The Character of Pop Bottle Pete in The River Warren :: River Warren Essays

The Character of Pop Bottle Pete in The River Warren      Ã‚   In the novel, The River Warren, Pop Bottle Pete is a character whom not all readers have an easy time understanding or relating to. The most obvious reason for this is that he is a grown man with a mental disability. The reader understands this through the words that he uses, the way he uses them, and also through his relationships, which are affected by his disability. Having a clearer knowledge of this disability, by looking at his language and social skills, the reader will gain a better understanding of these relationships. Out of respect for the character I will refer to him as Peter. To get a general range of Peter's skills, the Battelle Developmental Inventory will be used as a resource. The Battelle is an assessment used for children birth to six years of age but can be used on an older person who is functioning around this level. Given Peter's description of himself, his activities, and his feelings we can estimate a general developmental level (it is n ot possible to obtain a standardized score or an actual age level of development). According to the Battelle, Peter's skills appear to range about the five to six year age level in the areas of Adult Interaction, Expression of Feelings/Affect, Self-Concept and Social Role.    Some of the items that we can look at in the Adult Interaction are tasks such as "separating easily from the parent," a skill that is developed around 36-47 months. Peter seems to show no difficulty leaving his mother's presence and showing some independence. He seems very comfortable going out, away from his mother, to collect bottles and cans. Also, he did not show any difficulty when he was a Dr. Piersoll's office and his mother had to leave the room. If anything his mother seemed more disturbed than Peter. But he did have a task in the area of Adult Interaction that he would not have passed and that is "asking for adult help when needed," a skill that is developed around 72-83 months. If he had had this skill, he would have gone to his mother when he contracted frostbite on several of his toes and his penis, and he would have had her help him in the most appropriate way.

Impact of World War One on American Literature Essay -- Literature Ess

The Impact of World War One on American Literature As people mature, their beliefs evolve; as a child it is easy to be guided by adults, to believe in adults. As adults, people have their own beliefs. It is the period in the middle that is the hardest. As children begin to grow, they begin to push limits and question authority. The modernist period in American literature is comparable to those teenage years. In the early stages of American literature, America looked to her mother England for guidance. The very traditional literature that resulted had a strong emphasis on religion, family, and country. In early literature it was scandalous to question God; the family was only to be portrayed as a supportive, loving community; and dying for one's country was the ultimate act of bravery and honor. This glorification of war in early American literature and attitude created unrealistic expectations in Americans concerning war. When these same young Americans marched into World War I, they were struck by the true horror of war; the result was a backlash at the society that had deceived them. America has a long history of glorifying war. Many of America's early presidents were war heroes, a tradition that started with America's first president, George Washington, who was a soldier in the American Revolution. Being a war hero was sometimes all that was needed for a candidate to be successful in his bid for the presidency. Zachary Taylor, for instance, had never even voted in a national election prior to his becoming president, but he was a war hero (Tindall 513). This exalted view of war filtered into American literature. American literature portrays war as the true test of manhood. Any "real" man should be more than willing to d... ...orks Cited Eliot, T. S. The Waste Land. McQuade, et al. 2: 1382-1399. Faulkner, William. "Barn Burning." McQuade, et al. 2: 1137-1150. Howells, William Dean. "Editha." McQuade, et al. 2: 362-371. March, William. "The Fate of Honor, Courage, and Patriotism." Company K. McQuade, et al. 2: 931. McQuade, Donald, et al., eds. The Harper American Literature. 2nd ed. 2 Vols. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. Owen, Wilfred. "Dulce et Decorum Est." The Bedford Introduction to Literature. 5th ed. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1993. 763. Pound, Ezra. "Hugh Selwyn Maubery." McQuade, et al. 2: 1325-1329. Stevens, Wallace. "Sunday Morning." McQuade, et al. 2: 1273-1276. Tindall, George, and David Shi, eds. America: A Narrative History. 5th ed. New York: Norton, 2000.

