...it in our own different ways. Everyone has their own way of dealing with the loss of a loved one. In the short story “No Angel” from 2010, Bernie McGill processes this theme. In the short story, a girl called Annie loses her entire family. Bernie McGill writes about how she copes with her grief. In the following essay, I will analyze the author’s use of supernatural elements as a gateway between the living and the dead. The main character in ”No Angel” is a woman whose father has recently passed away. We are told that she has a boyfriend/fiancé . Even though she is technically being “haunted” by her dead father, she does not seem scared or “angry” in any way. She seems to understand the supernatural things that are happening to her. Probably because of the things that happened to her earlier in her life, with her brother and mother being dead , and now her father too. It is as if nothing can really surprise her anymore. She is drawn towards people with a higher self-esteem than her, like her brother Robbie. Which is also why she went out with Thomas who she says reminds her of Robbie. The reason for this can be the lack of bravery and boldness in herself. Even though the main character isn’t described as “lonely”, it seems very possible that she is not yet over her fathers’ death, which might also be the reason why she sees her father after his death. The story is told with a first person narrative. Which gives us a limited view of the events that happen in the main...
Words: 1118 - Pages: 5
...Cameron Davidson Professor Dennis LAL 250 04 18 Sept. 2015 Writing Assignment: Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper In the short story The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman gives us readers a tale that leaves us confused. Jane, the story's main character has just had a child and is told by her husband John to rest, to not do anything. John's sister Jennie is there as their housekeeper, and the wallpaper, which seems to be very old, seems to be emitting something that perplexes not only the characters, but us as well. First, Jane discovers the smell of the wallpaper itself. Giving it personificational qualities, that is, like giving a tree a set of legs and telling it to walk to you. The problem is, we as readers...
Words: 590 - Pages: 3
...as You Ruin” is a short story written by Simon Van booy. The short story focuses on life an existence. The main character of the short story is Gerard and focuses on him and his thoughts. The story is a distinction between present and past. The short story gives us the question, who he really is, and who should he be? Gerard is man who comes from Manhattan. Gerard is around 35-40 years old, which we know because he has a daughter, and had her for eight years. The story start out in Media’s res, by Gerard walking down the streets of Manhattan. It is Winter, because it is very snowy. “At the end of each block the sidewalk disappears under a pool of gray ice water”. The short story is told in chronological order, but it does have flashbacks. The flashbacks happen to Gerard, when he thinks back upon a certain time. The short story is told by a third person narrator. And it is seen from Gerard’s point of view. “Gerard thinks of his own footprints and how soon they will disappear”. Gerard was once married, but his ex-wife left him only 6 month after she gave birth to Lucy. So now are Gerard and Lucy living alone together. We are not told anything about his friends, but one thing is for sure, he earns a lot of money. We know that because he can afford a nanny who I It iss around quite a lot. The starting point of the story is when Gerard is on his way home from work. On his way home, we are told about his life events from the past, and when he begin to points out his footprints, the...
Words: 812 - Pages: 4
...Reunion By John Cheever Analytical essay The short story “Reunion” is written by the American novelist and short story writer John Cheever. The short story was published back in 1962, which later was included in “ The stories of John Cheever” in 1978. The short story is about a teenage boy named Charlie. Charlie is about to meet his father for the first time in a couple of years, and he is very excited and happy about the meeting. Charlie has not seen his father since the end of his parents’ relationship. They are going to meet at Grand Central Station in New York. The father and the son go to several restaurants, but the son Charlie ends up leaving him because of his disrespectful way of acting. The place of the story is in New York. It starts at the Grand Central Station, where they meet for the first time after three years. After that, the story moves on to all the different restaurants and bars. The story ends where it started, at the Grand Central Station, where the father and the son say goodbye to each other. The point of view in the story is written in the first person. The narrator tells us about an important moment in his life which happened in the past. The narrator Charlie is a young teenage boy. We do not get to know his exact age, but I think that he probably is about 18 years old. The reason why I think that is because we get to know that he is taking the train alone in New York and also that the waiter does not want to serve him an alcoholic...
