“‘Dead girl walking’ the boys say in the hall. ‘Tell us your secrets’ the girls whisper, one toilet to another.‘ I am that girl. I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through, ... I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.’" (Lea, Wintergirls, pg. 19) When I read Wintergirls instantly it, brought up memories; memories I thought I had long since buried inside along with the deep sense of inadequacy. Even after seven years of recovery a silly book can trudge up thoughts and desires to let your monsters drag you back into that dark world. I met Jessica in late spring of 2006. She had flawless peaches n' cream skin that people killed for and her hair was the colour of a pumpkin cookie, but what I noticed most was her dancer’s thin body. She was so unique I instantly began to critique myself under my breath "fat thighs, flabby arms, and a pudgy stomach" I took a deep breath reminded myself that I would not break and marched over to her and my other friends. Right away we became friends, we had so much in common from the music we liked to both at the time being vegetarians. It would be a few months before we realized that the biggest …show more content…
thing we had in common was a dangerous sense of self control and no ill regard for the demons within us. We formed an unhealthy bond by taking turns looking out while one of us would sneak off to the bathroom or giving encouraging words when hunger pains would rack our tiny bodies begging us to give in and eat something. At some point we began to silently compete against each other we were still friends, but it was clear that we both strived to be the winner. In the book Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson, Lea is dealing with the death of her friend Cassie after a binge and purge session that goes wrong, she becomes haunted by Cassie's spirit and finds herself losing control of her own life, sinking into an abyss of self-induced starvation and cutting that can only lead to her own self destruction. There we're many similarities in the book between Cassie and Lea and myself and Jessica. Cassie cuts Lea off when Lea ended up in a treatment facility, her parents blamed Lea's influence on Cassie's problem so Cassie followed suit. People began to catch on to Jessica once she started doing drugs. Personally, I think she just stopped caring if people knew, they couldn't stop her anyway; but I like Cassie didn't want to be associated with Jessica so I cut her out of my life never to speak to her again till we both had recovered many years later. .
Like Cassie in the book I regularly purged, Cassie died, her esophagus ruptured during her last purge. Two years had passed since I started purging what little I decided to eat and like Cassie it had started to take a toll on my esophagus. One day after a stressful class and a fight with friends I raced into the mint green bathrooms of my school I was determined to get control back; I did a quick check to ensure stalls we empty before falling on my knees in front of what I thought was my saviour. I plunged my fingers to the back of my throat before I felt the familiar release, but instead of the normal food that came up the water in the bowl was stained red. For the first time I realized I was no longer in control, Instead of perfecting myself, I was scarred and if I didn't stop I too, would be
dead. After that day I like Lea woke up, it took a serious event for me to realize I did not want to die. I worked hard to lose the weight, but I would work harder to become healthy again. Lea said "there is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward, an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn't matter." (Anderson, Wintergirls, pg277) The book is a reminder I will never be cured the scars will always remain, but with courage and support of people who love me I can keep my monsters at bay one day at a time.
When reading a book, is really hard to get the attention of the reader. Who is interested with hearing once upon a time? For me, I would eater the novel start off with something relatable then ease me into the plot. Life doesn’t always start off as a fairytale so I prefer that my novels don’t either. So while reading this novel, I was evaluating not only the author but the content and if it would live up to the hype.
“I wish to be the thinnest girl at school, or maybe the thinnest 11 year old on the entire planet.” (Lori Gottlieb) Lori is a fun, loving, and intelligent straight A student. In fact, she is so intelligent that even adults consider her to be an outcast. She grows up in Beverly Hills, California with her self-centered mother, distant father, careless brother, and best friend, Chrissy, whom is a parakeet. Through her self-conscious mother, maturing friends, and her friend’s mother’s obsession with dieting, she becomes more aware of her body and physical appearance. Something that once meant nothing to Lori now is her entire world. She started off by just skipping breakfast on her family vacation to Washington, D.C., soon to escalate to one meal a day, and eventually hardly anything other than a few glasses of water. Lori’s friends at school begin to compliment her weight loss and beg for her advice on how she did so. But as Lori once read in one of her many dieting books, her dieting skills are her “little secret”, and she intends on keeping it that way. It is said, “Women continue to follow the standards of the ideal thi...
Marya Hornbacher was born on April 4th, 1974, her parents were well-known actors and directors in Walnut Creek, California. She led a chaotic childhood, consisting of a major move to Minnesota, an anxiety disorder, and most of all, perfectionism everywhere she turned, “I always felt there was an expectation that I would do one of two things: be great at something, or go crazy and become a total failure. There is no middle ground where I come from,” (Hornbacher, 281). Marya developed bulimia when she was nine years old, and when she moved away to attending boarding school at fifteen, she became anorexic. Her parents saw it as a phase and Marya did not go into treatment for another seven years, since then, she has had several relapses. Marya wrote her ...
