Mending Wall free essay sample

Meyer uses a formalist strategy on his critical essay of Mending Wall. He states that Mending Wall is a narrative poem and is comprised of ten main points. They are a beginning, a middle an end, observation, compression of time, containment, illumination of private gestures, understatement, humor, setting, characters, and a compelling subject. These points are known as â€Å"The Reaper test† and according to Bruce Meyer, Robert Frosts’s Mending Wall passes with flying colors. The poem is based on a wall which is falling apart because of a harsh winter. This wall separates two farms from one another, one farm being an apple orchard and the other a pine field. The separation of the two farms also reflects on the characters in which they represent. Frost represents the apple orchard which if full of life and the other man represents a pine field which is uninteresting. The two men come together during the spring time to re-build the broken wall. We will write a custom essay sample on Mending Wall or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Frost attempts to make conversation with his neighbor but his neighbor is boring and uninterested in talking or playing or joking with Frost. What’s interesting about this poem is it’s a narrative that’s based on â€Å"a single time and a single place, and the actions could, plausibly, take place within the â€Å"real time† of the poem. This may appear to contradict the nature of narrative: after all, a narrative is, by definition, a sequence of connected events that form a single concept or story (Meyer 2). Frost does such an excellent job of compressing time and setting that he makes it seem like a sequence of events but it’s really just fragments of idea and â€Å"gestures† (Meyer 2) â€Å"†¦that form a single concept or story† (Meyer 2).

Free Essays on Vonnegut

Breakfast of Champions - Vonnegut’s Autobiographical Self, or Comic Schizophrenic Characters Kurt Vonnegut has been through many difficult times in his life. He has lived through times in which he was completely isolated from the rest of his society, relationships within his family, and relationships outside of his family. Vonnegut places a great deal of stress on experiences from his life that caused depression. All of these separations were brought about by forces other than ones controllable by Vonnegut. These forces were caused by death or other natural forces. (Lundquist, p. 2) The characters in Vonnegut’s books experience these same feelings of isolation. Like in Vonnegut’s own life, the isolation is not by choice. Some characters are isolated from society, while others are isolated from relationships important to them. Vonnegut also seems to share tendencies of paranoid schizophrenia with some of his characters. They often feel as though they are the only people in the world that have the capability to make their own decisions. This is a common fa ntasy of patients with paranoid schizophrenia. (Lundquist, p. 56) Is Breakfast of Champions an autobiographical mental representation of Vonnegut, or is it simply a series of schizophrenic comic characters? This is what we shall explore in this essay. At the age of fourteen, Vonnegut lost his mother to suicide. In May 1944, she poisoned herself. In Breakfast of Champions, Dwayne Hoover has a wife who commits suicide. Repeatedly, throughout the book, Vonnegut mentions Hoover’s wife who kills herself by drinking Drno. â€Å"He even forgot that his wife Celia had committed suicide, for instance, by eating Drno.† (p. 65) This suicide resembles Vonnegut’s own mother’s death by poisoning herself. He even acknowledges this fact: â€Å"And both our mothers committed suicide. Bunny’s mother ate Drno. My mother ate sleeping pills, which wasn’t nearly as horrible.ï ¿ ½... Free Essays on Vonnegut Free Essays on Vonnegut Breakfast of Champions - Vonnegut’s Autobiographical Self, or Comic Schizophrenic Characters Kurt Vonnegut has been through many difficult times in his life. He has lived through times in which he was completely isolated from the rest of his society, relationships within his family, and relationships outside of his family. Vonnegut places a great deal of stress on experiences from his life that caused depression. All of these separations were brought about by forces other than ones controllable by Vonnegut. These forces were caused by death or other natural forces. (Lundquist, p. 2) The characters in Vonnegut’s books experience these same feelings of isolation. Like in Vonnegut’s own life, the isolation is not by choice. Some characters are isolated from society, while others are isolated from relationships important to them. Vonnegut also seems to share tendencies of paranoid schizophrenia with some of his characters. They often feel as though they are the only people in the world that have the capability to make their own decisions. This is a common fa ntasy of patients with paranoid schizophrenia. (Lundquist, p. 56) Is Breakfast of Champions an autobiographical mental representation of Vonnegut, or is it simply a series of schizophrenic comic characters? This is what we shall explore in this essay. At the age of fourteen, Vonnegut lost his mother to suicide. In May 1944, she poisoned herself. In Breakfast of Champions, Dwayne Hoover has a wife who commits suicide. Repeatedly, throughout the book, Vonnegut mentions Hoover’s wife who kills herself by drinking Drno. â€Å"He even forgot that his wife Celia had committed suicide, for instance, by eating Drno.† (p. 65) This suicide resembles Vonnegut’s own mother’s death by poisoning herself. He even acknowledges this fact: â€Å"And both our mothers committed suicide. Bunny’s mother ate Drno. My mother ate sleeping pills, which wasn’t nearly as horrible.ï ¿ ½...