Words: 871 - Pages: 4
...his country.' These words were written in article 13 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and were the inspiration to Ali Smith’s short story ´the Go-Between´. She wrote this story as a celebration of the anniversary of the proclamation. In this short story we follow the 33-year old former microbiologist, who gives us a direct insight into what it means to be African refugees on the border between Morocco and Spain. The narrator is, for some reason, fled from his native Cameroon, and has several times tried to flee across the border to Europe. None of his attempt is successful, and they have cost him part of his ear and a finger. He explains in details about how flight tests are done and the treatment he has received from the authorities. The narrator has abandoned himself to escape and is now settled in the Spanish city Ceuta, located in Morocco. Here he helps people to get over the border fence to Spain. He is a border crosser, a mediator between the French Doctors and the refugees – he is the “Go-Between”. Ali Smith starts his short story by giving us the felling of something you can almost reach. 'You see those lights across the bay? That’s Europe. You see that fence? The other side of it is Europe!' (l. 2) It is a very enthusiastic beginning and make us readers stumble across the problem of being so close, but yet so out of reach. The main character has had a rough past. He has experienced a lot of horrifying torture done to the people who he crossed...
Words: 907 - Pages: 4
...of a story; A static change is when a character does not undergo severe change since the start of a story such as no Point of View changing or no way of thinking changing. In the story “The Necklace” Mme. Loisel starts off as a snobby “I deserve better” type of person. “She suffered endlessly feeling herself to be born for every luxury and riches”. This quote States that at the starting of the short story before she lost the necklace she was wining about how she deserves better. After she loses her friend’s necklace instead of telling her friend the truth she goes on an “adventure” trying to find the exact same necklace. “We must see about replacing the diamonds” this quote states that instead of saying the truth (which would’ve helped) she planned to just replace it to make herself look good. ”Oh my poor Mathilde but mine was merely an imitation.” This shows how much the Truth could’ve helped her instead of Loan sharks and replacing the necklace. This is an example of Dynamic change as it changed her way of thinking. In the story “The Most Dangerous Game” Rainsford also goes through a dynamic change. At the start of the story Rainsford did not care at all about what he was hunting and how much pain/fear it goes through. “Who cares what the jaguar feels”, “Bah, They’ve no understanding”. These two quotes state that he didn’t care at all about what the animal or prey goes through, just cared about the thrill of the hunt. After the incident in which he finds out that general...
Words: 722 - Pages: 3
...regret them. That is what happened to Gerard when he met the only woman he had ever loved after eight years apart. But sometimes the mistakes we make, end up turning around and by a religious experience, faith gives us a second chance. The magic, realism short story‘ Save as many as you ruin’ by Simon Van Booy starts with in medias res composition. ”By the time Gerard leaves the office it has stopped snowing”. Afterwards the short story continues in a chronological order, but Simon Van Booy uses flashbacks, dialog and direct speech to show the audience of the short story, specific events of Gerard’s past. The narrator of the short story is a third person narrator, writing in present tense. The story time is one day and it takes place in Miami. It starts when Gerard leaves his job and ends when he is sitting in his study room, looking out the window wondering about his life, when he suddenly feels as it says in the short story. “a chill like cold water down his back”. After thinking about his different times with Issy and Laurel. According to the short story, Issy and Laurel are two out of the four momentous women in his life whose names are Indra, Lucy, Issy and Laurel. Gerard is the protagonist of the short story and Issy is the antagonist. Issy has given birth to his beloved daughter Lucy, who is the most important person in his life. Issy was never a woman Gerard loved.” Gerard loved one woman once, but not Lucy’s mother”. The women Gerard loved was Laurel. They were...
Words: 1003 - Pages: 5
...Owl By Jackie Kay Is it possible to live in the past back when you were ten when you really are in the middle age? Is it healthy to be stuck in the childhood and not wanting to move on? That is what the main character in Jackie Kay’s short story Owl does. This essay will focus on the narrative technique, the contrasts and what the title can symbolize. The short story is written by a first person narrator which in this case means that the story is told through one of the main characters, Barn’s/Anita’s, eyes. It is written in past tense and is focused on Barn’s angle of the story and the reader experiences the events through her. The reader is for the reason of that trusting the narrator because one is made to feel closer and friendlier with the narrator because the reader and the narrator look through the same eyes. This dominates not only the point of view but also the plot. Some of the text is a flashback from Barn’s and Tawn’s childhood where we get to know them as children. There are many contrasts in the short story Owl. One of them is the contrast between being a child and a grown up. The story is divided in two. The first part of the text focuses on the childhood of Barn and Tawn when they were nine and ten years old. The second part takes place when they are adults and in their forties. They are stuck in the past even though they have grown up: “And maybe after that we could go back to our names, to calling ourselves our real names. (Though I doubt we’d...
