Under The Dome Stephen King

Imagine a clear summer night, gazing up at the stars when all of a sudden something goes zooming across the sky. A shooting star perhaps or could it be something more. This is how “Monsters are Due on Maple Street” begins and ends, with the unknown. Now, there is no evidence to prove or disprove the existence of alien life forms, but one young boy puts doubt into the minds of everyone on Maple Street. The fear, paranoia, and suspicion the characters’ experience is directly related to real-life events that took place in the nineteen-fifties.

Have you ever wanted to read about the evanescence of life? In Erik Larson’s educating 2003 nonfiction novel Devil in the White City, set in the City of Chicago during the 1893 World’s Fair, also known as the World’s Columbian Exposition, he tells the side-by-side story of a striving architect and a twisted serial killer. In his work, Larson uses figurative language, imagery, and juxtaposition to capture the serial killer’s, H.H. Holmes, psychotic nature, and explain how those around him find him to be so enticing.

Alienation, starvation, neglect and abuse are all words that invoke unfavorable connotations and are treatments that no person would ever want to be subjected to. Living in those conditions is something that most people choose not to think about let alone witness with their own eyes. By not seeing it, they find it easier to pretend it doesn’t exist. In the short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” Ursula Le Guin writes about a city that from the outside looks like the perfect utopian society – a rich culture that is full of laughter, joy and peace, devoid of any violence, poverty or social inequities. Beneath the surface though hides a very dark secret that bares the true nature of Omelas. The citizens of this ostensibly flawless

Do you think fear can kill? “For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own - for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to The Twilight Zone” (“Rod”). In 1959, one of the most popular television series was The Twilight Zone, wrote and produced by Rod Serling. The series includes many tales and adventures that are very thought provoking. The Twilight Zone highlights the tragedies during the 1950’s, specifically in the episode, “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street”. The Twilight Zone contains five seasons but only thirty-six of the episodes were during the 1950’s and 1960’s, and were based on fear and catastrophe. The later episodes of the 1960’s reflected the catastrophes in the 1950’s. In The Twilight Zone episode, “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street”, the events display tragedies of the 1950’s, like the Red Scare, McCarthyism, and the Space Race.

We tend to marginalize the poor, the destitute, the food stamp and welfare recipients among us. We like to pretend that they are not there, much like the residents of Southie liked to pretend that the violence and anger and tragedy in Southie weren't there. We like to try to compartmentalize this part of our own society, this very real set of people who still live in our towns. Who mourn their dead at our churches, who lower them into the ground in our cemeteries, who hand food stamps to the cashier at our grocery stores. We have all been guilty of it. How could we not be? How could we really grasp, realize, come to terms with, comprehend such an alien life? Michael Patrick MacDonald is our translator. He relays the past as Southie has written it on his heart. He hands it to us in a language we might better understand. MacDonald opens the door and invites us to sit down at his Southie dinner table. To lie on a mattress on the floor next to him and his brothers. To come

In “The Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, a man named Robert is coming to spend the night at the narrator’s house. Robert is a friend of the narrator’s wife who happens to be blind, which doesn’t sit well with the narrator. Robert and his wife have a ten year relationship which started with her working for him. Since then they’ve stayed in contact by sending audiotapes to each other. When Robert reaches the house, the narrator is a bit uncomfortable. The first reason being because the man is blind, and secondly he’s not really sure what to say to a man who has a past with his wife. Soon after, the narrator sees that Robert isn’t initially what he thought the man would be like. Robert’s suggestion for the narrator to close his eyes while drawing the cathedral creates a different perspective for him, which allows him to realize it is he who is limited and cannot see, not Robert.

In almost every story there is a meaning, whether that meaning is obvious or not is up to the readers’ interpretations. In some stories, that meaning hides behind a character, how that person acts, thinks, or express themselves and how they change throughout resembling growth. In Raymond Carver’s “The Cathedral”, the unnamed husband narrators the tale of his wife’s old blind friend Robert coming to visit after not seeing each other for years. They had remained in contact through audiotapes, but the husband seems to not understand the significance of their relationship, showing distaste with the visit for the majority of the story, due to his uncomfortableness. In this story, the writer displays his tale and its morals; by using the narration of the husband; Carver shows that there comes to be more meaning behind this bitter man that meets the eye, which argues the fact that perhaps this unlikable narrator is truly the antihero.

