Analysis Of Timothy Schaffert's Mermaid In The Tree

Everybody starts from somewhere. Google was started in a garage. FedEx was saved by gambling in Vegas, and Sang Ly started as a poor mother in a dump. In the novel, “The Rent Collector” by Cameron Wright, Sang Ly is a Cambodian woman below the poverty line living with her family in the dump. While in the dump Sang Ly is curious because of her interest in wanting to read, she is loving because no matter how sick her son, Nisay, gets, she is always there for him, finally Sang Ly is worrisome because the dump is a dangerous place and she just wants her family to be safe. Sang Ly thinks of herself as just a poor mother in a waste dump while everyone else in the dump sees her as an affectionate mother who loves her family. At the end of the day, Sang Ly must live day by day just trying to learn to read, trying to cure her son's chronic illness and making sure everyone makes it so sun down.

Another character is Lindsey. Lindsey is introduced early on in the support group with Ben. Lindsey was abusing the prescriptions Vicodin and OxyContin. Lindsey explains that she felt that OxyContin was her one true love and that she would do it until her nose bled. She describes that after all she developed a tolerance to these drugs and in order to feel better again she moved onto heroin. She explains that she never thought she would be “one of those people” and claimed that she never saw herself taking it that far. Eventually, Lindsey says she became dependent on heroin and even lost her job and custody of her child as a result. Lindsey struggled with her addiction for quite some time, but in 2011, she became clean and stopped using drugs. Lindsey now has a nonprofit organization in which she also helps those struggling with addiction. She has not relapsed for quite some time and continues to remain abstinent from

Crank is part one of three book installment written by Ellen Hopkins. In the beginning of the novel we meet Kristina a straight A, clean cut, 16 year old girl. But while visiting her drug addicted father during the summer before her junior year Kristina meets the “monster” and she also meets Bree, her dangerous alter ego, within no time Kristina lets Bree completely take over. Bree is Kristina’s chic, smooth-talking persona that has one major flaw… she has a serious craving for any and every drug. So pretty soon Bree’s desperate desire for the high flying monster is all two girls can think about.

After reading “Mermaid Fever,” the statement that I think this essay makes about societal attitudes is that people will react and behave very strangely to anything that is out of the ordinary. The narrator bases his essay on a public beach, located in a small town in Connecticut, and out of the blue, this teenage girl’s body was washed up under the tide line one summer night. After extensive scientific tests and examinations on the body, the news finally broke out that the girl was a mermaid. The girl was soon transferred to a local museum in town where she would be put on a glass display that will be open to the public. This news brought the whole city together, and people waited in line for hours just to observe this fond discovery. Most women and teenage girls loved the idea of the mermaid that it grew into a new trend of fashion. Their obsession over this new trend even encouraged them to walk on beaches with mermaid suits and their breast exposed to male voyeurs. Millhauser wanted to justify to his readers that this societal attitude the people had on the creature can get out of hand and lead to madness and instability within the town. For example, a fourteen-year-old girl was assaulted at a party by some high school girls, painted her hips down a green, bound at the ankles and tossed into her into a stream.

Bottled Up by Jaye Murray is the book I chose to do my report on. Bottled Up was published by Dial Books in 2003. This is a shorter book it has 224 pages. The genre of this book is realistic fiction. Pip is the main character in this book who is dependant on drugs and alcohol. He is forced by his principal to get his act together when he gets in trouble at school and he has to attend mandatory therapy sessions so he doesn't call his abusive father.

Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish author who is considered one of the best and most culturally important fairy tale writers in history. His stories have been translated into over one hundred and twenty-five languages. The cultural significance of Andersen is an interesting topic to analyze. Hans Christian Andersen’s stories, “The Little Mermaid” and “The Shadow”, are culturally significant for many different reasons. “The Little Mermaid” tells a story of a young unnamed mermaid who decides to take control over her own life and destiny. She searches for eternal life through good deeds and sacrificing herself. “The Shadow” is a story about a learned man who tells his shadow to go snoop on another balcony and the shadow returns years later, wealthy and powerful. The man returns home and tries to write stories about good, truth, and beauty. These stories are culturally significant because they provide universal lessons to many different cultures, especially Danish culture.

