Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood “Memories of Girlhood” by bell hooks is a story of a young who would rather read a book than doing her share during wash day. The main character and her sisters enjoy watching their mom put the clothes through the wringer after they are rinsed in huge buckets of water. One day, the came home from school and their mother showed them how to iron by pressing sheet, however they especially hate being told that nothing was ironed correctly and they must redo the entire basket. The first person point of view gives the reader more intimate knowledge of the narrator's pain and emotions as she burns herself. By witnessing the events of through the eyes of the young girl, the reader can better understand her pain and
...ltimately makes the young girl feel that she will break underneath all the pressure she is placed upon by her peers. Inevitably it seems that Judith Ortiz Cofer used similes in order to connect both the act of maturing to a much more somber factor which have reinforced the tenor of the poem.
This story is fairly unique, as it is made up of several smaller tales. It starts off simply enough, as the main character fondly recalls a red plaid shirt that her mother bought for her one summer. Schoemperlen further builds up the plot as the main character discloses every detail that she can remember about the shirt, as well as many other articles of clothing. These details are gradually strung together into the sometimes unfortunate memories that form the story line. The reader cannot help but become involved in the story, for it is such a personal account of the protagonist’s life. Many of the readers have probably felt the same way about a few select articles of their own clothing, and attached the...
...ther is losing her daughter to time and circumstance. The mother can no longer apply the word “my” when referring to the daughter for the daughter has become her own person. This realization is a frightening one to the mother who then quickly dives back into her surreal vision of the daughter now being a new enemy in a world already filled with evils. In this way it is easier for the mother to acknowledge the daughter as a threat rather than a loss. However, this is an issue that Olds has carefully layered beneath images of war, weapons, and haircuts.
The youth are acknowledged for having innocence, and witnessing certain events can take it away. In Sarah’s Key by Tatiana De Rosnay experiences cause innocence to be lost. Losing freedom affects an individual personality, making the person more mature. Losing hope causes an individual to change their views on life. A person’s family dying causes a lifetime of pain. When experiencing a horrible event, one should not let it change them.
After hearing a brief description of the story you might think that there aren’t many good things about they story. However, this is false, there are many good things in this book that makes it a good read. First being that it is a very intriguing book. This is good for teenage readers because often times they don’t willingly want to read, and this story will force the teenage or any reader to continue the book and continue reading the series. Secondly, this is a “good” book because it has a good balance of violence. This is a good thing because it provides readers with an exciting read. We hear and even see violence in our everyday life and I believe that it is something teenagers should be exposed to. This book gives children an insig...
The stories “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, are different in many ways, but are also similar. “I Stand Here Ironing” and “Everyday Use” both focus on the relationships of the mother and daughter, and on the sibling’s relationships with each other. Emily from “I Stand Here Ironing” and Maggie from “Everyday Use” have different relationships with their mothers, but have similar relationships with their sisters. Although the stories are similar in that Emily and Maggie are both distant from their sisters, they differ in that the mother is distant from Emily in “I Stand Here Ironing,” while the mother is close to Maggie in “Everyday Use.”
She begins talking about her childhood and who raised her until she was three years old. The woman who raised her was Thrupkaew’s “auntie”, a distant relative of the family. The speaker remembers “the thick, straight hair, and how it would come around [her] like a curtain when she bent to pick [her] up” (Thrupkaew). She remembers her soft Thai accent, the way she would cling to her auntie even if she just needed to go to the bathroom. But she also remembers that her auntie would be “beaten and slapped by another member of my family. [She] remembers screaming hysterically and wanting it to stop, as [she] did every single time it happened, for things as minor as…being a little late” (Thrupkaew). She couldn’t bear to see her beloved family member in so much pain, so she fought with the only tool she had: her voice. Instead of ceasing, her auntie was just beaten behind closed doors. It’s so heart-breaking for experiencing this as a little girl, her innocence stolen at such a young age. For those who have close family, how would it make you feel if someone you loved was beaten right in front of you? By sharing her story, Thrupkaew uses emotion to convey her feelings about human
The young girl sprawls on comfortably as a way of the illustrating her rebellion, as this is not the appropriate position to have one’s portrait taken. Also, the girl seems to be from a well of family since her dress is a fashion-forward, her shawl and bow matches with her socks. Her hair is neatly placed in clean and neat shoes that that seems to be new as they have buckles that sparkle. Conversely, the little girl has insignificant concern for all this primness where her unselfconscious pose presents a novel image regarding childhood (Jones
Innocence is something always expected to be lost sooner or later in life, an inevitable event that comes of growing up and realizing the world for what it truly is. Alice Walker’s “The Flowers” portrays an event in which a ten year old girl’s loss of innocence after unveiling a relatively shocking towards the end of the story. Set in post-Civil War America, the literary piece holds very particular fragments of imagery and symbolism that describe the ultimate maturing of Myop, the young female protagonist of the story. In “The Flowers” by Alice Walker, the literary elements of imagery, symbolism, and setting “The Flowers” help to set up a reasonably surprising unveiling of the gruesome ending, as well as to convey the theme of how innocence disappears as a result of facing the harsh reality of this world.
Motherhood in never guaranteed to by easy. Children definitely do not come with instruction manuals and even if they did there are so many variables, such as the national economy and unexpected single motherhood, that are beyond our control. The choices a mother has to make can cause numerous moments of second guessing and immense guilt. “I Stand Here Ironing” explores the perceived failures and gnawing guilt of a post- Depression era mother as she contemplates the childhood circumstances of her oldest, overlooked, and seemingly troubled child. Throughout the story Tillie Olsen takes us through the depths of a mother’s guilt due to pressures of the economy and society on parenting during her time and how much blame she puts on herself for her
...e last beating she received from Hy-Lo, a recovery from the loss of her cat, a recovery from the emotional stress of listening to her mother and brother get beaten, and eventually a recovery from a broken life. The importance of the theme of forgiveness cannot be overlooked either as she struggles to leave behind the man that stole the childhood she deserved to have. He seems warmer and dies almost immediately after she forgives him, almost as if he too needed to be forgiven in order to move on. She is able to face the future by obtaining recovery through forgiveness, forgiveness through understanding, and understanding through confronting her past. McFadden paints a vivid picture and helps us understand the impacts of an abusive past in a very real way that leaves a deep impact on the reader. Even though it's difficult to read about abuse, I thought this was a good
Oates creates a vision for the reader of a powerless child in need of mental help and reacting violently to a tragedy. The emotional distress Aaron struggles through his entire life demonstrates how severely his life is im...
These authors want us also to see the little girl as the main focus point of the picture and see the amount of pain she is showing us emotionally.
It had been painful digging through their belongings. What remained in those trunks was all she had left of her parents. With shaking hands and an aching heart, each article was lovingly touched. There was her father’s favorite jacket that had the faintest smell of his spice cologne, and her mother’s delicate perfume bottles that she painstakingly collected from the different countries they had
The term “beauty” in the story does not stands for physical appearance, but it stands for inner beauty. Alice states the fact that beauty must be achieved by ignoring others. When Alice was eight year old she got in an incident with her brother that took away her right eye’s sight. When she went to school, she got bullied by the students in school because of the scar on her eye.Therefore, she begins losing confident and failing her classes. Knowing that Alice got bullied in class, her parent decided to send her back to her old community for her own benefit; however, what does an eight years old girl could think of her parent behavior?She feels as a flaw in the eyes of her parents because of the accident and never thought that it for he own benefit. Alice life perspective changed from positive to negative after the incident with her brother and the behavior of her parents.