Visit From The Goon Squad Quotes

For this summer, I decided to read The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara. The book took place during Civil War times and went into good detail on what happened during the battles at Gettysburg. The first quote that I found interesting was from the Union Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. “The fact of slavery upon this incredibly beautiful new clean earth was appalling, but more even than that was the horror of old Europe, the curse of nobility, which the South was transplanting to new soil (Shaara 27).” This quote was significant because it described the feelings of the average Union soldier towards slavery.

Although many may not believe it until it happens to them, time can pass by so swiftly that one won’t even register it at first. Yes, time passing is a part of life, but the realization of it is another story within itself. “Forgetfulness,” a poem by Billy Collins, and an excerpt from “Once More to the Lake” by E.B. White both provide a clear example of how fast time can go by. In Collin’s piece, he puts together many various ideas one can forget as their life moves incredibly fast. Likewise, in White’s “Once More to the Lake,” the narrator struggles to understand how quickly time really passed and how his son is so similaralike to him. Both of these pieces of writing use X syntax and X diction to develop the common theme of annihilated time.

time,” is a statement which this book The Daughter of Time demonstrated very well. It showed how

In one of the extracts we were shown we see Tykwer uses distinctively visual techniques to show us Lola’s determination to save Manny. He utilises the use of a split screen with a close up shot of Manny and a close up tracking shot of Lola running to show how Lola is running towards him to try and save him. Then we hear the ticking of a clock and the top half of a clock comes onto the bottom of the screen to show how Lola is running out of time to save Manny. This is another example of how clocks are a reoccurring motif to symbolise time being overwhelming. This scene also demonstrates the love that Lola has for Manny and her determination to never give up trying to save him. This distinctively visual technique is utilised to hep show the audience that even with Lola’s everlasting love she is unable to change time and Manny slowly slips away from her, making himself unsaveable.

The film In Time takes place in the distant future. Time has replaced currency. Every person has a bright green clock on their arm showing how much time (or money) they have. Due to genetic engineering and scientific advances, once one turns 25, they stop aging. They are given a year left to live unless more time can be earned. The social classes are divided by time zones. The ghetto, or slums, live in

Joe ends up becoming the Mayor, Post Master, storekeeper, and the biggest landlord in the town. Although this is all fine for him, Janie in the mean time is not happy with the relationship and struggles to deal with it. Over the years Janie places all of her old dreams into the corner of her soul. She submits to Jody's need for control on the outside but on the inside she hides her real feelings and her real self. At one of the town meetings someone asks for a “few words uh encouragement from Mrs. Mayor Starks” and Joe replies buy saying, “Thank yuh fuh yo’ compliments, but mah wife don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no speech-makin’. Ah never married her for nothin’ lak dat. She’s uh woman and her place is in de home”(41) After hearing this from Joe, Janie feels as though, “that took the bloom off of things”(41). She is no longer truly in love with him anymore. After Joe dies, Janie feels free for the first time in years. Janie is in the room when Joe dies and soon after, she walks across the room to the mirror and tells herself that she, “The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken her place”(83). Janie becomes a more independently thinking woman after his death because she doesn’t have the restriction that Joe forced on her. She is free from Joes dominant self and can now do what she pleases, which ends up being a very good thing for her.

When Sally and John have their brief affair, which both spouses are aware of, the first problem of unfaithfulness becomes on display. As the day goes on, the tensions generated by this situation grow more acute, culminating in a physical confrontation between Sam and John.

