Write About the Ways in Which Auden Tells the Story in “Miss Gee”.

Two more pertinent points are made by the author, in regards to the grandmother, follow in quick succession; both allude to further yet-to-be seen gloom within the story. O’Connor writes of the grandmother “[s]he didn’t intend for the cat to be left alone in the house for three days because he would miss her too much and she was afraid he might brush against one of the gas burners and accidentally asphyxiate himself” (1043) and of the way she is dressed “[i]n case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (1043). These two observations are innocent enough on the surface but provide true intent on the foreshadowing that O’Connor uses throughout the story. It is these two devices, irony and foreshadowing, that I feel are prominent and important aspects of the story and are evidenced in my quest to decipher this story.

As Wendy Martin says “the poem leaves the reader with painful impression of a woman in her mid-fifties, who having lost her domestic comforts is left to struggle with despair. Although her loss is mitigated by the promise of the greater rewards of heaven, the experience is deeply tragic.” (75)

This marks a new stage in the narrator's emotions, as she is glum upon his exit. It is clearly evident that the speaker is worried about her husband's journey because of line sixteen, which states, "Through the Gorges of Ch'u-t'ang, of rock and whirling water." This line shows that the husband is travelling through dangerous terrain. Throughout the third stanza, the narrator is said to slowly transition into a depression phase, as she dearly misses her husband. In lines twenty-three to twenty-five, the narrator sees butterflies flying "two by two" in the garden, and she feels very depressed upon seeing this because the butterflies are all together with their spouses, while she isn't. In line twenty-six, the speaker uses imagery to describe her emotion. She fears that she might start to look pale because of her

The theme of the story is under some circumstances people can be blind to the truth. Character Edie determines the style of the story by talking about the circumstances of her life as a fifteen year old girl and as an older woman. She retells the stories of those that she has known, and the man that she believed she loved deeply. Sometimes the things we want to happen may not be the things that life has for us. We need to be open to all the opportunities in life that are different from what we believe.

Once I was able to associate these words to emotions and issues present in everyday life, the poem started to make me feel sad. I began thinking about all of the emotions and feelings that everyone hides as they go about life. For example, how the waitress I see once a week may have an eating disorder, or how the singer I look up to just lost her son, or the businessman who got laid off today. Everyone has their own personal battle that they carry everywhere, at any given moment. This explains why the setting is so plain, since the internal struggles people face affect them even at a bus stop. While each person waits, the waitress may be thinking about how much skinnier the person next to her is. The singer could be remembering when she held her baby. And the business man could be planning how to break the news to his wife. No matter how small, everyone experiences a type of trauma or bad experience, and this poem seemed to show what happens when these emotions become bottled up. No one can help each other because they are so stuck within their own issues. The difficulty helping others reminded me of the idea of having to take care of yourself before being able to take care of others.

And I will crawl in and make room for myself. My heart can be the one that beats. And hers has stopped” (Gibbons, 1988, p. 10). This scene is very revealing of many systems’ and subsystems’ transactions. On a physical and emotional microsystem level we see Ellen open her individual boundaries and allow an adult to nurture her in a sense as a child needs to be nurtured. Also the heart beating for her mother and then her mother passing away besides her is a traumatic event that Ellen struggles with; and goes on to carry that burden of guilt. Although she felt fear to seek help from the threats of her father, she felt an internal struggle to protect and save her mother as she had already assumed the role as her protector. When she failed to do so it had lasting impacts that would linger and resurface later on with the death of her grandmother.

In “A Rose for Emily,” Faulkner employs a narrator to describe Emily Grierson, a recently deceased old woman. Apart from her manservant, she does not interact with others, save for a short period of time in

In the final stanza, he makes the reader sad as he assumes the inevitable will happen and she will die. He expresses this through metaphors such as a “black figure in her white cave”, which is a reference to the bright white hospital rooms and although he is the black figure he thinks she just sees a shadow which could be the grim reaper or even death himself, coming to end her journey. No one wants to deal with the sorrow of losing a loved one for good, as

The way the grandmother sneaks the cat into the car and lies about the secret panel brings irony to her beliefs of what it is to be a lady. Her views on the “old south” is established when she calls an African American boy a “cute little pickaninny.” June Star’s remark upon the boy not having britches on leads on to the grandmother’s remark on how he might not be able to afford shows her lack of sympathy towards the less fortunate. This also makes the reader wonder why she even says such a thing in the first place. Instead of reaching out to lend a hand the grandmother ends her statement by simply saying that she would like to “paint a picture” of the scene.

The tone of this story seems to portray Granny’s bitterness, which is seen during a part of her consciousness when she hears her daughter and the doctor whispering, “Wait, wait, Cornelia,

As a child, Lillian constantly searched for approval from Icilma, her stepmother. She was isolated at school and her father was never around, making Icilma the only person she’s close to. Lillian’s search for validation from her stepmother became so great that when she sang ‘Bottle of Coke’ and received a “not reacting… unimpressed [look]”, she “sang louder, harder, with feeling” and added a dance to try and impress her (John, 112). Lillian’s attention is so focused on impressing her stepmother that she failed to notice her stepmother’s burning hand that sent up smoke until someone came to intervene. Her desire to impress her stepmother developed from being neglected as a child. The fact that she is the offspring of Icilma’s love and husband, Winston, and the village prostitute, Iris, is the reason why Icilma may never fully accept Lillian. It was not until later when Lillian discovered who her birth mother was did she realize why she could never get Icilma’s approval. In addition to discovering her birth mother, Lillian also discovers the disturbing history of her family, which made the other children afraid of her. Myrtle reveals to Lillian that Matilda is her “’murdering Obeahwoman grandmother’” as well as the reason why she has never heard songs such as ‘Matilda Swinging’ (John, 229). The surprising news that Matilda is her grandmother will lead to the discovery that she is adopted and that her real mother is Iris. The emotional weight of realizing everything you were told was a lie strains Lillian and Icilma’s relationship further. Lillian’s grandmother confesses to murder and is accused of being a moral-less, obeah woman. In addition, her mother had an affair and pulled a scandalous stunt after John Baptiste broke his promise to marry her. Matilda and Iris were labelled as women gone mad, making Lillian question her

The main character, Edie, provides the narration of the story from a first person point of view. She tells her story based on an event from her past. Because she narrates the story the reader is unable to be sure if what she tells of the other characters is completely accurate. Because one does not hear other character's thoughts one could question whether Edie

Ms. Effie seems to have had to acquire a varied set of skills for one reason or another. That reason being that Ms. Effie is a deeply traumatized woman. A crucial piece of evidence is her behavior compared to other women of her time, that is, her unusual level of social isolation.

Throughout the story, “A Rose for Emily” the narrator tells the story from an unnamed narrator's perspective while sharing the town's feelings. This makes the reader feel immersed in the town they are reading about

However, Mrs. Threadgood, the old lady just mentioned sees her and begins telling her life story, seeming to attempt to make up for lost time. After a while Evelyn becomes interested in Virginia’s stories, and after several similar visits even looks forward to them. Mrs. Threadgood says, “She [Idgie] was a character all right, but how anybody ever could have thought that she killed that man is beyond me” (page 9). Virginia gives her advice and both profit. Evelyn becomes happier and Virginia has a visitor and someone to talk