Breaking Night Analysis

Our motivations are what get us up in the morning and get us through the day. They are also more long term in that our specific motivators may determine the direction in which we take our lives and what we decide to do with our time. It can often be difficult to identify these motivators in ourselves. One way to see these motivators is to compare and contrast oneself to others. In Liz Murray’s memoir Breaking Night, she describes her hard and challenging life up until the moment that she was accepted into Harvard University. Although Liz’s life is quite different than mine, some aspects of ourselves and our motivations are the same, but of course there are also differences between them as well. At one point, Liz says that she will never do
From a very young age, Liz has had so many responsibilities. Not that she always did what was required of her, but just the fact that she had so many responsibilities as a young child. Her parents relied on her for so much. Among other tasks, she cleaned up after her mother (Murray 164), helped her father sneak out of the house (Murray 53). She was also responsible for getting herself to school because neither of her parents knew that she was not going and really were just indifferent. Although she was responsible for it, she never based her actions on that responsibility. Nonetheless, Liz had a lot of responsibility thrust upon her at a really young age. On the other hand, I have never really been responsible for much more than my school work, which may have come from the huge emphasis that my parents put on academics. My parents took care of me; they fed me, took me to school, and pretty much did anything that was needed for me. I never had to worry about anything, except for school work. These different levels of responsibility have caused Liz and I’s lives to manifest themselves differently. When Liz finally took charge her responsibility for school, she was able to handle it fairly easily because she was so used to handling different kinds of responsibility. When I finally was forced to be independent in coming to college, I had to make some adjustments because I had to accept responsibilities that I never had to worry about at home. Liz’s excessive amount of responsibility prepared her for the life that she is living now while my lack of responsibility at home required a significant lifestyle change. In this case, Liz is motivated to be responsible for her life because she has always been responsible for it. On the other hand, I am motivated to be responsible to show that I can be, but I have to work at it because of my