Time 's Running Out : The Compson Downfall

Malmar McKnight’s frightening story, “The Storm”, weaves a violent storm and murder together to heighten the horrific fears that engulf Janet Willsom. “The Storm” is a combination of Mother Nature, Janet’s emotions, and her heartbreaking dilemmas. The eerie mood is revealed throughout the story. Figurative language helps the reader bring the story to life in his/ her mind. The author’s use of irony is devolved through Janet’s changed perception of the storm.

When a young author from New York City decides to take a trip to the southern city of Savannah, he finds himself falling in love with the town and ends up renting an apartment. He encounters many different characters, including Danny Hansford and Jim Williams, that gives the reader a good look into the aura of Savannah. The main conflict in the book occurs when a murder happens in an old mansion located in the town. The book follows the progression of the trial and the outcome following the court’s decision.

In the essay Our Time by John Edgar Wideman, Wideman is speaking on how he and his brother’s life differ even though they grew up together. The author utilizes many distinctive literary techniques such as personification, breaking the narrative, point of view, and a couple examples of diction.

Compared to many writers, Faulkner’s sentence structure is long and drawn out, making the story appear more complicated. The novel’s themes and storylines are relatively simple, but the intricate writing makes the narrative difficult to understand. A wise, old

In the detailed story of an impoverished family during the late 1900’s, Jeannette Walls describes her experience from the young age of 3, up until adulthood. The family of 6, with Rex Walls as the father, Rose Mary as the mother, and her three siblings, Lori, Brian and Maureen, were constantly moving throughout the country with little to no food or cash. The memoir shows how dysfunctional the family was, but never seemed to force the reader to condemn the parents. In a life of poverty, the have to move for own to town, and often lived in various mining towns. Although they each found something they learned to love (like Jeannette’s rock collection) in the desert, they had to leave them behind once Rex’s alcoholism only worsened, and they ran

Since Caddy eventually grew up and left home, assumedly there is no longer a female figure to care for the “children.” Moreover, in the South, the death of a Mother would result in the finding of a new woman to be in charge of the children and the home (Haynes 122). The loss of Caddy’s innocence marked her “death” and therefore started the end of the Compson legacy. Without Caddy, Benjy’s ability to function diminished causing him to “sexually assault” a girl walking by him home whom he thought was his sister (Faulkner 35). Caddy’s push for the future, complete with having her daughter, is very progressive and diminishes the notion of a stable South. Caddy is a representation of right of moving forward, however, now that she left she cannot come back. Her mother and brother Jason banish her from the family (Faulkner 131). Slowly the Southern ways are dying, and as more and more individuals leave, are forbidden from re-entering. Upon leaving, many do not want to return causing a shrinking population. Faulkner used the Compson family as a metaphor for what he perceived to be currently happening in the South.

Here, author Truman Capote delves into the ramifications of “four shotgun blasts.” He begins with the obvious––the Clutter family is killed––but soon shifts his focus from the immediate consequences of these “somber explosions” to the metaphorical “fires of mistrust” that they spark within the people of Holcomb. Through his specific language (i.e., the words “blasts,” “explosions,” and “fires”), Capote conveys the violent and irrevocable havoc that the simple pulling of a trigger can wreak. Overnight, the entire town’s faith and sense of security is lost: neighbors have become strangers, and unlocked doors are now a thing of the past. What’s more, Capote foreshadows Dick and Perry’s eventual doom when he mentions that the shotgun ended six lives. However, he counteracts the grim reality of the events described with an almost dreamlike narrative, which ensures that his readers feel curiosity rather than dread at what is to come.

In the beginning, “Barn Burning” appears to be a story about an oppressive father and his family, who seems to be caught up in his oppression. As you read further in to the story you find that the story is focused on a young son of a poor sharecropper, who has to struggle with his father’s arsonist tendencies which are destroying his families’ reputation and life style, while coming to terms with his own morality. The young son, whose name is Colonel Sartoris Snopes, is the protagonist in this story. Sarty disapproves of his father’s destructive actions and soon has to decide whether to be loyal to his family or give in to his own values of morality. Abner Snopes, who is the boy’s father, is the antagonist in the story. Abner Snopes is a very angry man, who despises the aristocracy class of people whom he has to work for and throughout the story constantly displays this hatred. The story is narrated in third person and follows a typical format. In Faulkner’s writing style, he uses descriptive dictation to draw the reader’s in to the story. In the first paragraph Faulkner introduces us to the main character in the story, Sarty. Subsequently, throughout the story we are introduced to the other family members. The setting in which Sarty’s conflict is recognized is at

For Benjy time blends together and his memories of the past often foreshadow the bleak future. His memory of Caddy with muddy clothes that she easily sheds suggests she may grow up to be rebellious and promiscuous. When Caddy runs away it is very similar to the events that lead her daughter, Quentin to run away and cause history to repeat itself. When the family goes on their daily carriage ride around the graves in the square, Luster enters a different way and this causes Benjy great distress. Benjy likes to go counter clockwise, or backwards which could indicate a fear of moving ahead in time. By erratically shifting between time periods, Benjy allows himself to become lost in memories with no hope of ever moving forward. Time fuses and creates a world for Benjy where time is irrelevant.

Set in the Revolutionary War Era, this novel tells the story of the Meeker family. In the town of Redding Ridge, Connecticut, most are loyal to King George. But there are a few Patriots in the midst, and these differing views are what began to break families apart and turn former friends and neighbors into enemies. The Meekers are no different, which is what the younger son, Tim, realizes as his big brother Sam goes off to fight

Benjy constantly thinks of his sister Caddie who has long since left the family home but because he has no concept of time, he has no idea that she has been gone for many years. The third section is narrated by the greedy and neurotic brother, Jason. To Jason time is all about the present and he grabs every second as it goes by much as he does with the money that his sister Caddie sends to him in order to provide for her daughter who is under his care. The fourth and final section in the book, unlike all the others, is not told by one of the children but rather by an unspecified narrator. In this section time is shown as much closer to what ordinary people perceive it to be.

Out of all 4 narrators, Quentin is by far the most obsessed with time. He spends almost all of his energy trying to understand time. Quentin’s narration starts with a memory of his father giving him a watch and telling him why he is giving it to him. “I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; its rather excruciating-ly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdism of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father’s. I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it. (Faulkner 76). Throughout Quentin’s narration he is haunted by the past and the pain from his memories and tries to escape from time. One of his attempts to escape time was by breaking his watch, but the hands continued to tick showing him that time is uncontrollable. “I went to the dresser and took up the watch, with the face still down. I tapped the crystal on the corner of the dresser and caught the fragments of glass in my hand and put them into the ashtray and twisted the hands off and put them in the tray. The watch ticked on. I turned the face up, the blank dial with little wheels clicking and clicking behind it, not knowing any better.” (Faulkner 80). Throughout Quentin’s section, readers find out that Quentin is obsessed about honor. Quentin is a firm believer

The first section of the essay, “The Most Splendid Failure,” examines The Sound and the Fury as a(n) (ironic) modern recognition of the novel as a failed art form – if not language as a failed communicator.