Kaye Gibbons’ Ellen Foster is a contemporary work that discusses women, cultures, and abuse. Ellen Foster is considered contemporary because it was written in the post World War era, and the topics within the book conflict with the ideals of the time period in which it was written. To capture the attention of an audience and enhance the mood of the book, Gibbons used diction, sentence structure, and misspelled words in a way that only the main character would. Gibbons was able to express her feelings on controversial topics through the situations characters experienced throughout her book.
“I don’t know that they all end up OK, but i hope there’s something interesting for the reader in worrying about those outcomes,” Evans shares as she explains her reasoning for concluding most of her stories with cliffhangers (Young). Danielle Evans is an author of a collection of short stories that focus on issues pertaining to race and gender, and the struggles that surround a colored person's life. Evans goal in her writing is to give her characters more of an identity rather than just being identified as "black" (Perkins-Valdez). In her short story "Snakes," Danielle Evans, from the view of 25 year old Tara, shares the story of an interesting summer filled with racism. The story starts with the mixed character Tara, and her summer experience with her racist white grandmother, Lydia. Tara's parents are researchers that are taking a trip to Brazil for a summer, and Tara is able to now meet her mother's mother.
In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Bean Trees, Taylor represents a bildungsroman character. A bildungsroman story is a coming of age story that consists of four stages. In the first stage of a bildungsroman character’s journey, she experiences a loss or painful experience that drives her to start a new life. The character goes through a baptismal rite in the second stage, which always involves water. The character endures many difficult trials in the third stage, but ends up gaining a new insight about life in the fourth stage. Taylor’s journey in the Bean Trees has all four of these stages, making her a bildungsroman character. Although Taylor’s desire for independence begins her journey, she eventually realizes people need a network
Take eight troubled teenagers and one instructor and put them in the woods together for nine weeks and there’s bound to be a lot of drama and trouble. When those eight teenagers decide to go it alone and ditch their instructor, the drama and conflict just doubles.This book is called Downriver by the author Will Hobbs. In the novel downriver jesse experiences many types of conflict such as person vs person person vs nature and person vs self.Person vs person conflict is when jesse calls her dad but the problem is when jesse calls her dad Jesse feels like she should apologize for her behaviour and would like to say something but she 's lost in words and doesn 't say anything to her dad this proves the thesis is true by the conflict jesse has had with her dad in the past and she would like to fix it with a new start.Second point in downriver of the person vs person conflict is when Jesse is scared to stand up to troy and say hes wrong or to disagree with him she thinks that if she stands up to troy she’ll get scared and might think that troy might hit her.Jesse smacks Freddy across the face while they were on their adventure and Jesse feels bad because she has feelings for Freddy and feels like she should apologize this is how this conflict in downriver for person vs person has in downriver and will continue but in conclusion these points i showed are all in the story of person vs person conflict in downriver.In Downriver their has lots of Person vs nature parts.When Jesse
Birdie is not an easy read, an unexpected fact, considering the woman who penned it, Tracey Lindberg, is a lawyer and professor by trade. The difficulty in reading the novel comes not only from its harrowing subject matter but also from the way the story is told. It’s non-linear and jumps back and forth from the present to the past. At the start of each chapter are poems, which often transform characters into animals, such as Bernice Meetos/Birdie who longs to return to the tree, Pimatisewin. The story doesn’t entirely belong to Bernice however, as the chapters tell the story of Beatrice from the voice of five different women- her cousin, aunt, mother, landlord and herself. Bernice has a special relationship with her aunt Val and cousin Skinny Freda, in particular, who are often referred to as her sistercousin and motheraunt to reflect that bond. Another important way Lindberg sets herself apart from other authors is by using terms like the sistercousin frequently alongside other terms Lindberg creates to fit her narrative, regardless of conventional rules of writing. The novel is Cree, through and through and Lindberg does not shy away from that. Her method of storytelling is dignified, sarcastic and unapologetically against the norm.
