Theme For Lusus Naturae

As a result of maturing and learning new things, perspectives on people usually change. This is what happened with Jeanette Walls in her novel, The Glass Castle. Her initial attitude towards her father, Rex Walls, is loving, supportive, and faithful. However, when she is able to process how many times her father has let her down, her tone in the book changes to being very critical and clinical.

After watching the movie “A Class Apart: A Mexican American Civil Rights Story”, I realized that I didn’t know much about how Mexico lost part of their land to the United States and about how hard life used to be for Mexican Americans compared to now. I learned about how Mexican Americans were treated in the United States. The movie was mainly about how Mexican Americans were discriminated and they were treated as inferior people. They were not seen as actual “Americans”, but as a second class, calling them names like “shiftless, lazy, dumb, etc.” Another important thing I learned is who was Gus García and what he did for Mexican Americans. His history made a huge difference making people feel stronger. He fought for his people and he didn’t stop until he won. Me being Mexican American makes me

If I were to describe the life of Charlotte Charke in one word, my word of choice would be “odd.” Her autobiography, A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Charlotte Charke, describes in great detail the abundance of situations where Charke acted in ways that greatly varied from the perceived norm, which I believe played a massive role in the formation of her identity. Her personal narrative perfectly depicts how identity is constructed through a combination of factors that were outside of her control, as well as the things she could control within her life, or in other words, the situations were agency was involved, and the ones where it was forbidden.

In William Faulkner’s short story, A Rose for Emily, Emily Grierson, a prominent member of her small town, dies alone in her home. Upon her death, curious townsfolk entered her home trying to learn her secrets. It was thought she was crazy. Emily Grierson was not crazy; she was isolated by her father, which led to her odd social tendencies and unique interactions with others. A Rose for Emily is a short story based in a small town. The narrator focuses a lot on Emily Grierson after her death. The narrator said multiple times they believed she wasn’t crazy. However, their actions proved to show the opposite.

“Mary Moon and the stars” written by Janice Galloway is a short story in which the main character Mary is who we “........................” This is due to the techniques the writer has used these include character, setting, language and symbolism. The author has used the appropriate techniques which results in her success.

Writer and novelist Amy Tan in her essay “Mother Tongue”, narrates that speaking “broken” or “fractured” English is not a bad thing. Tan’s purpose is to show the readers her interpretation of different Englishes and what affect her mother had on her.

The essay Yellow Woman and the Beauty of the Spirit by Silko is written in the first person, and it is reflective. Silko uses her exposition structure that makes her experiences clear convincing and engaging to the reader.

Ruth, Rachel or even Ruchel has always remained unique within every location she has ever been in. Being Jewish would be one of the main causes of this, mostly during the time of her childhood. Living in Suffolk, Virginia her father was originally a rabbi that turned into a profit-hungry businessman that dealt with the ‘black’ part of town. As a child she recognized herself being, “different from everyone and liked by very few.” (62) This encouraged to herself to be increasingly secretive and eventually only making friends with very few people, many that were facing similar problems such as hers, yet weren’t Jewish. She ended up falling in real love with a black man and that would only make her peculiarity perpetuate. Changing

“A word to the unwise. Torch every book. Char every page. Burn every word to ash. Ideas are incombustible. And therein lies your real fear” ―Ellen Hopkins. This quote shows how words can change people 's perspectives, just as books can change lives. The book Burned by Ellen Hopkins knows how to emote the simplest and realist of events. This book should be kept on shelves because of how the book shows different relationships, growing up, and how to cope with life when it goes bad.

The hippie movement is arguably one of the most famous culture movements from the twentieth century, made widely famous in pop-culture involving romanticized images of overly friendly people clothed in bell-bottom pants and flower-print button down shirts. The romanticization of this movement allowed for a widely accepted and skewed view of the true events that happened during this time. The reality is much darker than publicized to the ignorant generations that followed. It can be maintained by many that personal experience and firsthand knowledge provides the most accurate depiction of the true happenings of the time period. Through vivid imagery and impersonal diction, Joan Didion offers a critical unveiling the mayhem that she witnessed during her various firsthand immersions in the developing culture of the 1960s.

The words and phrases repeated in this poem are “not good enough, not strong enough, not smart enough, and not pretty enough.” She also repeats comparison to a bird. To me these repetitions help me relate to exactly how she felt. Deep down she believed those things she repeated which in the end drew her to actually committing suicide. I feel her pain in having experienced this feeling for myself.

This story was about a young woman growing up in the 70’s. She moved to Minnesota from Alaska. This character is a free spirt and free thinker. This woman did not want to be like everyone else. As she got older, she wanted to be herself. I think it’s ironic that she changed due to her environment, she was always independent. But her moving into a more conformist environment caused her to change. Her perspective altered to not look at your flaws as negative, empower them, and make them yours. Even with Natalie’s unusual upbringing, she was able to overcome her physical flaws, and express herself.

It is evident that change is a natural component in the average person’s life. Some however, are more drastic than others. This is exhibited through the first-person narrator of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wall Paper”, who undergoes a drastic change in her health due to postpartum depression, her relationships with the individuals around her, and her isolation. These changes later develop an internal conflict in the form of a troubling identity plight.

Margaret Atwood’s short story, “Lusus Naturae” portrays the story of a woman who has to face the problem of isolationism and discrimination throughout her whole life. In this short story, the protagonist very early in her life has been diagnosed with a decease known as porphyria. Due to the lack of knowledge at the time, she did not receive the help required to help her situation. Thus she was kept in the dark, her appearance frightens the outsiders who could not accept the way she looks, slowly resulting in her isolationism physically and mentally from the outside world. This even caused her to separate herself from the only world she knew her family. Ultimately resulting in her death. In Margaret Atwood’s short story, she asserts that being discriminated and isolated causes the narrator to have deep mental issues that lead to signs of depression through the protagonist’s unorthodox way of accepting her fate without any hesitation to prevent her life being taken away.

With Mulan, Disney opened a number of controversies about questions of masculinity and gender roles. Why is the main character a woman who is cross-dressing to be a man in order to save her father from the troubles of war? Why is she taking a role of a soldier? How is her behavior depicted? The codirector of the movie stated: “What I like about Mulan is not that she changes herself but it's really that she changes society and their way of seeing her. That's what allows her to be accepted in the end. She ends up being accepted for who she is which is a pretty universal want for a lot of different people.“ (Ward, 2002, 95) Like in Hercules and Tarzan, obviously the main theme is finding the true self. However, in order to be accepted by the society, the protagonist must go through some changes, of course, to reach the acctualization.