Carol Ann Duffy

Mary Flannery O’Connor was born in southern town called Savannah located in Georgia on March 25, 1925. She earned a M.F.A. degree at the University of Iowa’s School for Writers in 1946. She was known for her religious and southern short stories. She had a different way of way of writing and expressing her ideas. Her writings style and creativity was criticized by some because of her methods she used to get her point across. Flannery O’Connor used horrifying violence in “A Good Is Hard to…

There are few authors that can write a short story that is both intriguing and incorporates a full story. The story "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner wrote in 1931, has both of these things with a dark twist. Although most of Faulkner’s stories are unique such as “As I lay Dying” (1930) and “Sanctuary” (1931), the one that stands out the most to me is “A Rose for Emily”. Within this story, the two themes that are really emphasized would be death and change and it is easily seen how each…

Joyce Carol Oates writes about a self-absorbed girl named Connie and her life-threatening experience with Arnold Friend. Every evening during the summer, Connie uses the excuse of going to the shopping plaza with her friend to actually meet boys at a fast-food restaurant. During these risky evenings, Connie becomes very flirty while away from her family. At the restaurant one evening, Connie attracts the attention of a stranger named Arnold Friend without completely realizing it. Arnold shows up…

“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner is a short story that is divided into five sections. In section I, the entire town is at Miss Emily’s funeral, which is held at her home. The mayor, Colonel Sartoris has suspended Emily’s tax responsibilities to the town after her father’s death. But, the new generation of the town isn’t happy with this arrangement. However, they try to get her to pay the tax, but she refuses to pay the taxes. In section II, Emily is single at the age of thirty because her…

At what point does a girl become a woman? In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, author Joyce Carol Oates tells the story of a relatable girl, named Connie, and her initiation into womanhood. While maturity, independence, and handsome boys attract Connie to the adult world, her perfect dream of adulthood is interrupted by antagonist male forces and an internal conflict between protection and self-reliance. Throughout the short story, Connie attempts to prove that she is a grown woman by…

Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been? By Joyce Carol Oates is the story of Connie, a 15 year old Texan girl, and one fateful summer day. Through characterization and symbolism the author shows that often teenagers rush into the fantasy of adulthood, never expecting how real it can get. By using the summer to represent her fall from innocence, music to show how Connie feels, and her habit of checking her reflection to prove she’s still young and insecure- despite how she may act, Oates…

Many times things that are important to us can represent us. We can find value in objects that are important to us because we can describe the object with characteristics similar to ourselves. Finding meaning in objects throughout stories and connecting them to characters is one form of symbolism. In the William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily,” the house means a lot to Emily and can therefore symbolize some of her most noteworthy characteristics. The house in William Faulkner’s short…

Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” begins as a benign and familiar tale of a misunderstood teenager: the protagonist, fifteen year old Connie, rebelliously expresses her sexuality, as she painstakingly feints the hindrance devised by mother. Connie as perceived by mother suffers from an overindulgence of one’s appearance – “excessive gawking at one’s self, excessive hair spray, excessive day dreaming”. Though, in all honesty, Connie exhibits the traits of most, if…

Tony Wagner famously says, “Isolation is the enemy of improvement.” It is such an idea that William Faulkner portrays in his short story “A Rose for Emily,” published in 1930. Faulkner, born on September 25, 1897, is often seen using long lists of description and is well known for his poetry and novels set in the American South. During his time, Faulkner earned many awards such as The 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature, the 1955 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, and the National Book Award (Biography).…

Connie, the protagonist of a time period where women are seen as objects, follows society’s expectations. Joyce Carol Oates wrote “Where are you going, where have you been?” at a time when women were not respected by men. In “Where are you going, where have you been?”, Connie is approached by a man named Arnold Friend. Friend was very persistent about getting Connie to leave town with him. After Connie refused multiple times, he threatened to hurt her family. Due to the threat, Connie had no…