Free Essays on Honor As Viewed In Mary Wilkins Freeman’s A New England Nun

Honor as Viewed in Mary Wilkins Freeman’s A New England Nun Webster’s dictionary defines honor as â€Å"a keen sense of ethical conduct; one’s word given as guarantee of performance†. The characters in Mary Wilkins Freeman’s A New England Nun are each a vivid depiction of this definition. Beginning with Louisa Ellis, whom is a prim and proper woman engaged to a man she no longer knows and does not love, but none the less will marry because she has committed to doing so. Leading next to Joe Dagget, the mannerly fiancà © of Louisa’s whom has fallen in love with another woman, but will go through with the marriage to Louisa because not doing so would make him less of an honorable man. And ending with Lily Dyer, the young woman who captured Joe Dagget’s heart, but would not dream of letting him back out of his engagement to Louisa because â€Å"Honor’s honor, an’ right’s right. I’d never think anything of any man that went against ‘em for me or any other girl†¦Ã¢â ‚¬  (1619). Freeman’s story gives the reader a glance at how practicing honor and integrity can destroy the lives of those whom live a life of honor, just as Louisa Ellis, Joe Dagget, and Lily Dyer. In the fourteen years that Joe Dagget had been away from Louisa, she had become a self-sufficient woman whom was content with her quiet homely life. Louisa, a reputable lady, had developed a life style that she was accustomed to and this routine life made her happy. Upon Joe Dagget’s return Louisa was now confronted with the issue of having to sacrifice her comfortable way of living for the sake of keeping her honor. If she were to refuse Joe Dagget after his return, she would be going back on her word, therefore making her a less than respectable woman. Although this compromise to many is small, Freeman expounds upon the effect marrying Joe Dagget would have on Louisa. She would not merely be giving up her home to live with the man she loved, but she would be gi... Free Essays on Honor As Viewed In Mary Wilkins Freeman’s A New England Nun Free Essays on Honor As Viewed In Mary Wilkins Freeman’s A New England Nun Honor as Viewed in Mary Wilkins Freeman’s A New England Nun Webster’s dictionary defines honor as â€Å"a keen sense of ethical conduct; one’s word given as guarantee of performance†. The characters in Mary Wilkins Freeman’s A New England Nun are each a vivid depiction of this definition. Beginning with Louisa Ellis, whom is a prim and proper woman engaged to a man she no longer knows and does not love, but none the less will marry because she has committed to doing so. Leading next to Joe Dagget, the mannerly fiancà © of Louisa’s whom has fallen in love with another woman, but will go through with the marriage to Louisa because not doing so would make him less of an honorable man. And ending with Lily Dyer, the young woman who captured Joe Dagget’s heart, but would not dream of letting him back out of his engagement to Louisa because â€Å"Honor’s honor, an’ right’s right. I’d never think anything of any man that went against ‘em for me or any other girl†¦Ã¢â ‚¬  (1619). Freeman’s story gives the reader a glance at how practicing honor and integrity can destroy the lives of those whom live a life of honor, just as Louisa Ellis, Joe Dagget, and Lily Dyer. In the fourteen years that Joe Dagget had been away from Louisa, she had become a self-sufficient woman whom was content with her quiet homely life. Louisa, a reputable lady, had developed a life style that she was accustomed to and this routine life made her happy. Upon Joe Dagget’s return Louisa was now confronted with the issue of having to sacrifice her comfortable way of living for the sake of keeping her honor. If she were to refuse Joe Dagget after his return, she would be going back on her word, therefore making her a less than respectable woman. Although this compromise to many is small, Freeman expounds upon the effect marrying Joe Dagget would have on Louisa. She would not merely be giving up her home to live with the man she loved, but she would be gi...