Janie is raised by a suppressive grandmother who diminishes her view of life. Nanny came from a rough past during the time of war and slavery but she worked hard to give Janie a good life. Janie was raised to be attracted to financial security and physical protection instead of seeking love. Janie was in a stage of pure innocence abiding by any rules Nanny set for her. As a teenager, Janie used to sit under the pear tree and dream about being a tree in bloom. She longed for something more. The initial loss of innocence was conveyed when sixteen year old Janie kissed Johnny Taylor. The kiss gave her a glimpse of what freedom and self-expression felt like. Even then, she was restricted by Nanny who forced her into a marriage for the purpose of Janie’s physical well-being rather than mental well-being. This instance is expressed when Nanny says, “Tain’t Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, it’s protection.” Janie learns that marriage does not come with love, and Logan ruins her image of a blooming pear tree that she always dreamt of. Janie’s realization about love causes her to mature into a woman and run off with Joe

Rarely does a person come across a book with alternating points of view, an endless stream of characters, and powerpoint slides. Yet, all of those different structures intertwine within the novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. Without its structure the novel would be unremarkable. The ever-switching points of view and types of prose carry the different perspectives of the main characters, and the division of the book into two sections symbolizes the flip sides of their lives. Ultimately, the structure unravels as its own character, which illustrates the main theme of the novel, that time is a goon tied to music.

Whether it be Rhea, Bennie’s high school friend, who would do anything to speed up time in order to feel comfortable in her own body, or Lou Kline, Bennie’s mentor who becomes overly obsessed with staying young forever, each character has their own personal struggle with the concept of time. As mentioned several times in the novel, “time’s a goon” and as all of us know, goons wait for no one. Time does not care if you are Bennie Salazar and you want to go back to the days where music was played on cassette tapes and 8-tracks. Time also does not care if you are Jocelyn, another one of Bennie’s high school friends, and you want to pause time and go back to your high school days of dating 30 something year old Lou Kline and tell yourself not to get in his car while hitchhiking. Through her novel, Egan does an excellent job of getting the point across that no matter who you are or what you have been through, you cannot freeze time nor stop its ageing process.

After spending most of her life with Jody, finally, Janie is free from his control. This moment after Jody has passed away, Janie has realized the freedom she was given and started to become her own individual person again. Jody in the beginning of their relationship, would not let Janie put her hair down due to his jealousy against other men. As a symbol of her now found freedom, Janie let her hair down from the kerchief that once took hold of it. This showed her new found independence of Jody’s control as the kerchief was showing Jody’s dominance over her. Now, that she is alone she has come to the sense of womanhood and not the young girl ,who was once naive in her quest for love. She can now be the woman that Joey did not want her to be and that is herself.

A Visit From the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan, captures the essence of aging and time through many intertwined characters’ points of view. As the novel begins and ends with one of the main characters, Sasha Grady, she describes her loneliness in life, despite living in a city, she struggles to connect with the unique people who surround her. With this said, in the other chapters, different characters tend to mimic this feeling of loneliness, with similar life experiences; the characters develop a complex web of characters, which interestingly all connects, out of chronological order. The characters’ wild past and unique life experiences cause them to resent the future, and fear time will forever take away their youth and happiness.

Time is only running out, and it is one of the most vital and overlooked qualities of life. Albert Camus highlights the theme of time in his 1947 novel, The Plague. Through the use of allegory and point of view, Camus substantiates that when people are not aware of time and its advancing, they are wasting the precious and limited time of their lives. He constantly establishes that the amount of consciousness obtained by a person is the difference between spending time wisely and foolishly.

A clock has a life span like a human; eventually they both break down and their time stops. Born with expiration dates the human mind eventually will run out of time. William Faulkner presents the concept of time and its effect on the human condition in his short story “A Rose for Emily”. His main character Emily is left alone when the only man, her father, who controlled her world dies. Unable to accept the fact of his death Emily undergoes a state of depression, which shields herself from society and makes her unable to face reality. William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” reveals the terrible consequences when humans attempt to make time stand still.

The passage of time is intrinsically connected to every aspect of life, as it is the construct through which we understand human experiences and the framework through which we comprehend our existence. The essence and effects of temporality reverberate through narratives; acting as a catalyst for action, or becoming an impediment to the future. Through the response that characters in The Wanderer and The Tempest have towards the transience of time, it becomes clear how these effects echo throughout the narrative, prompting these events into movement, and how they seep throughout every aspect of these texts.