The short story Spaghetti is written by Cynthia Rylant and is about a boy named Gabriel and a cat named Spaghetti.…
One way Sluggo represents Michael is how they are both lonely. In paragraph 41, for example, Aunt Esther thinks Sluggo is lonely and tells Michael, I think she also knows how Michael has no friends in school. So, they decide to go to the pet store and buy Sluggo a “girlfriend” but when they get there Aunt Esther over-reacts because she wants to pretend to show interest in the…
Michael was born into a bad situation to begin with; his mother was a crack addict. The neighborhood was known as a “broken windows” neighborhood, crime rate high and a lack of police presence. No one ever gave Michael a chance or believed in him until he met the Tuohy family, who changed his life. The plan that I have thought of for Michael is for him to continue living with the Tuohy family, but get in touch with his siblings. He needs to know his biological family. Sorting and organizing his life events in different factors, the majority of them are psychological factors, which should result with him seeing a counselor to relieve some of his life’s…
Golding uses the conch shell as a tool to govern the boys' meetings by allowing he who possesses it to speak without interruption. This symbolizes order and democratic power because each individual has the right to speak and express their own views. As the novel progresses, the conch's power disintegrates to where Piggy's inputs are disregarded and its power to influence the others disappears, shown by constant interposing. As the boys' reside on the island develops, they slowly evolve to become more savage-like even going as far as killing each other, and order dissolves until it ceases to exist, concluded by the shattering of the conch. Through this, Golding demonstrates that rules and order prevent humans from their true violent natures,…
Humans sometimes have to face the unfortunate reality that people die. "Space," by Kevin Brockmeier, is about a father and son who have to deal with the death of their wife and mother. Tension builds in their relationship throughout the story as they struggle with moving on from Della's death. The problem is that they are trying to move forward without losing her memory completely. Brockmeier uses light vs. dark elements, imagery, flashback stories from the past, and shifting tones seen in conversations to help develop the relationship between father and son.…
In the beginning of the story, Alexie introduces Jackson as having a fairly normal upbringing that unravels after he flunked out of college. “One day you have a home and the next you don’t,” (Alexie 12) perfectly encapsulates the main character’s situation. All throughout the story, readers are given the impression that Jackson has somewhat come to accept his circumstances, and that he is intelligent but simply unlucky to have turned out the way he did. This causes the readers to feel sympathy towards Jackson, and so they find it easier to understand why he acts so distant. He lost his chance at a successful life, and therefore he brings it upon himself to save his grandmother’s regalia, so in a way he will have accomplished something of value with his now meaningless life.…
One lonely character that is lonely in this book is Candy. In the beginning, Candy is pressured, by Carlson, to kill his dog Candy didn’t want to because he had known him since he was a puppy. Candy says “Well-Hell! I had him so long. Had him since he was a pup.” (Steinbeck,…
Liz Harris is the minimalist, ambient artist better known as Grouper. Her tenth studio album, Ruins, is a bare, raw, and hushed work that was almost entirely made in 2011 on a trip she took to Aljezur, Portugal. It was recorded on a portable 4-track, and one of the only instruments used is an upright piano. While living there, Harris found inspiration in the physical state of her surroundings. On walks, she came across the ruins of old estates and a nearby village.…
The use of diary entries throughout the novel reveals personal thoughts of the character. They show that the character feels helpless, torn from a sense of belonging due to bullying and peer…
Another character in the story that is hovered by loneliness is Candy. Candy deals with his loneliness in many ways. Candy is an old man who had a similar aged sheepdog. Carlson ended up shooting the dog and Candy choose to cope with the loss by staring at the wall and not talking to anyone. “A minute passed, and another minute. Candy lay still, staring at the ceiling” (Steinbeck 49). The quote creates sympathy for Candy about losing his companion. It shows that some people choose to grieve alone and not having their special friends creates loneliness. The death of the dog also later foreshadows the ending of the novel. After losing his dog, Candy chooses to become friends with Lennie and George and join their dream of living rich with a lot…
At the start of the book he was stressed and lonely, once he meets Skellig and Mina he comes out of himself and starts making friends with Skellig and Mina. His new friends then make him feel less lonely. Michael discusses his thoughts and problems with Skellig and Mina. Michael becomes more mature as you read through the book because of his relationship with Skellig. Michael wants to care and make sure that the old man is safe and heathy.…
“I have a great deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion of these pages, for I know I am not clever.” In the novel Bleak House, Charles Dickens has somehow managed to create the epitome of a perfect woman in the character of Esther. She has it all from being beautiful but modest, to humble and hardworking. Esther fits effortlessly in with our Victorian ancestor’s idea of a perfect woman. The reader is instantly drawn in by her character from these opening lines of her narration.…
Who says you can’t have more than one identity? In “Charles,” by Shirley Jackson, the story reveals how even people staying beneath the same roof may not be fully informed of each other’s true identities. Laurie’s mother, who is the narrator in this story, is unworldly unmindful of her own son’s poor conduct in Kindergarten and is too disposed to presume his illustrations of some different disobeying child. Although her son’s deportment alters when he goes into Kindergarten, she blames this on Charles’s behavior, a boy mentioned a lot by Laurie.…
But yet it is known that in Jackson’s own early life she had a tumultuous relationship with her mother Geraldine, who was a remarkably tactless and self-possessed woman. She married Jackson’s father at the age of 20 and immediately became pregnant with Jackson shortly after, but Geraldine never wanted Jackson for “she had looked forward to having time alone with her dashing husband, unencumbered, and to the parties and social engagements she loved.” (Oppenheimer-12). Geraldine was also never very approving of her daughter, with Jackson’s brother stating “A goldfish giving birth to a porpoise...” as a way to describe the relationship, with Geraldine often trying to conform Jackson into her “goldfish” like ways of the feminine societal norms of the time. Jackson growing up was also noted as having a very special gift of “clairvoyance”, as she put it she could see deep down into the core of people and read them for what they truly were, creating more of a distance between her and her mother as she would often bluntly comment on the nature of the people of the suburban neighborhood where she grew up. In many ways Jackson shares characteristics with Merricat, I believe that the 18 year-old is the personified embodiment of Jackson’s free spirit and rage for her mother. Merricat can be read as Jackson’s memories of her growing up in a house with Geraldine, she represents everything Jackson never was, but always wished to be in a carefree little girl who never has to grow up and remains in her castle unbothered by…
Jenny Saville and Lucien Freud share the same subject matter i.e. the human form however both have very different approaches to recording their observations and ideas and it’s an approach that I’ve become accustomed to because I like it as it allows absolute freedom in artistic expression.…