In the second half of the Canadian novel Lullabies for Little Criminals, author Heather O’Neill continues to illustrate and conclude the development of the themes of loss of innocence and love. Baby’s negative life decisions, such as delinquency, prostitution, and drug addiction are elements of her need to feel a sense of belonging and affection. Unfortunately, the lack of her family’s presence causes her to seek appreciation in the wrong places.
In the Merrriam-Webster dictionary, hope is defined as; to cherish a desire with anticipation. However, those words don't convey the meaning deep enough, hope is more than that. Hope is a feeling deep in the gut, a motivating force, for some hope is everything. Hope must be stronger than any fear and it must have fight in it. Lina Vilkas, a fifteen year old Lithuanian, she fights for hope. In Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys a family is ripped apart by russian soldiers and sent to prison camps. The prison camps have the worst living conditions and the soldiers are brutal to anyone. Lina meets Andrius in the camps, a friend who helps her stay strong while she is imprisoned for 12 years and loses both parents and almost her brother. Lina finds her hope even in the darkest situations, because hope is bright and believing in a brighter future it isn't giving up because of fear. Ruta Sepetys theme of the power of hope on a survivor is expressed when a young girl loses everything, finds
The consequence of hope is loss of innocence. Can a person go through so much, lose so much, and feel so broken they refuse to go on? As human beings we can only live if we have something to live for, even then we have to chose whether we can fight for it, or if we need to escape to freedom. Sex trafficking in Haiti mostly consists of children, at an estimated 150,000-500,000 cases as of 2013. In Danticat’s Krik? Krak! Some people choose to fight despite how miserable and hurt they feel, while some choose freedom.
It is impossible to discuss gender and the influences it has on one livelihood without acknowledging the other aspects of one’s identity. Other aspects such as race, class, and sexuality in combination with will always play a major role in one’s life choices and the way they are perceived by others. The term intersectionality as stated by Susanne Hochreiter offers a way to understand the multiple grounds of identity when considering how the social world is constructed. Intersectionality explains why gender cannot be in isolation from other inequalities in the social world. As a black Haitian woman raised in America, it is clear to see that my identity occupies several spheres. The experiences of being a woman in Haitian culture often conflicts with that in of American culture. In Haitian, there are specific roles and social spaces that women occupy. Traditionally in Haitian culture women are the head of the household but still place their husband’s authority above them. Young Haitian girls must learn many things before they are considered young women in their society. These
Posterity is the survival of families through their children. In the book Krik? Krak!, author Edwidge Danticat uses several fictional short stories to showcase the daily struggles of Haitians. In her novel, the hope in future generations helps Haitians endure hardship.
A mother is a person who loves and cares for their child unconditionally and will put her their needs before her own. When her child is sick, she will stay beside them no matter what. A mother is always there when someone is down and needs someone to talk to. However, in the stories, “The Rocking Horse Winner” and ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,” both authors portray the mothers, Hester and Jane, somewhat similar when describing their relationship with their child. The stories’ definition of “Mother” are described in a negative manner that not many readers can relate to such neglectful behavior.
In “The Field of Life and Death”, Xiao Hong uses the characters’ suffering and symbolism to demonstrate the breaking of traditional male and female roles. As Howard Goldblatt mentions in the translator’s introduction, “the villages’ fatalistic attitudes and repeated mention of the four distresses (birth, old age, sickness, and death) are unquestionable” (xiii), Xiao Hong represents these distresses with the main female characters without reservation in the process of childbirth, aging, disease, and death. Through childbirth, men shrink from responsibility 1. Childbirth and responsibly 2. Old Age and 3. Death and control 4. Disease and greed
When thinking of personal experiences, “The Mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks touches on the emotional topic of abortion. Even though this poem was published decades ago, it can still be seen very relevant to this day. Accepting abortion and the outcome can indeed be a challenging task for many, while others seem to adapt to it without much of a problem. Gwendolyn Brooks’ writing lets us take a look at the mothers view point of abortion and how a mother responds to her new situation. Throughout the poem, the speaker shows signs of grieving concern of the topic of abortion and its outcomes by presenting emotions of regret and memories, shame and guilt, and contradicting herself to almost justify what she has done.
