3. In My Antonia, Cather uses symbols from nature to express the essential aspects of the lives of the characters. Some symbols are of the land: the prairie, the grass, winter, etc. Other symbols are animals: badgers, wolves, rattlesnakes, larks, etc. Choose three symbols and discuss how they convey information about the daily lives of the characters, how the characters relate to each other and/or how Cather views life. Willa Cather’s use of symbols in her book, My Antonia, not only expresses the essential aspects of the lives of the characters, but also engages the reader’s senses, immersing them in the scene. Three symbols that stood out to me were the prairie rattlesnake; the changing colors of Autumn and winter; and the ravenous wolf pack. All …show more content…
My name is Jack Swede; I am a second-generation pioneer. The date is March 5, 1848. My family is about to set off and leave Independence, Missouri, in hopes to settle some land in California. We hear that there is some gold round those parts. Pa is hoping we get filthy rich. We’ve spent all our earnings for this trip. We bought two oxen and a horse. The oxen will pull our wagon full of food, cooking utensils, guns, and pickaxes to mine gold. March 6, 1848. Pa wakes me up and tells me its time to go. It’s still dark outside, so it must be real early in the morning. Ma is heating up some milk on the stove. My little brother is beside me still foggy and stirring awake. Our breakfast was the same as any other: milk and bread. Sometimes, if we were lucky, Ma would come home from town with butter, but that was only for special occasions. We get everything packed and thank our friends, the Camerons, for allowing us to stay with them since we had sold everything we had for this trip. Those were the last people, other than my family, that I saw for the next two
After reading the Journals of both Robert Robe and Mary Stuart Bailey I have a better understanding of daily life, common struggles, and attitudes during the 1850’s while traveling westward. Robert Robe’s journal begins in May of 1851 and continues into June. Mary’s Journal starts April 13, 1852 with the last entry on November 8th. These journals clearly highlight the stresses that were developed during there travels. The traveler’s attitudes changed circumstantially as the uncertainty of their future unfolded, depending on the day they could be admiring god’s beauty, determined on surviving, or mourning the loss of their previous life, family, and home (Text 386, 387).
C. S. Lewis and Clark, along with the rest of their expeditiousness commenced their peregrination near St. Louis Missouri, in May 1804. This group - often called the Corp of Revelation by historians- faced proximately every obstruction and severeness imaginable on their peregrination. They braved hazardous amnionic fluid and inclement weather and endured hunger, illness, injury, and fatigue. Along the way, Lewis kept a detailed journal and accumulated sample distribution of plants and animals he encountered. Lewis and his pleasure trip received assistance in their military mission from many of the native people they sports meeting during their peregrination westward.
“During three months in the summer of 1848, a partnership of five miners collected $75,000 in gold” (Gillon 64). During the mid 1800s, people in America moved west for a fresh start in life or for cheaper land, this was called manifest destiny. Manifest destiny was the belief that the United States should expand from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Therefore, the gold rush had more of a positive effect on America because it created a flouring economy and had more people travel west for a new life or jobs.
"It made my heart thump, for I was certain it was gold.” James Wilson Marshall upon finding gold at the base of Sierra Nevada Mountains. Before the United States had been birthed into existence, even before Colorado had been an idea that had been staked out and called a state, the land was quite open and dominated by the Native Americans. There wasn’t much of a drive for settlers to push into the rugged mountain country compared to their Eastern, developed counterparts. These mountain ranges and peaks were, for the most part, uninhabitable to those who didn’t have close ties to the lands.
In the book, My Antonia, by Willa Cather, there are many uses of symbolism to portray the ways of life in the characters; for example, the Nebraskan landscape, the prairie, and the lone plow. The purpose of the Nebraskan landscape is to show the influence of nature that it has on the people and the community as a whole. It determines the actions and moods of the characters; for example, Mr.Shimerda commits suicide after a very harsh winter. This shows a connection between the people and the harsh trials of the climate. In the book Jim gets really attached to the environment of the Nebraskan landscape such as the prairie even though after living in New York for twenty years.
It illustrates her feelings and most importantly the pain and loss felt by her, her friends and her family. Alice Sebolt, author of the book Lovely Bones uses symbolism, imagery, setting and irony showcases that when someone there is a tragic loss or tragedy it takes people a lot of time and pain to go through the grieving process. Each person moves forward from in their own terms and time and they love that was their when they where together on earth does not dye it lives on in the memories. Using symbolism, Sebold suggests that loss or a tragic
Gold introduced a lot of elements in Washington State and it created civilization in Washington. “Gold was first discovered in Washington in 1852 by a Hudson’s Bay Company agent at Fort Colville,” ("Washington"). During at the time, there was a war in process with the Yakima Indians and it interrupted a large-scale of any serious mining activity. Eight years later in 1860, there were “large deposits of gold that was uncovered in the Orofino Creek and Clearwater River,” (“Washington State History”). The results was it brought a rush of prospectors to the Walla Walla region and making “Walla Walla the largest city in the region,” (“Washington State History”).
Imagine a little girl trudging through the snow, walking alongside her grieving mother. As she looks away from her feet she glances at her little brother’s corpse lying on the snow lifelessly. This experience would cause significant emotional trauma to anyone that lived through this experience although her little brother would feel nothing because of his current predicament . The use of symbols in The Book Thief, by markus zusak helped develop the themes, the people left alive are the ones who suffer, love will conquer all, and if you let regret consume you then there is no room to move forward.
The author used symbolism throughout the whole story to show the difference between these characters. The symbolism is there to give us a further explanation on the family and also to tell us how much heritage is important to some, but not others. The first symbol
The Canary and The Heart A story contains much more than just the words presented on the page. There are deeper meanings, hidden facts and underlying messages. At the heart of this idea is symbolism. Symbolism, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, is the practice of representing things by symbols, or of giving a symbolic character to objects.
In the beginning, Marshall’s discovery of gold didn’t travel far. On March 15, 1848 the first report of the discovery was publicly announced in the San Francisco Californian in a small
The investigation’s research question is “To what extent did the California Gold Rush have a significant role in the development of American transportation systems?” This essay focuses in particular on the growth and improvement of the transportation networks of the three main ways to California: the Cape Horn Route, the Panama Route, and the overland route. These three methods to ship goods and people were significantly impacted by the California Gold Rush and its consequent effects. This is an important topic to investigate because it is vital to understand how transportation networks develop as new methods of transportation arise in the modern world such as high speed rail and, in the future, possibly even space travel. It is necessary to
Some of my most notable memories take form as early morning breakfasts. Most days I’d eat a variation of cereal, yogurt, or maybe some fruit. But once in a while, there’d special morning where my Dad cooked up a breakfast. Now, the meal itself had little notability; sometimes there were eggs, sometimes whole-wheat popovers, sometimes toast. What really made those breakfasts special, though, were the stories.
Important to Porter, her use of symbolism is various and debatable. Though, symbols Porter engages rarely indicated to one idea to another but is different from another. An example in “Flowering Judas” is the main symbol in the story, the flower from the Judas tree. The flower is presented when Laura, the protagonist in the story, throws it out the window, which is misleading
In the novel Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid, the relationship between Annie and her mother can be very confusing and complicated at times. In the passage, symbols such as the thimble and the “black thing” play an important role in depicting the relationship between Annie John and her mother. Annie and her mother each have a black thing resting inside of them and when they begin to fight, the black things join together. The thimble rests inside of Annie and represents her sadness and her unwillingness to grow up and become distant from her mother. These symbols together help portray the relationship between Annie and her mother by showing that they have a mutual dislike for one another and how they are tired and depressed because of their quarrelling.