In her story, Boys and Girls, Alice Munro depicts the hardships and successes of the rite of passage into adulthood through her portrayal of a young narrator and her brother. Through the narrator, the subject of the profound unfairness of sex-role stereotyping, and the effect this has on the rites of passage into adulthood is presented. The protagonist in Munro's story, unidentified by a name, goes through an extreme and radical initiation into adulthood, similar to that of her younger brother. Munro proposes that gender stereotyping, relationships, and a loss of innocence play an extreme, and often-controversial role in the growing and passing into adulthood for many young children. Initiation, or the rite of passage into adulthood, is, according to the theme of Munro’s story, both a mandatory and necessary experience.
Winter Dreams There are many ways in which “Winter Dreams” is like and unlike a fairytale. “Winter Dreams” had the potential to have a fairy tale ending. Beginning the story, F. Scott Fitzgerald made the story seem predictable. The reader would have predicted a happy ending, like a fairytale. An ending where the ambitious young man gets the beautiful girl of his dreams.
In Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls” she tells a story about a young girl’s resistance to womanhood in a society infested with gender roles and stereotypes. The story takes place in the 1940s on a fox farm outside of Jubilee, Ontario, Canada. During this time, women were viewed as second class citizens, but the narrator was not going to accept this position without a fight.
These pressures from the media ads can lead to eating disorders. For many women and girls the “ideal image portrayed becomes an obsession and results in an eating disorder like anorexia or bulimia” (Karyn p.1). With the constant nagging to be thin, the dancers feel that if they are to be in music videos on television, they have to measure up to this false image of a woman.
This project also draws liberally upon feminist theories, though my use of this perspective is not to suggest that eating disorders, food, and the like are primarily or naturally a femal...
“I flushed the toilet, washed my face and hands, rinsed my mouth out, and spritzed Binaca on my tongue. I have to stop this. I have to get control over myself! I have to change! My desperation was practically palpable.” (Supplee 79) Rosemary finally realized that people love her for who she is - not about her weight or the number that glares off the metal screen. She faced her biggest insecurity and turned it around by promising to change. Rosemary wanted to change how she interacted and opened up with people. For example, instead of hiding in the bathroom and throwing up everything she ate, she made new friends and ate healthy meals with them. It wasn’t just about losing weight because it was about revealing who she really was. I also changed drastically over the past year. I learned to accept the measuring tape, not hate it. Now, I proudly embrace my height and my small figure. There are a lot of advantages of being short, and the sports I play reflect that. Cheerleading and figure skating are two sports where being small is favorable. I learned that I can be small and athletic at the same time. Now, I am not afraid to voice my opinions, and the tape measure helped me realize that I do not have to look a certain way to be accepted in society. My insecurity made me the person I am today, and the scale had the same effect on
Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls” is a story about a girl that struggles against society’s ideas of how a girl should be, only to find her trapped in the ways of the world.
Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning and also the basis of education. Curiosity had killed the cat indeed, however the cat died nobly. Lives of Girls and Women is a novel written by Nobel Prize Literature winner, Alice Munro. This novel is about a young girl, Del Jordan, who lives on Flats Road, Ontario. The novel is divided into eight chapters; and each chapter refers to a new, unique event in Del's life. As an overall analysis of the book reveals that Del Jordan's intriguing curiosity has helped her throughout her life, and enabled her to gain further knowledge The character is often seen in scenarios where her attention is captivated, and through the process of learning she acquires information in order to her answers her questions about particular subjects. There are many examples in the book that discuss Del’s life, and how she managed to gain information, as well as learn different methods of learning along the way.
Since ancient times, a stable civilization could only subsist if it were able to take advantage of the earth and its weather. Agriculture heavily depended upon the cycling of seasons to grow food and therefore, if one could not adapt to the different phases of weather, he or she would simply not survive. Subsequently, this way of life and agriculture ultimately united people and led to the formation of agrarian societies. Essentially, the ability to harvest food meant the ability to live. Consequently, seasons naturally became symbolically associated with life since it was directly tied to farming and food. Furthermore, as time progressed, the various symbolic meanings of seasons have found their way into many works of literature. In fact,
In the Kingdom of Arendelle, two young princess called Anna and Elsa were very close and used to play together daily. Princess Anna has the power of creating ice and freezing. One day, Elsa accidently hits Anna with her power while they are playing together and almost kills her. Their parents take them to trolls who save Anna’s life, but make her forget her sister’s power. After they go back to their castle, Elsa locks herself in her room from fear of hurting Anna with her power. Their parents die when their ship sinks in the ocean and three years later, Elsa opens again the gates of the castle because it is her coronations’ day. On Elsa’s coronation day, Anna meets prince Hans and she decides to marry him and asks for Elsa’s bless. Elsa does not accept the marriage and gets angry, which makes her lose control over her power and freeze the whole kingdom of Arandelle. Elsa runs to the north mountain and Anna goes after her. While Anna is searching for her sister, she meets the snowman Olaf, the ice salesman Kristoff, and his reindeer Sven.
on the grounds that he has a child back in Bohemia and that he must go
Once upon a time there was a beautiful queen and her stepdaughter with skin as white as snow. The queen was always misunderstood while everyone loved the other woman. No one remembers the side of the story of the queen, but everyone loves the other story.