The River Between & Nectar in a Sieve essays

The River Between & Nectar in a Sieve essays Successful and highly praised novels always stand out because the literature has great characters, fascinating and sometime bitter ironies, clashes, conflicts, and noteworthy objectives that rise far above the actual plot structure and embrace much bigger worldly themes. Symbolism is always part of good literature, and the alert reader should be mindful that nearly every important situation presented in the novel could be placed on a bigger stage in terms that make the book more universal. In other words, in both of the novels reviewed in this paper, The River Between and Nectar in a Sieve, the characters are doing things that have application to people and cultures everywhere else on the planet. And in both novels, the struggle between and within cultures is not only against other cultures but also against the changing times and the modernization (globalization) of the planet. What a reader finds immediately profound and dramatic about The River Between is the symbolism of the two mountains (ridges) laying side by side with a river running between. In the story, the two cultures are dead set against one another, with opposing religious beliefs and values. The culture living on the Makuyu ridge subscribes to the Christian beliefs, having been affected and greatly influenced by the British colonial indoctrination; but the tribe living on the Kameno ridge where the storys protagonist, Waiyaki lives, wants to continue the old cultural traditions (like polytheism and circumcision). In fact Waiyaki is anxious for his circumcision to happen, notwithstanding the hideous feelings a reader gets as the author describes what it is like to be circumcised. This would mark his final initiation into manhood. Then he would prove his courage, his manly spirit, Ngugi writes on page 14. In every culture young men are seeking the path to manhood, to stability and a position of respect. The knife produced a ...

It Ends When…

It Ends When†¦ It Ends When It Ends When By Maeve Maddox A reader is puzzled by a line in a movie: While watching The Bourne Ultimatum, I observed a CIA officer saying It ends when weve won . [I’m] a bit confused with this construction as it does not indicate future though the context of sentence [indicates that] the officer is talking about some time in future. If the statement stood alone, one would expect the verb in one of the clauses to be in future tense: â€Å"The killing will end when we have won.† However, the statement â€Å"It ends when we’ve won† refers to a previous sentence that contains or implies the antecedent of the pronoun it. The example from the movie is the second half of this exchange: Pamela Landy: Noah, shes one of us. You start down this path, where does it end? Noah Vosen: It ends when weve won. â€Å"It ends when† + present perfect is a common idiom in such contexts as these: Each week we watch/review 2 films. When will it all end? It ends when we’ve seen all the movies. Affordability doesn’t end at the bottom of our pockets.  It ends when we’ve counted all the costs.   The weekend course starts at 2 pm on Friday and 9 am on Saturday and Sunday. It ends when we’ve covered the material. â€Å"It ends when† can also be followed by present tense: All right: where is the poison? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both drink, and find out who is right and who is dead. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:12 Types of LanguagePrecedent vs. PrecedenceEnglish Grammar 101: Sentences, Clauses and Phrases