What idea or experience can you connect to Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan?

Whelan's Homeless Bird shows how the experience of being a girl is different throughout the world.

Reading about Koly makes us realize that being a girl is not the same throughout the world.  Koly's experience in India is different from a girl of the same age who lives in a place like America or England. For example, Koly's experience as a daughter differs from girls in other parts of the world. She must endure being...

Whelan's Homeless Bird shows how the experience of being a girl is different throughout the world.

Reading about Koly makes us realize that being a girl is not the same throughout the world.  Koly's experience in India is different from a girl of the same age who lives in a place like America or England. For example, Koly's experience as a daughter differs from girls in other parts of the world. She must endure being sent out of her home at an early age for marriage and then have to experience the fact that she will never be able to go back home.  This is something that many girls in the west do not have to endure.

Koly moves from a girl to a woman in a strikingly quick amount of time.  She marries early and then becomes a widow at an unnaturally young age.  She is subjected to abuse from her mother-in-law and then must wrestle with social sanctions about how a widow must behave.  Girls in the west do not have to wage such battles.  Koly must think twice about falling in love with Raji, a reality that girls in other parts of the world would not have to experience.  If a guy was good to them and wanted to be with them, girls could simply accept it.  However, Koly's experience as a girl in India forces her to respond differently to his overtures.

We are not in control of where we are born. It is jarring to realize that something we have no control over plays such a defining role in our life.  This triggers reflective thought about what we would do if we were in Koly's position. As a result, Homeless Bird increases our awareness that being a woman is different throughout the world.

"Two Kinds" by Amy Tan is about individuals struggling with complex sets of external forces that regulate and define their lives. The external...

External forces play an integral part in the plot of “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan. Both mother and daughter struggle with at least two of the external forces. They are influenced by both society and tradition.

The first sentence of the story, “My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America,” demonstrates how Suyuan Woo’s thought process was influenced by society. The mother left her broken life in China with the...

External forces play an integral part in the plot of “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan. Both mother and daughter struggle with at least two of the external forces. They are influenced by both society and tradition.

The first sentence of the story, “My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America,” demonstrates how Suyuan Woo’s thought process was influenced by society. The mother left her broken life in China with the belief she could rebuild a better one in the United States.

Social norms in the U.S. would allow her and her loved ones to accomplish anything they chose to, including her daughter, Jing-mei, becoming a child prodigy. The external influence of society could also be detrimental to relationships as demonstrated by the strained relationship that develops between mother and daughter when the daughter does not live up to expectations. Jing-mei’s cousin, Waverly, becomes a chess whiz, while Jing-mei struggles to see herself as anything more than an ordinary girl. She chooses to establish her own identity, never achieving the social goals set by her mother.

Tradition influences the mother-daughter relationship, and is evident when Jing-mei refuses to practice piano after her failed concert. Although Suyuan Woo left China, she reverts to her native language and expectations when dealing with her daughter’s need for independence. Traditions die hard.

"Only two kinds of daughters," she shouted in Chinese. "Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind! Only one kind of daughter can live in this house. Obedient daughter!"

Jing-mei retorts that she would rather not be her mother’s daughter if that is the case.  The daughter revolts and refuses to live by these expectations. Unfortunately, the rift between the two lasts for the rest of the mother’s life.

What kinds of landscapes do we see in "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" by Walt Whitman? What roles do the ferry and nature play in the poem?

Walt Whitman's "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" is a poem that exemplifies Whitman's abilities as a leading proponent of the transcendentalism literary movement. The poem depicts a thoughtful narrator taking the Brooklyn ferry home. He absorbs the entire scene, and early in the poem he has an uncanny sense in his observations of the throng of humanity taking the ferry:

Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!

Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour high—I see you also face to face.

Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me! (1057)

In this everyday scene, the narrator has a transcendent moment in which he realizes that this same ferry will host future generations long after its current passengers have died. He pictures the ebb and flow of a constant ocean, the buzzing streets of Manhattan, the hills of Brooklyn, and several other striking images. In the poem, the ferry plays a role as a potent metaphor: it is the bridge between the present and the future.

Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high,

A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,

Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide (1058).

Nature plays a similar role as something that remains constant in the face of a changing, evolving mass of humanity:

Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!

Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg'd waves!(1061)

The vivid, grandiose imagery Whitman presents is made more potent because he is focusing on what many would consider to be a mundane scene. He casts the ferry as a bridge between the present and the future, and exalts the natural scenery he depicts as a reminder of the constancy of our world.

All line numbers were retrieved from The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume 1 7th Ed

What were three events in the book Hatchet?

Three of the most important events from the book are the crashing of the plane, the finding of food, and the finding of the survival pack.

The plane crash is pretty obvious, but it is important because nothing else in the book could have happened without it. Brian is on his way to see his father because his parents have recently divorced after his mother’s affair. His father is in Canada. Brian takes a small plane, and it is just him and the pilot. The plane crashes in the wilderness when the pilot has a heart attack. 

But between the seventeenth and eighteenth radio transmissions, without a warning, the engine coughed, roared violently for a second and died. There was sudden silence, cut only by the sound of the wind milling propeller and the wind past the cockpit. (Ch. 2) 

Once the plane crashes, Brian is on his own. He has no way of calling for help and no one knows where he is. He must find his own sources of food and shelter. At first, he finds some berries. He eventually calls them gut cherries because they make him so sick. Brian eventually figures out how to use a bow and arrow to fish.

