Comparison Of Rivers In Harlem River Blues And The River

Episode 5 titled “Rise” of the PBS series “The African Americans Many Rivers We Cross”, tells the story of black Americans fighting for their rights. In this essay I am going to talk about key events that took place, and my thoughts about them.

Ron Rash’s novel—Saints at the River—begins with a short prologue, in which, a twelve year old girl drowns. Rash uses lyrical syntax and emotionally-charged imagery to establish a macabre tone.

John M. Barry, author of Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America, communicates his fascination with the Mississippi River by using diction, imagery, and syntax. Barry’s word choice conveys the mechanical force of the river; his use of imagery the beauty, and his use of syntax the unpredictability. Barry’s command of rhetorical devices draws the reader in and brings the Mississippi River to life.

For this essay, I am going to be discussing the short story “Swimming” found on the New Yorker, and written by T. Cooper. I have chosen this story for many reasons, and among those reasons is the personal sadness I felt when I first read the story, almost as if the universe was placing a certain theme in my life, that only the main character could possibly understand. I am talking about running, the god given instinct felt by all men, inherent in the nature of fear, and brought out in all who feel sadness in its full intensity. Though in my short life I can not compare the sadness I have felt with that of losing a child at my own hand, but if I had been placed in that situation, if fate had tempted my soul with such a sequence of events, I would like to think I could find the strength to endure and the courage to not abandon all I had previously known. Yet I am able to reconcile the themes of grief, the mode of recovery, and the longing to escape such a terrible tale. I think in this piece, as I will discuss in later parts, the author was able to put into words a transformation we rarely get to observe in closeness, the kind of transformation that turns a kind man into a “just man” the kind of death that turns this world from a beautiful and happy place into a world that is closing in on our main character, that is forcing him to surface temporarily and gasp for air, much like he does when he finds peace in the water, wading breath after air, after sea. I firmly believe that

The 1920s and 1930s were the years of the Jazz Age and the Harlem Renaissance. This period of the Roaring Twenties is said to have begun around the end of the war and lasted well until the Great Depression. Partially due to the migration of more and more African Americans into the north of the United States, the national literature, arts and music movement developed into something, until then, completely new and literary modernism spread further (Perkins and Perkins 212). The 1920s were a time of immense change, with women becoming eligible to vote, alcoholic beverages become prohibited to sell, and later on the crash of the stock market (Perkins and Perkins). With modernism and the invention of new things like the television, Americans

The natural world has a unique power unequivocal to anything human to make one deeply contemplative, introspective, and observant of the universe around them. Norman Maclean testifies to this power in his novella A River Runs Through It. Through his eulogy to the Blackfoot river Norman Maclean captures the human soul and what it means to grow up, his story explaining how a river affects a man. Robert Redford’s movie adaptation, while maintaining the core importance of the Blackfoot river, focuses on the interpersonal relationships Norman develops throughout his life and how those affect his character and life choices. A River Runs through it encapsulates the emotional growth Norman undergoes growing up via his relationship with the river

1. The River – Almost any source of water will focus on the importance of life. Without water there is no life. A journey on or down a river is often a metaphor for life’s journey or a character’s journey, especially if the river is shown as a road or means of travel – pulling or pushing a character through changes. (Twain’s Huck Finn) Rivers can also be a metaphor for the passage of time (Big Fish) or the stages of a human life (creek, roaring river, sea; or the crossing of the river Styx in Greek myths). Since rivers are often used as political borders or boundaries, crossing one may be seen as a “passing over” or a decision that cannot be taken back. In Africa, and thus African literature, rivers are the

Survival, both its temporary means and its ultimate permanence, is certainly a theme throughout this story, and the river is the most obvious metaphorical representation. Among the undulant hillsides, the river remains steady

Steven Herrick’s verse novel “By the River” is very successful in conveying the significant ideas about human nature. He uses key themes such as grief, environmental influence and coming of age to explore these ideas. To convey the themes Herrick uses multiple techniques such as imagery, repetition, personification and positive and negative influence throughout his text.

“Big Two Hearted River”, a semi-autobiographical short story by Ernest Hemingway, is a story about the main character, Nick, returning to Big Two Hearted River in order to recover from his inner wounds. Nick Adams goes on a journey alone in nature for a therapeutic purpose as he suffers from PTSD. However, Hemingway purposely avoided any direct discussion regarding to Nick’s mental wounds. The absence of the discussion is contributed by Hemingway’s writing style, the Iceberg principle. Hemingway focuses explicitly on what occurs on the surface without mentioning actual theme. This indicates that the theme of self-healing cannot be uncovered by simply looking at the text itself. In order to comprehend the actual theme of the story, the character development of Nick must be examined. This is possible since Nick Adams is a recurring character of Hemingway’s stories. The two preceding stories of “Big Two Hearted River”, “Now I lay me” and “A Way you’ll Never Be”, directly discusses Nick’s suffering from shell-shock and how he comforts himself by returning to Big Two Hearted river in his mind. The two short stories will be analyzed and connected to “Big Two Hearted River” in the essay first. This will provide a strong understanding of Nick’s psyche and the reason behind his return to nature. Then, “Big Two Hearted River” the short story itself will be carefully analyzed.

Flannery O’Conner’s “The River” is a very interesting story about a little boy whose parents would prefer if he just went away. At the end of the story, the little boy did get away from them for good. In my opinion this story has a weird but interesting meaning to it. The little boy’s death at the end made me question the spiritual meaning of it; however, after thinking about I understood the intentional meaning O’Conner could have for readers.

Set in a rural Australian town in the 1960s, Steven Herrick’s novel by the river is portrayed through the eyes of protagonist Harry Hodby. This novel explores the interconnected themes of loss and leaving. Harry Hodby loses three significant people in his life; his mother, Linda Mahony and Eve Spencer. As we peer into the perspective of the principle character, we understand how he deals with each of his losses in an individual way, and how he finally finds closure and acceptance of the people in his life that have departed.

In the passage “Two Ways of Seeing a River,” author Mark Twain attempts to share the feelings of loss he experienced after he was disillusioned to the beauty of the Mississippi River. Twain was a famous Nineteenth century author who had previously worked as a steamboat captain and who grew up along the river. The organization of the paragraphs in relation to each other is linear, and the content of each paragraph is dominated by a different rhetorical device.

In the poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” Langston Hughes employs the repetition of important sentences, the allusion to the rivers in history, and the imagery and description of the rivers to express that African Americans should be respected for their history. Langston Hughes repeat himself in several sentences, especially in the beginning and the end. After establishing a connection between his soul and the ancient rivers, at the end of the poem, he restated, “My soul has grown deep like the rivers.” He claimed that his soul is “like the rivers”, showing that the culture and history carried by the important rivers are flowing in him changing him in a meaningful way. The rivers he introduced throughout the poem included the Euphrates, the

Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings . . . There were moments when one's past came back to one, as it will sometimes when you have not a moment to spare to yourself; but it came in the shape of an unrestful and noisy dream, remembered with wonder amongst the overwhelming realities of this