Aiken divides “Silent Snow, Secret Snow” into four distinct sections. In section I, the story introduces Paul Hasleman, age twelve, a student in Mrs. Buell’s sixth-grade classroom. Paul is distracted, however, by his intense memory of an event that occurred several days before. He thinks about the globe that figures in the day’s geography lesson…
Category: Literature
Residents and Transients – Analysis – Essay
Bobbie Ann Mason’s short story, “Residents and Transients,” first appeared in the Boston Review in 1982, shortly before its inclusion in the collection, Shiloh and Other Stories. The volume received high critical praise and several nominations for awards, as well as receiving the Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award in 1983. Readers and critics alike have praised…
Residents and Transients – Setting
A Changing Landscape Bobbie Ann Mason sets ”Residents and Transients” in a rural landscape to underscore the changes both the countryside and her characters are experiencing. Mary’s parents have retired and moved to Florida, leaving her to supervise the sale of the farm and the auction of their belongings. The house will soon be lost,…
Residents and Transients – Literary Devices
Images and Imagery Generally, images are defined as figures of speech that appeal to the senses of the reader. Therefore, there can be visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, taste, or kinesthetic images. By appealing to the readers’ senses, images help make the literature more immediate and visceral. Images often take the form of metaphors or similes,…
Residents and Transients – Themes
Change and Transformation In an interview with Albert Wilhelm, Bobbie Ann Mason maintains that ”Literature is principally about textures and feelings, not themes and symbols, which are sort of like lead weights on the bottom of a shower curtain. They hold it in place and give it shape, but they aren’t the curtain itself.” Certainly,…
Residents and Transients – Characters
Larry Larry is Mary’s dentist. A friend of Mary’s from childhood, he has never moved away. He is a gentle, quiet man, he is quite content with his life. In addition to his dental practice, he owns his own home and a truck. In contrast to Stephen, Larry is slow and relaxed. Although he is…
Residents and Transients – Summary
“Residents and Transients” is set in western Kentucky. The protagonist, Mary, narrates the story in her own voice. She announces in the first paragraph, “Since my husband went away to work in Louisville, I have, to my surprise, taken a lover.” From this surprising opening, Mary explains how she finds herself back in Kentucky, living…
Redemption by John Gardner – Analysis
“Redemption” also belongs to this group of stories which describe and explore the vulnerary function of art. The theme of this story differs somewhat from that of the other three, but the subject matter is the same: the protagonist seeks consolation in the world of music after the death of his brother. Jack Hawthorne, the…
Redemption by John Gardner – Setting
Post-War World John Gardner, born during the Great Depression, reached adolescence in the years immediately following World War II. The accident that killed his brother took place in 1947, just two years after the end of the war. During this time, much of America was still rural and agricultural. With the advent of the nuclear…
Redemption by John Gardner – Literary Devices
Images/Imagery Several images recur throughout “Redemption.” Skulls, for example, appear three times to remind Jack of David’s death. At one point, Jack is alone, driving the tractor in the fields, thinking about the accident and his own guilt, his “sore hands clamped tight to the steering wheel, his shoes unsteady on the bucking axle-beam—for stones…