Throughout the Chris Crutcher’s novel Chinese Handcuffs, the idea of a fragile heart in a cold world plays an important role as shown through the protagonist Dillon and his friend Jennifer. Specifically as a setting, when Jennifer had trouble telling her close friend Dillon about her issues and she cautiously says, “my past made me this, I can’t change overnight” (Crutcher 120). As an important aspect of the novel, Jennifer past caused the way she reacts to everyone around her and she knows it’s hard to open up in fear of being hurt by others. Also Jennifer fear of loving a boy adds to the idea of protecting a fragile heart from the world. Relating directly to the painting, a woman is holding a heart in hear hand guarding it from the cold,
In the book The Monkey Bridge by Lan Cao, income and social status prevent Mai and her family from all being together in the United States. On page 227, her mother Thahn writes in a letter to Mai, “How could i have told you that Baba Quan, the man I call Father, is a Vietcong from whom i am still trying to escape?” This quote shows that because Mai’s grandfather Baba Quan was a Vietcong, he wasn't able to come over to the United States during the war to be with his family because little did Mai know at the time, her grandfather was apart of this war that caused them to flee. During the early stages of Thahns life and the income that lacked thereof in her family, Baba Quan had to go to drastic measures in order to pay rent. “...my father, your
a very common fear every salve of the time inhibited. By illustrating the tragic life of a young
Sacrificed the truth, beauty and the right to think, happiness and comfort is just indulgent, it is the discomfort brought by the misery, responsibility and the bonding give us the weight of life. The world is full of people who try hard to gain happiness, and we all have at least one time the idea of living in a perfect world, a world without pain, without misery, without getting old and without cancers. We always ignored the importance and the beauty of uncomfortableness, just as a quote in this book said, “Stability isn’t nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand”. After read this book, I started to be more objective at those bad things I used to hate, to understand the significance of art and to be grateful to this imperfect world we are
In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, the main character (Mrs.Mallard) is a married woman. Mrs.Mallard was afflicted with a “heart problem”. The author was not very specific about her troubled heart, which seemed to be a symbol of not just physical, but emotional distress as well.
rebellious tone in order to recommend to her readers of the idea of, “If you feel something is
This guidance is shown especially in the story of Lena St. Clair and her mother Ying-Ying. When Ying-Ying visits Lena and her husband at their new home, she senses the uneasy and precarious nature of their marriage, and tries to warn her daughter of this through subtle comments during her stay. One of these comments, “’You put something else on top, everything else fall down. Chunwang chihan” (163), leads Lena to recognize how fragile and superficial her relationship with Harold is, and that realization allows her finally stand up to him. Ying-Ying’s experiences in her first marriage taught her this lesson the hard way, when the buildup of her husband’s cruelty led her to an inability to carry his child. Although Lena’s circumstances are far less drastic than her mother’s, the same “last straw” mentality can be applied to both situations. Ying-Ying’s wisdom from her past helps Lena to save her future before that straw falls, in addition to showing her the cracks in a foundation that she thought was unflawed. In this action, Ying-Ying’s past in China aids her in guiding Lena towards a better life than she had, the ultimate goal of motherhood that is reinforced throughout the
Finally, the depiction of figure is perhaps the most interesting and intellectually challenging element in this piece. The figure, while emotionally withdrawn from the viewer, is physically imposing. She is looking down and away from the viewer, as if the isn’t aware that she is being watched. Her mask-like facial features also do little in the way of conveying emotion. Her body, however, is quite different. The dark thick lines shaping her muscles and limbs, the detail in the curls of her hair, the placement of her fingers, and her exposed breast all demand the attention of the viewers’ eye. The bold lines that define her legs, waist, and hip, make her seem intrusively part of our space. The awkward placement of her
In Laura Esquivel’s novel “Like Water for Chocolate”, she skillfully illustrates that love is a powerful that can either make or break us. The author portrays this conflict through The use of descriptive metaphors and indirect symbolism.
The use of symbolism and imagery is beautifully orchestrated in a magnificent dance of emotion that is resonated throughout the poem. The two main ideas that are keen to resurface are that of personal growth and freedom. Furthermore, at first glimpse this can be seen as a simple poem about a women’s struggle with her counterpart. However, this meaning can be interpreted more profoundly than just the causality of a bad relationship.
It is also interesting to note how the characters of “heart” and “woman” coincide with one another. The heart belongs to the woman both physically and emotionally, however, the poem mostly focuses on the heart and its journey. For example, the heart “enters some alien cage in its plight” (6) in the second stanza. Johnson is describing the heart more as a person than as a body part. Therefore, “The Heart Of A Woman” uses personification throughout the whole piece in order to humanize the heart.
This passage is adapted from Wayson Choy’s ‘The Jade Peony’ and portrays the fear of a young boy who has recently lost his mother. The reader is able to infer the situation from the passage despite it not being clearly mentioned. The reader infers that the passage is about a juvenile boy who sits beside his dying mother and is then taken care of by family friends, predominantly the Chins.
In Gustave Flaubert’s short story “A Simple Heart” Flaubert tells of the life of Felicite, a poor woman who does not seem to have any luck at all. Felicite is the kind of character that makes the reader pity her while at the same time finding her to be incredibly strange. Flaubert uses human emotions in a story that is incredibly simple in both word and tale to tell the reader of a woman who does not live a particularly exciting or happy life. Through this short story, Flaubert has given the reader a character that is simple but loving, strange yet human, and easily attached to things. Through his use of realism and a firm grasp on human emotions Flaubert has crafted a tale that is unlike any other.
Heartbreak can be defined as: overwhelming distress. When a person is heartbroken the deep emotions and stress they feel takes over their life to a point where, sometimes, you can’t function doing anything besides thinking of your own heartbreak. In the poem “Head, Heart,” written by Lydia Davis, it displays a very person conversation between the head and the heart during an emotional time. This poem is very universal, and very personal to almost all people. It is very unlikely that someone would read this poem and not relate to the emotions it conveys. This poem uses personification and menotomy for “head” and “heart” as if they are people. This poem means to show its readers what it’s like on the inside to be heartbroken by something.
This contrasts sharply with the poetic devices used to emphasise the extent of the violence on the women in ‘A kind of love some say’, ‘Hard impact. Then swollen lids’. This shows us the impact of the love and the relationship is weighing her down. Love here is shown as a burden, which needs to be thrown away, ‘Of lost romance, but hurt’.
In the poem, the beating heart represents the narrator’s extreme guilt and remorse for the murdering of the old man. After the narrator murders