Close Reading: Cat On A Hot Tin Roof and Summons To Memphis Tennessee Williams’s play Cat On A Hot Tin Roof chronicles the life of the Pollitt’s, an affluent family residing in the Mississippi Delta. Taking place in the family’s plantation home, main characters Big Daddy, Big Mama, Brick, Gooper, their wives, Maggie and Mae and the grandchildren reunite to celebrate Big Daddy’s sixty-fifth birthday. Right from the opening scene readers are already immersed in a dramatic web of lies beginning with the Pollitt children’s decision to conceal Big Daddy’s diagnosis of terminal cancer from him. This deceit accompanies a list of other lies that coincide and contribute to the play’s tension, focusing mainly on the unhappy marriage between Brick Pollitt and his wife Maggie. Tension and deceit escalate further with Brick at odds with his brother Gooper over who inherits the estate and fortune of Big Daddy.
Time and setting are extremely confining; the entire action takes place during one hot summer evening in a single bed-sitting-room of a plantation house in the Mississippi Delta. Maggie refers again and again to the lack of privacy in this wealthy Southern family, to the "cage" which is their home. Such a feeling of tightening circumscription only heightens the frantic attempts of these characters to avoid reality and increases the likelihood of an inevitable, shattering destruction of illusion. As Gooper points out, "A family crisis brings out the best and worst in every member of it." Thus the pervading theme of Williams' drama involves the tension between truth and mendacity,
At first glance, Raymond Carver’s writing technique of “Cathedral” seems rather simplistic, but after further analysis of the story one realizes that it surfaces many levels of complexities. Carver, striving to prove an optimistic view of human attitudes and attributes, changes his character’s ignorance and disgruntlement into self realization and eagerness. “Cathedral” illustrates how the comfort zone of an introverted man can turn into fear and ultimately a prison. Carver’s character, the narrator, is caught off guard when pushed beyond this comfort zone and finds himself enlightened through the lessons of a blind man. The opening of the story begins with a thought of the stay of a blind man, Robert.
This foreshadows later events in the novel because of when Lennie felt a girls dress, and she jerked back so he began to panic. This prepares us for the dramatic and tragic events later in the novel because everytime that Lennie does something wrong or something bad, he always get worried about what is going to happen next or if he is going to get in trouble, e.g. losing the his job and shattering the dream. ''Like I done in Weed''. This quote talks about the way Lennie is very concerned about what he done in Weed, and how he dosent want to go through all that trouble
When Newt Hoenikker asks these questions it’s related to the situation whether you’re choosing to chase or run from it. For example, Newt was telling the narrator about his sister Angela’s marriage. He was explaining why he hated Angela’s husband. He described how he thought it was a very happy marriage from the way Angela talked about it. He held his hands six inches apart and spread his fingers and said, “See the cat?
Later on in the novel “Lennie looked up helplessly at George, and then he got up and tried to retreat.” When Steinbeck writes “Lennie looked helplessly at George” implies that Lennie always looks to George for attention and help when things go wrong in his life. All these quotes show us that George and Lennie have a very fragile relationship as Lennie depends heavily on the advice and guidance of George whereas George seems to want his own freedom from Lennie and sees him as a burden on his
Johnathan Gahagan March 18, 2013 Claiming Sanity (10) When claiming your sanity in the opening sentences of your new encounter with another person you just know there is going to be a mental illness along the lines or a distraction from reality of some sort. The man from “The Black Cat” had serious issues with a bunch of different things mainly with his drinking problem, mood swings, and his need for retaliation. He marries at a young age and introduces his wife to all of the pets he has. He has birds, goldfish, a dog, rabbits, and a monkey, but singles out a large and beautiful black cat, named Pluto, because it’s his favorite. He chooses cats over fellow men because they serve him a better friendship.
The author incorporates all sorts of humor to somewhat ease the tension of revealing his life; the readers may get a real sense of self-representation while reading. He realizes his peculiar behaviors lead him to an outcast; nevertheless, he does not know what is causing him to act like that. Even his parents, his teachers are unaware of it. Additionally, he could not understand why he was the one getting laughed at his odd behaviors; even though, he tried to figure out it, “I was damned if I could find it (Sedaris, p361),” but he still “had to do these things because nothing was worse than the anguish of not doing them (Sedaris, p361).” At Sedaris first-hand account shows the audiences his struggles of disease that strange and socially
2 ). It is also obvious that Nick is only helping Lewis so he can get something in return, “so you’ll help me out on the moratorium committee” but Lewis doesn’t end up helping Nick as later on he views the play being more important than helping a friend out. Nick Believes, as does Lucy that there are social and political issues much more important and valid than love and finality and he thinks Lewis is wasting his time in the asylum “Only mad people in this day and age would do a work about love and fidelity. They’re definitely mad” (pg. 41) Nick says when Nick is at the asylum to help Lewis direct.
The intentionally unnamed narrator uses materialism to shape his identity “I had become a slave to the Ikea nesting instinct”. Through this characterisation, Fincher is making a social comment on the materialistic, “yuppie” mindset society has adopted. The tongue-in-cheek comment “I had it all. I had a decent stereo, a wardrobe that was getting very respectable. I was close to being complete” shows that the Narrator was never emotionally satisfied with basing his identity on superficial factors, constantly searching for ways to escape it like anonymous support groups comprised of unconditional inclusion “ If I didn't say anything, people always assumed the worst”.