Envoi Choose a motif not discussed in How to Read Literature Like a Professor (such as the horse reference on page 280) and note its appearance in the supplemental text and two or three other works. What does this idea seem to signify? Photographs, paintings, portraits, etc. signify something unattainable or lost, but is kept as means of motivation.
Poster of Big Brother
In 1984, posters of Big Brother appear everywhere, not only throughout the book, but on every possible physical place in the setting. Winston notices "on each landing, opposite the lift shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those picture which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move" (Orwell 1). However, while Winston is in the cell where he is always lying on his back because of restraints, he uncovers through O'Brien that Big Brother is merely a thought; he is an unattainable idea that keeps the spirit of the party alive.
Likewise, in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries a photograph of Martha, his lost yet unforgotten love interest from before his placement in the armed forces. Of Jimmy's two photographs of Martha, "the first was a Kodacolor snapshot signed Love, though he [Jimmy] knew better" (O'Brien 4). Cross knew that Martha was a lost cause, though he held on to the photograph as a piece of hope that he may one day see her again and reignite their brief spark.
Finally, in Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Nelly (the narrator) tells of a portrait hung above her fireplace of "my [Nelly's] late master" which "used to hang on one side and his wife's on the other; but hers has been removed" (Bronte 239). Later in the novel Nelly alludes to missing both people dearly, especially Catherine. Also, the fact that the wife's portrait no longer remains points to her being especially lost or unattainable beyond the point of a physical representation of her. Nelly therefore says that the portraits of both her late master and his wife, though one no longer remains, are icons of lost persons, and a token of their physical beings, or a memory of how they used to appear.
In these instances, a picture is merely a memorial to a lost item or loved on or idea, and it serves as a symbol of hope and power.
Choose a motif not discussed in How to Read Literature Like a Professor (such as the horse reference on page 280) and note its appearance in the supplemental text and two or three other works. What does this idea seem to signify?
Photographs, paintings, portraits, etc. signify something unattainable or lost, but is kept as means of motivation.
In 1984, posters of Big Brother appear everywhere, not only throughout the book, but on every possible physical place in the setting. Winston notices "on each landing, opposite the lift shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those picture which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move" (Orwell 1). However, while Winston is in the cell where he is always lying on his back because of restraints, he uncovers through O'Brien that Big Brother is merely a thought; he is an unattainable idea that keeps the spirit of the party alive.
Likewise, in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries a photograph of Martha, his lost yet unforgotten love interest from before his placement in the armed forces. Of Jimmy's two photographs of Martha, "the first was a Kodacolor snapshot signed Love, though he [Jimmy] knew better" (O'Brien 4). Cross knew that Martha was a lost cause, though he held on to the photograph as a piece of hope that he may one day see her again and reignite their brief spark.
Finally, in Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Nelly (the narrator) tells of a portrait hung above her fireplace of "my [Nelly's] late master" which "used to hang on one side and his wife's on the other; but hers has been removed" (Bronte 239). Later in the novel Nelly alludes to missing both people dearly, especially Catherine. Also, the fact that the wife's portrait no longer remains points to her being especially lost or unattainable beyond the point of a physical representation of her. Nelly therefore says that the portraits of both her late master and his wife, though one no longer remains, are icons of lost persons, and a token of their physical beings, or a memory of how they used to appear.
In these instances, a picture is merely a memorial to a lost item or loved on or idea, and it serves as a symbol of hope and power.