In the book Outcasts United, St John shows that people must fulfill their obligations to one another whether they would choose to or not, which may have a drastic effect in their lives. Generose is trying hard to take care of and provide for her family all alone. She leaves it up to her children to take care of themselves and each other when she is not home.“With a newborn baby girl to take care of and no husband around, Generose--the mother of Alex, Bien, Ive, and six-month-old Alyah-- needed income, but she spoke almost no english and couldn't afford daycare for Alyah. There was one obvious option: a night shift job at a chicken processing plant.” (Page 228)Obligations usually come with sacrifices, and not very good ones. Generose is making …show more content…
a sacrifice and is trusting her kids to take care of each other while she is out working and making money to support them. Back in chapter six, Paula had to make a sacrifice, she either could stay in Congo to be with her husband who was thrown in jail, living with violence, or she could take her children with her and flee to a safer and better area.
St John writes, “Needed income, but she spoke almost no english and couldn't afford daycare for Alyah. There was one obvious option: a night shift job at a chicken processing plant.” When St John says “There was one obvious option” it shows how she only has this job to support her family and if she doesn’t take it, they will experience a miserable life. “needed income, but she spoke almost no english and couldn't afford daycare for Alyah.” shows how much Generose is in need of job and how illiterate she is in English. Without any obligations, we would not live our lives the same we do …show more content…
now. Generose has a big obligation to take care of her family and has no say in this. If she chose to not take care of them, they would all experience a rough life. Generose cares for her children and has an obligation to her family to support and take care of them.
Even with a job so terrible, she keeps it for her family. Generose needed to find a job soon to support her family, but was struggling. She had a very limited list of job opportunities. The immigrants and refugees would replace illegal immigrants to get the job done. She found the job at the chicken processing plant. “It took Generose only a few night shifts to develop a revulsion toward chicken. Now on the rare occasions when she’d eat meat, she stuck to beef and fish.” (Page 228) “It took Generose only a few night shifts to develop a revulsion toward chicken.” Even with a job so bad, she doesn’t quit for her family or for herself. She is putting her family’s life as her top priority and making sure they get all necessary items such as food, housing, education, along with others. The word “revulsion” goes to show not that she doesn’t like chicken, but how revolting chicken is to her. Generose is doing everything she can to make sure her children have a better life. Luma does something very similar. Luma owned a café named Ashtons and she finally thought after time that she was ready to file for personal bankruptcy in order to help other people. “The incident settled Luma’s mind on the question of Ashton’s. It was time for her to admit her failure and to walk away. She closed the café and filed for personal bankruptcy. But while the failure of Ashton’s was a blow to Luma’s
ego, it also represented an opportunity to focus her life on things that she felt were more meaningful. She wanted to start a business that could employ women like Beatrice, providing them a living wage without requiring them to commute halfway across Atlanta by bus or train.” Luma started painting a picture in her head of a “simple cleaning business that would employ refugee mothers. Just how Generose is trying to provide her children better lives and support them, Luma is doing the same. Generose is doing everything in her power to make sure her children are getting a good life. Even with a terrible job, she still put up with it to support her children whom she loves. Generose is not the only person to go through this, it’s very common. Many people including my family has experienced this. My family immigrated to the United States many years ago. My parents had to support my two older siblings and worked very hard to make this happen. My mom had to study for her medical boards to become a doctor again since it was different back home and my dad had to apply for an American college and get his degree again. Although this was definitely tough, they managed to do it, and had no say on if they had an obligation to the family or not. This is very common and happens among many people. They don’t necessarily always get a choice in whether or not they have an obligation to one another.
In Mary’s household, her two sons and daughter are dependent on her. Mary is head of the household and is currently going through a divorce. Mary is close to losing her house, car, and internet services. She hires babysitters for the days/nights that she has to work. Her children know that times are tough, and continuously encourage their mother. However, her son Quinn is dealing with the divorce and poor living in
Doris talks a lot about the preparations she made for the arrival of her child and this creates a real sorrow, 'This is where we had the pram.' The audience are helpless as all they can do is feel sad for Doris. As the play progresses we realise that whenever the subject of John arises Doris does one of two important things. Firstly there is a use of
What is it about sacrificing for a family member that makes the relationship between them stronger? When you sacrifice something for someone, it essentially means that one is giving up something to protect someone else. In Edwidge Danticat’s, Krik? Krak!, this act of sacrificing is a common act, because there is so much less for Haitians to hold on to, that family is one of those things that are they hold dear. The strengthening of the bonds between parents and their children due to their sacrifices for each other are featured favorably in the following chapters: “Children of the Sea”, “Nineteen Thirty-Seven”, and “Night Women”.
