When Did You See Her Last is a mystery/autobiography written by Lemony Snicket about his noteworthy childhood. It is the second book in a series called All the Wrong Questions. In this book the main character, Lemony Snicket, is visiting a fading town called Stain’d-by-the-Sea with his chaperone, S. Theodora Markson. While in the lobby of a run-down hotel they are staying at, they receive their next task: to find a young scientist named Cleo Knight, who had disappeared from her house. On their way to investigate, Snicket saw a broken down Dilemma, the type of car Miss Knight drove. After researching at the library with his favorite librarian, Dashiell Qwerty, and one of his associates, Moxie Mallahan, he realized that this case was much more
than he expected. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone that likes interesting characters and unexpected plot twists. The whole time I was reading this book I thought about how terrific the author's craft was. “The world is a puzzle, and we cannot solve it alone.” This is an example of an inspiring metaphor from When Did You See Her Last. Lemony Snicket is also excellent at adding playful and amusing humor to his books. “There are many mysteries I have never solved, and the hair of my chaperone is perhaps my most curious unsolved case.” This when Lemony is describing his guardians wild hair. “Anyone who thinks the pen is mightier than the sword has not been stabbed with both.” This quote is from when Lemony is talking to his friend Jake. Another neat thing about When Did You See Her Last is the vocabulary. In the book Snicket uses words like slatternly, which means untidy, and prestigious, which means important, to strengthen his story. Considering figurative language, humor, and vocabulary, I would give When Did You See Her Last a ten out of ten.
Margaret Peterson sets her cliffhanger mystery book, Haddix: The Missing Found, in a modest neighborhood in Ohio. This book is in first person point of view, being told by the main character, Jonah Skidmore. The tone is fearful because Jonah voices his fears to his friend, Chip, multiples times throughout the story and usually has a fearful attitude when trying to overcome obstacles. Haddix: The Missing Found, is about a group of famous children from history who were stolen by futuristic time travelers and sent back to the 21st century as babies. These babies were soon adopted by random families around the world, and had a normal life. However, when they got to be around 13 years old, they start to get threatening letters sent to them telling them that they are, “one of the missing” (Peterson 20). These kids proceed to venture on a journey to find the person who is sending these creepy letters, and go through many obstacle along the way. Overall, I thought that Haddix: The Missing Found was a great read because it was very mysterious and kept me guessing the whole time I was reading, and I found that the characters were really relatable.
For my reading assignment I read “Car Trouble” by Jeanne Duprau. The story takes place in many cities in the United States. Some are real places like Richmond, Virginia, St. Louis, Missouri, and Los Angeles, California. The book also has some fictional towns like Sunville, New Mexico, a town built completely off of solar power and other natural resources. There are many more real and fake cities throughout the story, but the ones mentioned are the most written about and most important to the story.
This frustration acted as a vehicle for her to gain a desire to be more
The biographic features of a writer usually have an influence on the development of his or her literary creation. The biographic influence is especially strong on the literary work of Flannery O'Connor. Her life and experiences are reflected through her work in themes, characters, descriptions and style. There are two important features of her life, which had marked the short stories and novels of Flannery O'Connor: The South of the United States and her religion, Catholicism. These two aspects are reflected in her vision of life, society and above all in the vision of the human race.
When your dreams are set aside, delayed or deferred you can experience a number of different emotions. You might feel frustration or angst, angry at the obstacles that might be holding you back from pursuing your dream and worried that you may never be able to reach your goals. You may feel stuck or defeated, if you think that your dream has no sustenance to keep it alive. You could feel defensive if those who you would expect to support you in your pursuit of happiness are instead turning against you and resisting the actions that you are taking in order to reach your goals. When being presented with a life changing amount of money, a family can be torn apart in conflict or brought together in a unified front towards happiness.
The main character of this book is Susan Caraway, but everyone knows her as Stargirl. Stargirl is about 16 years old. She is in 10th grade. Her hair is the color of sand and falls to her shoulders. A “sprinkle” of freckles crosses her nose. Mostly, she looked like a hundred other girls in school, except for two things. She didn’t wear makeup and her eyes were bigger than anyone else’s in the school. Also, she wore outrageous clothes. Normal for her was a long floor-brushing pioneer dress or skirt. Stargirl is definitely different. She’s a fun loving, free-spirited girl who no one had ever met before. She was the friendliest person in school. She loves all people, even people who don’t play for her school’s team. She doesn’t care what others think about her clothes or how she acts. The lesson that Stargirl learned was that you can’t change who you are. If you change for someone else, you will only make yourself miserable. She also learned that the people who really care about you will like you for who you are. The people who truly love you won’t ask you to change who you are.