A Narrow Fellow in the Grass – 1

â€Å"A Narrow Fellow in the Grass† By Emily Dickinson. â€Å"A Narrow Fellow in the Grass† Is believed to have been written in 1865. About a year later it was published under the title â€Å"The Snake† by a journal called Springfield Republican. This poem express nature's infamous creatures, the snake. The poem is built around what appears to be and what is. This poem is meant to be read aloud and appreciated for it's precision. Some would say â€Å"A Narrow Fellow in the Grass† is perhaps the most nearly perfect poem addressing nature. Also this poem itself has received a great deal of critical attention.In the opening lines, Dickinson cleverly states the subject of the poem, a snake. She makes the snake sound harmless. The term â€Å"narrow Fellow† is a nice form of colloquial language â€Å"narrow† meaning small, and â€Å"fellow† being a familiar term for boy or man. The choice of words she uses is also interesting like the word à ¢â‚¬Å"rides† sounds like â€Å"glides†. It gives the impression that the snake is being carried, or that it is floating about. The words could also say torment, harass, of tease which would fit the snake's sly tempter.Also the snake seems to take people by surprise. Lines five through eight describes the way a snake moves through tall grass. The grass is compared to hair and the snake is compared to a comb. The snake is quick, long, slender, and marked with spots. The snake slanders along in a ghost like manner. In the lines following nine through twelve the snake likes wet and mushy land. The corns dry environment is not suitable for the snakes wet environment therefore a snake will not be found in a corn field.The speaker mentions that he is barefoot in a childhood encounter, which the thought of a snake slithering across a humans bare skin makes many people cringe. The word â€Å"barefoot† makes the speaker seem even more vulnerable to the snake's potential th reat. In lines thirteen through sixteen the speaker continues to talk about his childhood encounter and he sees something that seems to be a whip-lash. He bends down to pick up the â€Å"whip† just to find that it is slithering away. Oddly, the definition of â€Å"wrinkle† is â€Å"a clever trick†.In these lines he was tricked by the snake for it was not what it appeared to be. The image of a snake â€Å"wrinkling† suggests the snake was frightened by the approach of the speaker. Also, in lines seventeen through twenty the speaker claims to have a connection to the outdoors and its animals. He feels close to these creatures and he describes this connection as a â€Å"transport† In lines twenty one through twenty four the speaker describes the feeling of an encounter with a snake as a moment of shock and fear.He mentions on how he had tighter breathing from the panic. Most people who has encountered with a snake has felt the fear and the panic. In the final line he describes the feeling with the metaphor â€Å"zero at the bone† referring to the bone chilling terror. The end suggest that the snake which is referred as harmless might possible be deceptive. The speaker, which suggest that he loves all animals, cannot love dangerous trickster the snake in the grass. The speaker reacts to the snake as if it were a living terror of the unknown, for it is both chilling and startling.Dickinson wrote several â€Å"riddle† type poems, where she uses metaphor to compare her subject to something, without letting you know. Each stanza has â€Å"clues† in the form of imagery, pictures such as the grass â€Å"as a comb†. â€Å"A Narrow Fellow in the Grass† is written in six quatrains, or stanzas of four lines each, rhyming only in the second and fourth lines. Most of the rhythms are iambic, meaning the poem has regularly recurring segments, in which the first syllable is unstressed and the second is stress ed. â€Å"A Narrow Fellow in the Grass† can be interpreted on several levels.It could be read as just a description of the snake. Also Dickinson's imagery can be read as sexually nuanced. Dickinson's poetic technique is very much an art form she worked hard to refine and hone. The readers today can gain so much from Dickinson poems and her technique. She leaves so much unsaid, and yet, says so much with so little. Dickinson uses the device of sound throughout this poem; hearing this poem is as important as seeing the words. Dickinson creates both a visual and an auditory image of the snake with her language.

