Theme and Symbols of “I Used to Live Here Once” - 852 Words

Theme and Symbols of â€Å"I used to live here once† ENG125 Introduction to Literature Instructor 10/1/2012 Theme and Symbols of â€Å"I used to live here once† The story â€Å"I used to live here once† is a short story based on a woman’s journey returning to a place she once called home. The author uses symbols throughout the story to demonstrate to the reader that the woman is no longer alive. The ultimate theme is not discovered until the end of the story. The purpose of this paper will be to discuss my interpretation of the theme and symbol of this story. This story is written in limited third person point of view. This means that narrator is not a character in the story. Based on the fact that; the narration is focused on only the†¦show more content†¦If the author had not mentioned this; it would have been a lot more difficult for the reader to understand what the story is about. The first time she knew, means the first moment she realized that she was only a spirit returning to a place she once called home. The overall theme of this story is the woman’s spiritual journey through the afterlife. I believe that the author using limited third point of view helped me to connect with the woman. The symbols expressed throughout the story were intriguing. The symbols made me think about the statements in a new light. â€Å"I used to live here once† is a lot more complex than I first thought. This story is very well written and I enjoyed looking deeper into the meaning behind it. References: Rhys, J. (1976) I used to live here once/Journey into literature. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/books Clugston, R. W. (2010). Journey into literature. San Diego, California: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. Retrieved fromShow MoreRelatedHow Theme Shapes a Story632 Words   |  3 PagesHead: Theme How Theme Shapes a Story By Trina Carr English 125 Instructor: Clifton Edwards Running Head: Theme page 1 Like many people who haven’t studied literature, if someone asked me what the theme of a story was, I would have given a synopsis of the story detailing the actions and characters in it. As I have come to learn, theme is much more than a distilled retelling of a story. Theme givesRead MoreI Used to Live Here Once by Jean Rhys1390 Words   |  6 Pagesessay I will provide the difference between two stories and I will also show the similarities in them. The two that I have chosen are â€Å"Dog’s Death† by John Updike, which is a poem and â€Å"I Used to Live Here Once† by Jean Rhys, which is a short story. John Updike has been writing since he was very young. Shortly after he graduated from Harvard he sold his first story (Samuels, 1969). Updike is a detailed realist, filling his stories with facts that guarantee belief (Samuels, 1969). Jean Rhys used herRead MoreJourney Symbolism in Literature1672 Words   |  7 PagesWilcox English 125 4/10/2011 Ashford University This analysis will critically analyze the symbolism of journey-and its literary importance- between â€Å"The Road Not Taken† and â€Å"I Used to Live Here†. This critical paper chose to write itself upon symbolism’s journeys within literature. The tales chose are from â€Å"I used to Live Here† (Rhys) as well as â€Å"The Road Not Taken† (Frost). The choice in comparative analysis is due to how they both swim in a sea of metaphorical symbolism. The similarity is thatRead MoreImagery in Macbeth by William Shakespeare702 Words   |  3 Pagesis a compelling story by William Shakespeare about the fall of a once noble man who becomes a tragic hero. The story of Macbeth is about a man who let his desires result in him becoming an evil man. 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Analysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral - 1006 Words

Gabrielle Sobolewski English 200 Professor Ruth Jennison 11/12/15 The short story â€Å"Cathedral† by Raymond Carver is told from the perspective of a first-person narrator. Throughout the story, the narrator is self-absorbed in his own thoughts and emotions and fails in his willingness to overlook personal insecurities in order to accommodate others’ discomfort, i.e. predominantly his wife and the blind man. In general, the story lacks figurative language and is told in short, direct sentences. This basic structure leaves a lot for the reader to interpret on his or her own. I focused on two paragraphs within Raymond Carver’s short story. The first section is the fifth paragraph in the story beginning with â€Å"But instead of dying...† and concluding with â€Å"all I wanted to.† To make it less complicated throughout my paper, I will refer to this segment as ‘Section 1.’ The second section I used is the seventh paragraph in the short story, which begins with â€Å"Beulah had gone to work...† a nd ends with â€Å"Pathetic.† I will refer to this segment as ‘Section 2.’ Both of these paragraphs hold significance both in themselves alone as well as when applied together. In Section 1, the protagonist provides a subjective, narrow report of his wife’s past. Throughout his storytelling, the husband seems to lack a certain interest and empathy towards his wife’s past events. For example, when recounting his wife’s suicide attempt, the only thing he mentions is that â€Å"instead ofShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral1696 Words   |  7 Pagesfrom, or trying to bury alive. Cathedral, written by Raymond Carver, takes place in the early 1980’s. Originally published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1981. Carver slightly revised the story and re-released it in 1983. At a time when the blue collar working class lived paycheck to paycheck, working hard for newfound luxuries such as color television, this short story is humo rous and eye-opening for the reader. For adults ranging from thirty to forty years old, the 1980’s were possibly a ghostly, hauntingRead MoreCharacter Analysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral 1426 Words   |  6 PagesCharacter Analysis in Raymond Carver’s â€Å"Cathedral†: The Narrator Literature has the potential to act as a mirror by presenting people’s lived experiences, expectations, and perceptions through characters. Such is what can be deciphered through the analysis of different characters in Raymond Carver’s story â€Å"Cathedral.