Tinkering With Time Epilepsy, it is difficult to deal with for both the epileptic and his family. Howard’s harrowing seizures in the novel Tinkers, written by Paul Harding, frighten those that witness its inconsistency. George witnesses this in his father Howard and is frightened, himself. At first, their relationship is normal but because of Howard’s seizures the relationship collapses and George runs away in his teenaged years. Flashbacks of both George and his father Howard are entries into their lives. Harding helps the readers understand the themes of life, death and relationship between the Crosby men and reaches the readers by capturing their attention with examples for each. To represent the difficult, then later, satisfying life of …show more content…
The readers are able to take a glimpse into his childhood and adulthood which contrast greatly. For instance, George’s childhood is difficult in ways that can relate to people in the real world. He is brought up in a household where his mother Kathleen’s “humourless regime mask[s her] bitterness far deeper than any of her children and husband imagine.” (92) Kathleen is still “shocked” (92) that she is a wife and a mother so she buries her feelings under “layer upon layer of domestic strictness” (92) hiding her feelings from her children thereafter making them believe that her humourless feelings are just a part of her personality. Because of Kathleen’s views towards the topic of family are bitter, she believes that her epileptic husband should be sent away to an asylum out of pure bitterness rather than care of his well-being. George’s parents do not see eye to eye on this matter. Howard “could not have let himself be witness to the simultaneity of his wife passing him a place of chicken or a basket of hot bread as she worked out her plans to have him taken away.” (128) The feeling of secretly not being wanted by his wife is too hard for him to bare which causes him to abandon his family. Because George witnesses the relationship between his parents crumble and that is when he decides to live a life away from it all, where he raises a family of his own in ways opposite of his own …show more content…
Harding brings three important themes to his novel Tinkers that brings the reader to fully understand the emotion of the lives of his characters. The theme of life being the first. Harding demonstrates that life has its ups and downs but will eventually come to a pause at a more satisfying point where the hardships of life will come to pass. George partakes in this satisfaction by the end of his life when surrounded by those he loves and those that love him back. The moment at which the hardships come to pass, in the novel, is at a point of death. The death theme in the novel entices the readers in two forms of which death can be present. The first being that only the animate can die and memories with it and the other the complete opposite in which the inanimate can also posses the ability to ‘die’. As life and death goes, the fine line between them is the relationship that develops in between the two. Harding demonstrates that the relationship theme can be distinguished in forms that are unnatural but nonetheless still demonstrate relationship. At one point, the father-son relationship in the novel is expressed through fear but is also not to be expressed at all when referring to affection. Harding provides engrossing themes to progress the novel in its fragmented world but uses clear examples to help clear up the conflicting views
From “Inside Rikers”, written by Jennifer Wynn, Wynn shares the lives from the “world’s largest penal colony” the inmates from Rikers Island. She really humanizes criminals by giving them faces and names because she does what most American are unwilling to do because they are afraid, that is forgiving people and giving them second chances. She really does see the good in the hearts of some staunch criminals. At the same time, she is a clear sighted humanist on how hard it is to leave the criminal lifestyle. Drawing all the difficulties and complications that our society has placed in the way of the newly released inmate. Not to mention the persuasions of the criminal lifestyle itself. The first chapter is Welcome to the Rock, where Wynn introduces the narratives of Angel, Kenny, Charlie, Alfonso, and Benjamin. Chapter two is titled, From the Belly of the Beast to New York Streets where both Frank and Mike are introduced here. In Chapter Three, the Captain and Harry tell the stories of Keepers Of The Kept, Convicted At Birth with Rico, Napoleon, Hilton, and James in Chapter 4.
George and all readers learn from this story about the merciless and callous effect the human nature has on mankind. The general theme of the novella highlights the voracious and often malevolent aspect of human nature. The novella in its essence flails at the idea of ‘every man for himself’. George learns many lessons throughout the book that can be applied to a reader’s everyday life. Loyalty and Sacrifice
The idea of death can be, and is an enormously disturbing, unknown issue in which many people can have many different opinions. To some individuals, the process of life can progress painstakingly slow, while for others life moves too fast. In the excerpt We Were the Mulvaneys, by Joyce Carol Oates, a innocent farm boy named Judd Mulvaney has an eye-opening encounter by a brook near his driveway. During this encounter, Judd faces a chain of feelings and emotions that lead to his change of opinion of the issues of life and death, and change as a character. This emblematic imagery of life and death, as well as jumpy, and retrospective tones benefit the development of Judd as an innocent child as he begins to change into a more conscious and aware adult.
emotional strain upon George that he could not accept. Celia was his lover…yet he could not
Over the course of the novella, George’s attitude towards Lennie changes from impatience, controlling, to sympathy.
