Persuasive/ Argument/ Opinion Paper

Past love experiences and is something that mostly everyone in the world can relate to because mostly everyone has had someone that they loved and lost them. It most likely is a sad time in a person life because losing somebody that has been in your life for a long time and having a strong connection with that person can make them feel lost and depressed without sharing the same bond with that person. Past love is something that should be written about in a manner that the love still feels alive but also reflecting on how it used to be. Past love can be something that is easy to write about because it should just be a reflection or a flashback on memories to describe how the love used to be but it must also have the same feeling to it. There always needs to be a love relationship between to the two characters being explained and the reader needs to be able to feel the emotion. In the 3 stories “Once Again” by Marigold Blue, “Three Letters” by Nels Schifano and “Return to Paradise” by Eliza Riley, the authors in some way show how the main characters in still love with the people in these past relationships and reflects back on times they shared together. Eliza Riley was able to successfully achieve the theme of past love relationships the best because of her use of characterization and amazing uses of flashbacks of strong experiences they had together. Other authors might use the same literary devices but write reflecting only the negative things in those good times and finding a way to make it a bad experience Eliza Riley uses flashback in a good way to describe the joy between the two characters before the divorce and how everything they had was so special and how the main character would want it back again in her life. “She had married James right here on this spot three years ago to the day. Dressed in a simple white shift dress, miniature white roses attempting to tame her long dark curls, Lisa had been happier than she had ever thought possible. James was even less formal but utterly irresistible in creased summer trousers and a loose his looked at his bride to be. The justice of the peace had read their vows as they held hands and laughed at the sheer joy of being young, in love and staying in a five star resort on the Caribbean island of the Dominican Republic. They had seen the years blissfully stretching ahead of them, together forever. They planned their children, two she said, he said four so they compromised on three (two girls and a boy of course); where they would live, the traveling they would do together - it was all certain, so they had thought then” They were so happy on their wedding day and they were sure that they wanted to be together for the rest of their lives. By being to specific on the actually day and their feelings it really helps the readers to feel the same emotions and connect to these characters and how they feel, especially if they have every felt these feelings before. In Nels Schifano the flahsbacks that he gives are very vague for the character to actually connect and feel what the character in the story is feeling which is sad and lonely with very slow organization. “I've really no need to ask how things are with you. It all seems to have worked out pretty much as you planned. But still I hope you are both healthy and happy. I am afraid I've done nothing very exciting to tell you about. Here is just an endless succession of long boring tasks, and then there's the heat and the clouds of flies that rise from the river and make everything twice as hard. But this evening as I washed and dried my clothes suddenly there was this feeling of satisfaction. Strange, five months of toil and worry then calm descends as welcome and unexpected as an ice-cream van clattering through the bush. Maybe that's why I am writing this letter. Perhaps it's thinking about England in the summer, perhaps it's the sounds of the river at night but my mind wandered back to the place of long afternoons, listening to Pink Moon and Lay Lady Lay. Can you still find a way back to the taste of cheap wine, the feel of grass between your fingers and a world that was all shimmering reflections?” (Marigold, chapters 4-5). The feeling are kid of going around but not really being touched in the write way for a connection to happen. Marigold needed to do be better with these flashbacks to get the point across and for a real feel of the characters are shown and understood. Blue uses does not use a lot of incenses of flashback moments which could have enhanced the story to make it better. When characters feelings are showed on many levels from present feelings to past feelings it makes the story even better. Eliza Riley uses a good sense of Characterization to describe the characters in the past and then again the present. In the past the main characters Lisa and James are described as “She had married James right here on this spot three years ago to the day. Dressed in a simple white shift dress, miniature white roses attempting to tame her long dark curls, Lisa had been happier than she had ever thought possible. James was even less formal but utterly irresistible in creased summer trousers and a loose white cotton shirt. His dark hair slightly ruffled and his eyes full of adoration as his looked at his bride to be,” (Riley, chapter 2). Riley’s characterization is well explain of the special moment of James and Lisa. Later Lisa is described as “He couldn't take his eyes of the dark-haired woman he saw standing at the water's edge, gazing out to sea as though she was waiting for something - or someone. She was beautiful, with her slim figure dressed in a loose flowing cotton dress, her crazy hair and bright blue eyes not far off the colour of the sea itself,” (Riley, chapter 1) but the man is no t described again other then pain in his eyes. This probably because the story is more set on the womans point of view. Riley does an excellent in the use of characterization. On the other hand, stories like Nels had not physical characterization of the woman. The emotions which can reflect on her personality also but a physical characterization is also important so that the reader can get a visual representation in their mind like a movie. Marigold on the other hand did do a good job at her character representations, “Back then he had been skinny and lanky. Now he was still long and lean, but manly and masculine. He now had the body of a man, not a boy. He still had brown hair, no grey in sight. He was wearing glasses, which he hadn't had the last time I saw him. His button-down shirt was starched and he had the sleeves rolled up to mid forearm. He no longer had the body of a twenty-year-old. He looked good. Damn he looked good,” (Marigold, paragraph 1). This is a good representation because it shows the past and present features of the character. The bad thing was there wasn’t a past and present representation of the woman so we can not visualize her change from the past to present. It is important to be able to see both characters so the story can be more like a movie in our minds. The authors Nels Schifano and Eliza Riley used the themes of characterization and flashback as well but the theme was not expressed as deeply. Authors such as Nels Shifano showed the character well moving on her life but just reflecting on the love which may reflect Nels’s beliefs in moving on and not looking back. Other authors such as Marigold Blue show the characters still wanting each other and getting back with each other but in a way that’s hard to visualize. Nels Schifanos story “Three Letters” starts off slow and also is confusing to the reader because during the story the main character is reading letter that we think she received but in the end we find out that she was the one who wrote them but never sent them out. He also never characterizes the lady but her surroundings which are calm and lonely which is a way that she chose to live without this other person. ““Slipped away again into nothing time (that time that flowed into the gaps between the things you did). Wouldn't a wasted minute become a wasted hour, wasted hours become wasted days? Where could she be now if she hadn't been doing, what? - making tea, sitting in traffic jams, reading the local paper, standing in a supermarket queue. Best avoided, the thought of her life draining into these moments.” She is a lonely person who doesn’t seem to do anything but on the other hand in “Once Again” by Marigold Blue the main character is more confident and not lonely. The emotions in the story seemed to be rushed and not fully described through the uses of characterization and flashback. Eliza Riley was the best author in showing a true love connection of past love between two characters using flashback and characterization. Riley’s techniques helped to describe a good story and feel the emotions of the characters. Also through the use of characterization the characters were able to be visualized and put into a movie in readers minds. The flashbacks given really helped to show the strong and seeming everlasting love they had between them that seemed invincible but soon went away and then came back again. The good use in the past love explanations was it made it seem like the characters really should get back together because it seemed like they were meant for each other. The theme of past love could really be represented in the story “Return to Paradise” by Eliza Riley because of her outstanding use of characterization and flashback in her story from a reader to really understand the situation and relate to it.