my friends, making our way to the bus, when a sudden thought comes to mind. When I first walked in, I looked at this place and immediately thought about what happened this summer. Those are old memories, the bad ones, but I have to let in the new memories, the happy ones. Happy memories are always better than sad ones, and I now have happy, and sad, memories of this place, and I’ve learned that it’s ok to have both kinds of memories. Sometimes you need both memories. I can still remember what happened last summer, but I also have to remember what happened today, because today I learned so many things, and any day when you learn something, is a day to

Nick is a World War I veteran who, as many veterans, suffers from emotional trauma that his experiences from the war left him with. Multiple scenes throughout the story, Big Two Hearted River, relates to Nick, the main character’s, journey toward recovery. Nick describes his surroundings in way that parallels to his own experiences and current voyage in respect to his revival.. He takes a calming adventure saturated with calming natural paths over hills, through woodland, and along a river to find peace with himself and to return to his prewar state of mind.

When the rain stopped and the sun started to come out, I finally went to my car. I opened the driver’s side door, sat down, and closed it. I banged my hands on the dashboard multiple times and screamed. The tears came back, streaming down my face as if they were rivers themselves. When at last there were no more tears left to flow out, I turned my head towards the bridge and for the last time, I glared out at the spot where she stood before her

In conclusion, James McBride laid his story out in a unique way to best show the ups and downs of his mother’s life. He displayed a story from two different points of view, while still keeping an orderly structure in tack. He perfectly showed how his mother evolved as a person through characters with powerful personalities. McBride may not have displayed the same structural organization others would have, but he chose what he thought was best and worked to share an inspiring life

"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life" (Confucius). Growing up under a conservative father, I never considered art as a profession even though it was always where my heart belonged. My parents wanted me to become a doctor or a lawyer, and I blindly thought that was the way to go. However, I made a life-changing decision to become a fashion designer when I watched a fashion show clip of Christian Dior couture collection in high school. Driven by the energy and excitement of the runway, I thought of creating work like that. My father didn't approve, and he told me that I should not turn my hobby into my profession because I would end up not enjoying it. Despite his advice, I showed him the quote above and told him that I want to spend my life following my passion instead of being forced to do something else.

“Big Two Hearted River”, a semi-autobiographical short story by Ernest Hemingway, is a story about the main character, Nick, returning to Big Two Hearted River in order to recover from his inner wounds. Nick Adams goes on a journey alone in nature for a therapeutic purpose as he suffers from PTSD. However, Hemingway purposely avoided any direct discussion regarding to Nick’s mental wounds. The absence of the discussion is contributed by Hemingway’s writing style, the Iceberg principle. Hemingway focuses explicitly on what occurs on the surface without mentioning actual theme. This indicates that the theme of self-healing cannot be uncovered by simply looking at the text itself. In order to comprehend the actual theme of the story, the character development of Nick must be examined. This is possible since Nick Adams is a recurring character of Hemingway’s stories. The two preceding stories of “Big Two Hearted River”, “Now I lay me” and “A Way you’ll Never Be”, directly discusses Nick’s suffering from shell-shock and how he comforts himself by returning to Big Two Hearted river in his mind. The two short stories will be analyzed and connected to “Big Two Hearted River” in the essay first. This will provide a strong understanding of Nick’s psyche and the reason behind his return to nature. Then, “Big Two Hearted River” the short story itself will be carefully analyzed.

I remember the day just like it was yesterday, the pale color and coldness of her skin. The sky was clear blue, soft, with a touch of red, and the trees seemed stiff in their bright green shade. The wind was blowing with its humid dry air. And All I could do was stand silently in disbelief, caught up in my own thoughts and calm as I ever been. Wondering what I could have done differently to change the course of time, life had taken us upon. Since that very day a chunk of my heart was ripped away, and broken into pieces… “Oh how I miss her so much.”

At last after a fury of plunges he wrenched himself free. His tormentors set off towards Jones's Road, laughing and jeering at him, while he, torn and flushed and panting, stumbled after them blinded with tears, clenching his fists madly and sobbing (Joyce 82).