Margaret Laurence was a Canadian novelist born in Manitoba. She liked to travel and she based some of her works on the places she visited. Five of her books are based on a town called Manawaka, though it is fiction, it is based on her birthplace. The story The Mask of the Bear by Margaret Laurence, portrays a young girl that lives in an unhealthy environment, this is shown through the themes of entrapment and loneliness, through certain aspects of Vanessa’s writing by using her mind and body to escape, and furthermore, the story also combines the symbolism of wearing a mask. The theme of entrapment and loneliness displays how Vanessa lives in an unhealthy home. Through Vanessa’s writing, it is revealed that she uses her mind and body to …show more content…
The above quote states, “the family”, it does not say, “my family” and Vanessa keeps on referring to the house as “the Brick house”, it is never referred to as a home, this ties in to the idea of entrapment within this family and house that Vanessa feels estranged too. In contrast, all the family members had decided to cope in different ways, which included loneliness and entrapment within themselves. The grandfather only desired lone time, “[t]hen he went down to the basement by himself” (Laurence 77). It seems as though, the grandfather goes down into the basement every time he is faced with a hard situation. One of Vanessa’s uncles that lived in Toronto came for the funeral and his way of dealing is the least healthy, “Uncle Terence went straight into the kitchen, brought out his pocket flask, and poured a hefty slag of whiskey for himself” (Laurence 78). All the different ways that the family members decided to cope is very important because they all show Vanessa how she might consider dealing with future deaths. In brief, loneliness and entrapment is an unhealthy type of environment for children to be around, there are different ways that theses aspects are shown within this story; silences and the feelings of uselessness; neglect during hard times; and, seeking solitary and the help of a bottle.
Through Vanessa’s writing, it is revealed that she uses her mind and body to escape the real
In the short story “the White Heron” (1886), Sarah Jewett portrays a young little girl, Sylvia, bear the temptation of money and affection from the young man with mental struggle, and resolutely determined to protect the fairy of nature – a white heron. Through describing Sylvia’s authentic emotions and using of vivid theme colors and exquisite word choice, Jewett delivers the story like showing a lifelike 19-century country-life drama in front of the readers.
In a passage from “The Glass Castle,” Jeannette Walls describes what life was like growing up with her broken family and how she felt about it. Jeannette writes about how she feels about her younger sister, Maureen, and how she believes that she is failing Maureen. Jeannette promised Maureen that she will protect her, but with her manipulative, alcoholic father and selfish, depressed mother, it is a challenge to maintain that promise made at Maureen’s birth. She also includes how she was made the head of the household because her dysfunctional family couldn’t maintain their lives properly. At 13 years old, Jeannette had to create a budget of $200 over the course of two months for her two younger siblings while her mom and older sister were
Imagine living in a life where everything around you is different from reality. Imagine running from the police, living wherever one can find, and still taking care of one's family just at the age of 16. Jeannette Walls had to deal with all of this and more in her early childhood. In the book “The Glass Castle”, the author uses the characters, Jeannette and Rex Walls, to emphasize the importance of family bonds.
The home as a place of comfort does not exist for the narrator; companionship with her husband is lost. Her only real conversations occur on paper, as no one else speaks to her of anything other than her condition. She is stripped of her role as a wife, robbed of her role as a mother, and is reduced to an object of her husband's.
The idea of what a monster is and how it pertains to modern day society has fascinated readers and writers for decades. Before taking this class, I was aware of what a monster is and the function it served in today’s society. Furthermore, after taking this class, I am now aware of what a monster truly is, and what really separates a monster from a regular person. The piece of text that I mainly chose to focus on and elaborate closely to demonstrate the aspects of a monster is appropriately named, Monster, by Walter Dean Myers. The reason I chose this piece of literature is because, Monster thoroughly elaborates what a monster is in todays society and how it functions in the modern day world. In this essay I will elaborate on
Colin Turnbull an anthropologist, rise in a wealthy English family which discover his fulfilment in life; which were the Pygmies. Turnbull then wrote a book called “The Forest People”, which Turnbull spent three years studying about the Mbuti Pygmies; who lives in the Ituri rainforest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In “The forest people”, Turnbull display the world of the Pygmy tribe, its environment, and how pygmies adopt to its surrounding in order to survive its everyday life.
The portrait I choose is the Faces by Nancy Burson, 1992 (figure, 22.7). The portrait is the picture of two boys, and they are twins. In the description, Nancy used a cheap plastic camera for their look. The plastic camera creates a blurry effect on the subject, which is the two boys. The twins have the same shirt with the same pattern on them, and their hairstyle is similar as well. Their face features are almost identical consider they are twins. Looks closely, their face structure seems unusual for them compared to other children of their age. For example, the size of their nose is bigger and wider than the usual size. And their eyebrow bone is more arch. According to the textbook, the unusual facial structure might cause by genetic conditions, accident or disease. The twin may or may not born like this, and there are some other unknown factors decide how they look. However, this picture shows the characteristics of the children, such as pure, kind, optimistic, curious.
