Melvin

The literature quote that I have chosen for my literature essay is “Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it.” The literature quote was written by C.S Lewis. I chose this quote because I believe that it is a metaphor to what we see in our everyday lives. Whether we use it to see life in a new way, a diferent way, or the same way, it advocates that literature has the ability to change our perception of life and the world. It can also present new outlooks to the world. This quote can tie into the recent reading “The Necklace.” The dissapointed and unhappy look from the hero Mathilde Loisel because she is money hungry and only cares for materialistic things, but that is not what life is all about. Those type of things only heal you temporarily, not forever. It is also pretty unnecessary. Life is much bigger than worrying about materialistic things you crave for.

The theme in the poem “The Wife” by Emily Dickinson is echoed in “The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin because they both have a part in womans roles and positions in society. On one hand you have a woman whos life changed for the better after a death, and on the other hand you have a woman who discounts her life for someone else. Both stories take place with both a husband and a wife. In “The Story of An Hour'”, the wife realized after all this time she didn’t really love her husband, but once her husband suddenly passed away she felt relieved in the thought of being a widow, which she claims “There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself”. In “The Wife”, the wife gave up all of her life and personal identity for her husbands petition, which she claims “She rose to his requirement, dropped the play things of her life”

The quote “Literature adds to reality; it does not simply describe it” by C.S Lewis means to enhance mandatory skills that life brings to you/adds depth into your life and this shows throughout the story “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara. In the story, a black woman named Miss Moore came across Silvia and these other unprivledged kids and decided to take them to a toy store. The kids wanted to buy a sailboat in the store but they realized that it’s too much money. Miss Moore then goes on to tell them how people work hard to get their money and not decide to start stealing things. This goes to show how some people are priveledged and unpriveledged with their lives and  you can’t get everything you want in your life. This goes to show a more sensitive understanding of true disparities in the economic world and how people earn for what they work for.

To summarize the story “Salvation” by Langston Hughes, it all revolves around pressure. The narrator was waiting to see Jesus to save him in the church. He preached as much and as long as he could but Jesus wouldn’t come to him, which made his beliefs change. After that he cried in his bed, but then his aunt heard him cry which made her think that the holy ghost had arrived. The narrator was pressured to say that he did come but in reality he didn’t. This reminded me of when I was pressured to steal money from my parents. When they found out there was money missing and confronted me about it, I lied and said no i didn’t take it. To summarize the story “Araby” by James Joyce, it’s about how a boy fell in love with a girl and thought she was full of bright colors when in reality it was dark, which made him fall into delusion. I remember falling into delusion when I thought Santa Claus was real until I entered high school. But then I realized that Santa Claus is really Jesus.

To summarize the short story of “The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World”by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, it is about how a drowned man was washed up by shore at a village. The body was first discovered by children who had innocent brains to process what a dead body was. They began playing around with the body until the adults of the village stopped them. They carried the body back to try and discover if this was either one of their people or if it was from somewhere else. But as they were discovering the body, they began to appreciate the beauty of the man from his physical features to their imagination on what they thought he was and did. Since they didn’t have any room in the village to keep the body and couldn’t determine if the body was one of them, they let it float back into the ocean. Professor Conway could’ve used this story as a way of showing that there is hope in this cruel world. And also to be positive when expecting the unexpected and embrace it because everything happens for a reason.