Imagine being fourteen years old and living in a small town in Georgia, packing up as much as you can, or what could fit under your clothes and into a bag, and moving to the Congo of Africa. That’s exactly what the Price family did under their father’s will. Throughout Barbara Kingsolver 's Poisonwood Bible, Leah price experiences the Congo to its’ full potential. Both her psychological and moral traits were formed by cultural, physical, and geographical surroundings. The congolese people influence her decisions and thoughts throughout the book. Her family, as she realizes the people they truly are, also change her thought process and mindset from when they lived back home in Georgia. As the Congo becomes their home, moral lessons were taught until the day the Price family departs from the Congo, but not all of them.
In the book The Liars Club, by Mary Karr, she utilizes the literary element voice to weave together a story of her unfortunate childhood. This book covers the majority of her childhood years, and the several problems her childhood included. When Karr narrates the book she is the sole voice in the text, however she also incorporates others statements and communication through her own voice. She uses voice to piece together her own, and other’s statements into the story of her childhood.
The American dream, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is a happy way of living that is thought of by many Americans as something that can be achieved by anyone in the U.S. especially by working hard and becoming successful. The passage sees Richard Rodriguez describing a past Christmas experience. Rodriguez uses language and details about his siblings, parents, and himself to suggest the American dream of material success.
In the poem Heritage by Linda Hogan, Hogan uses the tone of the speaker to demonstrate the shame and hatred she has toward her family, but also her desire to learn about her family’s original heritage. The speaker describes each family member and how they represent their heritage. When describing each member, the speaker’s tone changes based on how she feels about them. The reader can identify the tone by Hogan’s word choices and the positive and negative outlooks on each member of the family.
In his poem “Behind Grandma’s House,” Gary Soto details the life and daily routine of a somewhat masochistic ten year old boy as he kicks over trash cans, terrorizes cats, and drowns ant colonies with his own urine. In many ways the boy acts as any other boy his age would be expected to, but he tends to go further than most young boys with his actions and descriptions of how he feels. This extra violence and destructive tendency the narrator exhibits can lead the reader to believe that, rather than being a typical child, he strongly craves attention due to his circumstances, and he is willing to act out and act obscenely in order to receive that attention.
Mothers have pushed their children to achieve greatness since the beginning of time. Such an example can be seen in a mother’s request to Samuel Johnson for an archbishop’s patronage for her son and the response of Samuel Johnson. In this letter, Samuel Johnson uses various rhetorical strategies to explain and justify to the mother that there is no reason for him to endorse her son and talk to the archbishop about patronage.
In a letter written by Abigail Adams to her son John Quincy Adams who is travelling abroad with his father John Adams , a former United States diplomat, advises her son to take advantage of the opportunity by using his own knowledge and skills to gain wisdom and experience growth in developing his character, persuading him to take his first steps to becoming a leader. There are many rhetorical strategies used by Mrs. Adams to persuade her son, among them are metaphor and affectionate tone, rhetorical question and long and involved sentences , and organizes the essay by using argument. Throughout the letter Abigail Adams uses an affectionate tone to advise her son to make his country and family proud. Mrs. Adams uses words such as “ your ever affectionate mother” (62-63) and “My dear son” throughout the letter. By doing so she is coming across as an affectionate and understanding parent, who wants their child to recognize their full potential. In another example she states, “It will be expected of you my son, that, as you are favored with superior advantages under the instructive eye of a tender parent, you improvement should bear some proportion to your advantages” (21-24). She is reminding
In the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, Power can be refer to as the ability to influence or change one’s opinion base on how an individual is being viewed by the human specie. The book, To Kill a Mockingbird, is simply about a girl, Scout, whose life is influenced both positively and negatively as a result of how society was created. In this book there is a side character, Mayella,; and because of her class and gender, she is powerless, but her race makes her powerful.
In Gary Soto’s short story ‘Growing Up,” the main character, Maria, says, “‘I know, I know. You’ve said that a hundred times,’ she snapped.” Maria is acting ungrateful because she doesn’t want to go on vacation with her family and she is arguing with her father about it instead of being grateful for what she has. Being grateful is feeling or showing an appreciation of kindness and being thankful. In the story Maria argues with her father about not wanting to go on vacation with her family and claims that she is old enough to stay home by herself. Maria is trying to grow up too fast and she put her family to the side instead of being grateful. In this story, conflict, characterization, and symbolism all have an effect on the overall theme.
The simile used in the first stanza is “I hung on like death”(3). The next line, “Such waltzing was not easy”(4) suggests that the father and son’s boisterous, wild “romping”(5) around was difficult for the child, and he had to hang on tightly because the father was romping around drunkenly and did not hold onto him well. If he did not hang on as tightly, he might fall and get hurt. This simile could be related to the idiom “hanging on like grim death”, which means to hang on tightly, for fear of falling. The word “grim” might have been omitted so that this line can fit into the iambic trimeter.
In the short poem “Marks” my Linda Pastan, you are given an insight on the life of a wife who is also a mother of two. The setting of the story takes place in a standard family home, but instead of feeling like you were home it felt more like school. This poem is an extended metaphor; the author uses grades a student would normally get in school to compare to how her family measures to being a mother as well as a wife. Now through dialogue you can tell that she is not actually receiving grades for the required chores she has to do but it helps communicate the message to the audience. Due to the fact that it’s easy for just about any one reading this to relate to a grading system cause we all have received an amount of schooling before. The
A final surge of fury shook her and she roared, ‘Who do you think you are?’” (O’Connor 33) This line is from Revelation when Mrs. Turpin was talking to a person that judged her, little did she know this person was jesus. Flannery O’Connor is trying to show that people often put themselves before others without ever wanting or letting themselves and others judge them. O’Connor uses this theme in many other stories including A Good Man is Hard to Find, Good Country People and Revelation. Flannery O’Connor uses character development to help the reader understand that people aren’t always who they think they are or who they seem to be to other people.
“Oh, I Long to See My Mother in the Doorway” (Paley 82). The short story Mother written by the American writer Grace Paley starts with these lyrics. In this story, the author depicts a daughter recollected her mother and missed her very much after her death. After reading this story, I found an interesting fact about the relationship between parents and their children. In my opinion, the children often misunderstand their parents while their parents keep worrying about them. However, when the children get older, they always regret what they thought about their parents when they were young.
“We are going to Miami and meeting up with your sister and dad” she said. Her hazel eyes filled with happiness and joy because we would be a family again. I had been apart from my sister for a year and my father for 6 months. I missed them very much but I didn’t want to leave. I had my brother with me and that’s all I needed since we were always together even though he is two years older than I am. “When are we coming back? Tomorrow? In a week?” I asked. My mother looked at me and said “This trip is for more than a week. It’s an opportunity for all of us
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.