“Shells” by Cynthia Rylant, is a realistic fiction about a fourteen year old boy who is struggling with moving into his aunt’s condominium. He is also struggling with his parents dieing, and being lonely. He buys a hermit crab named Sluggo to help him with his loneliness. When his aunt gets involved she buys a huge tank with 21 hermit crabs in it. The main character Michael and his aunt esther don't get along really well, Michael is not trying to punish her he’s just sad and lonely because his parents had just died. He really hated his aunt esther.
Michael changes a lot. For example, In paragraph 1-10 michael says he doesn't hate aunt Esther. then later in the story michael tells the readers that he does hate aunt Esther. The story says that his aunt esther is so different from michael's parents and that he doesn't understand her completely yet, because Michael’s parents weren’t wealthy like aunt esther, and they raised children differently than aunt Esther. Michael is just really confused and he soon changes .
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Aunt Esther is struggling with Michael because she doesn't understand him.
She tries to make him happy but he just won’t be. She says “why are you punishing me? But really michael just needs some alone time. Aunt Esther doesn't realize that. So she gets more involved, and goes into michael's room and examines Sluggo. Michael comes home from school and asks aunt Esther what she’s doing. Esther says “sluggo needs a companion” she asks where the pet store is, and michael takes her there. When she walks in she is fascinated in all the colored shells, she kind of makes a fool of herself in public. She ends up buying 20 hermit crabs, a tank, and a little plastic scuba diver! This shows aunt esther, at least tried to help michael and
herself. The point they both really changed was when they were in the house coming back from the pet store and aunt Esther says “oh Michael what would your mother say if she saw what we got ourselves into.” “she put her arm around michael and that was the first time she showed affection.” so in the end Michael like many teenagers wasn’t happy all the time. he hated his aunt Esther but he changed. Aunt Esther didn’t really know how to handle a teenager, and most importantly they both changed and learned to care and live with each other. For example Michael was grieving about his parents. He didn’t have any friends or anything, until things changed and he bought a hermit crab named Sluggo. Esther realized that the crabs made him happy so she got involved and bought him more. Michael realized and thought “maybe she does care.” They then both changed and cared for each other.
Michael was loyal and dedicated when he shocked Clyde, the guy that was trying to rob his mother. in that scene he was showing loyalty to his mother by Shocking Clyde, his mom became safe from hid gun.
A lobster must shed its shell in order to grow. It takes about five to seven years for a lobster to become a legal size harvestable adult. Soft-shell is the term used for a newly molted lobster. A soft-shell lobster has a shell with room for growth. Soft-shell lobsters are not as full of meat because their new shell is larger than the muscle inside the body. The part not filled with its body’s muscle tissue is filled with water. Soft-shell lobsters may look big on the outside, but they have a much lower meat yield on the inside. Most adult lobsters molt from June to September depending upon location and water temperatures.
Michael is lonely and sad. his parents died and his Aunt Esther has to take him in (74). Cause of Michael’s parents being dead he is lonely. aunt Esther and Michael do not get along. That causes them to be even more lonely.
Towards the end michael starts to open up to his aunt and forms a relationship. In paragraph number 67 michael starts to tell his aunt his feelings and why he is so bashful since his parents died. Michael crawls out of his shell by opening up to his aunt. Also when the other hermit crabs are poured into sluggos cage he comes out of his shell because it no longer fits him. This shows that both sluggo and michael are ready to bond with others and no longer stay locked up in their own little world. This tells me that when sluggo came out of his shell he opened up to others and when michael crawled out of his he opened up to his aunt. Michael realized that it is ok to open up to people around
“Shells” by Cynthia Rylant is a realistic fiction short story about a 14-year-old boy and has to go live with his Aunt Esther because of his parents death. When his parents die nobody in his family wanted to step up and take him, but Aunt Esther is fiercely loyal to her family so she took him. In the beginning, Michael had to go live with his Aunt Esther and he was really hurt inside. When he was sad he would blame it on other people and Aunt Esther thinks that he hates her. In the middle, Aunt Esther starts to kind of realize how sad and hurt Michael really is. She tries to change her relationship with him, by buying him hermit crabs for companionship. In the end, Michael is comfortable with Aunt Esther, and their relationship became stronger and Aunt Esther finds out that Michael doesn’t really hate her. Throughout the story, Aunt Esther changes her relationship with Michael.
TS: The role that Leigh Anna and Michael’s real mother play in his life is like day and night.
