JGB's ENG 104

I had my tea now and grieved about the exam. Leaving a whole essay question unanswered! How could I expect to get better than a C? This passage gives a peek into the mind of the narrator, and it shows that she has been suppressing her mourning by creating an almost obsessive normality. As you […]

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But he didn’t give me my first tattoo till a year later, the day after we were married: a little butterfly pooled in the small of my back. Five years later, he began referring to it as his “early work,” even though he’d been tattooing for twenty-five years before he met me. Lois narrates the […]

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She put one of the smaller pumpkins on Clark’s long lap. “Now, nothing surreal,” she told him. “Carve just a regular face, these are for kids.” This line from “Yours” by Mary Robison is more then just about a jack-o-lantern carving. It is an indirect dying request to a loved one. Alison, the narrator, request is […]

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“I used to drive out to the site of the accident all the time — a willow tree on Route 987. The last time I went the tree was still healing. The farmlands were a grim powdery blond in the white sun, and the earth was still ragged from winter. I sat there in my […]

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 In the confessional the priest asked me if I practiced self-pollution. The words were formal, unfamiliar, but I knew what he meant. So, I thought, kneeling there in the dark, crushed with shame, there’s a name for it. I looked at the shadowy grill, looked toward the source of the soothing voice of absolution, the […]

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In an otherwise unremarkable September morning, long before I learned to be ashamed of my mother, she takes my hand and we set off down New Jersey Avenue to begin my very first day of school. In “The First Day” by Edward P. Jones, what stood out to me most was the first sentence – […]

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My mother is now diseased, according to the girl’s eyes, and until the moment her mother takes her and the form to the front of the auditorium, the girl never stops looking at my mother. (351) In this passage, the mother of the narrator is forced to admit her illiteracy to the mother of a […]

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The speaker and the crowd first react to the bird in amazement; it draws a crowd of all ages and genders and, for a brief moment, there is no commotion from everyday life. The bird, described as being from a time before human industrialization, relates to the desire of the boy to visit the abandoned house. The house breathed […]

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Throughout the story, I can sense the mother’s hope that her daughter will have the life she hasn’t had. At first, it’s not clear why she wants her daughter to have a better life other than the fact that the girl is her daughter and mothers always want what’s best for their children. The story takes place during […]

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All throughout the text, we can see examples of the mother’s pride — her pride in her dreams of getting her daughter into this school, her pride in her daughter’s appearance. Even more, we see hints that she is proud of herself. As the story progresses, we can see how her pride starts to break. We can pinpoint […]

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So, I thought, kneeling there in the dark, crushed with shame, there’s a name for it. I looked at the shadowy grill, looked toward the source of soothing absolution, the voice of forgiveness and hope, and I lied. “No,” I whispered… I threw the first stone. I found “Rara Avis” to be surprisingly powerful for its […]

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In an otherwise unremarkable September morning, long before I learned to be ashamed of my mother, she takes my hand and we set off down New Jersey Avenue to begin my very first day of school. I am wearing a checkeredlike blue-and-green cotton dress, scattered about these colors are bits of yellow and white and […]

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Perched there at the lip of the roof, its feet clutching the drainpipe as if welded to it, the bird was a coil of possibility, a muscle relaxed against the moment of tension. (109) When I read this sentence of the story, I immediately see the bird as a metaphor for the child.  The phrase […]

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In an otherwise unremarkable September morning, long before I learned to be ashamed of my mother, she takes my hand and we set off down New Jersey Avenue to begin my first day of school. (349) The first line of Jones’ “The First Day” informs the reader that the narrator is telling a story about […]

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I lied. “No,” I whispered. And then there was the bird. The narrator’s decision to lie turns him away from the things the priest offers him: absolution, forgiveness, and hope. Then the bird appears, the embodiment of strength and vulnerability. The bird appears, quite literally, when the boy needs him most. Without a male figure […]

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“Rara Avis” by T Coraghessan Boyle uses a lot of symbolism. It is through this symbolism the reader gets a greater understanding of what “Rara Avis” is about. However out of all the lines in the text I find the last line the most powerful sentence. It truly captures  the narrator’s thoughts and  feelings, bring the […]

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” Her loud shoes in the hall. She passes through the doors and i can still hear the loud  sounds of her shoes .And even when the teachers turn med toward the classrooms and I hear what must be the  singing and talking of all the children in the world, i can still hear my […]

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Men at Forty Men at forty Learn to close softly The doors to rooms they will not be Coming back to. At rest on a stair landing, They feel it Moving beneath them now like the deck of a ship, Though the swell is gentle. And deep in mirrors They rediscover The face of the […]

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The wind flung a magpie away and a black- Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly… — Ted Hughes, “Wind” This poem is full of remarkable metaphors: a house “far out at sea all night,” the woods “crashing through darkness,” the “skyline a grimace,” the house ringing “like some fine green goblet in the […]

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