With his bow, with an arrow fashioned by his own hands he had done food, had found a way to live. The bow had given him this way and he exulted in it, in the bow, in the arrow, in the fish, in the hatchet, in the sky. (Ch. 13) 

Brian is able to eat better once he can fish, and not live off of berries. It is not enough, though. He wants the survival kit. The survival kit is in the plane, which is half in the lake. Getting it is a feat. Once he does, it is like winning the lottery.

TREASURE.

Unbelievable riches. He could not believe the contents of the survival pack.

The night before he was so numb with exhaustion he couldn't do anything but sleep. . . . But with false gray dawn he had awakened, instantly, and began to dig in the pack—to find amazing, wonderful things. (Ch. 19)

Once he finds the survival pack, the tide turns for Brian. It has many handy survival tools, of course, including food, a gun, and cooking pans. What it also has is an emergency radio that sends out a signal. Until then, no one was even looking for Brian anymore. They had given up.

What is the point of view in "There Will Come Soft Rains" ? Where is it shown in the text ?

Ray Bradbury's 1950 story "There Will Come Soft Rains" features a third-person omniscient point of view. This means that the narrator observes and describes action but does not participate in it and has the ability to understand and communicate the thoughts and feelings of the characters. The narrator's tone is dispassionate as the automated house continues to go about its programmed tasks in the absence of the family it served prior to the nuclear devastation that has claimed their lives. 

Though there are no humans in the story, the narrator describes the emotions of the robot mice who emerge to clean up after the family's dying dog tracks mud into the house: "Behind it whirred angry mice, angry at having to pick up mud, angry at inconvenience".

The house itself is anthropomorphized, "its bared skeleton cringing from the heat, its wire, its nerves revealed as if a surgeon had torn the skin off to let the red veins and capillaries quiver in the scalded air", as it is consumed by fire at the story's conclusion.

Bradbury, Ray. "The Will Come Soft Rains" Doubleday, 1950.

What is the effect of the one-sentence paragraph in "Salvation," by Langston Huges?

"Salvation" is a personal essay by Langston Hughes.  This short essay describes the author's attempt to experience the religious ecstasy that others in his church experienced.  His aunt, for instance, told him of her experience:

when you were saved you saw a light and something happened to you inside!. . .She said you could see and hear and feel Jesus in your soul. I believed her.  

When the narrator, who is Hughes himself, goes...

"Salvation" is a personal essay by Langston Hughes.  This short essay describes the author's attempt to experience the religious ecstasy that others in his church experienced.  His aunt, for instance, told him of her experience:

when you were saved you saw a light and something happened to you inside!. . .She said you could see and hear and feel Jesus in your soul. I believed her.  

When the narrator, who is Hughes himself, goes to a revival meeting, he expects to share this experience.  The preacher gives a "wonderful rhythmical sermon," and invites the young people to commit their lives to Jesus.  The congregation sings as several young people rush to the alter. 

The next line is the one-sentence paragraph that you are asking about, and it is the pivotal point in the story.  

Still I kept waiting to see Jesus.  

Until this line, we fully expect from the title and the preceding narration that the author is describing the night he dedicated his life to Jesus.  However, when we  read the above line, we know immediately that the narrator does not feel the same as the others in the church, and the story will go in a very different direction.  He feels the pressure to join the others but he hesitates.  He has not seen Jesus. It is important to note that "see" is italicized here.    Did the narrator take his aunt too literally?  Does he think he will actually see a vision of Jesus?  Is he an immature thirteen year old?   Or is he being honest about his feelings?  He cannot feel the others' religious fervor.  Now we know that this story is not about religious conversion.  It is about maturity or the lack of it.  It is about questioning the beliefs of others.  It is perhaps about a permanent alienation from the church, even if this alienation is only a private one.  

What are some examples of foreshadowing in the story "Charles"?

Shirley Jackson's classic short story "Charles" first appeared in Mademoiselle in 1948 and contains many examples of foreshadowing. 

The story is told in the first person point of view of the mother of a boy named Laurie, who is just beginning kindergarten. Laurie comes home from kindergarten every day with stories of the awful things his classmate, Charles, has done. His parents are appalled by the influence of Charles and worry that it will affect Laurie negatively. The irony is that at the end of the story, Laurie's parents discover there is no boy named Charles in Laurie's kindergarten class. A close look at the foreshadowing in this story reveals that Charles was invented by Laurie as a scapegoat for his own heinous actions.

The first example of foreshadowing is the manner in which Laurie returns from his first day of kindergarten. Jackson describes the scene when Laurie comes home from his first day of kindergarten, slams the door, throws his cap on the floor, and shouts "Isn't anybody here?" Laurie proceeds to speak rudely to his father and spill his sister's milk. This suggests that Laurie has changed from the sweet preschooler his mother describes in the first paragraph.

The next example of foreshadowing is when Laurie, after telling the story of Charles' spanking, slides off his chair, takes a cookie and walks off when his father is still talking to him.  

Another example of foreshadowing occurs when Laurie comes home with another story about Charles and tell his father: "Look up....look down, look at my thumb, gee you're dumb." He then laughs "insanely." 

After this, Laurie once again comes home with a story about Charles and says to his father "Hi, Pop, y'old dust mop." By this time, Laurie's parents are so involved in the stories about Charles they appear not to notice the insolent behavior of their son. 

When the mother describes a confusing positive change in Charles' behavior, the father tells her to wait and see if there is really a change, saying "When you've got a Charles to deal with, this may mean he's only plotting." This foreshadows the pinnacle of Charles' deviant behavior, who tells a girl to say a naughty word, and a few days later, says the naughty word in class himself.