Train Time Short Story

Douglass recalls his grandparents being in the community for a very long time and being thought to be important to the community. He describes his grandmother as being a very good nurse and being held into high regard in the community more than most African Americans. Douglass than goes on to describe on why he is not living with his parents and being raised by his grandparents. “The practice of separating children from their mother, and hiring the latter out at distances too great to admit of their meeting, except at long intervals, is a marked feature of the cruelty and barbarity of the slave system. But it is in harmony with the grand aim of slavery, which, always and everywhere, is to reduce man to a level with the brute. It is a successful method of obliterating [29] from the mind and heart of the slave, all just ideas of the sacredness of the family, as an institution.” Slave owners would separate children from their parents in order to diminish any bond that they might form or any form of attachment that might hurt their future

Continuing with the theme of family values, Douglass shifts to the basic family unit. Their master separated Douglass and his mother when he was an infant, for what reason he “does not know” (Douglass 2). No one gave Douglass an explanation because this situation was customary on plantations. Douglass wanted to horrify his Northern white readers by informing them that slaveholders regularly split slave families for no apparent reason. This obviously would upset Northerners because the family unit was the foundation for their close-knit communities. Multiple generations and extended families lived together or near each other. It was unimaginable to the readers that a society existed that took children away from their mothers without reason. Northerners would think of anyone who was part of such a society as a heartless monster (Quarles ix).

Flannery O'Connor's short story, The Train, was published in 1948; her first novel, whose first chapter is drawn from "The Train," was published in 1952. The distance her work evolved is clear from its opening sentence. That distance is most easily calculated through a comparison of the novel with O'Connor's five published stories, which were labeled as chapters of a novel in progress.

Today almost all children grow up knowing their parents. It is a crime to take children away from their parents under most circumstances. Reflecting back to slave times, taking the slave children away from their parents is dehumanizing to the parents and children. Douglass uses these descriptions in his narrative to convey how poorly slaves were treated. He never really finds out who his father is, but knows he could have been the master, regardless Douglass knows no matter whom his father is, he would still be a slave.

Today almost all children grow up knowing their parents. It is a crime to take children away from their parents under most circumstances. Returning back to slave times, taking the slave children away from their parents is dehumanizing to the parents and children, by taking away the most important away from their lives. Without any familial connections to anyone, Douglass had to fend for himself like a person thrown into the jungle and try his best to survive every day. Douglass uses these descriptions in his narrative to convey how slaves were ripped apart from their families. With each slave being evaluated as property rather than a human being, the slaves felt like a good rather than a person with a family, who would feel so much emotional pain when they have to leave their children, siblings, or spouse behind. Through the progression of dehumanization, the white slave-owners were able to keep their power over their slaves, who lost their dignity with each whip given.

The essence of travel lies in the journey rather than the destination itself. No mode of transportation bolsters this ideology more than railroads. Traversing across various terrains and through lesser known towns, trains provide a unique glimpse into the heart of a country. Amtrak boasts a great rail coverage spanning the entirety of USA. On a recent travel trip, I set foot in 14 states in under 15 days with just $459 spent on a single Amtrak pass. If converted to road miles, that is around 6000 miles and an estimated 90 hour drive. If time is a concern; take a flight but if you want to relax, enjoy and travel without worrying about driving or weather conditions, then experience train travel.

“No honey, the underground railroad is something completely different.” his mother explained as they got onto the train.

“The Story of an Hour” is a story that in a few pages creates commentary, emotions, and thoughts about a simple yet very important part of every civilization. It is quite amazing that a short story written over a hundred years ago is still relevant to our society today. Every successful civilization has had some form of marriage, and while this story is to many criticizing the institution of marriage, I believe that people could see this dichotomy of oppressor vs oppressed that this story tries to bring to the forefront and instead find a theme of freedom and responsibility that was not intended by the author.

In the novel titled, Orphan Train, there are two main characters that begin as strangers meeting for the first time due to some uncustomary circumstances. The first, we meet in the very beginning of the work, is a girl with many problems that she herself is struggling with. Her world is thrown into a state of so much chaos and turmoil, that she loses attachment to others.

The film I would like to discuss is the very first narrative film in history titled, The Great Train Robbery, directed by Edwin S. Porter. I chose this film simply because of how groundbreaking the film was for cinema and I will choose three shots that stood out to me in this film that I feel is worth mentioning. For starters, the first scene I will like to discuss is the scene where the robbers climb aboard the train and have an epic fight with the conductor. This whole sequence is one single shot and probably would be seen as very violent back then. As one of the robbers is fighting the conductor, a small cut is made once he grabs what I believe is a rock to bash his face in, then the robber throws the conductor out of the train into the tracks. This cut allows them to switch the actor with a doll that is suppose to be a sort of fake replica of the actor. This allows the actor to not hold back when trying to bash someones head in with a rock and the audience of that time would witness this scene with much shock because this is the first time anything like this has been seen before. As an audience member witnessing the whole fight, you notice that for the costumes, the robbers are wearing all black throughout the film and the train

“Listen to your parents they know best”. In the case of Pyramus & Thisbe and Romeo and Juliet this statement could not be truer. Both the parents of these young lovers had hatred for eachother and forbid the seeing of each other. “They longed to marry but their parents forbade. Love however can not forbidden” (E.H 488). If both the charters would have listened to their parents and just moved on and left the other person alone the stories would have had a completely different ending. Parents always tend to think they're right, always consider what they're

A Teenager Named Donny, Character Analysis Anne Tyler, born October 25, 1941 is an American novelist as well as a short story writer (Encyclopedia Britannica 2015). Anne Tyler wrote Teenage Wasteland in 1984. The story features a 15 year old teenage boy, Donny Coble, who is struggling in school and his home life. Those who have reached beyond their twenties know full well the mental and physical changes that a teenager goes through. Hormones rage through a growing body as the transformation from child to adult comes to fruition.

The chef was outraged. His entire life he had worked up to this job. The conductor had the nerve to tell him he was not good enough, and the fury boiled up within him.

One hour. That is all the time my brothers got to live. Only a short glimpse of life before it was taken. One hour. That was all that their miniature lungs could take. Who knew that such tiny babies only weighing one pound each, could have such a big impact on my family. One hour. That was all it took for my life, from the time I was born, to completely change.

This paper is on the story of an hour and the machine that won the war. These are both very well written stories. These two are different and yet have some similarities. The story of an hour and the machine that won the war are different but the same.