Charles O Riley: A Short Story

The Bird Artist Howard Norman is the author of the highly regarded novel THE NORTHERN LIGHTS (1987). In Norman’s second novel THE BIRD ARTIST, Fabian Vas lives in the remote village of Witless Bay, Newfoundland. As the narrator of the novel, the reader is presented with the matter-of-fact world that Vas inhabits. Because of the harshness of the environment, there is a toughness required of the citizens of Witless Bay. The terrain punishes anyone who is weak of body and/or of spirit.

First Snow The ghastly precipitation fell in the skies as if hell had poured to impose judgment. Snow bleed down with crisp edges that were as sharp as a spinning wheel that landed upon all the living and the dead. A cacophony filled my ears with the sound of nature and fearful humans. Within all the chaos something so ghoulish yet alluring caught my eyes. The figure sat atop the steel edifice observing the night city with an expression filled with disinterested.

He depicts America as young and similar to a great stream with refreshing and nurturing capabilities as well as anger and violence. He then adds that America is surprisingly like other nations, although it has a biased and unjust past. This demonstrates Douglass’s feelings about the time period and the shift from a typical representation of the holiday, to an unique and critical one. He attempts to appeal to their logic via the employment of logos. By providing a clear narration of America and its true history, the audience can distinguish fact from fiction, gaining a new, valuable perspective on the holiday and overall abolitionist movement.

Imagine going to church on a gorgeous Sunday morning and looking up at the tall, formidable steeple but it was painted a deep black as if it were meant to be invisible. In Gwen Bristow’s Celia Garth the St. Michael’s church steeple was painted an oppressive black during the British siege of Charleston to make it unable to be seen by British ships from the harbor. Since the steeple was painted black instead white, it was no longer notably noticeable, making God have a lesser presence in the minds of the people of Charleston. The Charleston citizens interpreted the black steeple as a foreshadowment of death to the people of Charleston, and it frightened them.

They had no protection from the cold and snow. They were slowly dying from the cold and tiredness. The journey was long. “The idea of dying, ceasing to be, began to fascinate me. To no longer exist.

The winter of 1777 at Valley Forge was one of sickness, trials, and gloom for the soldiers fighting in the war. The demeanor in Waldo’s writing shifts over the course of his entry from being informative

Charlie by, Lee Maracle is about a young Indian boy who goes to a catholic school. Charlie dreams about going outside and exploring but the school will punish him if he does. One a day a group of kids including Charlie sneak out to go to one of their families houses. When they get their Charlie leaves to go to his family’s cabin. Unfortunately his long journey is cut short by frost bite and he dies of hypothermia.

" Day by day, after the December snows were over, a blazing blue sky poured down torrents of light and air on the white landscape, which gave them back in an intenser glitter. One would have supposed that such an atmosphere must quicken the emotions as well as the blood; but it seemed to produce no change except that of retarding still more the sluggish pulse of Starkfield. When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold; when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the devoted village and the wild cavalry

The rain fell down in frigid sheets. Ira Whelan stood alone on the gelid deck that was once the Petersburg train station. Now all that remained of the once bustling establishment was the foundation of a prodigious building, and the sooty frozen planks that lay under him. It was winter in West Virginia, and it was the first one after the war’s end. If Ira would’ve had shoes, perhaps the cold weather wouldn’t have bothered him so considerably.

Vivid descriptions of the wind such as its’ “rattl[ing] the tops of garbage cans”, “dirt and dust and grime”, and “grit sting[ing] skins” create a sense of chaos that is common in the busy hustle of city life. The cold wind also “violent[ly] assault[s]” the residents of the city, allowing the reader to envision the truly excruciating and harrowing journey people in the urban setting must make regularly. Additionally, asyndeton is utilized masterfully throughout the passage to demonstrate the disarray caused by the wind. The wind finds “theater throwaways, announcements of dances and lodge meetings, the heavy waxed paper that loaves of bread had been wrapped in, the thinner waxed paper that enclosed sandwiches, old envelopes, newspapers.” This extensive list without the use of conjunctions speeds up the reading allowing a fast pace similar to the rapid attacks of the wind, enabling the reader to visualize the onslaught on the citizens.

The multifaceted nature of the human condition encompasses all aspects of human life at both an individual and collective level and delves into the notion of humanity and the values it comprises. Gwen Harwood’s poems’ “Father and Child” and “Mother who gave me life,” and Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery” (1998), explore the dynamic and often contradictory nature of the human condition. Harwood portrays the transience of time and inescapable truth of mortality, illustrating the ever changing complexion of the human experience. Whereas, Jackson examines the capability of all humans to be violent and cruel while questioning whether such tendencies can be masked by a constrictive society’s heartless ideals. Harwood explores the brevity

The approach of autumn was well on its way. “Autumn’s hand was lying heavy on the hillsides. Bracken was yellowing, heather passing from bloom, and the clumps of wild-wood taking the soft russet and purple of decline. Faint odors of wood smoke seemed to fit over the moor, and the sharp lines of the hill fastnesses were drawn as with a graving-tool against the sky.” As Ellie drove down the road she was much more aware of all her surroundings.

Yakira Keiser setting 1.“Five months ago we were just another family in Brooklyn. Papa sold cigars, candy, occasionally a stuffed toy made by moma. We weren't rich but we managed. And then hey saw the cartoon in the paper”. (pg.9)

In a community of metaphoric veils only the veil seen by the public eye is known as obstructive or harmful. Throughout the story, Hooper was portrayed as a monster for publicly wearing the veil as a symbol of his sins. “To surrender or give up, or permit injury or disadvantage to, for the sake of something else” (Dictionary.com). “The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Reverend Hooper sacrificed his love, his dignity, his own happiness, and his position in the community by wearing a veil, which led to his alienation.

In “Acquainted with the Night”, poet Robert Frost examines the inner workings of a lonely, depressed mentality. Through his extensive use of symbolism, Frost demonstrates exactly how confined and flustered someone in that conditions feels. There are two specific symbols that, if analyzed, unravel the meaning behind the poem: the symbol of darkness, the symbol of walking, and the symbol of large distances. Darkness is a perpetually popular symbol, and in this poem, it is certainly prominent/ Historically, darkness has been used to symbolize malice, evil, sadness — generally, anything adverse.