Ember

square laden with delicious chocolate. As I delicately placed the camping creation onto my lips, the background noise of the wind and not-so-spooky stories calmed me as I watched the flames lick at the logs, slowly transforming them into ashes and embers. Everything was too perfect. I sat at the picnic table, and wondered if this was compensation for the last camping trip my family took, nearly a decade ago. Before I begin this flashback, I should put out a disclaimer: I’m very stubborn. I was…

Comparison Essay The Road & The Last Day of the World When reading the short stories in parallel to “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy, only one truly stood out to me as directly related in theme, portrayal, and literary style. This has to be “The Last Day of the World” by Ray Bradbury. Both stories have deep rooted themes around nihilism and death, but are substantially distinct in their portrayal of these ideas. The premise is the same as the rest of the short stories; it is the end of the world,…

Frankenstein’s Folly In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Shelley criticizes the Enlightenment through characterization, symbolism, and framework in order to challenge the idea that intellectualism is more important than humanity. The Enlightenment was an era of intellectual and scientific progression in the 1800’s that encouraged reason and rationality over religion. One of the themes of Frankenstein is that the “acquirement of knowledge” is “dangerous” (Shelley 38). Frankenstein tells Walton that…

bottles. That would explain why the flames that covered him where blue, such a beautiful and horrible sight. By the time I made it around the bar, his screams had ceased. It seems the heat or pain had overcome him. Tongues of flame and burning embers leapt at me from the taverns walls and floor, but it could no more hurt me than a fly could hurt an elephant. The fire was mine, and after a moment I turned and walked to the door. Others would come soon and I had little reason to stay for…

always had is, if someone did not know any language at all, were they able to logically think? The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis suggests, “Language is a force in its own right, that it affects how individuals in a society perceive and conceive reality” (Ember 245). The English language was compared with Hopi. Whorf stated that the English language has discreetness in regards to time and space. The Hopi language does not. Hopi speaks of things going on as an ongoing process without time being into…

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a five stage model prioritizing the different psychological and physical necessities, lists “Relationships and Belonging” as an individual’s third most vital need. It states that a person cannot be fulfilled in their life without having intimate relationships. When examining literature this theme becomes especially prevalent; several stories focus on how the loss of community damages a person’s livelihood. For example, this is exhibited in “The Story of Green-Blanket…

The author, Neal Shusterman, intrinsically develops an complex character—Rowan Damisch—to parallel the brick wall of insecurity that an individual often barricade themselves from within, where the small embers of fire that one encompasses are fanned to their very notions and moralities that motivates one to remain indestructible amongst the evils of both damaging psychological and physical aspects. Rowan Damisch is an remarkable calamity waiting to unravel; the development of his individuality…

In the late 1700’s, in a meeting room in Philadelphia, a group of concerned citizens drafted an extraordinary document, one that would form the backbone of a new and prosperous nation. That document, of course, was the Constitution of the United States. The document was full of extraordinary principles, from a system of checks and balances, to the radical view that some rights are inalienable and self-evident. But the most extraordinary precept that the framers of the Constitution embodied in…

As far as I can remember, I waited for Sesame Street to air on the television at the age of four and I would sing along and participate with the characters. What I didn’t realize was through the television I was already learning the language of English. Educational television was just the start to my journey through the English language as the opportunities to sharpen my skills arose through my education, books, and my family. I remember in kindergarten when the whole class had story time and we…

Struggling with mental illness, the loss of a loved one, and addiction is by no means, a simple walk in the park, and it’s essential to find ways to dominate these obstacles. The following patients and authors struggle with lack of belonginess and love and generally their feelings are projected onto others. In Charlotte Gilman 's story The Yellow Wallpaper, published in 1892, a woman is struggling to find herself throughout the obstacles that she has to mentally overcome. In the 1845 poem “The…