Intermediate Between Black and White
Gray is not a colour, but an intermediate between black and white. It can be written many ways, from grey, gray, graye, or even grai. Like the word’s different of being spelled, it also has various meanings. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, gray is used to describe the dull or cold light of twilight, or a day when the sky is over-clouded (Anonymous). However, the Oxford English Dictionary also defines gray as being a way to describe old age, the sunless light of the morning, or even a dull, anonymous or faceless person (Anonymous). Often, the phrase “shades of gray” is used in a figurative manner to portray the area between right and wrong, good and bad, or even certainty and uncertainty. Sometimes, shades of gray can be representative of hope. In the inspiring novel, Between shades of gray, set during the Lithuanian deportation by the Soviets, Ruta Sepetys examines the survival of hope in humans when they are subjected to the worst of circumstances. Together, the deportees see past the sombre reality of their situation and help each other through the difficult times. Together, they cling to the hope of one day going back home, and living again. It is that hope that keeps them alive, and pushes them to keep on going when they have nothing left. The characters that help the Lithuanians see beyond black and white are namely Kretzky, an NKVD officer, Elena, the main character Lina’s mother, Mrs. Arvydas, Andrius’ mother, and Lina, herself.
The ever-present theme of shades of gray is uncovered in even the most peculiar places in Ruta Sepetys’ heartbreaking narrative. When Lina, her mother and her little brother are taken from their home and brought to a gulag in Siberia, the reader ...
... middle of paper ...
...VD officer did so by helping the Lithuanians obtain food and some necessities. He did not fit the usual NKVD stereotype. Ruta Sepetys, through Elena and Mrs. Arvydas, proves that mothers will often do what ever it takes to ensure their children’s survival. But often, people find in themselves the will to fight for their lives, or what they believe in. This fact is proven through Lina’s character.
Works Cited
Anonymous. "Grey." 1 September 2011. Oxford English Dictionary. 29 November 2011 .
Mia, Marirosa. "Between Shades of Gray." 14 March 2011. Please Don't Read This Book. 1 December 2011 .
Sepetys, Ruta. Between Shades of Gray. Toronto: Puffin Group, 2011.
Codrescu goes more in depth on his mother’s bereft when she left from Romania and her immense pain when she first arrived in the US. She explains to him about her loss of culture and her identity and traumatizing childhood. His mother’s imponderable of buying organic food and her dislike of the social isolation. His mother goes on a
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, is one of the most famous historical fiction books ever written. This 352 paged book has inspired many teens to acknowledge the Genocide of Baltic people. Ruta Sepetys was inspired to write a fiction book instead of a non-fiction book based on the stories she heard from survivors of the genocide during a visit to her relatives in Lithuania. She interviewed dozens of people during her stay. Between Shades of Gray was her first novel that she had written. This book was interpreted well enough by the readers to become a New York Times Bestseller.
This work paints a very vivid picture of the world of the immigrant of the early 1900's. It makes the reader think about the injustices that existed then, and to some extent, still. exist. Then the symphony of the symphony of the The story seems to be true to life, and not the least bit. contrived. The snares The reader is wrapped up in the life of Jurgis Rudkus.
Demetria Martínez’s Mother Tongue is divided into five sections and an epilogue. The first three parts of the text present Mary/ María’s, the narrator, recollection of the time when she was nineteen and met José Luis, a refuge from El Salvador, for the first time. The forth and fifth parts, chronologically, go back to her tragic experience when she was seven years old and then her trip to El Salvador with her son, the fruit of her romance with José Luis, twenty years after she met José Luis. And finally the epilogue consists a letter from José Luis to Mary/ María after her trip to El Salvador. The essay traces the development of Mother Tongue’s principal protagonists, María/ Mary. With a close reading of the text, I argue how the forth chapter, namely the domestic abuse scene, functions as a pivotal point in the Mother Tongue as it helps her to define herself.
The setting of these two stories emphasize, on visually showing us how the main characters are based around trying to find freedom despite the physical, mental and emotional effects of living in confinement. While on the other hand, dealing with Psychology’s ugly present day behavior showing dystopia of societies views of women during the time period they lived.
The use of mass terror was one of the most representative characteristics of the Stalinist regime. The Gulag embodied the constant and large scale use of fear by the Bolsheviks to administer the population. Varlam Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales and Fyodor Mochulsky’s Gulag Boss stood out by their treatment of the question. While relating the same events, namely the daily routine of an arctic Gulag, these two works dealt with this topic from two diametrically opposed perspectives. Indeed, Shalamov was a political prisoner for seventeen years while Mochulsky was a supervisor in the camp. Therefore, their experience of the Gulag diverged in nearly every aspect. Furthermore, Mochulsky and Shalamov pursued different designs. On the one hand, Shalamov attempts to depict the Gulag’s ability to dehumanize prisoners. On the other hand, Mochulsky wrote his book after the fall of the USSR. As a former guard, he attempted to justify his past behavior, not to say exonerate himself.
