Jaycee’s full name was Jaycee Lee Dugard and she grew up close to Lake Tahoe, California (editors). Jaycee lived a pretty normal childhood until, doing things normal children did, until one day her life was stolen (editors). This project is going to tell her story the way she wrote it in her book, A Stolen Life. It will also have information from her childhood times, before the kidnapping as well as her life after she got her life back. Most of the information in this paper will come directly from the book previously mentioned. Jaycee was eleven years old when she was kidnaped (Dugard). The very graphical situations Jaycee went through in her time growing up will be portrayed in this paper as well. This paper is directly focused on the life …show more content…
of Jaycee Lee Dugard and her story about the years she spent held captive by two people named Phillip and Nancy.
As the time in her life progresses the emotions and instances Jaycee lived through on a daily basis will become very detailed and surreal. Her kidnapping lasted for 18 years (Dugard). She lived a secret life for many years that she eventually had to get used to. Through Jaycees life she had many things to keep her company such as children and cats (Dugard). Jaycee Lee Dugard points out many significant events throughout her kidnapping in her book. Body of Paper Jaycee Lee Dugard was born in California on May 3, 1980 (Dugard). She lived quite the childhood. She rode the bus every day to school, she had lots of friends, and she adored everything about her mother, as most of us do. Her eleventh birthday way May 3, 1991, about a month after her eleventh birthday, in June of 1991 Jaycee Lee Dugard’s life would change forever (Dugard). Jaycee woke up that morning believing everything would be normal so she got ready and started heading to the bus stop so she would not be late. While walking to the bus stop Jaycee began to zone out of her thought’s and suddenly felt something hit her (Dugard). A man by the name of Phillip used a stun gun …show more content…
on Jaycee to make her fall down where she tried to get away but the closest thing she could grab was a pinecone (Dugard). Phillip got out of the car and grabbed Jaycee putting her in the car with a blanket over her so she has no idea where she is or who she is with (Dugard). Something significant Jaycee seemed to point out in the book is the cats at this house that she is at. She feels as if they are the only physically real things in the nightmare she is living in (Dugard). Phillip shaved various parts of her body while making her take a shower with him (Dugard). He has just put her in some kind of secret building somewhere where he believed no one would find her and she could not escape. Jaycee lived a nightmare most girls fear for many, many years. This was only the beginning of the lifestyle she lived while in capitation; it gets way worse. Phillip, the man who kidnaped Jaycee, took her to a secret backyard and held her there for most of her captivity (Dugard). When she was first kidnaped she went through many phases of where she would want to sleep a lot then not want to sleep at all. In one of the chapters in the book called “The First Time”, Jaycee explains the first time Phillip used her for sex.
She explicitly stated “I feel like I am being stretched apart…. Is this normal? I am so small and he is so big” (Dugard). During this chapter she explains how this man tried to bride her at first with a milkshake but would not allow her to have it until he was done raping her. In the next part of the book she talks about the “runs” Phillip went on. These runs are where he would stay up all night doing drugs and watching porn then end it with once again raping Jaycee (Dugard). Throughout the book this man rapes her a lot; he had a major sex problem. During this time of captivity Jaycee did not go to school nor have any friends. She portrays the idea that she lived a pretty wonderful life even though she was kidnaped and was abused in many ways. Easter Sunday in 1994 Jaycee found out she was pregnant by Phillip (Dugard). Jaycee seemed to know she was pregnant and seemed as if she loved the baby already and she was quite excited to be having a baby although she was scared (Dugard). Keeping in mind Jaycee is still very young probably between age 13 and 15. Her body is not fully developed to have a child of her own because a child cannot grow in a underdeveloped body. When Jaycee went to give birth
to this child, Phillip made her give birth in the house she has been staying at (Dugard). Jaycee began to realize how hard it as to take care of a baby and a few months later she finds out she is pregnant yet again (Dugard). On November 13, 1997 Jaycees second girl was born (Dugard). Nancy, Phillips wife wants Jaycees daughters to call Jaycee their sister and Nancy their mom (Dugard). Looking in on the outside no one could ever understand what Jaycee went through when Phillip and Nancy wanted to treat the two babies as their own. When Jaycees second child was born Phillip changed her name to Allissa (Dugard). Phillip was on parole for many years and had to check in with his parole officer every day (Dugard). When things began to look suspicious Phillip brought Nancy, Jaycee, and the two girls to the FBI office to reassure them everything was fine (Dugard). At the FBI officer Phillip decides to confess Jaycees kidnapping (Dugard). This was the day that Jaycee was finally free, she was no longer stuck with Phillip and after many, many years she gets to see her mother. After meeting her mother she got to reunite with many friends and family (Dugard). She was now a new person who could go into public with whomever she chose. Of course she had to go through much needed therapy, which included physical and emotional therapy (Dugard). Conclusion: Many parts of Jaycees life seemed good because of the way she portrayed them in her book, such as getting cats and getting a new room (Dugard). But the general concept of the book is to retell her story of being kidnaped at a young age. Jaycee lived 18 year in a very abusive environment. She was raped very often, this man got her pregnant twice, he wanted her to call her children “sister” (Dugard). This book about Jaycees life is very inspiring because even though she was kidnaped and lived a hard life she sure did make the best of what she had. After being taken, Jaycee began to create a relationship with Phillip and Nancy (Dugard). She made an effort to keep them happy even though they did not make her life good at all they pretty much tortured her yet she felt like she owed them the world. Jaycee is an inspiration to many people of all ages and many different situations. Always make the best of the situation, do not dwell on what you do not have or the life you wished you live. Jaycee Dugard is now 36 and is raising her children with some help on the side (dooley). Jaycee is working with the JAYC foundation to help trauma victims like her (dooley). As you can imagine she is still living her life to the fullest, or at least she sure tried to in many ways. When in captivity she created a bucket list she wanted to accomplish and she has been checking many things off such as see her mom, ride in a hot air balloon, swam with dolphins, and of course more important ones like learn to drive and shop (dooley)
