Alyssa Anderson
Bio
Hello readers, writers, and lovers of literature. I am a recent college graduate with a Bachelors in English Literature looking to get some of my work out there and receive honest and helpful feedback. Happy reading!
Stories (3/0)
The Devil’s Marble Grave Marker
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley is an intense and thrilling detective novel following the main character Easy Rawlins on his mission to find a girl named Daphne Monet in late 1940’s Los Angeles. Throughout the novel Easy has his home, his one beloved possession, broken into several times, is beaten by the police, has friends brutally murdered, and in the end still manages to find the girl in the blue dress he was set forth to locate from the beginning of the novel. However, through all of the emotional ups and downs Walter Mosely exposes his readers to, one might be inclined to overlook the most important part of the story: the title. It is of common assumption that the noted devil in the blue dress from the novels title is the character introduced wearing a blue dress and the one whom Easy says, “That girl is the devil man” (Mosley 148), however, when considering her actions throughout the story and her reason behind those actions, one might need to consider that Daphne is not the true “devil” in the story at all. A true evil character is one who lies and deceives friends for selfish gain and to only further themselves in life and also is one who will kill to cover up what they do not wish others to discover about them. There is only one character who embodies all of these elements true to the nature of a devil and this character is the one who is described as having “a knot over his right eye that always looked red and raw” (Mosley 8), much like the horn of the devil barely hidden beneath his tattered skin. His lies, manipulation, and merciless killings validate that Walter Mosley’s “devil in a blue dress” is none other than the gracious friend and seemingly innocent bar owner, Joppy Shag.
By Alyssa Anderson 3 years ago in Criminal
Women’s Deception and Delusion in Daphne du Maurier’s Don’t Look Now
The works of Daphne du Maurier capture more than the mind of the reader; they cast a spell on the very soul of those who read just one of her entrancing stories. She is able to carefully omit information to create mind-blowing conclusions that are so skillfully harmonized. Her novels and stories were written over several decades when women were not expected to be at the forefront of a story, yet her collection of short stories profoundly tend to focus on a female lead. Du Maurier’s short stories “Indiscretion”, “Kiss Me Again, Stranger”, “La Sainte-Vierge”, “Spilt Second”, and “The Blue Lenses”, though different in context, share a common theme. From cheating to murder, ghastly encounters to the in-between, and all forms of hallucinations alike, deception and delusion dominate du Maurier’s works collected in her book Don’t Look Now.
By Alyssa Anderson 3 years ago in Education
