The story 'The Kayak' interprets the life of a 16 year old girl, Theresa, who is still yet a baby. Her desire of becoming a woman remains unfulfilled un till she meets a boy named Jamie. When I read the story, so much sympathy for Theresa arose inside me. I feel closest to Theresa in comparison with the other two characters. When I was reading this story I was thinking about the level of patience Theresa has towards life, after what she has been through. Theresa is very insecure, dependant and helpless.…
This article is written by Katherine S. Newman, she is a sociologist who investigates the rising numbers in accordion families. The numbers of people in their 20's and 30's are still living with their parents and living off their parents savings and retirement, with little of their own. The cost of living has risen, the unemployment rates has also risen and it has compromised the adulthood to young children. Newman’s investigation, is in six countries, drawing from over three hundred interviews, Newman concludes that nations with weak welfare states have the highest frequency of accordion families while the trend is virtually unknown in the Nordic countries. The United States is caught in between.…
Katherine Boo’s first book, Behind The Beautiful Forevers, details the lives of the citizens of Annawadi, a small slum in Mumbai, India. For three years and four months Boo chronicled the everyday struggles of several individuals illegally squatting within the cramped quarters owned by the Mumbai Airport Authority. Founded in 1991 by construction workers hoping to acquire temp work brought on by the ever-expanding airport (Boo, 2012, p. 5), Annawadi is home to “three thousand people … packed into … three hundred and thirty five huts” (Boo, 2012, p. xi).…
How do you spend your Sunday afternoons? Most people spend it with family and friends. Others as a spiritual day or even sports day. However you spend it, it is usually around the most important people in your life. However, in “Miss Brill” we find out her Sundays are spent at the park. She spends them alone because she lives in solitude. The time she spends at the park is a twisted reality of what she really is seeing. Not having companions with whom to spend her Sunday afternoons lead to Miss Brill making up scenarios and ideas about the people around her. She is able to feel better about herself when speaking and assuming things for others. This is really a mask to cover the loneliness she is feeling inside. In “Miss Brill” by Katherine…
defined as “the faculty by which events are recalled or kept in mind”. Thus history…
Sometimes making difficult decisions can have lots of bad things and responsibility but behind all those things it could change your life in good ways. The fictional novel Lyddie, by Katherine Paterson is about this girl whos family has a debt on their farm and she has to find a job to pay it off. Lyddie finds a job but the conditions in the job as a factory girl are terrible. Lyddie doesn’t quit only because she needs the money to help her family and herself. Lyddie has to survive through these tough working times. Lyddie should sign the petition that Diana Goss is circulating.…
Katherine Anne Porter is one of the most celebrated authors in American Literature, she is mostly known for her collection of short stories, often about themes regarding justice, betrayal, and the unforgiving nature of the human race. Throughout her life the many things that influenced her views and morals also helped shape the way she writes and the messages in her stories. Porter experienced a variety of cultures, from the Southern farm culture to the posh Paris life. She first handily experienced the Mexican cultural revolution, seen the rise of Nazism and lived through the time of the cold war. These travels and experiences from different cultures gave her a diverse pool of inspiration that influences her works and her writing style.…
“Now that you have started reading this essay, you and I are now connected by a web of connections.” This is what Susan Griffin, author of “Our Secret”, a chapter taken from Griffin’s insightful book A Chorus of Stones, most likely would have declared. Griffin argues that, “all of us, especially all of us who read her essay - are part of a complex web of connections” (265). But how are people who do not even know each other connected? Griffin implies that people are part of a “larger matrix” and have a “common past” (265). The “common past” between people that Griffin asserts can be proved by examining the unique underlying comparisons and analogies she applies in the chapter. “Our Secret” is a collection of Griffin’s own life story and the life stories of others, including Heinrich Himmler, Heinz, a painter, a friend, Holocaust survivors, a homosexual man, and her sister. She even uses RNA and cells as analogies to indicate how even the materials that compose people have similar functions to people themselves. Although people may question how…
In “Mnemonic” by Li-Young Lee a man is looking back on his life while falling asleep. He tries to recall the memory of his father and his blue sweater. He remembers his father wrapping him in the blue sweater when he was cold, but he never gives the sweater back. The boy fondly remembers his father and all the love his father had for him, and the first sign of regret is seen. The sweater is a symbol of love from father to son but the love was unrequited and the boy, now a man, wants nothing more than to show his father how much he loves him. The man’s loving memory quickly shifts to one of disappointment. He recalls his father’s memory and how complex it was, saying that he was “A man who forgot nothing” (l 13). He then thinks of his own memory saying “ There is no order / to my memory, a heap / of…
Dana realized that “Rufus’s time demanded things of [her] that had never been demanded before…that was the stark, powerful reality that the gentle conveniences and luxuries of this house, of now” (Butler 191). After years in the past, Kevin could not remember much of his old life. Dana “found him in the living room trying knobs on the television set. It was new to [them], that television, like the house. The on/off switch was under the screen out of sight, and Kevin clearly didn’t remember” (Butler 191). He was like a baby again, with a clean slate ready to relearn everything, except this slate contained so much more knowledge about the past, even some that he never would have wanted to know. He “saw a woman die in child birth once” (Butler 191). He knew that his life would never be able to be the same again. He knew that it would take a long time to readjust. He couldn’t even remember what it felt like when a jet passes by. This caused a lot of tension between Kevin and Dana. She always felt so “hopeless,” not knowing what to say or what to do for Kevin. Kevin lived for five years alone in the past, helping slaves escape to freedom, while Dana was stuck at Rufus’s house. Dana experienced both physical and emotional pain that she could never have imagined existed. How could one just transition back and forth from a life of tranquility to a life of…
This quote is very important because it is talking about war, which is the main theme of the novel since it takes place during WWII. It is also important because it revels the growth in the main character Gene. At the beginning of the story Gene wasn’t very comfortable being himself, and he wished he was his best friend Finny, but now he knows who he is. When you know who you are, you don’t have to reflect.…
I don’t remember much of my childhood. It’s been said that when you experience trauma, your brain has a defense mechanism to help you forget it ever happened. This is both helpful and hurtful in terms of carrying on. I don’t remember much of my mother before her alcoholism began to control her. I wish I could remember what she was like; I’ve been told she was a wonderful mother, though it’s very hard for me to believe that now.…
She wants to have all of the memories and thoughts of him in her head.…
In Karen Russell’s short story, “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, she develops the progression of the characters in relation to The Jesuit Handbook on Lycanthropic Culture Shock. The characters, young girls raised as if they were wolves, are compared to the handbook with optimism that they will adapt to the host culture. The girls’ progression in the five set stages are critical to their development at St. Lucy’s. The author compares Claudette, the narrator, to the clear expectations the handbook sets for the girls’ development. Claudette’s actions align well with the five stages, but she has outbursts that remind her of her former self.…
The short story “The last dog “by Katherine Patterson is about a future version of the world, where there are no animals, no humans, and no fresh air. Everybody lived in a dome and no one had ever thought about the past, until Brock. At first he was only interested in scientific research, until there was someone… or should I say something changed him. It was the Last Dog.…