“The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak is narrated by death and begins when Liesel’s brother dies on a train with her and her mother. At her brother’s burial, she steals her first book, “The Grave Digger’s Handbook” and soon after is separated from her mother and sent to live with foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann, in Molching, where the majority of the book takes place. At school, Liesel is teased because she can’t read so Hans teaches her to read when she wakes up from her frequent nightmares about her brother’s death. Hans is a painter and an accordion player and also plays the accordion for her after her nightmares. Liesel grows very close with Hans and also becomes close friends with her neighbor Rudy Steiner who constantly asks her to
The novel ‘A Stolen Life’ written by Jaycee Dugard is a true story about how Jaycee, at age 11, got kidnapped by two adults called Phil and Nancy. Jaycee was missing for 18 years. During those years a lot of things happened to Jaycee. She was abused, raped and had two children at a very early age. Phil and Nancy's treatment had made Jaycee grow up very fast; she had to do whatever to survive.
While she might think that her plans are working, they only lead her down a path of destruction. She lands in a boarding house, when child services find her, she goes to jail, becomes pregnant by a man who she believed was rich. Also she becomes sentenced to 15 years in prison, over a street fight with a former friend she double crossed. In the end, she is still serving time and was freed by the warden to go to her mother’s funeral. To only discover that her two sisters were adopted by the man she once loved, her sister is with the man who impregnated her, and the younger sister has become just like her. She wants to warn her sister, but she realizes if she is just like her there is no use in giving her advice. She just decides that her sister must figure it out by
In the novel The Book Thief by Markus Zusak the narrator is Death, who shows itself as sympathetic and sensitive towards the suffering of the world and the cruel human nature, through its eyes, we can get to know the heartbreaking story of Liesel Meminger an ordinary, but very lucky nine-year old German girl; living in the midst of World War II in Germany. In this book the author provides a different insight and observation about humanity during this time period from a German view and not an Allied perspective, as we are used to.
Caleen Sinnette Jennings Queens Girl in the World is an bildungsroman, a coming of age story that takes place in a unique format. Queens Girl in the World is about Jacqueline Marie Butler a 12 year girl who lives on Erickson Street, Queens, New York. It’s summer 1962 and we watch her journey over the next year or so. She experiences love, conflict, ignorance, hatred, violence, and many of the experiences that can happen in the life of a preteen in the sixties as well as to any of us. The many characters depicted, the moments shared made myself and the audience experience laughter, sorrow and everything in between. Queens Girl in the World beautifully blends climatic and episodic structure by using climatic aspects such as a late plot, limited characters scenes and locales and episodic features such as multiple stories that follow a plot of theme.
Christopher McCandless, an American traveler, once said “So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality, nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit.” This quote is far more universally applicable than originally thought to be. Throughout one’s life, one will undoubtedly experience some form of conformity. The driving factor in a majority of these moments is fear; fear of not fitting in, or of not living up to society’s expectations. The only thing that lets one escape conformity is the truth known from past experiences. This
A Stolen Life by Jaycee Lee Dugard is an autobiography recounting the chilling memories that make up the author’s past. She abducted when she was eleven years old by a man named Phillip Garrido with the help of his wife Nancy. “I was kept in a backyard and not allowed to say my own name,” (Dugard ix). She began her life relatively normally. She had a wonderful loving mother, a beautiful baby sister,, and some really good friends at school. Her outlook on life was bright until June 10th, 1991, the day of her abduction. The story was published a little while after her liberation from the backyard nightmare. She attended multiple therapy sessions to help her cope before she had the courage to share her amazing story. For example she says, “My growth has not been an overnight phenomenon…it has slowly and surely come about,” (D 261). She finally began to put the pieces of her life back together and decided to go a leap further and reach out to other families in similar situations. She has founded the J A Y C Foundation or Just Ask Yourself to Care. One of her goals was, amazingly, to ensure that other families have the help that they need. Another motive for writing the book may have also been to become a concrete form of closure for Miss Dugard and her family. It shows her amazing recovery while also retelling of all of the hardships she had to endure and overcome. She also writes the memoir in a very powerful and curious way. She writes with very simple language and sentence structures. This becomes a constant reminder for the reader that she was a very young girl when she was taken. She was stripped of the knowledge many people take for granted. She writes for her last level of education. She also describes all of the even...