Words: 912 - Pages: 4
...Revenge is a Wild Justice The man with a calm head will lead a life more enjoyable than he who has a short fuse. If a person stresses their self out twenty-four hours a day seven days a week, they will probably never sleep or develop an ulcer. American society was founded on the principle that problems should be handled calmly and respectfully. When a citizen commits a crime they don’t have the same offense done unto them. A jury of their peers tries them. At first, the Narrator of Brady Udall’s short story “He Becomes Deeply and Famously Drunk” does not understand this concept. He has the unconditional desire to kill his father’s killer. By the end of the story, the narrator realizes the errors of his way. Francis Bacon’s short essay titled “Of Revenge” reinforces the conclusion that Udall’s narrator reaches: revenge is not healthy. Revenge is a bad memory that a person is unable to move past. For Udall’s narrator, the bad memory that ate away at him was losing his father Quinn at a young age and having the killer walk free. Growing up with the desire to avenge a father’s death is not healthy. Those wishes will poison a child’s thoughts with hate. This is evident in the first few pages of the story: I have something wrong with me, something bad inside that builds up until I have to let it out by talking, shouting, raging, letting it all loose, even if there is no one there to listen. (I even thrash and holler in my sleep sometimes-one more thing Richard holds against...
Words: 885 - Pages: 4
...someone special. Robin Black’s short story “Divorces, Beheaded, Survived” illuminate the troubles that death can bring upon a family. The main question in the short story is: How do you move on when a beloved person close to you dies? And when is it okay to let the memory of this person go? Robin Black’s short story is a great illustration of how these problems affect our every day life. ”Divorced, Beheaded, Survived” is a thought-provoking short story written by the author, Robin Black. The short story is about a woman named Sara. The short story begins in medias res where we get presented to Sara’s friends, who are playing the loyal family. The short story moves frequently in time, from past to present and from present to past. This kind of structure gives the story an interesting touch and makes it very fascinating to read because it reveals the age of some persons beneath the lines, as seen in the following quote: “Johnny was a tear younger than Terry, a your older than me.” You have to use your head through the story, and you wont get all the information served on a plate. Sara is the story’s first person narrator, and she tells us about how she used to play with her friends and her brother in their garden. Her brother’s name is Terry. They had a common friend named Johnny Sanderson. He was the director of the play that they were playing. The play was about King Henry the 8th and all of his wives. Therefore the title of the short story is “Divorced, Beheaded, Survived...
Words: 1056 - Pages: 5
...What makes a short story successful and satisfying for the audience to read? I believe that the answer to this question varies from person to person. In my opinion, an interesting short story includes a full character development of its protagonist that shows how he/she came to be and also a main event that happens that would change the whole dynamic of the story and greatly influence the main character. An intriguing short story should reveal the full character development of its protagonist because it allows us to get out of our skins and into others’. When reading about a person’s childhood, experiences, failures and triumphs, we, as readers, can explore the roads not taken in our lives. For example, in the short story “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin (1957), the writer starts with Sonny’s childhood where his parents died when he was young. His older brother was in the military, so Sonny had to live with his brother’s fiancé’s family. Unfortunately, this did not work out and Sonny’s spiral dive into drugs and illegal activities started after he moved out. It is fascinating to see and experience the path that Sonny had taken in order to become the person he is today. A captivating short story takes us out of our reality and engulfs our imagination into someone else’s life through character development. Furthermore, a successful short story should contain a main event or a pivoting moment that greatly influences the protagonist. This event changes the momentum of the...
