The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down By Anne Fadiman

Finding one passion could be tricky. Sometimes we confuse passion with skills, passion is something that you do and enjoy no matter how tired or even if it doesn’t make you a millionaire. Skills are something that you are good at but you don’t enjoy, one will continue on this path because we need to pay our bills. This doesn’t make it right or wrong but we should be happy with ourselves doing what we enjoy.

Who is Margaret Walker? Margaret Walker was a poet who wrote five bibliography poems (Poetry Foundation). Margaret Walker wrote more poems but these are just the ones she wrote about her life. She leaned toward writing about nature and black lives, she addresses these things in the poems “Sorrow Home”, “ Memory”, and “Southern Song”, most people can relate to these types of poems because they can relate to being outdoors and doing hard work and putting forth the effort to get a job done. Margaret Walker was an interesting poet because her poems can transport the reader back to a time and place of hardships and struggles of the black community in the days of slavery and their strength to overcome these sometimes unbearable conditions.

Oftentimes when reading texts about liberation, whether the liberation is physical, metaphorical, or otherwise, there is a tendency to expect an overcoming narrative of sorts. Namely, when presented with a figure that is suffering, an audience expects a clean ending. However, concerning memoirs, this isn’t always the case. If anything, overcoming narratives within autobiographical texts can flatten out the nuances and struggles that are presented within, making the arc of the text seem flat and unconvincing. This is far from the case with Jimmy Santiago Baca’s autobiography, A Place to Stand. Baca’s memoir strays from an overcoming narrative, establishing liberation as a multifaceted, uphill battle, and, more importantly, linking the acquisition

In the book “A Long Walk to Water,” by Linda Sue Park, there are two stories that take place in Southern Sudan. Both stories overlap each other at the end. One of the stories is a fictional story and takes place in 2008 with a character named Nya. The other story is the true story of a boy named Salva and it takes place in 1980. Nya’s and Salva’s story both have social and cultural issues that they must face. One of the main cultural issue is the fact that there is no water anywhere near them. With the main social issue they face is that they live in poverty. The desert is so hot that there is a deficiency of water.

In the book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman explores the cultural collision between the Hmong Lee family and their American doctors. Along with the culture clash, the social stigma against the Hmong family brings to light a lot of the systematic, moral, and ethical issues that can arise in our healthcare. Ultimately, the combination of the cultural clash in medical perspectives, the underlying social stigma, the inadequate treatment, and the miscommunication hindered the proper diagnosis and recovery of led to the demise of the Hmong child. However, many of the problems could have been easily avoided or resolved with more patience, objectivity, and most importantly, cultural competence. Cross-cultural methods and approaches should be taken to accommodate for the diverse patient population in our communities.

Hope is a powerful thing; more powerful than death itself. Night, by Elie Wiesel, is about a jewish boy who is put into a concentration camp during the Holocaust. Elie doubted his faith to survive but had others to lean on during the hardship. Elie had the support of others as a sense of hope to survive the long, cold nights, with little food and water.

A relationship between a father and a son is a sacred bond, one created at birth and strengthened over time. This paternal relationship is core to the value of family, a likewise bond of faith and trust. Such bonds are tested during times of hardship and pain, seen most clearly during times of war. During the events of World War II, and the gruesome events of the Holocaust, this truth was never more true. Through works such as the memoir Night, by survivor Elie Wiesel, and the artistry of the 1997 film Life is Beautiful, directed by Roberto Benigni, these times of hardships are kept alive in common memory. Through contrasting the lives of Elie Wiesel, and the fictional character of Giosue from Life is Beautiful, in the concentration camp, the evolution of the father-son relationship over time can be seen.

"Crossing the Swamp," a poem by Mary Oliver, confesses a struggle through "pathless, seamless, peerless mud" to a triumphant solitary victory in a "breathing palace of leaves." Oliver's affair with the "black, slack earthsoup" is demonstrated as she faces her long coming combat against herself.

Everyone has depression, but did you know on October 29, 1929 the whole US went into depression. People lost their jobs, people lost their homes and lot’s of other things. Every bits and piece was super valuable at that time.

Eric Bartels analyzes the difficulties of modern-day marriage in his article, “My Problem with Her Anger,” by examining his own marital experiences. By optimistic confrontation and resolution of his family’s problems, Bartels believes that not only will he save his marriage, but he will also be rewarded for his sacrifices (63). The author claims he realized the separation between men and women during his late night chores (57).

Joyce Carol Oates created a deep and intriguing story that has readers fearful to read what happens next. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" was published in 1966. Other notable works that Joyce Carol Oates has created are "With Shuddering Fall" and "The Wheel Of Love". Common themes and topics she follows are everyday characters, also psychologically and socially terrifying situations. Most of her works are written based off real life tragedies that she heard or read about in a magazine or on the news. Putting ordinary people in horrifying circumstances that test themselves in a new way. In this story, Connie is a typical, easily manipulated teenage girl exploring the possibilities of who she wants to be. One summer day, the devil in disguise as Arnold Friend drives up to her house with nothing but bad intentions. Being as naïve as a 15 year old girl, Arnold "Fiend" is able to lure her out of her house and into his car. Inspired by a true story, this piece is a twisted tale of manipulation and pure evil. Connie in this transitional stage from girlhood to womanhood, looks to her jealous mother for guideance she will not receive. Joyce Carol Oates in "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" illustrates that the innocent and naïve will often get taken advantage of.

Author Harlan Coben once said, “Adolescence is always a war; no one gets out unscathed”. There are many attributes shared amongst teens, and in the story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates, the protagonist, Connie is the embodiment of the typical teenage girl. Oates depicts Connie in such a way by the use of Connie’s appearance and actions, as well as her relationships, and budding sexuality.

In The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, twelve-year-old Esperanza must navigate through the trials and tribulations that one can associate when encountering young adulthood. Cisneros uses her unique writing style of vignettes to illustrate various themes in her text. The theme that has to be the most prominent thus far, is on the feminist role of Esperanza as a female in her Latin American culture. House on Mango Street is an overall bildungsroman that can be considered to be a feminist work of literature. The bildungsroman is encompassed by various feminist values throughout the text of written work, regarding the particular subject. Cisneros illustrates these feminist views through the creation of several women characters with strong

On September 11, 2001, tragedy struck the city of New York. On that fateful day, two airplanes were hijacked by terrorists and flew straight into the twin towers. Each tower fell completely to the ground, taking thousands of lives with it and injuring thousands more. Not only did that day leave thousands of families without their loved ones, it also left an entire city and an entire country to deal with the aftermath of the destruction. Poet, Nancy Mercado, worries that one day people will forget that heartbreaking day. Though there is little danger of forgetting that heartbreaking day, she worries that even she will still forget. She expresses these worries while writing her poem “Going to Work”. She does this by using three poetic devices within her poem: personification, imagery, and symbolism.

Has technology affected our lives? In the article “Hal and me”, Nicolas Carr describes attributes to our lives that come from the evolving technology we use every day. By introducing several educated men with literature background had found themselves changed from the constant usage of the internet. The way they lived their lives have changed, now they have become depended on the technology and their minds have changed, they expected everything to function as the same way technology does, faster.