The Ptarmigans In The Lesser Blessed By Richard Van Camp

Among other animal imagery, birds appear frequently throughout the story in times of crisis. The birds often foreshadow dangers that lie ahead. For instance, when Robert's team takes a wrong turn, "the fog is full of noises"(80) of birds. Then the birds fly out of the ditch and disappear. Robert and Poole know that "[there] must be something terribly wrong...but neither one knew how to put it into words. The birds, being gone, had taken some mysterious presence with them. There was an awful sense of void--as if the world had been emptied" (81). The birds return and when Robert nears the collapsing dike and "one of the birds [flies] up cut[s] across Robert's path" as if it is trying to prevent him from going any further. Robert does not heed the warning and almost dies in the sinking mud.

Hale and Mrs. Peters find a dead canary and a broken bird cage, it becomes obvious that Mr. Wright was an aggressive and controlling husband. Mrs. Hale states, “No, Wright wouldn’t like the bird- a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too” (1012). The canary represents Minnie Foster. Before she married Mr. Wright, she was a joyful girl who sang in the church choir. After her and Mr. Wright get married, she is forced to stop singing and is stripped of her happiness. The broken cage represents Mr. and Mrs. Wright’s controlling marriage. The bird cage is violently broken to represent how Mrs. Wright violently escaped her marriage. The women’s discoveries cause Mrs. Peters to sympathize with Mrs. Wright. Ultimately, Mrs. Peters decides to stand up for what she believes.

The narrator is as much saddened by the arrival of the raven, as he is disturbed. He says, "on the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before" (732). He is still recovering from the sadness of the loss of Lenore and in this raven he may find comfort for a while, but the raven will only be gone in the morning, just like everything else.

An individual’s need to renounce a decision or a course of action can often lead to an individual forsaking themselves and choosing to live in their own fantasy, and not living in reality. In the short story “The Horses of the Night”, Chris has to deal with his below average life, in his below average house, and to do so he creates his own delusions by renouncing what his life is now. As the story progresses, the life of Chris progressively gets worse, with no job and no college education, Chris continued to create more delusions until finally, Chris could no longer handle it and chose a life outside of reality, leaving his body behind. Chris chose to renounce his life in its entirety and to live in a false reality in which he created in

In the novel The Promise, written by Chaim Potok, a multi-layered plot with vivid word choices, well thought out characters, and suspense adds up to create an amazing book. The Promise is centered around the life of a young Jewish man named Reuven. It consists of three books, the first concentrates on the summer where Reuven and Rachel date each other and Reuven meets Rachel's cousin Michael. By the end of the summer, Michael enrolls in a mental treatment center. During the second book, Reuven continues his education at seminary and Michael's condition worsens. Reuven's time at the seminary grows more challenging as his professor, Rav Kalman, clearly does not agree with Reuven's beliefs on certain issues. Lastly, the third focuses around the finishing of Reuven's education and Michael reunites with his family. Rav Kalman and Reuven eventually find a common ground between each other and respect each others position on certain topics of their faith.

“Our mouths opened and shut and we froze where we sat. I suppose we could have honked and waved and it wouldn’t have raised any more pandemonium than this poor mother already had to deal with but instead we held perfectly still. Even Turtle, after a long minute or two the quail got her family herded off the road into some scraggly bushes” (96). The birds are significant symbolism in this book. They often appear in the book to symbolize Turtle; Kingsolver did this to show Turtle is a strong survival instinct child. First, when Taylor took Turtle to doctor and discovered that she has been abused and raped. As she makes this discovery, she sees a bird nest on a cactus. This shows that Turtle, in spite of her surroundings she keep persists. Also, when Turtle met the robber, a sparrow got caught in Lou Ann’s house, the bird getting scared shows the Turtle’s confusion and fright. But sparrow survives and leaves the house; this shows that even though Turtle is going through confusion she will survive. Finally, the quote shows the moment when Lou Ann and Taylor found a family of birds on the road. This quote symbolizes how Turtle is satisfied with her small family, feel safe, and she is happy.

The possesion of land has proved to greatly amplify and draw out several different stereotypes and conflicts between societies in the world 's history. From Many different accounts all over the world today there has always been a dispute over land. However other disputes shadow in that of the colonial New England settlers and the Native Americans, both virtually revolving their lives around this concept of land distribution. For the settlers it meant wealth and prosperity, for the natives it meant staying alive. William Cronon 's book, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, illustrates the differences between these two separate societies and describes what life was like during the period of exploration and settlement in the New World. There are several other facts or opinions that one could take away from this passage, but the three main points are differences in the Colonist and Native conceptions of property, as well as how cultural stereotypes and eventual conflict emerged from mutual understanding of the land and use of property by each group.