In the same fashion, dealing with Maureen Walls, the youngest child of the Walls family, had to rely on her friends and people she hardly knew to provide for her. This situation went as far as Maureen going to her friend’s house to eat meals and
¨There was a law against luke. Not him personally everyone like him, kids who were born after their parents already had two babies (pg 6)¨. Would you like a law against you? Among the hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix clearly shows that dictatorship is horrible. In this novel Luke is not allowed to leave the house or be seen. Luke leaves the house in cover and meets a girl the same as him she can't go anywhere so she tries to convince luke to rebel to be like regular people with her but he is to nervous. Luke shows the character traits of brave, jealousy and adventurous as he hides in the shadows.
She tells of the feeling of shame which emerge from not even having a bed throughout her entire childhood (3). She does reassure that she has the security of her family being the only constant in her life, “Close and sweet and loving. Lucky me on my small pallet on the floor” (4). Travelling every summer “We never knew from one day to the next, from one year to the next, where we would go or live or what we would do” (127), her security of her family seemed always there “Having lived in other people’s houses, barns, and in migrant housing in various stages of decay and repair, it felt as though we could make a home out of anything” (99).
Vanessa, still naive, consciously resists the “upright” values of her family and believes she has control of her own identity therefore she, purposely attempts in many early parts of the story, to show ways of opposing her entire family. “I was prepared, for the question was the same each week. I rarely listened in Sunday school, finding
By constantly moving around, Jeanette’s childhood was characterized by its instability and her own dependence on herself in order to survive the negligence of her parents. The glass castle symbolized a place where the Walls’ family would finally settle and become free of governmental intervention, however, it was through Jeanette’s realization that individualism was the underlying issue to her family’s problems, that she became aware of the impracticalness of being self-reliant. While Jeanette did have faith in her parents, her father’s continual inability to support his family and her mother’s own carelessness for her children, eroded all of Jeanette’s confidence. Jeanette’s decision to move to New York was not fueled by a need for individualism, however, it was in fact her desire to return to society and reintegrate into a world where she would be able to interact with other people. Thus, Jeanette's return to society signified her dependence of others and shows how individualism can never solve all of people's
Family is expressed in diverse ways. Mama strongly believes in the importance of family throughout the book. She continues to try to keep them together by fulfilling their dreams before hers. Her dream was moving her family out of the ghetto and into a house with a yard where children can play, and she can tend a garden. Her dream has been deferred since she and her husband moved into the apartment that the Youngers still inhabit. Every day, her dream provides her with an incentive to make money. But no matter how much she and her husband strived, they could not scrape together enough money to make their dream a reality. As they go through trying times the eventify they come together as a family because by the end they realized being together was most important. They are still strong individuals but together they prove they are a strong family. Throughout the book the Younger family is constantly arguing about what Mama should do with the ten thousand dollars she inherited from her husband. “I-I just seen my family fall apart today…. Just falling into pieces in front of my eyes we couldn’t have gone on like we were today (Hansberry91)” Mama is trying to tell her family that these arguments about the money are tearing her family apart. She wanted them to know that she did the right thing by buying the house, thinking it would make her family happy again. Mama could have spent the money on herself, but she chose her family first and their needs that is
When Frances Cornford wrote “The Watch”, she must have been in an unbelievably dark place; the poem is downright depressing. However, regardless of the macabre nature of the poem, it is executed in supreme fashion, and creates a real sense of dread in the reader. Cornford, a granddaughter of Charles Darwin, was not a particularly popular poet. However, in “The Watch”, she manages to convey a powerful message to the reader, and demonstrates her poetic skill in stride. The theme of this intriguing poem appears to simply be ‘Memento mori’, a reminder to the reader that death is inevitable and inescapable. Cornford conveys this message to the reader using an arsenal of literary devices, most notably the mood, tone, symbolism, and epizeuxis.
After the Civil War, the American Southerners had a strong trauma that could not be forgotten. Considering that William Faulkner was also one of these Southerners, approaching to his texts through a psychoanalytic lens would be a meaningful work. In fact, Faulkner is one of the rare writers who faced Southern racial ‘taboo’: the miscegenation. In addition, a Southern Renaissance that what Faulkner does with the South through his novels are very similar with what Freud did with the European civilization after the World War I in his work about ‘psychoanalytic mourning’ (Lee 229). Actually, Faulkner went through the World War I just like Freud did and he is one of the “Lost Generations”: a group of writers who were strongly affected by the inhumanity of war. Thus, this essay will focus on analyzing Faulkner’s “The Bear” in psychoanalytical view.