Narrator- a person who gives an account or tells the story of events, experiences. In the historical non-fiction Night by Elie Wiesel and Markus Zusak's historical fiction The Book Thief, the narrators offer unique perspectives to readers of World War II and also the Holocaust in Germany. Night's first-person narrator and The Book Thief's third-person narrator both bring out the realities and actualities of World War II by describing the horrors of what they each had to see and go through. The fact that Night is in first person enables the reader to interpret one person's encounters that occurred in real life, while the third person narrative, The Book Thief, lets readers see the thoughts of many characters.

Amanda Lindhout resides as a humanitarian and that tone shine through the book. She advocated for women’s rights, survival, forgiveness, compassion and social responsibility in the book. The theme of forgiveness radiates through the text. “I, too, was carrying around my own fate” (Lindhout and Corbett, 2014). Her audience is either victim themselves and potential journalism, like me. The book would resonate with old fashion journalist. Lindhout argues that positivity is the key to happiness. Through torture, Lindhout kept her mind in positive places. She created the House in the Sky to escape the feelings. She demonstrates this argument with her will to survive. She forgave the captors leaving her in a positive and peaceful place. “With that acceptance, I felt different, soothing. A

In the article “Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully – in Ten Minutes” by Stephen King, he lists out the rules he believes you should follow in order to be a successful writer. I’m already on my way to success; rule number 12, if it’s bad kill it. This just happens to be my second attempt writing this assignment. If you feel like your writing is just getting no where you should start over again. This is me starting over again. In fact, I probably spend more time trying to write an introduction than I do writing the paper itself. I get a few ideas out then feel as if I didn’t get the points across that I’m aiming for so I kill my paper and start again. In this paper I will continue to explain why I feel like I relate to this article.

In the novella The Body, author Stephen King makes an attempt to explain a story about losing innocence, only to be replaced by maturity and the corruption that comes with it. To do so, King revolves a story around a group of four boys who go on a life changing journey to find a dead body they heard about through the grape vine. Little did they know that pursuing this journey would eventually change them for the worse. In its entirety, the crux of the novella was to show how the experience of meeting death hands-on will pivot a person’s life and will either lead them onto a slippery slope or mold them in to a man soon to be. More specifically, King reinforces this theme beautifully by using light imagery during the

We live in the age of constant technological innovation and endless information; in which we are so connected and dependent on the technology we use that we sometimes don’t even realize how much we’re relying on it. In The Glass Cage by Nicholas Carr, Carr defines automation as, “the use of computers and software to do things we used to do ourselves,” and argues that there are daunting consequences to our reliance on technology (Carr 1). In his book, Nicholas Carr sets up three arguments related to automation, tacit knowledge, and the idea of work. His main arguments throughout the novel are that humans are overestimating the benefits of automation, losing tacit knowledge through our reliance on technology, and

The looming tower by Lawrence wright is a nonfiction book that covers the decades that lead to the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East, and around the world. This book described the how the lives of men from different backgrounds and countries came together and organized the most fear terrorist organization in the modern history. This book goes on to show the lack of understanding that the United States intelligence community had when dealing with the Islamic community, and how all of this culminated into what most remember as 9/11.

Lieutenant Dale Barbara, also known as Barbie, is one of the most important characters in this story. He was a short order cook at Sweetbriar Rose. He is a strong male character that is 30 years old. He is muscular, with dark brown hair. Barbie in the story is later turned into a colonel under the president’s orders, and is one of the people who helps get rid of the dome. James Rennie, also known as Big Jim Rennie, is another male character that is very important. He is the

The film opens with a train traveling through the European countryside. It is 1938. Liesel Meminger sits on the train with her mother and younger brother, only to look over and find that her brother dies in her mothers arms. As they bury her brother, the gravedigger drops a book and Liesel picks it up and takes it with her. It is the only left that she has to remember her brother. She is then taken to her new foster parents, Rosa and Hans Hubermann. Upon her arrival, she meets Rudy Steiner who will be her best friend until the end; his end at least.