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.... for his rationale is a river. It’s location remains basically the same. One can walk away from it, and return with the confidence that it will still be there. However, the exact water that flows through it is never the same. One can’t tell the difference between the water in the river now and the water in the river earlier and yet this transience of matter does not detract from the identity of the river. Heraclitus would say that all of what we experience is like the river, forever changing in a process of erosion and creation. Heraclitus’ successor .....

.... with a sickening, unnatural thud." The reader does not know whether it was accidental or intentional. It is not until later that Finny realizes that Gene is responsible for his crippling, and what a natural thing it was to do. Gene bounced the branch just to see if he could make the invincible Finny fall; at least, this is why Gene claims he did it. This is true, but at some level, Gene was scared of Finny, of his confidence, his abilities, and his potential for breaking records. Consider Gene's paranoia over Finny's attempts to make him adventurous. Gene interprets these genui .....

.... of life. Tan may weave elements of Taoism into the narrative to locate the "invisible core" of Chinese women's culture, of the immigrant family--and of the novel itself--within apparent conflicts or ambiguities. Tan's use of Confucianism may reveal her hypothesis of how a women's version of that patriarchal ethico-moral-ritual tradition might be passed down from mother to daughter and carried to America. Just as in the Confucian ritual system, very little of the mother-tradition in the text is told explicitly from mother to daughter: ritual actions are supposed to be observed, .....

.... California proves to be hard when their grandpa dies just days after their departure. Truck problems are regular occurrences and the penetrating heat tires the migrating family. They have very little money and they have many family members to feed as well as gas to buy. Tom is warned by families going back east that there are no job opportunities in California. They say the Joads will be forced to live in Hoovervilles, which are temporary shanty towns, and they won’t have enough money for decent meals. This news is disheartening to Tom, but the family’s only choice is to k .....

.... on the staircase window." Her "habitual mood of humiliation, self-doubt, and forlorn depression" were deepened by such gloomy weather. (Bronte 9-10) Much like the beast's castle in "Beauty and the Beast", Gateshead, Jane's home, appeared to have an evil spell that would not allow the days to be sprinkled with sunshine and happiness. Jane's horrible, doom filled days at Gateshead came to a halt when Jane was accepted into Lowood Institution. Although Lowood was a more joyous home for Jane, she never considered it home. Jane delighted in one wintery morning when the girls c .....

.... the grotesque deaths of warriors. "He brought him down with a glinting jagged rock, massive, top of the heap behind the rampart’s edge, no easy lift for a fghger even in prime strength, working with both hands, weak as men are now." Giant Ajax hoisted it high and hurled it down, crushing the rim of the soldiers four horned helmet and cracked his skull to splinters, a bloody pulp…" 435-443. Violence, the many scenes of war in the Iliad reminded me of the first battle scene of Saving Private Ryan. The extremely violent images of men crying out for their mothers, the in .....

.... motionless except for the feathery curl behind a distant swimmer. From my position I was looking through a rectangle brightly lit, actually glaring at me with sun, sand, water, a little pavilion, a few solitary people in fixed attitudes, and around it all a border of dark rounded oak trees, like that engraved thunderclouds surrounding illustrations in the bible"(Welty,75). Welty's long sentence structure and word usage allows the reader to feel as though he or she were the one sitting on the beach. This description helps the reader to be involved in the story. He or sh .....