Words: 589 - Pages: 3
...chaotic and confusing postmodern world. What starts out as a routine task of putting down a wounded dog ends up becoming a journey for spiritual awakening, as Stolpestad comes to some life-changing realizations. The story is set in a dull and gloomy town in which Stolpestad grew up and has inhabited ever since. The narrator provides several signs that the town is a place almost completely desolated from excitement. This is for example evident in lines 3-4: “…like a clock ticking all these bored little pent-up streets and mills and tenements away.” Life of the town is decaying. Nothing seems to be done to prevent this from happening. As goes for the case of Stolpestad’s life. Stolpestad leads a quiet and trivial life as a police officer – a job in which the main constituents of a daily schedule are insignificant routine tasks. To fill out the remaining parts of his life he hangs out at bars finding comfort for the lack of substance in his life at the bottom of endless pints of beer. One might almost describe Stolpestad’s trivial life as a never-ending déjà vu, where the days are just passing by indifferently. When Stolpestad is called out to the boy with the injured dog however, he suddenly gets an opportunity of moving on with his life. He is asked to end the misery of the dog and the dog thereby becomes a symbol of progress in his life – a challenge about his future. If he can overcome this challenge, he can finally move on with his life and end the long-lasting cycle of...
Words: 951 - Pages: 4
...Essay and e-mail - Reunion A. An essay analyzing the short story This essay is going to be an analysis and interpretation of the short story ‘’Reunion’’ by John Cheever. It will begin with a summary of the short story. Afterwards the plot, the conflict and the setting will be analyzed. Then I’ll move on to the characterization, the possible surprise ending and the theme and message. Finally I will draw parallels between the short story ‘’Reunion’’ and the essay ‘’Living With Strangers’’ by Siri Hustvedt. ‘’Reunion’’ is a short story about a boy called Charlie and his last interaction with his father. Charlie was travelling by train from his grandmother’s to a cottage his mother had rented. He would be in New York for about an hour and thirty minutes while waiting for the new train and therefore he wanted to meet his father. He hadn’t seen his father for three years and Charlie was exited to see the man he looked up to again. Because of the lack of time, they couldn’t go and see the father’s club, so they had to find a restaurant in the area. They went to four restaurants and they get more or less thrown out of all four. The father in this short story was either really drunk or/and very arrogant. In all occasions he talked down to waiters or behaved bad in one way or the other. In spite of his bad behavior they managed to get a ‘’Beefeater Gibson’’ at one place. It all ended with the father going up to a newsstand, again with a bad attitude, which was the final straw for Charlie...
Words: 1456 - Pages: 6
...not be moved” The short story by Shereen Pandit “She shall not be moved” is about a Somali woman sitting in a bus with her little daughter, with them in the bus there are sitting two elder white women. The two elder women are sitting in the pram space in the bus, and the white elder women are pretending that they haven’t seen the Somali woman and her child. In another seat there is sitting a woman with her child and the woman is the narrator of the story. The narrator tries to make the two white and elder women move away from their seats so the Somali woman can sit there with her babies, but the two elder women won’t move away from their seats and pretends that they did not see the Somali woman and her babies. The driver of the bus is a black man, and he starts to yell at the Somali woman because she is standing in the aisle and because she is not sitting on the seats. The two elder white women are saying a lot of racist words and express their racism towards the Somali woman. The Somali woman does not do anything or say something to the two elder white women, but the narrator is feeling a little bit guilty. She is feeling guilty because she did not help the Somali woman even thou she has taught her daughter to stand against such things in life. She is telling the Somali woman to report the bus driver but she does not want to report him, but instead call him a ‘slave’. The narrator of the story is kind towards the elder white women and she asks them to move to the empty seats...
Words: 713 - Pages: 3
...Buxton, 2005 Childhood is the time when you experience a lot of new things – you play, go out and see things, experience something new and just having a good time - do whatever you want, even though your parents doesn’t always approve to go out and play and get dirty with your friends. When you are a child, you have a great imagination and a big fantasy. Some children tend to live in a fantasy world, where everything is about having fun, get dirty and just having a good time. We read about all of this, in the short story “Mount Pleasant”, that is written in the year of 2005 by Mary-Louise Buxton. The story is told by a little girl called Elizabeth, who lives with her family in their new house, called Mount Pleasant. We read about how Elizabeth likes to get dirty and play outside like the boys, even though her mother hates this. Beside this, we also read about how she thinks and sees things in their new house – so the whole story is a bit childless. In the following analysis I will take a closer look on, the theme, the main person in the short story and the narrator technique. Like I said, the short story “Mount Pleasant” is told from Elizabeth’s perspective, so it is first person narrator. Through the story we read about everything from Elizabeth’s point of view and everything we know comes from her thoughts and what she is experiencing in the house and in her life. The language in the story is childish like I said before, because it’s told by Elizabeth herself. We know that Elizabeth...
Words: 1077 - Pages: 5