As the novel begins, Janie walks into her former hometown quietly and bravely. She is not the same woman who left; she is not afraid of judgment or envy. Full of “self-revelation”, she begins telling her tale to her best friend, Phoeby, by looking back at her former self with the kind of wistfulness everyone expresses when they remember a time of childlike naïveté. She tries to express her wonderment and innocence by describing a blossoming peach tree that she loved, and in doing so also reveals her blossoming sexuality. To deter Janie from any trouble she might find herself in, she was made to marry an older man named Logan Killicks at the age of 16. In her naïveté, she expected to feel love eventually for this man. Instead, however, his love for her fades and she beco...
The novel starts out with Janie at the ripe age of sixteen realizing her sexual peak. "She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her." (Hurston: 11). Nanny realizes that Janie has become ready for marriage, after settling for a kiss from a tall and lean, yet poor boy by the name of Johnny Taylor. So, Nanny arranges a marriage between Janie Crawford and Logan Killicks to start Janie's new life as Janie Killicks before she would be able to get entangled in the humble life of a poor black man like Johnny Taylor. She was a former slave, so Nanny believed in the value of financial security and respectability. Therefore, she forced Janie into marrying Logan Killicks when she was still in her teens. A year passed by with Janie realizing that she did not love Logan and would never love him, so she felt it was time for a change. Janie left...
Verna La Vaughn was the main character and narrator. She narrated the story as though it were her diary, which she wrote in daily. Verna La Vaughn’s personal appearance was never discussed in the story; however the reader was informed about her family life. She lived with her mother in a small apartment where they had lived for her entire life. L Vaughn’s father had died when she was a small child and had always been heavily missed by La Vaughn and her mother. La Vaughn had much respect for her single mother for putting a roof over her head and for always showing her love even when it was not easy. La Vaughn also enjoyed taking care of children. Often, she would babysit for a single mother she knew named Jolly who had two teen pregnancies as well as working at the local children’s hospital folding sheets. Her desire to help children in need was quite commendable.
Iyanla Vanzant was born in a taxi cab in Brooklyn, New York, given the name Rhonda Fleming. When she was two years old, she had to live with her grandmother due to her mother’s death. After suffering from her abuse from her grandmother, she moved in with her father and his wife. After some time, she moved in with her aunt and her husband, who had raped her countless times. She tried to speak up about her abuse, but no one would listen. During her teen years, she was abused and lonely. She gave birth to her first child when she was only sixteen years old. She was in her first marriage when she was only nineteen years old. After three children, two marriages, and a breakdown, she realizes that there is a lot more to life than her current circumstances.
The story of how Cally, Faye’s great great grandmother a newly freed slave had gotten hold of the plantation after the Civil War and how the family had held onto it through Jim Crow, the Depression, the World Wards, and the Reconstruction. Now that Faye is the owner of the plantation, she finds that the property taxes have gotten too high for her to sustain. But there is one thing she could do to save the plantation and the legacy of her family. With the plantation full of artifacts, she sets out to dig for them, which she believes she would get a good price for in the black market. However, instead of finding arrowheads and potsherds, she stumbles onto the shattered skull of a woman with a Jackie Kennedy like earing near the head. Faye is in a dilemma. If she goes to the police, she risks her illegal artifact digging activities being exposed, which would lead to the loss of Joyeuse and possible jail time. She does not intend to lose the plantation and knows that she has only one option – investigate the murder and history of the woman herself. What she does not know is that the killer still lurks and is ready to murder anyone that threatens to expose his dark
A breathtaking saga of a young girl’s tragic memories of her childhood. As with Ellen, Gibbons’ parents both died before she was twelve-years-old, forming the family. basis of the plot and themes of this novel. The fond memories she possessed of her mother and the harsh ones of her father are reflected in the thoughts and actions of Ellen. The simplistic and humble attitude that both Gibbons and Ellen epitomizes in the novel is portrayed through diction and dialogue.
Since Ma’s kidnapping, seven years prior, she has survived in the shed of her capturer’s backyard. This novel contains literary elements that are not only crucial to the story, but give significance as well. The point-of-view brings a powerful perspective for the audience, while the setting and atmosphere not only affect the characters but evokes emotion and gives the reader a mental picture of their lives, and the impacting theme along-side conflict, both internal and external, are shown throughout the novel. The author chooses to write the novel through the eyes of the main character and narrator, Jack. Jack’s perception of the world is confined to an eleven foot square room.
With the main character Celie, she overcomes her hardships with her childhood and marriage to achieve complete happiness. Her childhood consists of a father that rapes her and gives her kids away. He also gives her away to a man known as Mr. ___. He too beats her and does not allow her to see her sister, Nettie. Celie falls in love with another woman who allows her to start her life over. Shug Avery gets her away from her husband, Mr. ___, and allows her to start her own financially independent life, as a pant producer. The only thing Celie lacks in order to ac...