† This paper focuses on the narrator of the story portrayed by the author as blind, which is used metaphorically not to imply physical blindness, but the inability to have reasonedRead MoreAnalysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral 970 Words   |  4 PagesIn Raymond Carver’s short story, â€Å"Cathedral†, we meet the character who is never named, and who is known as the narrator to us. Although the narrator’s character changed towards the end, and we don’t really learn much after the change of his personality, it is still a gradual change that took place. The narrator’s attitude is very important in the story because it revolves around him and the way he views things. This short story is about a man who is married to a woman, and this woman has been friendsRead MoreAnalysis Of Raymond Carver s The Cathedral 863 Words   |  4 Pages One of the Raymond Carver story where we can find a lot of religion symbols; it is â€Å"Cathedral.† The story develops an ironic situation in which a blind man teaches a sighted man to truly â€Å"see† for the first time. Near the end of the story, Carver has these two characters work together on a drawing of a cathedral, which serves as the symbolic heart of the story. The cathedral represents true sight, the ability to see beyond the surface to the true meaning that lies within. The narrator’s drawingRead MoreAnalysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral 1097 Words   |  5 PagesSeptember 2015 Cathedral by Raymond Carver In this short story by Raymond Carver begins with a man whose wife invited a good friend over named Robert and is blind. Before Roberts Arrival, the wife’s husband, whose name is Bub, does not know what to make out of his wife’s good friend Robert coming over to their house. Carver utilizes a story of a blind man who changes Bub’s outlook in life. Through the narrators changing character, theme of loneliness and jealousy, and the cathedral being a symbolRead MoreAnalysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral 943 Words   |  4 PagesIn Raymond Carver’s â€Å"Cathedral†, the short story is told by a character within the story. The first-person point of view gives us a transparent visual of an important time in the narrators’ life. The narrator, who is â€Å"un-named† in the beginning of the story, uses blunt, flawless and a particular choice of words. This gives us as the reader a deeper connection with the narrator. The narrator begins this story by taking us through the changes he go through with the uneasy feeling of having a blind-manRead MoreAnalysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral2364 Words   |  10 Pagesmost. The same could be said about people who are limited by one or more of their six senses and are judged by the majority of the population who are not limited and make preconceived notions about these limitations which can bind them. Raymond Carver’s â€Å"Cathedral† explores many literary devices that reveal the pre conceived perception towards people with physical limitations without understanding the individual first, which is still a problem today. The protagonist, the narrator is closed mindedRead MoreAn Analysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral1794 Words   |  8 Pages A Cynics Enlightenment Raymond Carver’s short-story Cathedral is outwardly about a pessimistic man, whose wife’s blind visitor named Robert changes the narrators predisposing perception of the world and awakes a new view on life in the process. But inwardly, the story is about the desperate need for connection between these three characters, which isn’t feasible do to the emotional-detachment by the narrator. In the beginning, the narrator is hindered by his prejudices which doesn t allow himRead MoreAnalysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral1524 Words   |  7 PagesAs if someone has unlocked his prison cell to liberate him of his stereotypical point of view. The protagonist of Raymond Carver’s â€Å"Cathedral† was an individual whose stagnant mind has blind him from truly seeing the aspects and characteristics of people around him. Before meeting his wife’s blind friend whose name is Robert, the protagonist perceives reality with a stereotypical mind-set shaped by m isleading information from movies. Hence, he make judgement about other people without ever settingRead MoreAnalysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral 1340 Words   |  6 PagesRaymond Carver’s characters were considered to be very much like him: â€Å"’on the edge: of poverty, alcoholic self-destruction, loneliness† (Mays 32). His short story â€Å"Cathedral† is about a young couple, who have a visitor coming to stay with them. This visitor, Robert, is the wife’s friend, and he is blind. The narrator, the husband, has never met someone who is blind, was bothered by that. To him, being blind meant constantly needing help from others. His depiction of blindness was what he has seen

As sociology coursework †effects of a fatherless childhood Free Essays

