Willa Cather Describes Erotics of Place in her Novel, A Lost Lady

The structure of a novel enables it to embody, integrate and communicate its content by revealing its role in the creation and perception of it. A complex structure such as that of Robert Drewe’s work The Drowner, published in 1996, refers to the interrelation or arrangement of parts in a complex entity1. Drewe’s novel is a multi-faceted epic love story presenting a fable of European ambitions in an alien landscape, and a magnificently sustained metaphor of water as the life and death force2. The main concerns of the novel include concerns about love, life, death and human frailty. These concerns are explored through the complex structure of the novel. That is, through its symbolic title, prologues, and division into sections. The

The milky, white curtain of the morning’s mist was still lingered in the air, writhing and coiling around the moss covered bark of the oaks. Tendrils of the breath of the forest intermingled with the phantoms wisps of smoke floated up from our crackling fire as if the spirits of the dead Putnam children had really come to visit us, beckoned by the call of Tituba’s

Soft moonlight lit the land and sea kindly, almost as if it were giving gentle kisses. It kissed the sea and the waves it formed, it kissed the drowsy ship which laid on said water, it kissed the sand the waves lapped at, it kissed the grassy cliff above the shore, and it kissed the girl who slept on said cliff.

In his passage from “Last Child In the Woods”, author Richard Louv illustrates how people today don’t appreciate the greatness of nature, as adequately as they should. In employing multiple rhetorical strategies, Louv forces the audience to feel ashamed and remorseful for wanting to create a sort of artificial nature, and deprive their children from experiencing nature in its vastness. In addition to using very accusatory tone, Louv utilizes sarcastic diction, metaphors, and repetition to remind to the older generations, or anyone who remembers a world without modern technology, to teach the younger generations to always appreciate the world outside of their screen.

Many see the grass of yesterday as greener. This is the case with Richard Louv in his work Lost Child in the Woods where he believes that today’s society is too removed from nature and too obsessed with technology. Louv claims that as the world becomes increasingly influenced by technology the “true nature” is less valued than it was with previous eras. He successfully uses rhetorical techniques in order to accomplish his purpose of criticizing the people of today for distancing themselves from the natural world.

He waited until the night’s 11th hour. By now the Princess rested in the highest tower of the castle, locked away from the dangerous world, yet so oblivious to the dangers that which fated the rest of her life. Silently the peasant journeyed outside, where he stopped at the wall of the tower where she lay. He watched her in the darkness from below, lifting his face to her, letting the light rest on his every surface of darkness. The night was cloudless. The winds wailed between the motionless oak trees as its thin branches clawed out, ever so slightly disturbing the leaves with its hostile screeches. Not the thick moss of the trees nor the damp leaves squirming in his toes could distract the peasant from so enticing a scent. All that encircled him was the sweetness of lavender and rosewood, filling his entire being as he sunk into the grass, like sand washed over by the water, with every breeze passing

The grief comes from lost love must be recovered by love. In crow lake, the author Mary Lawson portrays a young successful scholar, 26-year-old Kate Morrison, always is bothered by her anguished past. The innermost struggle not only leads she can’t directly face the problem existing between her and her older brother Matt for years but also becomes an obstacle of the further relationship with Daniel, the men she loves. But all the problems are concealed elaborately before the invitation letter received. While the peaceful life is broken by the invitation coming from Matt’s son, her nephew Simon, Kate suddenly has to face all the problems she doesn’t want to face

The world of Ernest Hemingway’s “Big Two-Hearted River” exists through the mostly unemotional eyes of the character Nick. Stemming from his reactions and the suppression of some of his feelings, the reader gets a sense of how Nick is living in a temporary escape from society and his troubles in life. Despite the disaster that befell the town of Seney, this tale remains one of an optimistic ideal because of the various themes of survival and the continuation of life. Although Seney itself is a wasteland, the pine plain and the campsite could easily be seen as an Eden, lush with life and ripe with the survival of nature.