Hollifield Family Reunion Essay

Every year around the last week of July my father’s family all meets for a two day reunion in the small town of Spruce Pine, North Carolina. Hollifield’s have resided in the area for over 100 years! There are many streets named after us and if you’re walking around town some people even notice you’re a Hollifield just by looking at you. Although it is only two days long, the reunion is something I cherish deep in my heart, for it’s the only time I get to see my father’s family. One night in 1974, my grandpa and a few other family members were sitting around reminiscing about their childhood. They were laughing at all the memories and good times they’ve had and all the trouble they got into. My grandpa was telling everyone he had been thinking of a way that everyone could make some time to all come together for a couple days once every year. His uncle told him that they should start a family reunion. So starting in July of 1974 the annual Hollifield reunion began. Everyone gets to the hotel Friday night and gets settled in and reacquainted a lot of hugging, kissing, laughing, and eating. My sister and I get our own hotel room so most of our cousins bring sleeping bags and stay both nights in our room. We talk about what we’ve all done that year, who’s dating who, what kind of cars we’ve bought; we pretty much talk each other’s ears off. The next morning we all get up and find somewhere to eat and walk around town. Downtown Spruce Pine is absolutely beautiful. There are flowers and pine trees growing everywhere, and you can smell all the bakeries and barbeque pits. There are little stores with antiques and instruments, florists, wedding dress shops, and candy stores. It could go from 90 degrees with the sun shining to a humid rain in a matter of minutes. When it rains you can smell it a hundred times better than in California. After we walk through town we get to a huge, long wooden bridge. It’s been there for years and underneath it flows a beautiful creek and a park filled with laughing children frolicking in the sunlight. We normally go to the park and mess  around on everything then make our way to the creek. You have to go down a steep hill made of dirt and freckled with little patches of bright green grass. The boys catch crawdads and crayfish while us girls dip our feet in the clear chilly water and wait for the train to pass. The train is large and used to transport coal and freight. Personally, the train is one of my favorite parts of Spruce Pine. It’s loud yet still soothing and controlled. After a few hours the rest of the family begins to show up at the park with fresh, good old-fashioned southern food. They unload the cars of barbeque, slaw, potatoes, mac and cheese, collard greens, green beans, pasta salads, and more desert than any amount of people should ever consume. Following our meal is the baseball game. The whole family plays and we get chosen randomly for two teams. In the end my grandpa tells us that everyone won and an MVP is chosen from each team who receives a golden trophy of a boy or girl with a tiny body and huge head, holding a baseball bat. We all clean up then head back to the hotel to get swimsuits and drive over to the pool. A few hours into swimming we decide to go to the hotel and shower then all the kids find a place to eat supper. Upon leaving the restaurant someone informs us that the annual hide-n-seek game has begun. We take off running towards the hotel to find a hiding place while the person chosen as â€Å"it† stays and counts for 5 minutes. The game involves a lot of pushing, shoving, screaming, laughing, and those little chills you get when you’ve found a place and you know that any second you could be found. After the game we all head back to my sister and I’s room and hang out. We stay up all night talking about everything that happened, who did the most embarrassing thing, which was the funniest, and other things we had encountered that day. As the night goes by we start to notice our time is almost up. Most of my cousins live in NC so they see each other all the time, but as the hours pass my sister and I notice that our time in NC is almost over; that we’ll have to wait yet another slow, California year before we get back to the peaceful happiness of NC. Around 9 in the morning our cousin’s head back to their rooms to get ready for our last meal together. For breakfast Sunday morning the whole family fills the back room of The Western Sizzler. Western Sizzler may be the best place to get breakfast ever. It’s is 3 large buffet tables covered in bacon, sausage, ham, eggs,  fruit, veggies, pancakes, waffles, biscuits and gravy, yogurt, granola, hash browns, country potatoes, varieties of juices, milks, sodas. And at the end there is a huge dessert bar. We eat and talk and talk and eat. And eat some more†¦ and then a little bit more. We catch up with some of the older members of the family and tell them what we did all weekend. My aunt Vicki walks around and takes millions of pictures with her big nice camera that has a flash that could blind the whole family at the same time. When everyone has finished my grandpa stands up and talks about all the great things that have gone on during the weekend, all the graduates and birthdays, all the births and deaths. We end the reunion by hugging and some crying (I won’t lie; Ià ¢â‚¬â„¢m one of the criers). If my family had never got the idea to have a reunion, I don’t know when I would ever see them. The reunion brings us together in a quick two day span filled with great food, laughter, and all around happiness. It seems like when we’re all together nothing can go wrong. My cousins and I have vowed that when our time comes, we will carry on the tradition of the Hollifield Family Reunion until the day we die.