I chose this area of study because I noticed that compared with personal knowledge, the New Right Ideology appears to exaggerate how fatherless upbringings affect children. Amongst my peers there are people raised in lone parent and nuclear families, and members of both groups experience similar amounts of problems and share similar social values, unlike Rebecca O’Neill’s conclusion that children from lone parent families are more likely to have underage sex due to a lack of parental control. (100 words) Contexts and Concepts In 1993, Olson and Haynes conducted a study of American lone parent families. We will write a custom essay sample on As sociology coursework – effects of a fatherless childhood or any similar topic only for you Order Now The results led to them identifying seven strengths of these families, six were relevant to my research. The first was that lone parents accepted the responsibilities of their roles and problems were always solved. The second was prioritisation of the parental role, meaning parents did not have to split attention. The third strength was discipline, proving children did not go without discipline and they knew how to behave in society. The fourth was open communication, meaning children would feel able to talk to parents, preventing long term emotional problems. Parental self nurturance was the fifth strength. The final relevant strength was the rituals and traditions which meant the children’s lives had structure and they did not miss out on things that nuclear families are thought to have more of, such as family holidays. Olson and Hayes proved the lone parent family to be beneficial to both parents and children, showing no deprivation of a second role model in the home to instil things such as social values and discipline. This is very relevant to what I aim to prove. In September 2002, Rebecca O’Neill conducted the study, â€Å"Experiments in Living: The Fatherless Family†, concerning lone-mother parenting, as a result of birth outside marriage, divorce or changes in marriage or cohabitation. She researched the effects of a fatherless upbringing on the children of fatherless families and adults who had been raised in fatherless families. When studying the effects on children, O’Neill found they were likely to suffer emotional problems. She found that young teenagers were likely to take illegal substances, commit crimes and have sex before marriage, activities linked to socialisation and discipline in the home. O’Neill’s study of adults raised by lone mothers showed them to be less likely to gain qualifications and become employed, meaning they were more likely to be unemployed and depend on the state for benefits, therefore continuing the dependency culture and socialising children to think it is okay to depend on the state. O’Neill’s results also showed adults from lone-parent families were less likely to marry and more likely to commit crimes. The conclusions of this study are very supportive of the New Right ideology, in that the best environment for a child to be raised in is the traditional nuclear family including mother and father, I seek to prove this wrong. (400 words) Main Research Method My interviews will be unstructured, as it would be the most relevant way of gaining qualitative results, which are useful for finding out the opinions and emotions of interviewees, leading to a conclusion about personal social values. Using unstructured interviews would be significant because each person would have individual values, ones which they may not be able to fully express with structured interviews. Unstructured interviews would also mean the interviewees could talk about things that are relevant which I had not thought about prior to the interviews. The interviews will still have slight structure, in that I will be taking an active approach in engaging the interviewees in conversation about points I would like to cover for my research. I feel that an active approach would be useful as an interviewee engaged in conversation would probably be more likely to talk about their opinions and create a sense of friendship and trust. These may be needed to allow the interviewee to feel comfortable about topics such as sex, intoxicant use and criminal activity, things which they may otherwise consider as taboo. These topics are relevant to the social values outlined by O’Neill, but if they are not probed about, they could easily go unmentioned. I will operationalise concepts by explaining their definitions, which will avoid responses being affected by lack of understanding. My sample will be of 140 students at my school, 20 from each year group, half of whom will be from lone parent families and half of whom will be from nuclear families. Doing a split sample will allow me to show the similarities between the groups in terms of social values, emotional stability and educational attainment. The sample will be of pupils at my school, as finding interviewees will be easier and it would be cost efficient, with less travelling needed, also leading to a saving of time. My sample will be voluntary, perhaps through advertisement. I would ask for voluntary interviewees who would openly talk about family matters. This sampling method would be suitable for my research because the interviews will be about some family matters, illegal activities and emotional subjects. These things can be hard for some people to talk about, so asking people to volunteer would be better than producing a random sample of which some people would feel uneasy talking about the covered issues. (391 words) Potential Problems As with any study, potential problems can be found in using unstructured interviews. Ethical issues can cause problems such as privacy being invaded. Some interviewees may reveal information they did not intend to reveal at first, due to