...k with less than noble intentions. In the Baron, Michael discovers there are people willing to take advantage of children when he is coerced into breaking and entering. The narrator Michael explains that it was not until years into the future that he realized his misleading.
...ke a person experience a 180 change. It seems as if Mary Anne Bell’s a person who’s lost her cute personality after she was just too involved with the war that was going on. It has been said that a war can truly change a person so much that they can lose all their old characteristics or better yet their appearance. This quote was used to show how Mary Anne was starting to act grim and unusual. Also, this quote showed how different she speaks to her boyfriend and the ways she even finds her joy everything was and is different. This was unusal as Mary Anne because she obviously she loves her boyfriend a lot, but the unusual things is that not only is it that her personality changes but her appearances started to change also. Mary Anne’s appearance was just different and weird because it seemed as if she was just able to adjust her living styles to a common soldiers. “
Michael soon decides that if he can trust Joe enough to keep in silence, he may be able to out wit the police. When Michael makes his decision, he never considers the ramifications that will come of it. For example, Michael never even considers the long agonizing nights he will stay awake or the ling pain filled days he will go through thinking of Jenna Ward and her mother suffering day after day. On the contrary, Michael thinks he will be able to just move on and forget about it.
Growing up in rural mississippi, Anne’s family was very poor and surrounded by extreme racism. A few traumatic events near the beginning of the story seem to set a tone for the rest of the tale. In the first chapter, Anne’s house is burned to the ground. This is done by her cousin George, but Anne ends up with the blame. Anne is then punished for something that was not her fault. This is almost a recurring theme in the book, as Anne is continuously being punished or tormented throughout her life for having a darker skin color. Soon after this, Anne’s family is devastated when their father abandons them to run away with another woman. Anne’s mother, pregnant at the time, remains strong and finds a job in the city to support her children. Anne’s mother demonstrates determination and independence, and acts as a role model for Anne so that she too will not give up in the face of conflict and struggle.
In the novel, Esther Greenwood, the main character, is a young woman, from a small town, who wins a writing competition, and is sent to New York for a month to work for a magazine. Esther struggles throughout the story to discover who she truly is. She is very pessimistic about life and has many insecurities about how people perceive her. Esther is never genuinely happy about anything that goes on through the course of the novel. When she first arrives at her hotel in New York, the first thing she thinks people will assume about her is, “Look what can happen in this country, they’d say. A girl lives in some out-of-the-way town for nineteen years, so poor she can’t afford a
At the end of the novel, Esther finally see’s a light at the end of the tunnel. She finally realizes that there is hope for her to become healthy again. Once Esther realizes that she will not always feel as bad as she does, she also comes to the conclusion that all the negativity and questioning in her life have made her into the person she has become. Esther finally realizes what her true identity is and she is okay with who she has become.
Michael McDonald and his family were constantly subjected to oppression and discrimination due to their social status, skin color, and looks. They all moved several times trying to find an affordable and safer place where to live, but their quest was far beyond their reach and capabilities. The McDonalds were prisoners of their own social immobility which prevented them from prospering in life. Michael was less than a year old, when his mother, Helen McDonald, known as Ma moved with him and her other seven children to Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood of working-class Irish families, escaping the insecurities and oppression of Columbia Point, a mostly black neighborhood. Then, they move to Old Colony after being forced to leave Jamaica Plain because Ma’s dad believed they were deteriorating the house too rapidly and it represented a loss on its book value. They all live in Old Colony for a very long time, experiencing some of the worst crimes and life experiences before the ones that survived Southie’s lifestyle could ever being able to get out.
The beginning of the novel introduces the reader to Esther O'Malley Robertson as the last of a family of extreme women. She is sitting in her home, remembering a story that her grandmother told her a long time ago. Esther is the first character that the reader is introduced to, but we do not really understand who she is until the end of the story. Esther's main struggle is dealing with her home on Loughbreeze Beach being torn down, and trying to figure out the mysteries of her family's past.
...es these primitive standards, she becomes melancholy because she does not attune into the gender roles of women, which particularly focus on marriage, maternity, and domesticity. Like other nineteen year old women, Esther has many goals and ambitions in her life. Nevertheless, Esther is disparaged by society’s blunt roles created for women. Although she experiences a tremendous psychological journey, she is able to liberate herself from society’s suffocating constraints. Esther is an excellent inspiration for women who are also currently battling with society’s degrading stereotypes. She is a persistent woman who perseveres to accomplish more than being a stay at home mother. Thus, Esther is a voice for women who are trying to abolish the airless conformism that is prevalent in 1950’s society.