Preview

Loss Of Hope In Notes From A Bottle By James Stevenson

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
548 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Loss Of Hope In Notes From A Bottle By James Stevenson
Hope is Key

When forced to go through hardships in life, it is very easy to lose hope that everything will be okay. In “Notes From a Bottle,” by James Stevenson, when a horrific flood hits the city, people are struggling to stay alive and having difficulty holding on to hope in tough times of life. Stevenson reveals that hope is necessary to overcome troubling times in life.

Unfortunately, when people lose hope one often gives up but it should always be kept and held on to. When everyone is gathered on the roof “[n]o one wants to accept the situation as last,” (Steveson 377). People are too quick to give up hope. People all think that when the worst comes that it is the ned that there is no hope but yet, if one thinks positive and keeps hope in the survival and that everything will be okay, then it might just happen that the hopes will come true. If there is nothing left, always hold on to hope. It shows that the characters in “Notes From a Bottle,” all gave up and lost hope when they thought there was nothing left, when really the characters need to hope and stick together to make it through rough times.
…show more content…
As everyone gathers on the roof they start to realize that “[o]ur rooftop [is packed] with people; many huddle against the chimneys, trying to keep away from the bitter wind.” (377). This quote shows, in times of catastrophes, people join together because they have lost hope and everything else, when the characters should keep holding on to hope. The characters are all huddled on the roof together to try to survive, also show support for one another so that the characters all do not think the worst will happen. The characters in the short story are all trying to survive and are not thinking that there still might be some hope in their future for

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    As individuals, when faced with gruelling or traumatic experiences, we are often compelled to feel a sense of loneliness and seclusion. However, it is precisely these times of isolation, through reflection and a willingness to embrace the situation that can force us to reconsider the original outlooks we hold, often resulting in a greater appreciation for life and a deeper understanding of who we truly are. This idea is clearly communicated in the feature film ‘Looking for Alibrandi’ (1999) directed by Kate Woods, and the bildungsroman print novel ‘Breath’ (2008) by Tim Winton; both texts exploring the various life-enhancing outcomes of adversity and how such seeming setbacks can often eventually contribute to personal enrichment.…

    • 1225 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Between Shades of Gray

    • 1087 Words
    • 5 Pages

    hope which was otherwise lost without the ties of support binding them together. Published in March…

    • 1087 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    What is life without hope? This is a theme that we have seen over and over again in the YA novels that we have looked at in our young adult literature class. I would like to look specifically at how Edge of Ready and Unchained by L.B. Tillit, Looking for Alaska by John Green and Monster by Walter Dean Myers addresses this idea of hope. Each one of these novels approaches the idea of hope differently.…

    • 1260 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In his memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel showed that the Jewish people of Wiesel's hometown, Sighet, held on to illusions that gave them a false sense of hope and safety before their arrival at Birkenau. An example of this is when foreign Jews were expelled from Sighet crying, but the people of Sighet rumored that the deportees “were in Galicia, working” (6) and “were content with their fate” (6). When Moishe the Beadle, one of the deportees, managed to escape and come back he informed the people of the horrific fate the foreign Jews had endured under captivity of the Gestapo, German secret state police, who “shot [the] prisoners” (6), but people wrongfully concluded that “he had gone mad” (7). The Jews of Sighet also thought that “Hitler [would] not be…

    • 363 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the book Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck uses various examples of diction to convey the main theme of hope; more specifically, having hope can get you through the hardest of times. This theme is expressed through interactions and conversations between the main characters during periods of of varying hardship.…

    • 617 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Have you ever been hopeful, even when it seemed your hope was hopeless? Hope is something all humans share whether it be for a better life or for a different path. All humans have something that resembles hope. It almost seems that humans love to tell others how hope has helped them survive troubling times. For centuries mankind has been drawn to literature about the underdog overcoming odds because we as a species enjoy seeing the little guys win. Three pieces of literature in particular come to mind when speaking of hope and how it fills mankind with a fight for survival. The books, Night by Eliezer Wiesel, The Glass Castle, By Jeannette Walls, and Red Rising, by Pierce Brown all feature main characters believing in themselves and…