the informal nature of the interviews. Another problem is the moral dilemma I will be faced with if an interviewee reveals information that indicates they are at risk of harm or that they are committing serious crimes. Would it be right for me to breach confidentiality and get local authorities involved? I will also need to find ways of ensuring my interviewees come to no emotional harm as a result of the interviews. Validity may be difficult to ensure. Due to my method’s informal nature, I may find myself making comments or asking questions that are biased, influencing interviewee responses. Also affecting validity is the interviewee. Some may have bad memories, and report things differently to what they are, others may conform to social desirability and make statements which are untrue, just to have themselves perceived in a certain way. This may also affect how reliable responses are when coming to a conclusion. The research method will be free in terms of money, but not time. Realistically, for me to get the maximum information out of interviewees, I would need to spend at least an hour with each. But, that would take at least a month if all were to be done in school hours. Therefore, I will only probably get half an hour with each interviewee. My method also has the disadvantage that general conversing in unstructured interviews could lead to the discussion of irrelevant topics. My sample could cause a problem of the small group I use not being representative of youths of other ages or social backgrounds. How to cite As sociology coursework – effects of a fatherless childhood, Papers

Report On Alexander The Great Essay Example For Students

Report On Alexander The Great Essay Alexander the Great was one of the greatest rulers and conquerors of all time. He conquered the mighty Persian Empire and most of the known world at that time. Alexander was born in Pella, the ancient capital of Macedonia. He was the son of an excellent general and organizer, named Philip II King of Macedon. His mother was Olympias, princess of Epirus. She was brilliant and hot-tempered. Alexander inherited the best qualities of both his parents. But he was even more ambitious than his father. He wept bitterly when he heard of Philips conquests and said, My father will get ahead of me in everything, and will leave nothing great for me to do. Alexanders mother taught him that Achilles was his ancestor, and that his father was descended from Hercules. Alexander learned by heart the Iliad, a story about the deeds of Achilles. He carried a copy of the Iliad with him, and Achilles became Alexanders hero. Even as a boy Alexander was fearless and strong. He tamed the beautiful and spirited Bucephalus, a horse that no one else dared to touch or ride. Later, this famous steed carried him as far as India, where it died. Alexander then built the city of Bucephalus on the Hyphasis River in memory of his beloved horse. Philip was so proud of Alexanders power over the horse that he said, ;O my son, seek out a kingdom worthy of thyself, for Macedonia is too little for thee. ; Philip and Olympias saw the potential for greatness in the boy and arranged for his education. His first teacher was the harsh Leonidas, a relative of Olympias, perhaps her uncle. Leonidas was a strict disciplinarian who instilled in Alexander his ascetic nature. This nature became famous during his Persian and Indian expeditions, where he would live simply, very much like his troops. Leonidas was replaced with Lysimachus, who curried the favor of the king by calling him Peleus, Alexander Achilles, and himself Phoinix, the name of Achilles tutor. Lysimachus taught Alexander to play the lyre, and taught him an appreciation for the fin e arts of music, poetry, and drama. Philip and Olympias wanted nothing less than the best for their son, so when he was 13, his parents hired Aristotle from Athens to be his personal tutor. The two of them spent time at Mieza, a temple about 20 miles from the palace at Pella. Under Aristotle, Alexander learned philosophy, ethics, politics, and healing. Aristotle inspired the talented youth with a great love for literature. He took part in sports and daily exercise to develop a strong body. Aristotle also inspired in Alexander a keen interest in other countries and races of people, and in animals and plants. Alexanders education was not all from books. He talked with ambassadors from many foreign countries, and with other noted persons at his fathers court. When he was only 18, he commanded part of Philips cavalry at the battle of Chaeronea. Alexander also acted as his fathers ambassador to Athens. In 336 B.C. Phillip II was assassinated, and at the age of twenty Alex ascended to the Macedonian throne. As soon as he received that position he found that there were many people plotting against him. So he disposed of the conspirators quickly by execution. Then he descended on Thessaly and restored Macedonian rule. Before the end of the year 336 Alex reestablished his position in Greece. He was also elected to the congress of states at Corinth. In 335 as general of the Greeks he carried out a successful campaign against the Persians, penetrating to the Danube River. On the way back Alex crushed the Illyrians in a single week. On his way back Alex learned that the people in the city of Thebes revolted and called upon the people of Athens to join them. Alexander soon appeared before Thebes with his army and Alex took over the city, destroyed everything except for the temples of the gods and the house of Pindar, a Greek lyric poet. The surviving inhabitants who numbered around eight thousand were sold into slavery. With this siege over Thebes all of the other Greek states went in to submission .