Cheaper by the Dozen
“ Cheaper by the Dozen”, based on a real-life story of the Gilbreth family, is a fantastic book. This hilarious comedy about a family with a dozen children kept me in stitches until the end! This family, run like a well oiled machine, took me on Sunday rides through the country, battles in the family court, summers at the sea, Father’s theories on motion study, and the economic removal of the whole families tonsils. I loved it! I find it truly amazing. Not only did the family boast twelve children, but they all learned to speak foreign languages, touch typing, mental arithmetic, and even Morse Code- all because their father worked out dozens of ingenious ways to motivate them- although often it was quite reluctantly on their part.
I had many laugh out loud moments, and at times would have enjoyed being a part of this large and loving family, or perhaps raising one of my own in the same manner…imagine that! It probably could never happen. I can’t imagine living with twelve brothers and sisters and getting along! Actually, I would not call it getting along; I would call it survival, by jimgo!
The Gilbreth family of twelve red-haired, freckle-faced children parented by efficiency experts and pioneers in the field of motion study, Lillian and Frank, were a bit eccentric and extremely funny. I can still remember one of the lines a child blurted out at the dinner table “Please, we are NOT in the mood for an organ recital.” This was the standard reprimand for belching in the family and never intended for public airing. I also enjoyed the part when one of the children said to a dinner guest, “Is this of general interest?” Although these twelve children were highly disciplined by their father, (mother, for the most part, would just agree with father) in a couple instances they were able to catch father off guard, like when the children would continually ask him “Father can you touch type?” “No,” he would reply, “but I can teach it!”
Nothing was considered more of a sin than wasting valuable time, that is why the father, Frank timed himself trying to go as fast as he possible can with almost everything.
Every movement of everyday must be functional. He timed himself buttoning his shirt to see which way was faster, top-bottom, or bottom-top. He timed himself shaving to see which way took longer, using to brushes to apply the shaving cream, or one.
Bitter about the evolution of the corruption of society, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell plays the official hero clinging to old traditions and reminiscing about the old days in No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. Delusions of a peaceful utopia during the time his grandpa Jack was a sheriff has left Bell looking at the world through hopeless eyes; a world on its knees with only one explanation for its demise: Satan. Not necessarily a religious man, Sheriff Bell, when asked if he believes in Satan, remarks: “He explains a lot of things that otherwise don’t have no explanation. Or not to me they don’t” (218). Throughout No County for Old Men, Sheriff Bell is determined to save Llewellyn Moss in order to prove that justice can be served in a world now drenched in decay. Throughout the book and the film adaptation, the audience can see Sheriff Bell, a tormented old man, sink deeper into his bitterness and his hope sizzle away in the Texas heat.
...cts with his parents when they are trying to help him. He and his parents get frustrated and impatient when something does not go as planned. Arguments often take place regarding how Frank wants something done because he cannot do it himself.
The film’s brilliance lies in the choice to show three distinct familial units with varying and different responses to their disadvantaged circumstances. The three boys who are the main subject of this film each experience a set of challenges and disadvantages associated with growing up in poverty. Appachey lives with his mother and younger siblings and has little to no adult supervision because his single mother must work long hours to support the family. Harley lives with his grandmother because his mother is incarcerated for attempting to kill the man who sexually abused her son. Harley suffers from anger and personality disorders and has a difficult time fitting in at school. Andrew lives with his father, mother and sister but is subject to repeated and frequent moves due his father’s inability to secure stable employment. His mother also suffers from significant mental illness and bouts of manic
The relationship between a father and a son can be expressed as perhaps the most critical relationship that a man endures in his lifetime. This is the relationship that influences a man and all other relationships that he constructs throughout his being. Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead explores the difficulty in making this connection across generations. Four men named John Ames are investigated in this story: three generations in one family and a namesake from a closely connected family. Most of these father-son relationships are distraught, filled with tension, misunderstanding, anger, and occasionally hostility. There often seems an impassable gulf between the men and, as seen throughout the pages of Gilead, it can be so intense that it creates
'You can time [someone], know exactly how long it takes him to do something... then you can make him do it faster.
Many parents don’t approve of the message One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is sending to their children. However, their children seem to like the message and say it has no negative effect on them. Some parents believe this book is sending th...
