Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self By Danielle Evans

Danielle Evans, the assistant professor of the English department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the author of the Paterson Prize winner Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self. In her collection of short stories, Evans includes “Robert E. Lee is Dead,” a story of a teenage girl named Crystal and her best friend Geena Johnson. Crystal gains popularity when she becomes Geena’s friend. However when their friendship ends, Crystal becomes the antisocial girl who did not fit in with the cool teenagers anymore. Crystal perfectly fits the definition of a morally ambiguous character because she cannot be classified as purely good nor purely evil.

The authors want their audiences to use these tales and examples as life lessons and hope for them to utilize these sources in their future lives. These two ideas are presented through the use of figurative language, mainly metaphors. In addition, the similar tone of these pieces allows the author to connect more deeply with the readers. Toni Morrison’s Nobel lecture, folktales, and several poems illustrate how metaphors and tone are used to describe experience and caution the readers.

Has technology affected our lives? In the article “Hal and me”, Nicolas Carr describes attributes to our lives that come from the evolving technology we use every day. By introducing several educated men with literature background had found themselves changed from the constant usage of the internet. The way they lived their lives have changed, now they have become depended on the technology and their minds have changed, they expected everything to function as the same way technology does, faster.

While reading the 5 fiction short stories there became a common pattern between 3 stories and the characters in them. These stories are “The Rocking Horse Winner” by D.H. Lawrence, “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen, and “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. Every character has the mindset to possibly fulfill their goals to better and/or change their lives. “The Rocking Horse Winner” is about a boy named Paul who wants to win his mother’s love and attention. By giving her the life she always wanted.

In the short stories we have read there have been numerous themes. The impact of tradition, the value of heritage, the importance of family, the divide between social classes, and the presence of love are all ideas that can be found in the stories we have read. Short stories have managed to encapture the importance and true meaning of life in just a few sentences by imposing on the readers themes we can all relate to. A common theme presented in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” and Toni Cade Bambara’s “The Lesson” is the power of knowledge and education. In “Everyday Use,” two sister Dee and Maggie have different views on how they should preserve and honor their heritage.

I was not disappointed by the end of the book, I was morally relieved. April has again written another very good mystery book, and I will continue to read the rest of the books that she has

In this Quote the author explains how she feels about the story she

Her image of a prim and proper Southern gentlewoman clashes with the down-to-earth, easy-going lifestyle of the lower middle class. Her incongruity as a refined Southern gentlewoman in an industrial, lower-middle class New Orleans neighbourhood marks her status as an outsider and contributes to her final

Finding one passion could be tricky. Sometimes we confuse passion with skills, passion is something that you do and enjoy no matter how tired or even if it doesn’t make you a millionaire. Skills are something that you are good at but you don’t enjoy, one will continue on this path because we need to pay our bills. This doesn’t make it right or wrong but we should be happy with ourselves doing what we enjoy.

It talks about disproving stereotypes which I really think would be better for the world if we just got rid of all stereotypes. Her explanations of their cultural reasons behind how they dress, her rhetorical style and her conversational approach made for a very wonderful piece of

Coming of age can be defined as an person’s journey of facing challenges that make them into a mature individual. Although coming of age is a different experience for each individual, some experiences are commonly found among pieces of work. Common experiences of coming of age are demonstrated in Marigolds by Eugenia W. Collier, involving Lizabeth’s loss of innocence, the struggle of internal conflict in Sue Monk Kidd’s, The Secret Life of Bees, and Mattie Ross’ journey of coming of age in True Grit by Charles Portis. Every person’s coming of age experience is different, but somewhere in life, everyone will lose their innocence.

Lee’s novel is based on educating, informing and entertaining an audience on racism, prejudice, bigotry, and the innocence that is portrayed

All But My Life, by Gerda Weissmann Klein, is an absolutely amazing autobiography. Gerda tells about her childhood and how she grows into an adult in many German labor camps. Gerda’s home town has been taken over by the Germans during the holocaust. Her wealthy jewish family is forced to live like slaves until they are separated and moved to different German camps. Gerda tells her story like the reader is there with her. Gerda makes and loses many friends and finds her true love. All but my Life will make you laugh and cry. This book is best for anyone over the age of 11. All But My Life is a terrific page turner.

Have you ever thought about how difficult it might be to go into a different country knowing absolutely nothing, not even language, and something horrific happened to you or anyone in your family?  Don’t you think you would feel so powerless, so helpless, so clueless? This happens commonly and it has never had any attention brought to it, at least not until 1998. Anne Fadiman wrote a book entitled, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. This demonstrated a collision of two complete opposite cultures, but they both have the same goal to help the child get better. Throughout this book many individuals were introduced both from the Hmong culture and then individuals from America. While reading the book two dynamic duos stood out to me, one

She dabbles in the real problem of why people "judge books by their covers". I wish to show my audience that changing stereotypes like the one Amy Tan had to overcome starts with changing the way we think as a society. We must teach our children to think differently if we wish to see real change. Most bias stem from childhood, and while in school. Even some teachers are biased without knowing it.