Sunday, May 1, 2011

Using pink ribbons, describe them as a link between the two conceptions of Faith?

This is a difficult response for “Faith” is very ambiguous in the story, carrying more than two meanings.  The ribbons are mentioned in conjunction with Faith when we meet her “thrust[ing] her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap.” Her ribbons are mentioned two more times immediately: “Faith with the pink ribbons” blesses him as he leaves, and he looks back to see “Faith still peeping after him, with a melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons, causing him to think “Poor little Faith.” Putting these introductory passages together, faith can be bold, sufficient unto itself so that it can play “in the wind” and retain itself; faith can be good and trusting, which we see when Faith blesses Brown, and finally faith can be sad because it is not sufficiently strong to withstand adversity (“poor little Faith”).  It is this final aspect of faith that the story leaves us with at its conclusion, for Brown’s faith was insufficient to trust in his wife and his neighbors, insufficient to allow him to retain a sense of humanity even if its sometimes marred by evil and guilt.

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Discuss at least two characteristics of Romanticism in John Keat's poem "Ode toa Nightingale".

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