(AGG) Think, take a good look around at your society, if you don't you might seriously regret it. (BS-1) Technology is a huge distractions and a big problem in both societies and with new advances coming out every minute, there is no stopping the distractions from taking over society. (BS-2) Fahrenheit 451 and our society are depressed and unhappy because of these distractions, so they take their lives. (BS-3) Surrounding yourself with nature gives you time to think and act off of how you think, both societies lack this. (TS) In the book Fahrenheit 451, the author conveys the message that distractions are what kill a society, that with distractions we are not able to find ourselves, and therefore there are fatal consequences, and our society

The Little Mermaid which was produced in 1989, was the first Disney movie to challenge the traditional gender roles, for the fact that Ariel wanted to explore, and was more independent and assertive in her desires than the earlier princesses of the 1930’s and 50s films. Also the prince in The Little Mermaid went against traditional gender roles as well, simply because he was more affectionate and loving than his prince counterparts in other Disney films. “Both the male and female roles have changed over time, but overall the male characters evinced less change then the female characters and were more androgynous throughout.” (Descartes & England, pg.566). Disney movies have been for a long time a strong media target for children, and can serve as a way to address stereotypical gender roles (Leaper, 2000). These studies suggest that children observe gender stereotypes at an early age unintentionally. Since children’s brains are constantly soaking in new information about the world around them, they have to do so in a way that they are seemingly most comfortable. Studies show that children are most comfortable learning from people who are actively in their lives and attractive movie and TV

Companionship is like food; we need it to survive. Psychologists find that human beings have a crucial need for involvement in group life and a close relationship. This shows in many ways in Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. Lennie and George are labor workers in California with a unrealistic long term goal of owning a house with rabbits. As they adapt to their new ranch, they experience many obstacles and meet new people. As Lennie is a mentally slower but physically strong and George is intelligent but physically weaker, they benefit off of each other's strengths and weaknesses. Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men reveals the harmful psychological effects that alienation, whether it is self alienation or forced alienation, may generate through the characterization of Curleyś wife, Crooks, and Candy.

What comes to mind when thinking of grandmothers? Cookies, acts of spoiling, and love are just a few, but what does not come to mind may be something like arsenic killings. Yet, in Velma Barfield’s case, one might want to ponder this carefully. Obviously, arsenic poisoning is not something a normal grandmother would be known for, so it is not striking to assume some sort of strain took place in Barfield’s life. Indeed, the Strain Theory could possibly be one way to explain such erroneous behavior. Strain Theory is Robert Merton’s take on Emile Durkheim’s concept of anomie which essentially says deviance is most likely to occur when there is a gap between goals and ways of obtaining them that are legal and safe. Velma Barfield’s heinous crimes can be dissected and examined using Strain Theory and three distinct happenings of her life which led to the murders of seven people.

Contemporary society is a variety of all things good and bad that one might misinterpret as perfect

Society views those who are aesthetically pleasing in a positive way and those who are less pleasant to the eye are immediately judged in a negative way. In the novel Frankenstein, author Mary Shelley shares the comparison between Victor’s actions and how a man should not sacrifice his humanity in the pursuit of knowledge. Mary gives us many examples as to when Victor did not remain engaged in the real world and how that backfired. Victor’s creation slaughters his cousin, younger brother, and best friend. Victor’s actions become the characteristics of a monster to which he kills the monster’s potential mate and causes the death of the most important people to Victor.

While more than 10.7 million people were enslaved throughout American history, the story of just one plantation can paint the picture of what life was like for most slaves (Gates Jr.). The Kitchen House is a book about Lavinia, an orphan who grows up as an indentured servant to the Pykes. When she is about 12 years old, she travels to Williamsburg with Mrs. Pyke and Mrs. Pyke’s sister, Miss Sarah. After Lavinia marries and divorces Mr. Boran, a widower, she marries Marshall Pyke, the son of the captain. Together, they move back to Tall Oaks, the plantation owned by the Pykes. She soon realizes that Marshall is an abusive alcoholic and she falls into a deep depression. When Lavinia sees what her depression is doing to her family, she snaps out

Better Homes & Gardens: Agatha is very homebound she hates being around people, she loves knitting yarn and being around her cats. Agatha is 45 years old, friendly, and has a strange addiction to cottage cheese. She was actually featured on “TLC’s My Strange Addiction” she eats about 15 containers a week and eats it with everything. She reads a women’s lib pamphlet daily once her mouth gets tired from eat cottage cheese. Agatha may not be a common name, but she has been seen on television numerous amounts of times. She was also on TLC’s Extreme Couponing, she first started when she saw an ad about a department store sale. Plenty fair deals, but since she always spent her money on cottage cheese, she decided to

Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley in 1818, is recognized as the most famous literary romantic and gothic novel that uses various types of languages and themes to convey a message to readers. Frankenstein is best known for the defying laws of nature in which Victor Frankenstein reanimates life with his knowledge of science. The novel denotes darkness which could originate from Shelley’s many experiences with deaths or the influences of the Romanticism period that Shelley lived in. The creation of Frankenstein was established in 1818 with three other Romantic authors who challenged themselves to write a horror story. Frankenstein was created on Shelley’s determination to come up with the most terrifying story, and a dream about a scientist