Lorraine Hansberry is the author of the play A Raisin in the Sun. This play is very significant because it was the first play written by a black playwright to win the Best Play of the Year Award. Another interesting point about the play is the title. The title A Raisin in the Sun also refers to Langston Hughes poem Harlem. In many ways Langston Hughes’ poem relates to Lorraine Hansberry’s play. In the play a family of black Americans have a chance to move ahead in the cruel prejudiced world. Lorraine Hansberry shows the frustrations that occur when one’s dreams are deferred. The Younger family in the play experiences these times of misery when those dreams are broken.
Wintergirls is a book related to eating disorders. The author’s purpose of writing this book is to inform readers what a person with an eating disorder. It depicts the inner and outer conflicts that characters like Lia and Cassie face with disorder. It all began with a competition between two characters of who can be the skinniest. Cassie dies in the attempt of winning the game. Lia, the main character in this novel, always keeps track of her food consumption. For example, one breakfast morning, Lia said she didn’t want “a muffin (410),…orange (75),…toast (87),…waffles (180)” (Anderson 5). Lia constantly keeps track of the calories she eats. Unlike Cassie who follows the path of bulimia, Lia inhibits herself from eating, therefore not getting the proper nutrients. This allows the readers to know how a person with a disorder like Lia can restrain herself from eating foods that we’re used to eating in our regular lives. Her ultimate goal frequently change, getting lower and lower each time. Lia strives for a “five hundred calories a day” (Anderson 189). Her constant change of goals allows the readers to know the struggles a girl with such a mindset may feel.
In the play, A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, one of the most important themes is the American Dream. Many of the characters in this play have hopes and aspirations; they all strive towards their goals throughout the play. However, many of the characters in the play have different dreams that clash with each other. Problems seem to arise when different people’s dreams conflict with one another; such as Walter’s versus Bennie’s, George’s versus Asagai’s, and the Clybourne Park versus the Younger’s.
Throughout the novel, How Huge the Night, each character faces their own personal struggles with God. Our spiritual battles can bring enlightening experiences, as well as eye-opening realizations. They spark a need for change and can motivate us to do good, though it’s not always easy to listen to our conscience. It’s hard to have faith during times of distress, especially if your life is on the line. When it’s life or death, we aren't usually thinking of anyone but ourselves. We give up on loving our enemies. We even lose hope that change will ever come. However, God uses opportunities like these to test our faith and potentially make our relationship with him stronger. When the world around us is overridden with sin, God assures us that even in the darkest times His light will guide us through..
Tillie Olsen was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1913, the child of political refugees from Russia. Olsen dropped out of school at the age of sixteen to help support her family during the depression. She became politically active in the Young Communist League and was involved in the Warehouse Union’s labor disputes in Kansas City. Her first novel, Yonnondio, about a poor, working-class family, was begun when she was nineteen. While writing the novel over the next four years, she gave birth to her first child and was left to raise the baby alone after her husband abandoned her. She married Jack Olsen in 1936 and had three more children. She remained politically active and held down various jobs while raising her family throughout the 1940s and early 1950s. In 1953 she was finally able to return to writing after her youngest child started to school.
"In "Lost in the Land of Oz", Madonna Kolbenschlag explores the way old societal myths, which are created from the metaphors in our life, are no longer useful in today's society. The author believes we need to embrace the ego archetype of the orphan, the most influential metaphor for the self, in order to become a whole and complete person. Madonna Kolbenschlag discusses how our society is particularly hostile towards women, resulting in an acute feeling of self-loathing, doubt, loneliness, and guilt. Today, women as the orphan feel a complete sense of powerlessness and abandonment, not only by everyone around her but also by God. Instead of suppressing our anxiety, Kolbenschlag advises that we should deal with it and remove the hidden layers of denial. We need to befriend the orphan within us and through all of this we will grasp a new insight and develop new spiritual consciousness.
In Beth Brant (Mohawk) “This is History,” the main theme in the story is to show readers that women came first and love each other in society. She is trying to find a identity for herself and have connections with things around her. She is willing to appreciate nature and earth. She is taking the beauty of everything around her. Including pregnancy and women. “First woman touched her body, feeling the movements inside, she touched the back of mother and waited for the beings to change her world.”
The novel, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other (2011) written by Sherry Turkle, presents many controversial views, and demonstrating numerous examples of how technology is replacing complex pieces and relationships in our life. The book is slightly divided into two parts with the first focused on social robots and their relationships with people. The second half is much different, focusing on the online world and it’s presence in society. Overall, Turkle makes many personally agreeable and disagreeable points in the book that bring it together as a whole.
In the play A Raisin in the Sun, a theme I can relate to is dreams. Throughout the play Lorraine Hansberry has very dynamic characters. She shows how much a person is willing to go through for their dream, and how other people can suffer.