After this, Dorothea enters an unfamiliar location and releases her built up passion, “every muscle, nerve, fibre abandoned itself to the delicious sensation of rest that overtook”. When Dorothea escapes, the nature around her is throbbing with life. The lively characteristics given to objects of nature can make the reader imagine the relaxing feeling that overtook Dorothea. The writer ends the story with Dorothea stating that she would not be with Randall ‘Not for all his thousands!’, showing that Dorothea is an independent woman, who doesn’t need a man to

In recent decades, Cormac McCarthy has staked his claim as one of the all-time titans of American literature through publishing masterpieces like Blood Meridian, Suttree, and The Road. In his works his advanced level of technical mastery becomes apparent through his expertly harmonized coordination of literary elements toward certain narrative ends, such as the generation of suspense. In this light, McCarthy’s literary style is a practical one, in that he organizes literary elements in his works toward actualizing particular goals. In The Road, for instance, McCarthy directs his style throughout the text so as to maximize the feeling of suspense that readers experience throughout the book. This kind of stylistic maneuvering is expressed on pages 105-110 and pages 118-123 of the the text. But, it must be noted here that the generation of suspense in these passages does not result from similar stylistic approaches. McCarthy uses style in differently in Passage A and Passage B but ultimately toward the same end, namely generating suspense for readers of The Road. Passage A relies on dialogue to develop its suspense, whereas the style of Passage B relies on narrative action for its suspense.

Throughout her many years as a poet, Margaret Atwood has dealt with a variety of subjects within the spectrum of relationship dynamics and the way men and women behave in romantic association. In much of her poetry, Atwood has addressed the topics of female subjugation in correlation with male domination, individual dynamics, and even female domination over males within the invisible boundaries of romantic relationships. With every poem written, Atwood's method for conveying the message of the poem has remained cryptic. She uses a variety of poetic devices - sometimes layered quite thickly - to communicate those themes dealing with human emotion. In the poem, Siren Song, Margaret Atwood

Cather describes the ways in which the characters interact feelings can then be inferred. Though this is an important part in Cather’s writing style she also accomplishes her goal of avoiding writing passages “crowded with physical sensations” (“The Novel Démeublé” 1).

“Big Two Hearted River”, a semi-autobiographical short story by Ernest Hemingway, is a story about the main character, Nick, returning to Big Two Hearted River in order to recover from his inner wounds. Nick Adams goes on a journey alone in nature for a therapeutic purpose as he suffers from PTSD. However, Hemingway purposely avoided any direct discussion regarding to Nick’s mental wounds. The absence of the discussion is contributed by Hemingway’s writing style, the Iceberg principle. Hemingway focuses explicitly on what occurs on the surface without mentioning actual theme. This indicates that the theme of self-healing cannot be uncovered by simply looking at the text itself. In order to comprehend the actual theme of the story, the character development of Nick must be examined. This is possible since Nick Adams is a recurring character of Hemingway’s stories. The two preceding stories of “Big Two Hearted River”, “Now I lay me” and “A Way you’ll Never Be”, directly discusses Nick’s suffering from shell-shock and how he comforts himself by returning to Big Two Hearted river in his mind. The two short stories will be analyzed and connected to “Big Two Hearted River” in the essay first. This will provide a strong understanding of Nick’s psyche and the reason behind his return to nature. Then, “Big Two Hearted River” the short story itself will be carefully analyzed.

The speaker furthermore conveys the idea that nature is a grandeur that should be recognized by including the element of imagery. The poet utilizes imagery as a technique to appeal to reader’s sense of sight . It is “the darkest evening of the year” (line 8) and a traveller and his horse stop “between the woods and frozen lake” (line 7). By writing with details such as these, readers are capable of effortlessly envisioning the peaceful scenery that lies before the speaker. The persona then draws on reader’s sense of sound. “The only other sound’s the sweep / Of easy wind and downy flake.” The illustration allows readers to not only see,

The sunset was not spectacular that day. The vivid ruby and tangerine streaks that so often caressed the blue brow of the sky were sleeping, hidden behind the heavy mists. There are some days when the sunlight seems to dance, to weave and frolic with tongues of fire between the blades of grass. Not on that day. That evening, the yellow light was sickly. It diffused softly through the gray curtains with a shrouded light that just failed to illuminate. High up in the treetops, the leaves swayed, but on the ground, the grass was silent, limp and unmoving. The sun set and the earth waited.