Some people believe that characteristics of a person never change and that a person acts a certain way for their whole life but really it's the experiences they go through in their life that changes them whether it be good or bad. This is true in life and in literature in Ally Condie Matched where the main character Cassia’s characteristics and the way she acts change almost completely because of the things she's overcome and been through. She overcomes many things in this book and at the Engels results is her changing he overcomes harsh and overpowering rules that at first she followed obediently but she comes to realize the rules are more than what they seem and they're stopping her from the one thing she wants which is love. cassia, in the beginning, may have started out as an obedient pupil p her society but by the end, cassia turns into a brave courageous character that knows what she wants
In The Bean Tree, Taylor grows as a person through the choices she makes.(how do these things help Taylor grow as a person) Taylor is talking about how she doesn't want to be like anyone else in her town and wants to make her own path."I stayed in school. I was not the smartest or even particularly outstanding but I was there and staying out of trouble and I intended to finish. This is not to say that I was unfamiliar with the back seat of a Chevrolet. I knew the scenery of Greenup Road, which we called Steam-It-Up Road, and I knew what a pecker looked like, and none of these sights had so far inspired me to get hogtied to a future as a tobacco farmer's wife. Mama always said barefoot and pregnant was not my style. She knew." (Kingsolver, ch.1)
Ha’s life has turned inside out and back again. Ha’s life has turned inside out because she had been forced out of her home in Saigon due to war. Her life has also turned back again because she is settling into Alabama and starting to be smart again. Along her journey she faces many challenges because of language and other people not being friendly and welcoming to her. The book Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai is about a girl named Ha that is a refugee from the city of Saigon in Vietnam. She has to learn a new language and learn a new life in a different country. She gets bullied by the way she looks, but tires get through it at home by talking to her mother about it. One of her neighbors, Ms. Washington, helps her learn English
Parents are always supposed to look out for the best interests of their child. Anne Tyler authored the short story “Teenage Wasteland” which depicts the story of a strained mother and son relationship between the character Donny, and his mother Daisy. Donny is a teenage boy who is struggling with his grades at school and is exhibiting poor behavior. His mother, Daisy is concerned with her son’s grades and behavior, however, she fails at getting her son the help that he requires. Told through the point of view of the character Daisy, Tyler uses irony to tell the story of a teenage boy who is failed by the adults in his life who are supposed to help him flourish, including his parents, a psychologist, and his tutor.
This journal is in response to the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. As a coming-of-age contemporary novel, Speak discusses many sensitive issues that are still prominent even today. In this story, we explore the life of Melinda Sordino, a fourteen-year-old girl who is beginning high school right after experiencing an utterly traumatic event: rape. Melinda is left friendless, with no one to help and support her after what happened. She tries to navigate through her first year of high school, and it seems like the entire student body despises her; she feels more alone than ever. I will be analyzing and making connections to three specific elements in this novel: the search for one’s identity, Melinda’s inner conflict,
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
Alexandra Miles is not you average high school senior at Spencer High School. Alexandra is an expert at manipulating her peers in order to take what she wants, and this year it’s to be crowned Homecoming Queen. Throughout her life she competed in beauty pageants, and has never lost one. Though this year she is struggling to keep her head above water because of her father’s death and her mother’s lack of attention. This doesn’t make Alexandra soft, if anything, it makes her stronger.
People often say that your childhood is the most important part of your life, and it is the part of one’s life that affects them the most. In Ellen Foster, by Kaye Gibbons, Ellen is forced to become independent as a result of a challenging childhood, that also affects her view of others and herself. Her father 's actions had a large impact on Ellen’s quickly developing independence, while the loss of her mother and grandmother exposed her to people who influenced the way she viewed others and herself.
Throughout history there have been standers that have been set by the time, that men and women have followed. Many men and women have had to follow the male and female roles set by society, the macula role and the feminine role. Each defining the way a person acts and how they are perceived by others. In the short story Franny by J.D. Salinger a young college student names Franny and her boyfriend Lane spend their time in a restaurant after being apart for a while. The spend most other there time taking in the restaurant then eating. Franny talk about their life 's and what they have both been up to. They spend it by critique each other on how they should act and what they should not do. Franny tries to play the role of a good girlfriend listening and paying attention to what her boyfriend Lane has to say, but there bickering at one other cause Franny to argue with Lane on how she hates people that are phoniness and just wants to fade into the background and be a nobody. Throughout the story Franny 's comments on how a person has to act a certain way because of the social standards that are set. She spends her time in the story abiding by the standers and commenting on them causing her to have an emotional breakdown. The Breakdown that she has connects to Shoshana Felman 's What Does a Woman Want? and Franny 's actions connect to Judith Butler 's Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory. Salinger 's Franny is a story that
“What is beneath my skin. Inside my bones?” (Tan 40). This is a familiarly asked question by many Asian immigrants, and many find it difficult to answer. The rich historical culture of Asian assimilation is a complex and intriguing subject. The experiences related and recorded in the novels The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Monkey Bridge by Lan Cao, and Obasan by Joy Kogawa give great insight to the internal and external struggles East-Asian immigrants face in the Western World, specifically Chinese-Americans, Vietnamese-Americans, and Japanese-Canadians. Although the situations have certainly improved since the mid twentieth century, many of the issues and struggles the characters in the novels face are still real and ever-expanding for over five percent of the U.S. population. To