Ashes of Roses by Mary Jane Auch tells the story of Rose Nolan, a sixteen-year-old girl who immigrated to America. All members of her family returned to their home in Ireland except her twelve-year-old sister Maureen. Rose and Maureen stay in America alone and support themselves with a job at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The factory burns down and the two sisters survive and decide to stay in America. Maureen behaves like a child, but is forced to mature quickly and act like an adult. At the beginning of the story, Maureen behaves like an immature young girl. She is stubborn about wanting her own berth on the ship. The author states, “Next to us was Maureen, the middle sister who made it clear from the beginnin’ that she wasn’t sharin’ a bunk with anyone. …show more content…
In the middle of the story, Maureen shows that she’s growing up when she decides to stay with Rose in America. She chooses to stay in America with Rose because she wants a better life. The author states, “And I can work at home makin’ those stems, so it won’t cost ye anything to have me here. I’ll earn my own way.” (113) This illustrates that Maureen is maturing by offering to contribute financially to support herself while in the new country. At the end of the story, Maureen chooses to work for a subcontractor at the factory rather than attend school. At only twelve years old, she was too young to get a job, so the subcontractor assisted her in securing one. Maureen shows ambition with her willingness to work to make money to support herself. The text states, “Rose, just listen for a minute”. If we each had a job, we might be able to get our own place. We wouldn’t have to answer to anybody.” (198) This reveals Maureen is acting like an adult and
April Henry doesn’t really give a whole lot of information, at the beginning of the book. Throughout the book, you learn about the characters, where the setting is, learn about the plot, and about the moral of the story.
In Rose 's essay he gives personal examples of his own life, in this case it’s his mother who works in a diner. “I couldn 't put into words when I was growing up, but what I
Ulf Kirchdorfer, "A Rose for Emily: Will the Real Mother Please Stand Up?” ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, 10/2016, Volume 29, Issue 4, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0895769X.2016.1222578
From being able to save up money to buy a car and move out to West Virginia and then leaving the responsibility of finances and income to her children, Rose Mary Wall’s helped put Jeanette and her siblings through a hard and tough childhood. Although, a debate could be made that with all the awful impacts that the mother had on her children, all she really did was actually positively influence them to be able to conquer any hardship that they may face in their life. In the end, Rose Mary Wall’s character of being independent, unreasonable, and stubborn did both positively and negatively impact her children’s lives through the hardships they all faced
As Janie is growing up she has to learn to accept her Nanny’s belief of how a woman is supposed to live in society. Nanny grew up in slavery so she believes that the role of men is to support his wife financially. Nanny thinks Janie should marry a man according to how successful he is and Janie should keep up the household responsibilities. Janie’s grandmother said, “Ah been waitin’ a long time, Janie, but nothin’ Ah I
Janie's Grandmother is the first bud on her tree. She raised Janie since she was a little girl. Her grandmother is in some respects a gardener pruning and shaping the future for her granddaughter. She tries to instill a strong belief in marriage. To her marriage is the only way that Janie will survive in life. What Nanny does not realize is that Janie has the potential to make her own path in the walk of life. This blinds nanny, because she is a victim of the horrible effects of slavery. She really tries to convey to Janie that she has her own voice but she forces her into a position where that voice is silenced and there for condemning all hopes of her Granddaughter become the woman that she is capable of being.
Pete, representing erratic male rage in the novel, has a history of abusing Rose. This climaxes when he breaks her arm. It follows a terrible logic that since male rage hurts her body, so does her own, the impetus of which is provided by the patriarchal system. Ginny's description of Pete fits Rose equally well, with an anger that "would be quiet, but corrosive, erupting at odd times" (31).
Rose Mary is a selfish woman and decides not to go to school some mornings because she does not feel up to it. Jeannette takes the initiative in making sure that her mother is prepared for school each morning because she knows how much her family needs money. Even though Rose Mary starts to go to school every day, she does not do her job properly and thus the family suffers financially again. When Maureen’s birthday approaches, Jeannette takes it upon herself to find a gift for her because she does not think their parents will be able to provide her with one. Jeannette says, “at times I felt like I was failing Maureen, like I wasn’t keeping my promise that I’d protect her - the promise I’d made to her when I held her on the way home from the hospital after she’d been born. I couldn’t get her what she needed most- hot
If she stayed in New York, she would always be a part of the Walls family and she couldn’t handle that. Maureen needed space to figure out who Maureen was, not who Maureen Walls was. She needed to get away and she always dreamed of going to California (276, Walls). She lived in California for a short period of time when she was a baby and when Jeannette, Brian, and Lori talked about what it was like to live in the Valley of the Sun, Maureen knew she wanted to go back there someday. I think it was very important for Maureen to go to California and figure out what she wanted to do with her life and also to get away from her family. She needed some time to be alone and this was probably the perfect thing for her to do at the time. However, when Maureen announces that she’s moving to California, Jeannette feels it’s her fault that Maureen wanted to leave them. Jeannette promised Maureen when she was just a day old that she would always protect and on the day she left, she felt she let Maureen down (46, 276, Walls). It wasn’t just Jeannette who was sad that Maureen was leaving, the entire family was. The youngest of the Walls family was leaving, and it was hard on everyone. “Something in all of us broke that day, and afterward, we no longer had the spirit for family gatherings.” (277, Walls) However sad it was that Maureen left, I will always think she did the best thing for herself. She couldn’t handle her parents or the
In William Faulkner’s short story, “A Rose for Emily”, the butler is directly related to the traditional values in the older generation. Because of his status and race the butler is not allowed to openly express his ideals like Emily is allowed to. The butler’s role is to display the traditions of the older southern generation. The butler serves his role thorough this story by being excessively loyal and protective of Emily, by fulfilling his duty as a servant, and by being racial discriminated against from people in the town.
Mothers always tend to want the best for their children so that their kids do not struggle in life and become dependent on their parents. Rose Mary Walls from “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls acts like the complete opposite from mothers who want the best for their kids. Rose Mary goes through her own struggles throughout the book but she decides to create wrong choices by not working when her children need her the most. Each of her four children are brilliant in their own ways especially Jeannette and Lori who find their way out of Welches and head to New York followed then by Brian. The three of them became successful on their own but their mom did help them in a different way when compared to other mothers. The youngest daughter, Maureen,
Once Janie was of age to have serious relationships, Janie’s grandmother tried to guide Janie in the direction of the upper class and money. The point was so that Janie would never have to work a day in her life and only have to fulfill her normal housewife duties. But once word got
One may have heard the simple saying that “Love can make you do crazy things.” Many adults can confirm that the saying proves true; one could even spend a few hours watching CSI type of shows that portray the stories of two love-struck people becoming cold-hearted killers just to be with their significant other. Why would they be so desperate to be together that they would kill anyone who got in between them? Desperation so serve that they would even kill a loved one? It could be that as children they were deprived of love and nourishment that children normally receive. This deprivation of love led them to cling to anyone that made them think they were being love. In A Rose for Emily and Tell-Tale Heart a character murders someone who they love. The two works, share similarities and differences when it comes to the characters, the narratives point of view and reason for killing a loved one.
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.
The Flowers By Alice Walker Written in the 1970's The Flowers is set in the deep south of America and is about Myop, a small 10-year old African American girl who explores the grounds in which she lives. Walker explores how Myop reacts in different situations. She writes from a third person perspective of Myop's exploration. In the first two paragraph Walker clearly emphasises Myop's purity and young innocence.