    • 1110 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When we are going through hardships in life, we feel like we are in a small wreck boat fighting the currents of a nasty sea storm. We start noticing we are miles and miles away from help; we realize we are alone. We cannot see beyond the situation we are currently experiencing. We are blind by the sea storm and it seems like there is no sign of hope anywhere. But just as we fall into despair, a luminous light squeezes from the dark grayish clouds. And even though we almost had let go of the only precious thing that gave us strength, this light is giving us an opportunity to preserve hope once more. In Lisel Mueller’s poem “Hope”, Mueller claims hope is difficult to see and maintain, but it lives everywhere even in herself.…

    • 813 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This idea is demonstrated when hope is never defeated because of support from people with close bonds physically and mentally. In addition, hope can never be defeated since it’s source is from the identity of the person. Last but not least, hope is the last resort that any human can look towards that will also be presented for humanity. Consequently, even if our life appears abject we should live on with a sliver of…

    • 1121 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Thanks, Nerd-Man!” a burly police officer shouted into the night. It was a dusky Friday evening, the most popular time for criminals to go wandering. Nerd-Man, a nerd by day, super-nerd by night, had just dropped off a couple of petty burglars at the police station.…

    • 1008 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The futuristic, catastrophic and hostile world created by Steven Amsterdam in Things We Didn’t See Coming forces the human race to reveal the emotions and characteristics that are required to survive the continual environmental calamities occurring in each short narrative. The struggles inflicted onto the people of the world distinguish the strong from the weak, brave from the cowardly and the hopeful from the realistic. The hope displayed by certain characters in this series of short narratives isn’t always advantageous, but can be the driving force that wills the floundering characters to continue to endure what is left of the diminishing environment. The characters that don’t hope in this novel seem to loose the sense of humanity, given that they do not have the full range of human emotions.…

    • 386 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The theme of hope is present in a plethora of American literature. Hope can be both a positive and negative quality. Hope is threaded into the following three pieces of literature: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. In the preceding literature hope plays a strong role in improving characters’ lives. Hope helps some people and is useless to others.…

    • 509 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Johnstown Flood

    • 896 Words
    • 4 Pages

    “Johnstown flood” is a short story written by David McCullough. This story talks about the miraculous survival of a little girl named Gertrude. Gertrude’s sheer luck got her up the hill safely. Of course, with the help of several people she met along the way. I think that this is an extraordinary act of how worked together and some people put his/her life at risk to save a small child that they didn’t even knew. I fell that this is a great example of how human beings come together in times of need and extreme danger and in the way that we try to protect ourselves from disaster.…

    • 896 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hope is something familiar and reliable. It is always there, and we can count on it all the time. No matter how much it gives to us we will never be able to repay the debt of gratitude we owe to…

    • 295 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    lack of hope

    • 146 Words
    • 1 Page

    Generally speaking, a lack of hope can push an individual down a dark path of risk-taking, deviant, or even criminal behavior. Hope is a critically important positive mind set for people to possess. When one lacks hope, he or she does not care about much in life. If that type of attitude exists, then what stops this individual from doing things that are immoral and criminal? In addition, not being able to hope for or look forward to particular events in the future might lead an individual to act out against others. Again such behaviors are criminal in nature. And finally, the negativity that is associated with a lack of hope in one’s life may lead this person to act out against others who are seen as the cause of it. Unfortunately, a lack of hope just contributes to the increase in crime in America.…

    • 146 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    My Favourite Poem

    • 445 Words
    • 2 Pages

    This is my favourite poem as it describes hope by using a powerful array of metaphors to enhance its effect. While it is true that many people all over the world live in extremely challenging and life threatening situations, leading hard lives in appalling conditions. What keeps people going in such circumstances is the glimmer of hope that things can change. This is one thought that came to mind when first reading the poem and this is what attracted me to it and as it relates to any hopeless situations it really does apply to all aspects of life.…

    • 445 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays