Katherine was a cute girl - everyone said so. What with her freckles and her turned up nose, she was never shy a day in her life and maybe that was where the problems started. Her mother had passed away when she was sixteen years old, after a brief illness that left the family torn apart. Her father began to work late every night after her passing. It was as if he couldn't bear to be in the house without her. This left an outraged and broken girl free to make decisions that might not have been the best. Once the boys started to pay attention to her, she had no one to tell her to not fall for every line they threw her way. Perhaps she needed to hear how precious and loved she was. Perhaps she wasn't as bad as her father now believed her …show more content…
There was nothing left to say to him or hear from him. She walked out of the house that night and decided it was better to live on these horrible streets than to live with him in this state. Almost two months later, after living with anyone that would put her up for the night, she came to realize there was something wrong with her. She went to the emergency room. Truth be told, she was terrified that she had contracted some sexually transmitted disease. She signed in and the nurse had her pee in a cup. That was when the nurse informed her that she was pregnant. Sixteen, pregnant and not willing to discuss getting an abortion. Katherine felt hopeless. She was numb and just didn't care anymore. It wasn't like she had anyone to talk to and no one to tell what had happened that night. She was not even sure if that was the night she got pregnant since she had been drinking with the guys from school a lot and had made some pretty poor decisions. Some of those decisions had involved sex. She wasn't proud of those times when she sobered up and realized she had spent the night out in a car with a boy she had not until that day even spoken to in school. Now she was seeing the results of her all night binges with the boys and this knowledge would haunt her …show more content…
She was quite scared, angry, and miserable. She never bonded when the baby moved. She only felt hardness and coldness about the life she was carrying inside. The social worker at the hospital helped her get a job in an office doing filing and clerk work and that paid her just enough to pay for a one bedroom brownstone on the Southside of Birmingham. The old building pressed up against Red Mountain, it was a place to live in a colorful and relatively safe
The families living conditions were horrible. They lived in a very small apartment which at times had more than ten people living in it. Since LaJoe was a very friendly and considerate person, she brought many kids and adults "under her wing" and took care of them when in need. Some kids in the neighborhood even called her "mom." LaJoe did not have the heart to turn her back on anyone that appeared at her door.
The mother and daughter have a very distant relationship because her mother is ill and not capable to be there, the mother wishes she could be but is physically unable. “I only remember my mother walking one time. She walked me to kindergarten." (Fein). The daughter’s point of view of her mother changes by having a child herself. In the short story the son has a mother that is willing to be helpful and there for him, but he does not take the time to care and listen to his mother, and the mother begins to get fed up with how Alfred behaves. "Be quiet don't speak to me, you've disgraced me again and again."(Callaghan). Another difference is the maturity level the son is a teenager that left school and is a trouble maker. The daughter is an adult who is reflecting back on her childhood by the feeling of being cheated in life, but sees in the end her mother was the one who was truly being cheated. “I may never understand why some of us are cheated in life. I only know, from this perspective, that I am not the one who was.” (Fein). The differences in the essay and short story show how the children do not realize how much their mothers care and love
The narrator begins the story by recounting how she speculates there may be something wrong with the mansion they will be living in for three months. According to her the price of rent was way too cheap and she even goes on to describe it as “queer”. However she is quickly laughed at and dismissed by her husband who as she puts it “is practical in the extreme.” As the story continues the reader learns that the narrator is thought to be sick by her husband John yet she is not as convinced as him. According
She wanted time for herself and did not want to be on call 24-7 for her father. When Katy would express her concerns with her father he would say things such as “I am sorry I am such a burden on you” or “Your mother would not be very proud of you.”. Saying these things to Katy hurt her but she was ready. She looked into her past generation to see how they dealt with their aging parents.
Baby narrates her story through her naïve, innocent child voice. She serves as a filter for all the events happening in her life, what the narrator does not know or does not comprehend cannot be explained to the readers. However, readers have reason not to trust what she is telling them because of her unreliability. Throughout the beginning of the novel we see Baby’s harsh exposure to drugs and hurt. Jules raised her in an unstable environment because of his constant drug abuse. However, the narrator uses flowery language to downplay the cruel reality of her Montreal street life. “… for a kid, I knew a lot of things about what it felt like to use heroin” (10). We immediately see as we continue reading that Baby thinks the way she has been living her life is completely normal, however, we as readers understand that her life is in fact worse then she narrates. Baby knows about the impermanent nature of her domestic security, however, she repeatedly attempts to create a sense of home each time her and Jules move to another apartm...