...is a story that combines science fiction and comedy into a raucous page-turner that is suited for older audiences. With badinage such as spending a year dead for tax reasons, and the Time Traveler’s Handbook of 1001Tense Formations, the humor and ideas present in this novel appeal more to adults. The zany, eccentric humor may not be for everyone. With the science fiction, futuristic background new opportunities for amusement arise. The jocose, light-hearted mood of this unique farce shows the audience that comicality can come from anywhere.
Frank Darabont (writer-director-producer) in 1999, returned to the director’s chair for the first time in five years. Darabont, who not only directed Shawshank Redemption, but adapted it from a Stephen King story, followed the exact same path with The Green Mile. The film was released by Warner Bros. Pictures, and Produced by Castle Rock Entertainment, Darkwoods Productions, and Warner Bros. David Valdes is the producer, David Tattersall, B.S.C. is the director of photography, Terence Marsh is the production designer, and Richard Francis-Bruce is the film editor.
"I don't give a fuck what you know or don't know, but I'm gonna torture you anyway, regardless. Not to get information. It's so amusing for me to torture a cop. All you can do is pray for a quick death, which you aint gonna get."
In the play “True West” by Sam Shepard, there are two main characters Austin and Lee that are so different and similar due to their family culture of dysfunction. A dysfunctional family is one in which that shows conflict, hostile environments, inappropriate behaviors to not only upon them, but to those around them. In most dysfunctional families you will find children that have been neglected or abused by parents, to which most of these children tend to think that these such behaviors are normal. Shepard shows this relationship of dysfunction of a family between two brothers that shows one brother who thinks he has escaped the dysfunction, and one that has carried out the dysfunctional family culture.
predisposition to act in haste, his shortsightedness and his fear of sin. He set the wheel of
Living in the Chicago Southside, Walter’s family faces some harsh living conditions. Even as much as fifty cents becomes a luxury option for the couple. This is depicted when Travis, Walter’s son, says “This is the morning we supposed to bring the fifty cents to school”, while Ruth, Walter’s wife and Travis’ mother, responds abruptly with “Well, I ain’t got no fifty cents this morning” (p.1295). In this excerpt, the author is emphasizing on two details about the Youngers: first, the value of frugality and the situation that even little money cannot be spent for wants, such as education; second, the family’s financial condition is highly unstable, because Hansberry accents that in a certain morning the famil...
In the novel No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy, the increased brutality and violence along the Texas-Mexico border leads to various moral conflicts among the citizens as well as authority figures. Because of this ominous presence, the characters, especially the older men, are forced to combat such violence and brutality, with varying degrees of success. Although experience and ethical obligations can allow for some success, it is ultimately achieved by those that are able to conform to such brutality rather than fight it. In the novel, Anton Chigurh represents the new era of men in Texas through his defiance of law and justice whereas Sheriff Bell stands for the old values of the country and Llewelyn Moss holds a position in the world between the two ultimatums. Throughout the novel, the drastic societal alterations affect characters differently depending on their moral values and physical capabilities thus revealing how the country has become too violent and brutal for the men who rely on justice
However, you can look at it and say the parents lied to them, about the big nice house with basement and yard with no fence, when they actually can only afford a small, broken down house on Mango Street. That is a very sad side of the story, when you wanted to cheer your children up, and ended up shattering their hope and dream for a better house. Beside the three of the six characters introduced, other members of the family has only been mentioned twice, and that was all we know about them, just their name. Oh wait, there was one more character in the story, a mean
One day when Holly and the narrator go for a walk through Fifth Avenue on a beautiful Autumn day Holly seems interested in the narrator's childhood without really telling him about her own, even though talking about herself is something she does quite often. "...it was elusive, nameless, placeless, an impressionistic recital, though the impression received was contrary to what one expected, for she gave an almost voluptuous account of swimming in summer, Christmas trees, pretty cousins and parties: in short, happy in a way she was not, and never, certainly, the background of a child who had run away" (54). Holly's character has such a dramatic flair that the reader nor the narrator never really know what to expect from her. On some occasions she will openly talk about outrageous taboos with perfect strangers and on others she will claw like a cat anyone who gets too close to her: "I asked her how and why she left home so young. She looked at me blankly, and rubbed her nose, as though it tickled: a gesture, seeing often repeated, I came to recognize as a signal that one was trespassing" (20). Holly is not only a physical paradox of a girl and a woman, but so is her personality, she has an odd mixture of child-like innocence and street smart sexuality.