Character Analysis: The Dirt Diary

What makes people grow up? Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor is set during the Great Depression, in the rural areas of Mississippi. The majority of the people in this community are sharecroppers, who are greatly dependent on plantation farming. However, the Logan families own their own land. Cassie tries to understand with her family what racism is. Cassie, the narrator leads us through all the disaster and trouble that her and her family have been through. Cassie's interactions with negative uses of power is directly responsible for Cassie's coming of age.

In the book, The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen Rosa shows that she is a very helpful person. Rosa was a very sweet girl who just so happened to be in Jessica's math class, even though she was a freshman and Jessica was a Jr. Rosa is a brilliant girl and she loved math and helping Jessica with it. “Hey!” Rosa calls,…… I hobble in and sit in a chair near her. “I am so lost in math.” “I’ll help you!” she says”(136), when Rosa see’s an opportunity to help some she will go right for it help them and she won’t stop till they get a 93% on a test. Rosa only being a student herself takes the people she tutors and shows them a more helpful and easy path when it comes the math school or life in general. Rosa is mainly known to be a

In the novel Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, main character Billie Jo faces several challenging obstacles throughout her lifetime. Getting through these obstacles is the only way Billie Jo can learn to forgive her father as well as herself for their mistakes. Once she learns to stop feeling resentful, and let go, Billie Jo will be able to grow up. The first major challenge Billie Jo faces is when a fire breaks out in her home. The fire ignites when Billie Jo’s mother mistakes a pail of kerosene for water, where,“instead of making coffee, Ma [makes] a rope of fire”(87). Billie Jo’s own hands are scorched as she frantically tries to smother flames ablaze her mother’s skin. Following the accident, “while Ma moaned and begged for water, [Billie

We are humans and a majority of us have dealt with heartache, pain, broken promises, along with the joyous things like dreams, aspirations, and successful futures. Humans mess up and make mistakes, but we have to remember that forgiveness is a very prestigious and powerful thing. Forgiveness affects people’s lives in positive ways through the hardships, difficulties, and struggles of life. There comes a time when forgiveness should not be available to some individuals. However, this depends on the past situations that have occurred in your life as well as other individuals. In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls, was a girl who did not live the ordinary lifestyle. She had to overcome many occurrences with her family, from living a rough life

Where the Wild Things are by Maurice Sendak is an interesting children’s picture book. The main character is a little boy named Max, who has a wild imagination. He uses all five senses as well as thought and his actions to express his personality as well as how he reacts and interacts with his surroundings. Max’s id, ego and super-ego are greatly shown in this book through the way that the author has portrayed him. Not only is this book a children’s story, but it can also be perceived as a life lesson. Many people go through times in their lives when they make drastic decisions right away, such as leaving home. One may enjoy it for the rest of their lives or only for a little while, just like Max who felt lonely after having fun with the monsters. In this case, people end up going home to be with their family where they are not lonely, and can have more time before making a final decision of what should happen next in their life. Id, ego and super- ego is greatly portrayed in this

Nearly 19.2 million Americans suffer from different specific phobias such as Aquaphobia. Aquaphobia is a social phobia that is defined as the persistent, unwarranted and irrational fear of water. Aquaphibians conjure up images of dying in the water, drowning, gasping for breath, or encountering eerie, unseen things such as snakes or sharks in the water. In the short story “The Isabel Fish” by Julie Orringer, one of the main characters Maddy has gained this phobia of water due to her car accident in which there was a car crash and she ended up in the water. This car accident has changed a lot in Maddy’s life, but most importantly her perspective on water, and whenever she comes in contact with water, she is reminded of the car accident and

Forgiving someone is one of the best things you could do. However, for you to forgive someone, you must accept what has happened and be ready to move on. Forgiving someone gives them an opportunity to redeem themselves, and allows them to move on as well. By accepting the past, you might find reasoning within the mistakes of the others, and give you as better understanding of how you should act. Forgiveness is a large part of The First Stone, and within the story is a valuable lesson: By forgiving someone, you are allow both yourself and the other person to move on and grow, as well as allowing you to look back in an unbiased way. By giving someone a second chance, you have bestowed upon them an opportunity to make up for their past mistakes,

To be trapped in one's own mind may be the worst prison imaginable. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper", the narrator of the story is constantly at battle with many different forces, such as John, her husband, the yellow wallpaper that covers the walls of her room, and ultimately herself. Throughout the story the narrator further detaches herself from her life and becomes fixated on the yellow wallpaper that surrounds her in her temporary home, slowly driving her mad.

“The Hero’s Journey” is term for a narrative style that was identified by scholar Joseph Campbell. The narrative pattern would depict a character’s heroic journey, and categorize the character’s experiences into three large sections: departure, which contained the hero’s call to adventure, fulfillment, which consisted of the hero’s initiation, trials, and transformation, and finally the return. The novel The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan investigates the relationship and actions of four Chinese women and their daughters. The character Lindo Jong’s youth in China exemplifies the three part heroic journey in how she leaves the familiar aspects in her life, faces trials in the home of her betrothed, .....

In the novel, The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, “The Grave Digger’s Handbook” is a motif that causes character development throughout the story causing Liesel to have the book as her only memory of her mother and brother, learning how to read and write, and it leads to stealing more books.

The Benges’ moral theme makes Rachel Saint: A Star in the Jungle a great book to read because it teaches the difficult life lesson of pursuing the difficult tasks when it is apparent that it is necessary. Growing up in a modest Christian home, Rachel Saint taught her younger brothers all about Christ. Rachel knew from a young age that she wanted to become a missionary, specifically the Auca tribe. Being unaccepting of foreign people and extremely violent, the Aucas scared many missionaries away from their tribe. Rachel was being discouraged by her family and fellow missionaries. Nate, her younger brother, had a large influence on Rachel’s life. At the beginning of her journey,

Life as we know it has ended in this thrilling book, “After the Red Rain”. Wars, pollution, and other unnamed disasters have blocked the sun, because of this, our planet is dying. There are no natural forms of plant or animal life, excluding humans, left on the planet and as a result, we are destined for extinction.

She was his old girlfriend back in Hebrew school that he used to make another girl jealous. Obviously that backfired and they lost contact until now. Greg didn’t want to speak to Rachel but his mom kept pressuring him until he actually did. It took a while for Rachel to accept his offer of hanging out and when they did they all build a mutual friendship. Later on in the story, Greg introduces Earl to Rachel when she told them she was going into chemo therapy and was losing all her hair. Earl and Greg met in kindergarten and soon discovered that they both loved movies and they started to make homemade films of movies they liked. One day, Earl invited Rachel to watch all the films they had made. Later on, when they were a little closer to Rachel, they decided that they were going to make a film for her so she could get better. When she watched it, she loved everything about the film and told Greg that it was one of her favorites she’s ever watched before she had died. Originally, they wanted the film to be about her, but Greg soon realized that it was just a whole bunch of random clips of him and Earl goofing off and put together with bad lighting. He felt guilty because “it should’ve been just about Rachel and nothing else”. The second half of the book is all about making “Rachel The

Guilt is an emotion that comes from believing one was responsible for a particular mistake whether the assessment was accurate or not. (Powell)It can be described as “a bothered conscience” or “a feeling of culpability for offences”. One feels guilty when there is a feeling of responsibility for an action one regrets. (Barker, Guilt and Shame).A wrongdoer must deal with guilt by making atonement- by making reparation and penance.

This is saying that Rachel was talking very low like when she was four probably because she was about to cry. And all because something was not hers.