...ve interest was free born and wished to marry her. However, after Harriet?s attempts to pursued her master to sell her to the young neighbor failed she was left worse off than before. Dr. Norcom was so cruel he forbade Harriet anymore contact with the young man. Harriet?s next love came when she gave birth to her first child. Her son Benny was conceived as a way to get around Dr. Norcom?s reign of terror. However, this is a subject that was very painful for her. She conveys to the reader that she has great regret for the length she went to stop her Master. Along with her own guilt she carries the memories of her Grandmother?s reaction to the news of her pregnancy. Clearly this was a very traumatic time in Harriet?s life. In light of these difficult events Harriet once again found love and hope in her new born son. ?When I was most sorely oppressed I found solace in his smiles. I loved to watch his infant slumber: but always there was a dark cloud over my enjoyment. I could never forget that he was a slave.? (Jacobs p. 62)
The thought of her brothers still being in her former home environment in Maine hurt her. She tried to think of a way to get at least one of her brothers, the sickly one, to come and be with her. She knew that her extended family was financially able to take in another child, and if she showed responsibility, there would be no problem (Wilson, 40). She found a vacant store, furnished it, and turned it into a school for children (Thinkquest, 5). At the age of seventeen, her grandmother sent her a correspondence, and requested her to come back to Boston with her brother (Thinkquest, 6).
...was a desperate act of a lonely, insane woman who could not bear to loose him. The structure of this story, however, is such that the important details are delivered in almost random order, without a clear road map that connects events. The ending comes as a morbid shock, until a second reading of the story reveals the carefully hidden details that foreshadow the logical conclusion.
... overall themes, and the use of flashbacks. Both of the boys in these two poems reminisce on a past experience that they remember with their fathers. With both poems possessing strong sentimental tones, readers are shown how much of an impact a father can have on a child’s life. Clearly the two main characters experience very different past relationships with their fathers, but in the end they both come to realize the importance of having a father figure in their lives and how their experiences have impacted their futures.
She suffered long-term physical, emotional, sexual, and verbal abuse from her parents; symptoms from her personal oppression were depressive and withdrawn attitude. Often she was very quiet and appeared unengaged and inattentive in class. The family lives in a public housing subsidy tenement and received public assistance from the State. Her first child, who she called "Mongo", because she was born with a disease called Down syndrome, lived with her grandmother, but on days the social worker would visit the grandmother would bring the child by to visit. Though the grandmother was very aware of the abuse that was taking place in the home, she turned a blind eye.
...alized that “a girl was not, as [she] had supposed, simply what [she] was; it was what [she] had to become” she was starting to admit defeat, and then finally when she begins to cry, it is here that the narrator understands that there is no escape from the pre-determined duties that go along with the passage of a child into being a girl, and a girl into a woman, and that “even in her heart. Maybe it (her understanding that conforming is unstoppable) was true”
... One of the women offers them drug but they reject it which they would accept the invitation before all of the incident. When the women says that the narrator and his two friends seem “ pretty bad characters”, the narrator just wants to cry. They finally get the acceptance into the world of being “bad guys” however, they want to run away from it. Boyle also tells the story in such transitional form, from night to day, from water to land to express the change of the three teenage characters which is from naive to mature.
Stepping out of the clinic into the broad daylight, tears ran down her face. She had actually done it. She had an abortion. She climbed into the back seat of the family station wagon and listened to the silence. What had she done?
The speaker reflects on the teenage girl’s childhood as she recalls the girl played with “dolls that did pee-pee” (2). This childish description allows the speaker to explain the innocence of the little girl. As a result, the reader immediately feels connected to this cute and innocent young girl. However, the speaker’s diction evolves as the girl grew into a teenager as she proclaims: “She was healthy, tested intelligent, / possessed strong arms and back, / abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity” (7-9). The speaker applies polished language to illustrate the teen. This causes the reader not only to see the girl as an adult, but also to begin to grasp the importance of her situation. The speaker expresses what the bullies told this girl as she explains: “She was advised to play coy, / exhorted to come on hearty” (12-13). The sophisticated diction shifts towards the girl’s oppressors and their cruel demands of her. Because of this, the reader is aware of the extent of the girl’s abuse. The speaker utilizes an intriguing simile as she announces: “Her good nature wore out / like a fan belt” (15-16). The maturity of the speaker’s word choice becomes evident as she uses a simile a young reader would not understand. This keeps the mature reader focused and allows him to fully understand the somberness of this poem. The speaker concludes the poem as she depicts the teenage girl’s appearance at her funeral: “In the casket displayed on satin she lay / with the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on” (19-20). The speaker elects not to describe the dead girl in an unclear and ingenuous manner. Rather, she is very clear and
Her daughter, Emily has not received the love and attention she needed as a child. Being a young, single working mother, she placed Emily in several different childcare situations, where she was neglected and unloved. Emily has cried to her mother many times thinking it would get her the attention and love she so dearly craves. For example when being picked up from daycare, her mother says, “when she saw me she would break into a clogged weeping I can hear yet”. The mother has come to terms with the fact that she did what she had to do in order for her and her daughter to survive.