In the passage “What is poverty?”, the author Jo Goodwin Parker, describes a variety of things that she considers to portray the poverty in which she lives in. She seems to do this through her use of first-person point of view to deliver a view of poverty created by a focused use of rhetorical questions, metaphors, imagery, and repetition to fill her audience with a sense of empathy towards the poor.
In the novel Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow tells a complex story where historical figures and fictional characters are woven together to make up the narrative. Evident themes include: race, class, and change and transformation. Throughout Ragtime, there are many characters who are influenced by certain people or encounters. Ragtime not only tells the individual struggles of each character throughout the novel but also shows how each character is affected by another. The different characters in Ragtime represent different responses to change - from encouraging change to responding to it, and from resisting change to accepting it. The novel represents characters who provoke change (Coalhouse), characters who accept change (Mother and Tateh), and characters who resist change (Father).
There was not much to do as I grew up in Haiti. I would sit outside for hours until the sun would set, the darkness consuming the little light that once remained. I didn’t know anything besides my house; my mom believed that our safety simply lay inside the house and anything outside was dangerous. Growing up, I didn’t have my father around because he came to the United States in order to provide for his family back home. At the age of seven both my immigration papers and my sister's were finalized, and we were able to finally be with our father. Unfortunately, our mother was not able to come with us. When we got to the airport, I hugged my mother and said goodbye.
Georges Woke Up Laughing: Long-Distance Nationalism and the Search for Home. By Nina Glick Schiller and Georges Eugene Fouron. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001. x + 324 p., photographs, notes, bibliography, index, ISBN 0-8223-2791-0 pbk.) “Georges woke up laughing”, begins this book. It continues with Fouron’s (one of the authors) recollection of his “wonderful” dream about Haiti, which first brings joyous emotions but is eventually replaced with sadness, as he realizes that he “had been dreaming of a Haiti that never was” (1). This introductory anecdote tersely but poignantly evinces the nostalgia that is at the core of this subject matter; it conveys the homesickness that many immigrants feel, which often transforms their memories of their native lands into idealizations. However, this story is not simply about the nocturnal workings of Georges’s subconscious but, as is
Many believe that the parents of the Sandy Hook victims conspired to murder their children, but what they fail to realize is that all their “ evidence” is just circumstantial. In court all types of various evidence is presented to the jury. According to Citizens Information “ The general rule is that circumstantial evidence is admissible. However, the courts are careful when the only evidence in a case is circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial evidence must be closely examined and it must be looked at cumulatively. In other words, a court would be very slow and unsettled to convict a defendant on the basis of a few pieces of circumstantial evidence” ( 4). In court the Sandy Hook Conspiracy would have trouble being found true due to the giant amount of
The death of a parent causes devastating pain and can leave many hopeless. Though remembering that hope exists through the next generation can keep you going . An example of hope through the next generation is presented in chapter “Nineteen Thirty-Seven”. In the year 1937 a pregnant daughter (who is referred to only as “Manman”, meaning mother) and her mother had to flee the Dominican Republic to Haiti during the Parsley Massacre. To escape they had to venture across the river that functions as a border between the two countries. The daughter successfully crosses the river. However, as the daughter fled to safety, she would gaze upon the sight of her mother being hacked apart by a machete and violently cast into the river. Subsequently, Manman would give birth to her own daughter, Josephine, later in the day. Instead of being completely devastated by her mother 's traumatic death, Manman found hope through her own daughter. Danticat illustrates this as Manman says , “At least you came out at the right moment
Hope is illuminated in “Children of the Sea”, through the unnamed boy and girl 's relationship. Danticat tells the story of the two 's distant relationship. They write back and forth to each other, in assumption that both are still alive and well, trying to fill the void. The man is on a boat, seeking to escape trouble he got himself into, in Haiti. The girl resides in Haiti, with the rest of her family. They both write to each other to feel as though they’re having a normal conversation, hoping that the other is also writing. “i will keep writing like we promised to do. i hate it, but I will keep writing. you keep writing too, okay? and when we see each other again, it will seem like we lost no time” (Danticat 7). Hope is demonstrated as the girl tells her secluded love that they will see each other again, not acknowledging the fact that he could be in danger. Even if she can never send the letters, she continues to write. Not only is hope shown as she’s trusting that he’s writing back, but also when the girl