Analysis of Tenth of December by George Saunders

Analysis of Tenth of December by George Saunders George Saunders deeply moving story Tenth of December originally appeared in the October 31, 2011, issue of The New Yorker. It was later included in his well-received 2013 collection, Tenth of December, which was a bestseller and a National Book Award finalist. Tenth of December is one of the freshest and most compelling contemporary stories, yet we find it almost impossible to talk about the story and its meaning without making it sound trite (something along the lines of, A boy helps a suicidal man find the will to live, or, A suicidal man learns to appreciate the beauty of life). We have to chalk this up to Saunders ability to present familiar themes (yes, the little things in life are beautiful, and no, life isnt always neat and clean) as if were seeing them for the first time. If you havent read Tenth of December, do yourself a favor and read it now. Below are some of the features of the story that particularly stand out; perhaps theyll resonate for you, too. Dreamlike Narrative The story shifts constantly from the real to the ideal, to the imagined, to the remembered. Like the 11-year-old protagonist of Flannery OConnors The Turkey, the boy in Saunders story, Robin, walks through the woods imagining himself a hero. He trudges through the woods tracking imaginary creatures called Nethers, who have kidnapped his alluring classmate, Suzanne Bledsoe. Reality merges seamlessly with Robins pretend world as he glances at a thermometer reading 10 degrees (That made it real) and also as he begins to follow actual human footprints while still pretending that hes tracking a Nether. When he finds a winter coat and decides to follow the footsteps so he can return it to its owner, he recognizes that [i]t was a rescue. A real rescue, at last, sort of. Don Eber, the terminally ill 53-year-old man in the story, also holds conversations in his head. He is pursuing his own imagined heroics- in this case, going into the wilderness to freeze to death in order to spare his wife and children the suffering of caring for him as his illness progresses. His own conflicted feelings about his plan come out in the form of imagined conversations with adult figures from his childhood and finally, in the grateful dialogue, he imagines between his surviving children when they realize how selfless hes been. He considers all the dreams hell never achieve (such as delivering his major national speech on compassion), which seems not so different from fighting Nethers and saving Suzanne- these fantasies seem unlikely to happen even if Eber lives another 100 years. The effect of the movement between real and imagined is dreamlike and surreal- an effect that is only heightened in the frozen landscape, especially when Eber enters the hallucinations of hypothermia. Reality Wins Even from the beginning, Robins fantasies cant make a clean break from reality. He imagines the Nethers will torture him but only in ways he could actually take. He imagines that Suzanne will invite him to her pool, telling him, Its cool if you swim with your shirt on. By the time he has survived a near drowning and a near freezing, Robin is solidly grounded in reality.  He starts to imagine what Suzanne might say, then stops himself, thinking, Ugh. That was done, that was stupid, talking in your head to some girl who in real life called you Roger. Eber, too, is pursuing an unrealistic fantasy that he will eventually have to give up. Terminal illness transformed his own kind stepfather into a brutal creature he thinks of only as THAT. Eber- already tangled in his own deteriorating ability to find accurate words- is determined to avoid a similar fate. He thinks: Then it would be done. He would have preempted all future debasement. All his fears about the coming months would be mute. Moot.   But this incredible opportunity to end things with dignity is interrupted when he sees Robin moving dangerously across the ice carrying his- Ebers- coat. Eber greets this revelation with a perfectly prosaic, Oh, for shitsake. His fantasy of an ideal, poetic passing wont come to be, a fact readers might have guessed when he landed on mute rather than moot. Interdependence and Integration The rescues in this story are beautifully intertwined. Eber rescues Robin from the cold (if not from the actual pond), but Robin would never have fallen into the pond in the first place if he hadnt tried to rescue Eber by taking his coat to him. Robin, in turn, saves Eber from the cold by sending his mother to go get him. But Robin has already saved Eber from suicide by falling into the pond. The immediate need to save Robin forces Eber into the present. And being in the present seems to help integrate Ebers various selves, past and present. Saunders writes: Suddenly he was not purely the dying guy who woke nights in the med-bed thinking, Make this not true make this not true, but again, partly, the guy who used to put bananas in the freezer, then crack them on the counter and pour chocolate over the broken chunks, the guy who’d once stood outside a classroom window in a rainstorm to see how Jodi was faring. Eventually, Eber begins to see the illness (and its inevitable indignities) not as negating his previous self but simply as being one part of who he is. Likewise, he rejects the impulse to hide his suicide attempt (and its revelation of his fear) from his children, because it, too, is part of who he is. As he integrates his vision of himself, he is able to integrate his gentle, loving stepfather with the vitriolic brute he became in the end. Remembering the generous way his desperately ill stepfather listened attentively to Ebers presentation on manatees, Eber sees that there are drops of goodness to be had even in the worst situations. Though he and his wife are in unfamiliar territory, stumbling a bit on a swell in the floor of this stranger’s house, they are together.