In the United States, nearly 800,000 children are reported to be missing every year (“Key Facts”). Approximately 40% of these children are either “killed or never recovered” (“When a child…”). Elizabeth Smart, a victim of abduction, was not part of this statistic. She was finally rescued and reunited with her family after nine months of being held captive. Ten years after her abduction, she released her memoir My Story. In her memoir, Elizabeth Smart stated she used her faith and strong love for her family to stay alive during these nine months. She stated that her return to her family could not have been possible without the strong determination and courage she had. Smart’s memoir My Story highlights that in the toughest conditions, determination …show more content…
is essential to overcoming hardships. Smart’s tragic story begins on the night of June 5th, 2002, when the fourteen- year-old was abducted by Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, from her home.
For the next nine months, she was chained up, repeatedly raped, abused, and neglected. Mitchell used his perceived notions of Christianity and the concept of “God’s will” to justify his actions. Smart would go weeks without food or water. On many occasions, Mitchell would command her to drink alcohol, even though he knew it was against her religion. During her imprisonment, Elizabeth was subjected to horrific acts and mistreated by both Mitchell and Barzee. Regardless of what she was forced to undergo, Smart never let her captors’ abuse affect her will to live. Smart stayed resilient and kept herself determined to free herself from her …show more content…
situation. Smart sets the narrative for her memoir through her usage of tone. My Story is a novel that has the very mature topic of kidnapping and rape, yet the novel is written in a mild language that invites her audience to be enthralled in her book. The book is written in a language that evokes emotions in the reader. The tone she uses provokes a sense of comfort as if to almost foreshadow a happy ending. The outlining of many of the painful experiences Smart had to go through was always underlined with a pledge of hope and faith. She quotes in her book, “But the human spirit is resilient. God made us so. He gave us the ability to forgive. To leave our past behind. To look forward instead of back” (Smart 299). Through Smart’s approach of using a particular tone, she is able to impact the reader’s connection to the story; which, further enables her to convince the readers to feel an awareness of anticipation throughout the entire memoir. Although her memoir My Story showcased the traumatic event of her kidnapping, her story was one of true bravery and resoluteness.
The theme of this story is that one’s determination and courage can defy the impossible. Elizabeth’s recovery and revival have been dedicated to her faith and her remembrance of family. Smart stated she would pray to God in times of need. Her faith kept her alive during these harsh nine months. At her weakest moments, she would recognize the need to survive by acknowledging her family and friends. Smart’s astounding willpower dictated her situation, and it helped her realize that one day she would be no longer under her captor’s imprisonment. When a police officer finally recognized her, she stated, “For a moment, my world seemed to absolutely stop. I looked at him. He looked at me. I felt calm. I felt assured. Months of fear and pain seemed to melt before the sun. I felt a sweet assurance” (Smart 275). Due to her remarkable resilience against her captors, after nine cruel months, Smart was able to be returned to her
family. Despite her situation, Elizabeth Smart challenged the odds against her. Ten years after her abduction, she wrote her memoir to reveal the challenges she faced while under the confinement of her kidnapper. Even with the context of the situation, Smart dictates her memoir to have the reader at ease. With her words, she brings a sense of hopefulness into the story. Through her usage of tone, she evokes a feeling of solace within the reader. Smart’s memoir shows her audience that even in the most strenuous events, determination can affect a person’s mindset and provoke their courage and desire to live.
Diane Urban, for instance, was one of the many people who were trapped inside this horror. She “was comforting a woman propped against a wall, her legs virtually amputated” (96). Flynn and Dwyer appeal to the reader’s ethical conscience and emotions by providing a story of a victim who went through many tragedies. Causing readers to feel empathy for the victims. In addition, you began to put yourself in their shoes and wonder what you would do.
One Child’s Courage to Survive. “ A Child Called It ” Abstract This is one of the best, yet saddest books that I have ever read. There are so many bad things out there that are happening to good people. We just have no idea.
Martha Elizabeth shows her love and patience when she first goes to retrieve her drunken father from Ben Feltner’s house. She doesn’t ask Thad to get in the wagon and come home, she tenderly leads him to it and helps steady him as he climbs up. Margaret tells Andy that she remembers very clearly how gentle Martha Elizabeth was with her father that day. Thad felt it a relief “to climb into the wagon under the pressure of her hand on his arm”. (Berry, 21) This shows the power of Marth Elizabeth’s patient love, it calmed her father and he felt at rest in her presence.
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...
In conclusion, Jane has been through oppression and depression but she stands up for what she believes in. Jane gains her femininity, socialization, individuality and freedom. Her husband, who has been oppressing her for so many years, is no longer her prison guard. Jane defies her husband, creeps right over him and claims her life” so, that I had to creep over him every time” (Gilman 1609). Jane is now her own personal freedom through perseverance.
Could you ever imagine what it would be liked to be taken from the once place you are supposed to feel the safest and then being held captive under excruciating fear? More people than anyone would care to think about know exactly what it's like, one of those many being Elizabeth Smart. Elizabeth Smart had to overcome many obstacles throughout the entire ordeal, the main portion of the hard times lasting nine months. Elizabeth went through many emotional high points; fear, the pure will to survive, and her quest for freedom and putting it all behind her.
What would you do if one day, you were having regular conversations with your child and the next day, they are gone without a trace? In Linwood Barclay’s book Fear the Worst this happens to Tim Blake when his daughter, Sydney Blake disappears. As Tim retraces her steps, he discovers that the suburban Connecticut town he thought was ideal, is anything but and that leaves him to only fear the worst. The title of this book can tell a story based on Tim’s effort and feelings in the situation, correlations between his actions and a real parents reactions, and why the author would choose this title above all others.
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Elizabeth as a Woman of Independent Mind in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice In Jane Austen's novel 'Pride and Prejudice', Elizabeth Bennet is shown to be an opinionated, "headstrong" young woman. Her unconventional independence challenges the 19th century stereotype of high society women, who tended to conform to the expectations of society. Though her prejudiced judgement of others fails her sometimes, Elizabeth has "a lively, playful disposition, that" delights "in anything ridiculous". Although different in character to most women of her society, Elizabeth still manages to express much propriety in the presence of company.
This Article is based on a Story about a 8-Year old girl named Relisha Rudd who went missing in 2014 after her mother allowed her to go with the janitor. Relisha rudd was living in a homeless shelter with her mother and always looked for a way out no matter what it was. She tried to stay after school even though they wouldn’t let her, she would beg for her family to come get her and she even went as far as to making friends with the 43 year old janitor and started calling him “ God Daddy “. The family trusted him and never felt they had a reason to doubt his generosity towards relisha because every time he would pick relisha up to either take her for ice cream or to go shopping he would always bring her back. Until one day he didn’t , and they
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Most women in Mrs Mallard’s situation were expected to be upset at the news of her husbands death, and they would worry more about her heart trouble, since the news could worsen her condition. However, her reaction is very different. At first she gets emotional and cries in front of her sister and her husbands friend, Richard. A little after, Mrs. Mallard finally sees an opportunity of freedom from her husbands death. She is crying in her bedroom, but then she starts to think of the freedom that she now has in her hands. “When she abandoned herse...
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