Descriptive Writing

Though not very big, my home is a place where my heart is. My home is the most comfortable, warm and cozy place where I live with my family and spend most of the time in. Entering the east facing wood paneled front door of my home, I am welcomed by my pseudo German Shepherd. An off-white shoe cabinet in the foyer is neatly arranged with everyone’s shoes. In the foyer there is a gilded mirror which is placed above a half moon console table which is decorated with a bowl of colorful blooms and little round. Interior decoration being our forte, we still are thrilled to step into the living room and see our artistic touch. The tray ceiling designed with lights faces down on our Lorenzo leather armchair and divan sofa which we have saved hard to buy. Square shaped cushions quilted with floral designs are well arranged on the divan sofa. The polished wooden floor tiles, feels so cool under my feet. In front of the sofa, lays a Persian rug, a gift from my much travelled aunt on which the unique Kenshoma style coffee table lends a contemporary look. A collage of all my artwork from kindergarten to standard 6 takes pride of place above the flat screen Samsung TV. Across on the opposite wall is the window overlooking the park. As we enter the doorway on the west wall, we pass into a well lit hallway leading to the bedrooms one on the right and the other on the left, each with its own en suite. My sanctum sanctorum is on the left, with a pad of my very own in pastel colors of Nippon-Lemon Drop and Golden Buff. Against the south wall by the window is my four poster mahogany bed with Laura Ashley sheets and quilt. The parted Laura Ashley curtains open onto a balcony which is opposite my bed. From the balcony, I can see and hear the rippling sea rolling away to the horizon. On the far wall of my room is the bathroom on the left and almost a bare walk-in wardrobe on the right. My few but elegant clothes from Nicole MNJ, Soda and Padini hang in the closet. My two pairs of Jimmy Choo shoes sits forlorn at the bottom shelf. My Prada handbag, not original of course sits proudly on display by the floral upholstered chair next to the period-style dressing table and mirror. Incidentally my walk-in wardrobe has a connecting door to the bathroom. Now let me take you through my bathroom, my second best place of refuge, away from the heat. It is a small marvel of glass marble and modern fitting like rain shower. My toothbrush and toilet paper holders are from IKEA. My Johnson Suisse square vanity is above the off-white marble counter. Above the vanity, I have a dark wooden framed mirror which was given by my grandfather. On the counter, I have placed three scented candles on ornate candle stands of wrought iron which I bought from SSF, the home deco store. My room constantly smells of fresh lavender. It has soothing and calming effects on me, especially on days when I have tough assignments. Light floods this small cubicle from a frosted glass window and two white down lights from the ceiling. To me, my home is the most relaxing place to stay. Almost all of my tensions become extinct just when I place my first foot in my home. My home is a place where if I had a chance, I would not want to leave for awhile. Finally I would like to quote John Howard Payne’s 19th century song â€Å"Mid palaces and pleasures though we may roam. Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home. † (John Howard Payne, 1823)

The Effects of Sexual Abuse

The Effects of Sexual Abuse PSY/265 March 8, 2013 The Effects of Sexual Abuse When you talk about the short term and long term effects of sexual abuse, the list can be long with many variables. The variables can be anything from someone being raped by someone they do not know, which still has the same damaging effects but not to the extreme when the individual was raped by someone they know and had a relationship with. Another example of a variable that could affect short-term and long-term effects of sexual abuse would be the care that they received after the abuse happened.When an individual is able to get counseling and has a strong support system after going through something such as rape, it is suggested that somebody with this type of help after being raped is less likely to have long-term effects from a rape. Now on the other hand, if somebody does not have the support system in the counseling afterwards long-term effects are more likely to happen. When you talk about long-ter m effects are talking about weight gain, promiscuity, addictions, codependency, abuse, and no interest in sex.When you talk about the long-term effect weight gain are talking about somebody putting on weight in order to hide themselves said that they would feel in visible to others, making them feel undesirable. The long-term effect promiscuity is explained, as someone who has been raped by a family member, starts to feel that they are not worth anything unless they are having sex with somebody and feel that they cannot get love otherwise.When it comes to the long-term effect addiction, this can mean anything from having an addiction to food to hide with their failing to having an addiction to drugs and/or alcohol in order to numb the feelings that they currently are going in regards to the sexual abuse. The next long-term effects is codependency, this is explained as the victim having such a low self-esteem that they do not trust what they decide to do and need somebody to help mak e the decisions for them. References: Rathus, S. A. , Nevid, J. S. , & Fichner-Rathus, L. (2011). Human Sexuality in a World of Diversity (8th ed. ). Boston, Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon.

How to lose weight Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

How to lose weight - Essay Example The major causes of obesity and overweight includes increased intake of foods with high energy density, such as sugars and unsaturated fats. Another cause of obesity is leading a sedentary or physically inactive lifestyle, especially in people consuming foods with high energy and fat contents (WHO 2). There are various methods of losing weight including exercises, controlling dietary intake, taking diet pills among other techniques. This paper discusses on how to lose weight through exercises and controlling dietary intake. According to WHO, the rate of obesity in developed countries has risen more than three times since 1980 mainly because of increased consumption of foods that have high energy density, such as sugars and saturated fats(2). These poor eating habits are accompanied with reduced physical activity, because of engaging in passive working environment or aversion to physical exercises. Currently, gaining excessive weight is not limited adults alone. Steer and Jebb noted that an increasing number of school going children are affected with the condition that has reached epidemic levels in the world. Thus, the high rate of obesity is a clear indicator of the changing behavioral patterns of different communities in the world. Although genetic composition determines vulnerability of a person to gain weight, energy balance in the body is influenced by the amount of calories in the diet and the physical activity .Changes in the society such as high economic growth, urbanization, liberalization of food markets and advance in technology are some of the factors that have acerbated the epidemic. In addition, technology has resulted in the production of automated transport, passive entertainment and leisure activities at home, which require less physical activities (WHO 2). According to Steer and Jebb, controlling the amount of calories in food that we eat is one of the most practical ways of losing weight. People of