Jeannette and her siblings were constantly getting bullied from other kids, in school and the neighborhood, for being too poor. The Walls’ children also underwent a lot of bullying from their parents. During Jeannette’s first days at her school in Welch, she got an abundance of bullying from a group of girls. Jeannette describes one of their encounters, “‘This girl ain’t got no buttons on her coat!’ she shouted. That seemed to give her the license she needed. She pushed me in the chest, and I fell backward. I tried to get up, but all three girls started kicking me” (139). Jeannette knew that she looked poor and recognized that the girls were badgering her for being poor, and that they got their power because they thought they were better than Jeannette. Jeannette’s tone of struggling and defeat displays how she’s tired of getting pushed around and bullied for the social class that she lived in, which drove her to become better and make big goals for herself. While recalling one of these many fights, Jeannette admits her acceptance of her living condition when she says, “As we fought, they called me poor and ugly and dirty, and it was hard to argue with” (140). Other kids were always teasing the Walls’ about their living conditions and seemed to find joy in hurting the children physically and verbally for living in the poverty that they were in. Jeannette’s use of the words “it’s hard to argue with” shows her…
“The Life You Save May Be Your Own” is a short story written by the American author Flannery O'Connor. It is one of ten stories in her short story collection called A Good Man Is Hard to Find. In this Southern Gothic tale, we are introduced to a mother and her daughter as they sit on a porch in an impoverished country town. A man, Mr. Shiftlet, crosses their path and after a bit of conversation is offered a place to sleep and food to eat in exchange for fixing things around the house. He eventually is offered the daughter's hand in marriage, and accepts with the reward of getting a car. The two marry and the mother provides money for them to go on a weekend honeymoon. But, in an unexpected turn of events, at least 100 miles away from her home, Mr. Shiftlet leaves the girl sleeping and stranded at the counter of a breakfast restaurant. Feeling very guilty, he searches for a hitchhiker to pick up in an effort to right his wrong and finds a little boy that had just run away from home. Mr Shiftlet convinces the child to go back home to his mother and the story ends with him driving to Mobile. Flannery O'Connor does more than tell a humorous Gothic story with this piece of work; she uses the lives of Lucynell, Lucynell Jr, and Mr Shiftlet to illustrate the human condition and how we often put our morals to the side for our own selfish gain.…
There’s a little boy named David that gets beaten daily. His father is a fireman so he’s always gone. David’s mother had two other sons and treats them good. Then there’s David. The mother treats him like nothing. She rarely ever feeds him and she beats him for whatever he does wrong. She beats him for trying to feed himself because she starvs him. He has to sleep out in the garage every night. His mother finds new ways to torture her son and even calls him by “the boy” or it. Her beatings and abuse have gotten out of control and David is at risk of life or death.…
Half a million children are having to survive each day by being sexually assaulted and sold into sex slavery. Even though there will always be scars, adjusting to surroundings can help with the day to day survival. In Patricia McCormick’s book, Sold, a 13 year old girl named Lakshmi gets sold from her stepfather to a woman named Mumtaz in India. Lakshmi then has to survive the cruel things that Mumtaz makes her do to earn money back for her freedom. Sold demonstrates that adjusting to surroundings is important for survival through living with limited money, getting bullied, and coping with raping.…
In ‘Thank You Ma’am’ This boy tries to rob this lady to buy some shoes when she takes him home and feeds and cares for him then gives him money to pay for it.…
Cynthia turned to prostitution wear she could make money to provide everything her son needed and or wanned. Payne’s clientele consist of older men, all well in there forteys ,very wealthy, and educated(Sex). Theses men had something missing from their lives even when they have wives and children.Cynthia could become whoever or whatever theses men needed her to be. To payne this became more than just a job to provide for her and her son this became the missing piece of her life this was the father figure and the partner she always wanted . These men wear always very high class clientele. No rowdy kids or yobs breaking the place up, All well- dressed men in suits who knew how to treat a lady with respect. These men would spend a great deal of money to keep Cynthia happy because she brought them a happiness that they never felt before so they tried to keep her the happiest they could. Men would spend fifty pounds for a quarter hour for a private doctor so Cynthia said the girls would get paid twenty pounds for a half of an hour(Cynthia), After years Cynthia decided that it was time for her to get off the streets and into something a little more professional, so Payne bought a home not only to raise her son in but a home to hold sex parties, a home to house anywhere from ten to twenty women at all…
Sylvia’s initiation in the short story The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara, is striking because Miss Moore gives the opportunity to the children to evaluate the difference between the fifth avenue and their poor neighborhood. However, one of the story’s main themes is that innocence is a handicap and the political and moral innocence that are represented from the beginning to the end of the story brings the main character to many reflections. This idea is revealed as Sylvia’s ignorance towards the different social classes, Sylvia’s questions on the purpose of wealth and the hard realization of the true facts of inequality. Due to the children’s lack of political and moral knowledge,…
The next day, Mister Percy called all the servants down to alert us that a small sum of money had been stolen and to “warn” us that he’d teach us a lesson from stealing from him by selling the thief. I was terrified even though I hadn’t committed the crime that I had been accused of. I went to bed that night but couldn’t sleep with the thought in the back of my mind that my son could grow up to be sold down the river. I knew what I had to do. It was one of the hardest choices I had to make, there was no other option.…