Throughout the novel, George showed qualities of leadership, interpersonal and intrapersonal skills, sense of fraternity, sense of respect for others, and sense of human dignity. These character traits of empathy to keep himself and Lennie alive. Lennie had a mental disability that everyone overlooked, he was very tall and broad, and did not realize his actions or strength. George felt guilt over Curley’s wife death and was unsure if the law would find
The persona, or a man's social personality, is represented through the main character—George. George is viewed by the reader as short-tempered, arrogant, and quick-witted. The novel starts off by conveying to the reader the relationship in which they have. George states “if I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job an’ work, an’ no trouble” (Steinbeck 10). George is obviously not obligated to take care after another man but he chooses to do so.
The words "It’s a Wonderful Life," tell a wonderful story. That’s what the whole movie was about. We as the audience, go to see just how wonderful George Bailey’s life really was. The movie shows the values of a family, and how much George took them for granted. He took them for granted until he felt what it feels like to live without them. This film showed that there was a lot more to George’s history than just his life. He had saved Harry’s life when they were just kids. Later on Harry stopped an aircraft from running into a lot of soldiers, which saved all their lives. So in the long run George saved all those soldiers too.
George is one of people in the ranch that had big goals to achieve, but he couldn’t accomplish any of them because of Lennie. George taking care of Lennie affects his dreams in a big way because every time George gets closer to his dreams Lennie completely ruins it. In the story it states George saying “ dumb bastard likes to touch everything he likes”(steinbeck 41). This is very important because this shows how childish lennie acts. The most important thing to him was to have dreams to have a farm and his own place with Lennie. This quote “ we got a future “ (Pg . 14) shows that he had a dream worth living for. Another way George had gotten his dreams taken away was when Lennie killed their boss’s wife. I know that George was a very lonely person because in the story he talks about guys like him in the ranch . “ guys like us , that work on a ranch are the loneliest guys in the world” (Pg . 13). This is very important because it shows his feelings towards being lonely.
It is evident that both men share a strong bond because the role George plays in Lennie’s life is his caretaker. His kind nature shines through his loving acts of caring for his mentally disabled friend. Both Lennie and George are migrant workers, and as one acknowledges migrant workers tend to travel alone. However, George took Lennie under his wing and helped him to thrive in the external world. Without his assistance, one is unable to say where and in what condition Lennie would have lived his life. Before his death, Lennie had hallucinated
One internal conflict that George is dealing with is that he has to keep on looking out for Lennie, even though he knows he would be better off without Lennie. For example, George says, God almighty, if I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job an’ work, an’ no trouble,” (Steinbeck, page 11). George faces the internal conflict of deciding if it is really worth George to look after Lennie. All Lennie does for George is cause him trouble. George could start a brand new life, way more successful than now, without Lennie. But he decides to stay with Lennie because to Lennie George means everything to him. If Lennie didn't have George, who knows where he would be. This shows George as a complex character because the audience sees the real two sides of George. Outside George may seem as a tough independent person. But really on the inside George is a very caring person that is a father figure for Lennie. The audience sees George’s
Since George has moved to Toronto, he has gone through so many changes against his own will, and it has made him depressed and bitter. He is applying for a position at a bank and "he was always uncomfortable and impatient whenever he had to go into one." George has been forced to change his morals and even his personal taste just to get ahead in Canada. He doesn't believe that men and women should cohabit if they are not married and is "not a believer in the North American practice of having boys going to school with girls." He listens to a rock and roll station even though he hates it just so he can find out what time it is. He plans to lie about his educational background at his job interview to impress them; where as his education in Barbados is above average. His entire lifestyle has changed and his fear of failure drove him over the edge.
The first act of the show introduces us to the struggle of our main character. George struggles with something that many artists struggle with: the need to create great work, often at the cost of other things in life. George’s life is consumed by this, as shown in the number “Finishing the Hat,” where George expresses how his view of the world works.”How you watch the rest of the world from a window, while you finish the hat.” George laments on how his art consumes him and how he can only see the world through a “window.” The problem with the first act is that it never resolves this struggle with George. Without the second act, George never is fully resolved, left in this state of imbalance.
As the story nears the end the past catches up with the present and it goes on to describe George’s dedicated student lifestyle. He writes: “Every morning I get up and I wonder what I might learn that day. You just never know.” George also reflects on the attitude of people these days: “People worry too much. Life is good, just the way it is.”
Tinkers takes after the interweaved lives of three New England ages: child, father, and granddad. It is likewise a reflection of time and memory, families and human slightness, and the battle to discover arrange in a tumultuous universe.