The Lame Shall Enter First

In Flannery O'Connor’s “The Lame Shall Enter First” the theme of redemption and good v. evil to show how a doctor can loose his grip on reality and loose his only son. After the loss of Sheppard’s wife he becomes obsessed with his job instead of dealing with his grief. Being a doctor he felt the need to help others. He became obsessed with helping this troubled teenage boy. At the same time Sheppard’s son, Norton was completely neglected and actually treated very poorly be his father. Sheppard felt that his son lived too nice of a life and he was spoiled. Although Sheppard thinks he is helping this boy he forgets how that he is loosing his son.
The teenage boy named Johnson tries to teach religion to Norton and this upsets Sheppard. Norton misses his mother and religion gives him the opportunity to find some closeness with his mother’s spirit. Sheppard will not allow his son to be influenced by religion and will not believe in hell because that is where Johnson says he belongs due to his actions. After having the telescope Norton feels that closeness with his mother but his father never notices it because he feels that’s “What was wasted on Norton would cause Johnson to flourish” (380). The idea that Sheppard is doing good by helping Johnson is false because Johnson is not a good kid an he continually takes part in illegal activity. Treating Johnson like a poor disadvantaged boy didn’t help him he needed tough love. Had Sheppard only put his energy into his own son he might not have killed himself. We ask doctors to help the sick and needy but family must always come first.

Everything That Rises Must Converge

In Flannery O’Conner’s “Everything That Rises Must Converge” the theme of old southern tradition as he reason for the death of Julian’s mother. These old tradition of race relation between blacks and whites still remains with older generation and Julian’s mother was no exception. This large woman lived her life the same way she did 50 years ago when she was a very prominent member in her town. It doesn’t mention what happened to Julian’s family but the mother makes several references to the prior grander of her family, like “ your grandfather was a former governor” and “ your grandmother was a godhigh” (395). This mother considered her self to be a southern lady who took grate pride in her appearance, and was always polite to everyone black or white.
The problem with Julian’s mother is that she is an extreme optimist, and tends to patronize black people. For example she gives a penny to a young black boy and gets punched by the boys mother. This event shocks the mother and causes her to faint or die the reader isn’t sure. On the other hand Julian is part of the next generation and sees the world as it is in the present. They live in a neighborhood that was once nice but now has fallen apart and he is unemployed after attending college. While Julian tries to be nice to his mother he resents her attitude and the comments she makes like “ what fun to look back on the hard times” (397) really angers him but he feels he cant do anything because she does it in such a saccharine manner.

A Pair of Tickets

In Amy Tan’s “A Pair of Tickets” the theme of identity and self-awareness are used through out the story as a Chinese- American girl who goes to China and meets her family after the death of her mother. The story is bit long because the narrator, Jing- mei, spends the beginning just meeting family members in China. Not until Jing-mei’s father tells the story of why her mother left her twin daughters in China does the reader really understand that Jing-mei’s identifying her self with her family was her mother dream. Trough out the story you hear about Jing-mei’s mother and how much she cared about her family that it seems difficult to understand how she could leave her twin daughters on the side of the road. After Jing-mei hears her father tell the story she understands all the sacrifices her mother has made and how important it was too meet her family and assume her identity; not as a Chinese- American student in San Francisco, but a Chinese woman.
Jing –mei makes many references to her lack of identity at the beginning of the story when she says “ all my Caucasian friends agreed: I was about as Chinese as they were”(158). She is unable to identify her self with her family in China until she meets her two sisters that had been abandoned by her mother. At that point she says “ together we look like our mother. Her same eyes, her same mouth, open in surprise to see, at last, her long cherished wish” (171). Finally Jing-mei’s questions about her mother are answered which allows her to fully accept who she is and what she has become.

The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket

In Yasunari Kawabata’s “ The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket” the theme of youth and love are used to explain the transition of emotions from children to adults. The children are outside playing with their lanterns, that they have made in search for grasshoppers. Now when the boy finds a grasshopper his reaction is a bit unusual to the narrator until he says “ how silly of me not to have understood his actions until now”(495). The narrator is much older than these children and the boy’s intensions still fool him. Unlike the other children this boy is using the caught grasshopper to interact with a girl he seems to be infatuated with. Kawabata uses the lights as a symbol of attraction and discovery when both the girl and the boy’s name show up through the lanterns on each other bodies. The interaction of the two children shows how both of them are changing because; instead of looking for grasshoppers they have found each other.
The author also uses the setting to set the tone of this romantic encounter. At night with all the colored lanterns I kept thinking of “A midsummer nights dream” and how all the young children where in an enchanted place searching for love. What I did not understand is what the author says at the end of the story after the girl corrects the boy and says the grasshopper is in fact a bell cricket. At fist I thought this meant that the girl was like the bell cricket in the sense that she was different than the other girls who are grasshoppers. When the narrator says “ to your clouded, wounded heart, even a true bell cricket will seem like a grasshopper” (495). This is a bit confusing but I believe the narrator sees this nice interaction and offers a bit of advice to the young boy because his experience has taught him to be skeptical. As these kids age life will become more complicated than spending nights catching grasshoppers.