Lara Ferrari, the author of “Suitcases and Snow Globes” uses the narrator’s sad past to shape the plot of the story, like when it’s a “memory that finally guilts [the narrator] into action” (Ferrari 2). Guilt can be found in every individual, especially when someone thinks back into the past about something they regret. Readers learn to become better people by making actions that don’t make them feel bad inside, afterward. The narrator in the short story feels guilty about not sponsoring a child in need of her help but finally makes the decision to accomplish her goals, which influences readers to do anything they dream of doing. In “The Treasure of Lemon Brown”, by Walter Dean Myers, the protagonist, Greg, meets Lemon Brown, who has lost his son in the military “‘ I’ll be watching from the window so you’ll be all right’”(. Lemon Brown’s past allows him to treat Greg like a son, helping Greg to accept that his father just wants the best for him. Therefore, readers learn that a father’s greatest treasure is his child. They also learn that trying to understand something from another person’s viewpoint will, in the long run, benefit them more than having a narrow mind. As a final point, life lessons can be learned through human nature that is revealed in fictional…
During the reading of the story “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara” many thoughts have come to my mind on how to react towards the attitude and the feelings of the protagonist, Sylvia. The day starts when Ms. More brings the kids to downtown New York City in a special shop. Many things will occur at this place and one thing that we will notice is the innocence throughout the interactions of the kids. As they step inside FAO Schwarz, an important and well known store in the city, they happen to see toys, like a small toy sailboats at prices around 1000$ and other things at ridiculous prices! Not understanding how people could spend that much for such little things, the underprivileged neighborhood kids don’t seem to make such a big deal out of it, and are more amazed than anything. Except for Sylvia, she notices the reason of her trip here, and her moral innocence towards this isn’t at the same level as the others ……
Living in New York City, Ascher has had many experiences with the less fortunate and how others react to them. She cleverly adds some of these personal anecdotes to her essay. Ascher describes a woman who gives a dollar to a homeless man after he stops and stares at her child. Was the woman’s sympathy genuine or based off of fear? In another instance Ascher witnessed an owner of a coffee shop giving a food and coffee, the owner did this twice.{Ascher,47} The owner could have been annoyed and wanted to get rid of the man, or she really could have empathized with him. These stories are the foundation for the rest of the essay, without them Ascher wouldn’t have the credibility that is also established through them.…
The boy ... He's a product of a filthy neighbourhood and a broken home ... Slums are breeding grounds for criminals. I know it. So do you. It's no secret. Children from slum backgrounds are potential menaces to society. (P.12).…
The narrator, a poor young black girl named Sylvia, starts by describing Miss Moore, a lady who had just moved on the block. She expresses dislike in her for certain reasons and explains why they were all annoyed by her. She also introduces us the rest of her company and how they were all related. She goes on to tell how Miss Moore decided to take them to a store one day despite her and her friends having other plans for that day. Upon arriving at the FAO Schwartz toy store, they began looking at many items and their’ price tags. To their surprise they see how expensive simple toys are and can’t figure out what type of people can afford these toys and what those people do to earn so much money. Bored and puzzled, they ask Miss Moore why she had brought them to this store. Miss Moore asks them to imagine the type of society they are living in and asks them to reflect in their day and give it thought. As the kids run off to enjoy the rest of their day, the girl who had the most dislike in Miss Moore, Sylvia, decides to go along with her plan and think the day through.…
At the age of twelve, Amir committed the act which would dominate his thoughts for the rest of his life. His childhood friend and servant, Hassan, was raped by the neighborhood bully, and Amir watched in horror. Afraid of the same fate, Amir made no attempt to help his friend or to make his presence known. Instead, he hoped that Hassan had not noticed him watching. This is not uncommon for children. Not all children can be expected to face their fears or to try to be heroes. Children often try to pretend things away, as well. Guilt-ridden, Amir avoided Hassan, but the more he did so, the more guilt he felt for abandoning his friend in his time of need. Deciding that he could no longer stand Hassan's presence, Amir framed Hassan for stealing objects from the house. He had second thoughts and planned on confessing until his father forgave Hassan. Amir had always been jealous of his father's love for Hassan, so when his father readily forgave Hassan for, according to his father, one of the ultimate crimes, Amir…
In the short story, “Black Men and Public Space” it talks about one man account on how people treat and view him as a criminal. When the reader reads throughout the story you find out that he really isn’t a criminal at all, but an educated black man who’s going to the University of Chicago to get his Ph.D. The shocking thing in the story revealed he didn’t even grow up a violent person in the story he even stated that “He is scarcely able to take a knife to a raw chicken, let alone a person throat.”(3) In the story, the author gives the reader many accounts to which he was a victim of stereotyping and racism. Some examples he gave in the story was that he was walking on the side walk behind a Caucasian women in her late twenties she took a glance at him and started to run. Another story he told was that he was in a jewelry store to pass time before an interview one of the employees brought a dog at him which forced him to leave the store. This story is not just about the author’s being treated in such a horrible way, but how he reacted to each situation that he encountered. The author was always seemed peaceful and relaxed even when things got worse in some situations. The author did things like whistle melodies from Beethoven and Vividali, gave space, or even walk pass a place to try to change people’s attitudes. Most people would get angry and try to retaliate when things get very uncommon for them. In order to get a change in this world a person have to show people ways to make them believe the opposite of what been already put in their…