The Tragedy Within: Analyzing “How Far She Went” The dog wouldn’t hush, even then; never had yet, and there wasn’t time to teach him. When the woman realized that, she did what she had to do. She grabbed him whimpering; held him under till the struggle ceased and the bubbles rose silver from his fur. (Hood 414) In Mary Hoods “How Far She Went” A grandmother struggles with the burden of experience, loss and a life of hard decisions; where a girl strives to live in a naïve and free spirited illusion. The paths of a grandmother and her granddaughter soon collide when experience and naivety meet on a dirt road in the south. “How Far She Went” illustrates how generational struggles and tragedies can mold people influencing their lives and the way they live. Hood lays the foundation for the story and the generational gap from the opening line of the short story. They had Quarreled all morning, squalled all summer: how tight the girl’s cut- off jeans were, the “Every Inch a Woman” T-shirt, her choice of music… her practiced inattention, her sullen look. (Hood 410) The grandmother struggled with the girl and her free spirit as if the grandmother had been apart of this story before expecting a different result; she hoped for “The surprise gift of a smile” (Hood 411). The Smile never came just the granddaughter’s show of defiance
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Show MoreThe family owned a telephone, a large wireless radio, and a record phonograph that connected her mother to the world, but they had parted with many valuables in recent years to pay for her mother’s doctors’ bills. Feeling like the cat’s meow, Nell crossed the room to her mother, who was in her wheelchair listening to the wireless. Her mother put her hand to her throat when she saw her daughter. “Oh, Nell how lovely you look. You look like you just stepped out of Vogue magazine.”
Civil rights issues stand at the core of Anne Moody’s memoir. However, because my last two journal entries centered on race and the movement, I have decided to shift my focus. In her adolescent years, Anne Moody must live with her mother, her mother’s partner Raymond, and her increasing number of siblings. As she reaches maturity, she grows to be a beautiful girl with a developed body. Her male peers and town members notice, as does her step father Raymond.
An African-American social reformer, and an abolitionist, named Frederick Douglass once said, “I did not know I was a slave until I found out I couldn’t do the things I wanted.” With these words, Douglass justifies that slavery is lack of freedom. It’s the horrifying feeling as if slaves were being tied up in one place, and the only time they could move is when their owner says so. In this book called, Coming of Age in Mississippi, written by Anne Moody, who happens to be the main character, is about her own autobiography growing up in a community where Negroes did not have the audacity to speak up. Moody’s life consists of many obstacles that impacted her to become a brave person and a successful activist.
While Madison’s dad provided money and support and opportunity, Lillian’s single-parent household provided loneliness, lack of funds, and unfit morals. The book delves into these distinct differences in one unfortunate instance. Both of the girls and their parents play a part in this very inconvenient and unfair incident that occurs during their highschool years. While the two girls are rooming together, Madison gets busted for possessing drugs. Lillian ends up taking the fall for Madison, because of a deal her Mother struck with Mr. Billings.
Generacism Flannery O’Connor uses her profound and substantial words to unleash a deeper meaning within her writing “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” Although there were numerous cultural conflicts amongst the story, racism is a very firmly expressed concern in the text due to the generational differences between the grandmother and the family. My grandmother, Mimi, is the most lovable woman to walk the Earth. However, due to her generational differences, it led her to believe an adopted black baby might be troubling to her family. Despite their personality variations and verbal behavior, my grandmother and the grandmother in “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” have been afflicted in tremendous ways by the surrounding society from their past.
Her final act towards the Misfit was not out of charity, but in attempt to save herself. Set in the South in the 1950s, the grandmother dutily satisfied the stereotypes that blossomed within her generation. She speaks of the older days, when children were more respectful, and good men were easier to find. However, she never expresses what defines a good man, which suggests her unsteady moral foundation. The grandmother also explicitly articulates the racism that was unfortunately common in the South, ironically prevalent in the religious and upper middle class circles like the ones she belonged to.
To kick it off, my aunt was my grandma only daughter, she had four boys. My grandma was happy that she finally had a daughter to pass on her cooking skills to. Growing up in Haiti was rough for my aunt, she had to grow up without any father figure because he had travel to American and had left my grandma because they had their differences. Soon
Before going on the family trip, grandmother makes sure she is dressed very properly “ In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once she was a proper lady” (421). Grandmother wears white cotton gloves, a navy straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the white brim” which she adjusted often to ensure she had a good outward appearance. Grandmother’s moment of redemption comes to her while she is in a ditch with a serial killer.
She is reminded of the violence that torn not only communities apart but families as well. How the social norms of the day restricted people’s lives and held them in the balance of life and death. Her grandfathers past life, her grandmother cultural silence about the internment and husband’s affair, the police brutality that cause the death of 4 young black teenagers. Even her own inner conflicts with her sexuality and Japanese heritage. She starts to see the world around her with a different
Nella Larsen’s Passing is a novella about the past experiences of African American women ‘passing’ as whites for equal opportunities. Larsen presents the day to day issues African American women face during their ‘passing’ journey through her characters of Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry. During the reading process, we progressively realize ‘passing’ in Harlem, New York during the 1920’s becomes difficult for both of these women physically and mentally as different kinds of challenges approach ahead. Although Larsen decides the novella to be told in a third person narrative, different thoughts and messages of Irene and Clare communicate broken ideas for the reader, causing the interpretation of the novella to vary from different perspectives.
The memoir, The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, centers around her unorthodox childhood, with her parents avoiding parental responsibilities and acting in accordance to their non-conformist beliefs. During some events in the book, responsibility is seen as equal to self-sufficiency in this book, and Rex and Rose Mary encourages Jeannette and the other children to look out for themselves instead of depending on others. Even though Jeannette’s parents were irresponsible and reckless, they managed to instill responsible, independent, self-sufficient qualities within Jeannette, creating a well-adjusted child. Hardships as a child allow the opportunity to develop a thick skin and become resilient. From a young age, Jeannette Walls and her siblings learned how to be independent for their basic needs because of their father’s, Rex, alcoholism, and their mother, Rose Mary’s, carefree attitude and indulgence in the arts.
As time goes on, a person over time starts to understand the reality known as life, she should mature and leave behind a time that once used to be known as childhood. In this essay the author and her family will be traveling to different places which will show how her mom’s foolishness had an affect on the lives of her and her siblings. First, they go to the desert where things get out of control and Jeannette gets injured, then they go to Welch where Rose Mary tells her kids to do something that is not matured and adult like and at last they go to New York, where Rose Mary was still homeless by making decisions that had a bad impact on her and the others around her. The first place that they go to is The Desert.
The Works of Flannery O’Connor: An Analysis of Racism and Self-Righteousness The ego is a force of the human mind since its beginning. The ego is what drives us to reach our potential, no matter the area of achievement. However, many times our ego can prove to be our downfall when we let it get the better of us.
Audrey Petty uses “Late Night Chitlins with Momma” to express her own close bond with her mother and how it shaped her identity; this is expressed through the narrative style, the diction and syntax, the use of food as a metaphor, and the short story’s structure. Narratively this piece does an incredible job of making the reader feel personally invested in the story. The way Audrey Petty does this is through a multitude of techniques. The point of view is a first person omnipotent, allowing for a closer read to the narrator themselves; the narrative flow is akin to being told the story verbally instead of the traditional 3rd person omnipotence.
The story “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty is about a woman named Phoenix Jackson on a long journey into town, but it 's much more than a regular walk into town. There are obstacles and struggle, but she never stops and lets no one get in the way. That journey represent the way she has lived her life. The way she fought for where she is today. Phoenix Jackson is the major in this story, and she is also the protagonist.