In describing the setting, the general locale is the prison in the coldest part of Russia- Siberia, geographically but socially depicting the social circumstances in the prison, but draws analogies to the general social, political and economic circumstances of Russia during the Stalinist era (form 1917 revolution up to 1955). The symbolic significance of the novel and the film (genres) reflects experiences, values and attitudes of the Russian society. The genres reflect the origins of the Russian social disorders and massive counts of political misgivings which watered down real communism in Russia. We are constantly reminded of the social and cultural heritage and originality of Russian ethnic groups through those different levels of meanings
In the age of industrialization when rural life gradually was destroyed, the author as a girl who spent most of her life in countryside could not help writing about it and what she focuses on in her story - femininity and masculinity, which themselves contain the symbolic meanings - come as no surprise.
In “Hills Like White Elephants” and “The Story of an Hour”, the woman in each story imprisons in the domestic sphere. In “Hills Like White Elephants”, the woman in this story conflicts between keeping the baby or getting abortion although the relationship with her boyfriend would not improve as he said. In “The Story of an Hour”, even though Louise Mallard, an intelligent, independent woman understands that she should grieve for Brently, her husband and worry for her future, she cannot help herself from rejoice at her newfound freedom. The author of this story, Kate Chopin suggests that even with a happy marriage, the loss of freedom and the restraint are the results that cannot be avoid.
Being one of the greatest Russian writers of 20th century, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn had a unique talent that he used to truthfully depict the realities of life of ordinary people living in Soviet era. Unlike many other writers, instead of writing about “bright future of communism”, he chose to write about everyday hardships that common people had to endure in Soviet realm. In “Matryona’s Home”, the story focuses on life of an old peasant woman living in an impoverished collectivized village after World War 2 . In the light of Soviet’s propaganda of creating a new Soviet Nation, the reader can observe that Matryona’s personality and way of life drastically contradicted the desired archetype of New Soviet Man. Like most of the people in her village,
Solzhenitsyn believed that it was nearly impossible to have truly free thoughts under the prison camp conditions described in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, or in any situation where there is an authoritarian ruler. In a pris...
Political prisoners and criminals alike were subject to brutal conditions in the Soviet gulags at Kolyma in the 20th century. In Varlam Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales, the stories of many different prisoners are told and much is revealed about how humans react under these pressures, both naturally and socially. Being in an extreme environment not only takes a toll on one’s physical well-being, but on one’s mental and emotional state as well. The stories show that humans can be reduced to a fragile, animalistic state while in the Kolyma work camps because the extreme conditions force many men to focus solely on self-preservation.
The concept how woman are treated in modern times have changed drastically compared to woman who lived in the conservative period. That period was the time where the perception of individuals in general dealt with countless restraints. The women were the ones who were affected the most because these values had strongly influenced them. Woman behaved in a way how their husband’s wanted because they were living their lives by the controlled ways of the man. The story of “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the story of “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin are two stories that show accurately the way how women were treated at that time; exactly Edna and the other women. I want to discuss that the main characters of these two stories; Edna and the other women’s liberty were interdicted by their husbands. Finally, the way how both stories end; Edna’s suicide, and the other women’s insanity; demonstrates their inability to escape from the unhappy reality. None of them found the real strength, to outdo the restriction and effects of society, to attain their independence and freedom that they continuously wanted to achieve.
Between Shades of Gray was a phenomenal book in a different perspective of World War ll. The story is told by Lina, a girl during the devastating hardships she, her mother, and brother experience when they get captured and taken to a Soviet prison camp. She takes a long journey cramped in a train car with the other prisoners, many that don’t survive. When she and the survivors make it to the camp they face struggles like no other such as starvation, harsh winters, and illnesses. She also must be away from her father because he and other men are taken to another prison camp somewhere in Siberia. This book gives the outlook on someone who is confident in Hitler to do good. She believes that he can push the Soviets out of her country, and she can come home.
Mariam and Laila are considerate, bold and protective while all their rights as humans are being oppressed. They can be courageous when there is everything to be afraid of, yet they take the risk, because they know it is right. Both will protect when they haven’t been protected from the danger of oppression. Laila and Mariam can be sympathetic in an inconsiderate world. Together, Mariam and Laila exemplify the hidden defiance against oppression, a burning fire counterattacking the darkness.