Animals can represent multiple things when used as symbols. The animals used by Robinson tended to represent death and were usually also associated as warning signals of someone close to Lisa impending death. The author displayed these messages through birds such as crows and ravens. “Six crows sit in our greengage tree. Half-awake, I hear them speak to me in Haisla. ‘La’es, they say, La’es, la’es.’” I push myself out of bed and go to the open window, but they launch themselves upward, cawing. Morning light slants over the mountains behind the reserve. A breeze coming down the channel makes my curtain flap lumpy. Ripples sparkle in the shallows as a seal bobs its dark head. ‘La’es-Go down to the bottom of the ocean.’ The word means something else, but I can’t remember what (Robinson 1).” In this passage at the start of the novel Lisa experiences crows outside her bedroom

The fate of jimmy is ambiguous because Lisa cannot communicate effectively with the dead. When Lisa goes to the spirit world Ma-ma-oo says that her gift is like Oxasuli, "unless you know how to use it" she says, "it will kill you"(Robinson 226). My argument is that, though Lisa is not dead, her gift has certainly killed her sense of identity. As a person, Lisa is unsociable and does not understand the issues behind her questions. She communicates as effectively with the dead as she does the living, she frequently misunderstands social queues and even when she does recognize her mistakes, she doesn't care. We can see this

As the reader acknowledges the figurative language that the author has put in this story, the reader gains assurance that the boys are much bigger and can overtake these tiny little helpless birds, “Their breath came out in slow puffs of steam… The pheasants’ breath came out in a quick little white puff” (Heynen). The writers incorporated the comparison from the boys to the bird to demonstrate to the reader how the boys could have easily overtaken the helpless little birds. Moreover, the author incorporated imagery to set the mood of what is occurring, “The boys stood still in the icy rain...pounce on a pheasant… things around them were shining and dripping with icy rain” (Heynen 1). The author

Although Birdie’s sad story seems to be very tragic, it is not identical to the normal literary tragedies that we normally see. Usually, a tragedy is written with a heroic character and features characters acting out the roles of the story. Instead, Waxen Wings displays a girl who loves flying, but is caught up in a series of unfortunate events Unless the reader is also a lover or flying, it is

2. What does the old woman mean when she says of the bird: “I don’t know…in your hands”? Why do you think she repeats – “It is in your hands.”? How has this phrase become a metaphor? What is it a metaphor for?

Probably the most notable use of birds occurs when after ten years, Sula returns to the Bottom accompanied by a “plague of robins”(89). The word plague indicates that the birds represent a wave of sickness that Sula brings alongside her. The citizens of the Bottom recognize the birds as a sign of evil, but choose to accept its wickedness rather than try to rid of the robins. “But they let it run it’s course, fulfill itself, and never invented ways to either alter it, to annihilate it or to prevent its happening again. So also were they with people” (90). Here, Morrison is comparing the townspeople’s feelings both towards the evilness of the robins and towards the evilness of Sula. They welcome Sula’s return to the Bottom the same way they they welcome the birds. Sula’s personal experiences with wickedness are also acknowledged through the robins as Sula

One of the women made the comment that Mrs. Wright used to be pretty and happy, when she was Minnie Foster not Minnie Wright. This is just the beginning of realizing that she was just pushed to far into depression and couldn't live up to John Wright's expectations anymore. The Wrights had no children and Mrs. Wright was alone in the house all day long. The women perceive John Wright to be a controlling husband who in fact probably wouldn't have children and this may have upset Mrs. Wright. They eventually find vacant bird cage and ponder upon what happened to the bird, realizing Mrs. Wright was lonely they figured she loved the bird and it kept her company. The women make reference to the fact that Mrs. Wright was kind of like a bird herself, and that she changed so much since she married John Wright. They begin looking for stuff to bring her and they find the bird dead and they realize someone had wrung its neck. This is when they realize Mrs. Wright was in fact pushed to far, John Wright had wrung her bird's neck and in return Minnie Wright wrung his.

In the story “Night Calls” one of the symbols is the Heron (bird) that the father takes care of. The father of the girl (narrator) had lost his wife and just got a heron to look after. The heron was a symbol of distraction for the father. The people told him that the heron was almost extinct and they would try to find a mate. Meanwhile the father took care of the bird, he was so interested in the bird in the beginning. When the girl/daughter/narrator would come home all he talked about was the heron. With that being said, the symbol is distraction by the heron.