“And maybe, if I had been destined to it or called to it strongly enough, it might have been for me.” Jayber was hoping that aunt Cordie and uncle Othy did not die during the winter season but there was nothing he could do when they got but take care of them both. “ By “bachelor” I mean, as was generally meant, a man old enough to be married who was not married and who had no visible chance to get married.” He wanted to marry Mattie Chatham, but she was married to Troy, and she thought Troy was the one that made her dreams come true. “ Maybe they had taken notice of my habit of keeping the shop open at night as long as people was there.” As long as people stayed at the shop after closing, hoping Jayber wanted them to stay for company. When everybody left Jayber, he was hoping for an impel and to start his own family. Jayber was looking to start a fresh new way, but he could not because he want to live the rest of his life with her. He moved along the riverside bank to be to himself, in a house that a friend had gave him with no rent. Being left alone, with nowhere to call home was the saddest thing could happen to anyone. “ By then I had no living relative, or none who was known of me.” In Port William, Jayber did not have a family because they all had died during the winter season. Jayber had taught himself how to do everything he needs to know to survive, therefore he taught himself how to be a
Jeanette’s parents were very free spirited and carefree about many things, least of all their children. Her mother’s ambitions were mainly to become a famous artist and her father’s mainly included drinking as much alcohol as he could get his hands on, and in the meantime becoming a successful entrepreneur. Her father was not exactly very concerned with feeding his family properly, and he often took all the money her mother would make teaching. “I’ve got a houseful of kids and a husband who soaks up booze like a sponge… making ends meet is harder than you think (Walls 197). They often went hungry and because of her parents being so neglectful she, along with her siblings, became their own parents. Her self-governance was astounding at such a young age and this was a key to her success later on in life. She had always been very aware of her surrounding and growing up her family was always on the move, always on the run. They eventually settled in Welch, West Virginia and this is where her independence ...
The mother is a selfish and stubborn woman. Raised a certain way and never falters from it. She neglects help, oppresses education and persuades people to be what she wants or she will cut them out of her life completely. Her own morals out-weight every other family member’s wants and choices. Her influence and discipline brought every member of the family’s future to serious-danger to care to her wants. She is everything a good mother isn’t and is blind with her own morals. Her stubbornness towards change and education caused the families state of desperation. The realization shown through the story is the family would be better off without a mother to anchor them down.
One day, Red Guards ransack Ji-Li’s home. They search and find an incriminating letter, containing info of a complaint about the rebels treating people unfairly. The Red guards then punish them for being a landlord’s relative. A couple weeks later, Ji-li watches her grandma sweep the alley. It is her punishment for being a landlord's wife. One day, her mom makes her promise that Ji-li will take care of her siblings if anything happens to her. They do not know what terrible thing might come next. Ji-li promises and she means it. “Once my life had been defined by my goals: to be a da-dui-zhang, to participate in the exhibition, to be a Red Guard. They seemed unimportant to me now. Now my life was defined by my responsibilities. I had promised to take care of my family, and I would renew that promise every day.” (Jiang, Chapter 17). Ji-Li realizes that she has been taking care of her family for a long time and she could never hurt her family. She used to dream about being a Red Guard, but now she and her family sleeps on straw mats since all their furniture was ruined from the ransacking. Ji-Li does not have any life goals anymore; she just wants her family to be safe. It is always good to realize the importance of family. In the end, family comes before anything because a person’s family are the only people who that is truly reliable and trustworthy. Friends and jobs may be important to someone, but
had spent part of the summer with their grandmother Pontellier in Iberville. Feeling secure regarding their happiness and welfare, she did not miss them except with an occasional intense longing. Their absence was a sort of relief, though she did not admit this, even to herself. It seemed to free her of a responsibility which she had blindly assumed and for which Fate had not fitted her. (p. 40)
Life becomes a battle between the haves and have-nots. The conflict spreads when the migrants were seeking a better life in California, landowners find the migrants a cheap source of labor and a means to maximize profit. Steinbeck writes "The woman will sniff as though she smelled rotting meat and they will go out again and tell forever afterward that the people in the west are sullen" (Steinbeck 212). This quotation shows how disrespectful people with money are to the lower class and how they thing they are better than them just because of money. Mae can tell just by how they act and the car that they drive, that they will act like that, that is how most if ...
Many people want change to happen in a variety of ways. For instance, many want a new start once every while to keep their lives interesting. As shown in the short story, Ann wants a change in her life. She wants an actual life worth living filled with happiness and love as she says “It was something of a life she wanted, not just a house and furniture; something of John, not pretty clothes when she would be too old to wear them”(51). She wanted a life with John where he would always love and cherish her but that is nothing near what she got. Most importantly, Ann wants John to change. Just like every other couple, after a certain amount of time they return to their old life habits. Once a lively loving couple now turned into an average dull life of two people living together. One can presume that most people dislike this phase and want change to happen when this occurs. This is very present in the story as John falls into his routine of continuously working. He only knows how to show his love by working harder and sacrificing more. This is shown when Ann describes John: “ To him it was not what he actually accomplished by means of the sacrifice that mattered, but the sacrifice itself, the gesture - something done for her sake”(51). She wants John to be able to understand her and to give her the love that she wants rather than
Junior sometimes had to go to bed hungry, but that wasn’t the worst thing about being in poverty. He made a diary entry stating, “Poverty= empty refrigerator+empty stomach. And sure sometimes my family misses a meal…and hey, in a weird way, being hungry makes food taste better (8).” This really puts the diary reader in his shoes about how many times he had to go without food and starve while trying to go to sleep, simply because his family couldn’t afford it. But to Junior, being hungry wasn’t necessarily that bad. What he felt was the worst thing about his poverty was that there was no money to save his beloved animal Oscar. Oscar became really ill and Junior wanted to take the animal to the doctor, but the family couldn’t afford it. When it came down to it, his father had to put the dog out of misery, and decided to shoot him. Visualizing someone having to shoot your best animal friend is heart wrenching. Most people have been in Juniors shoes where they have a sick animal, however they never imagine having to shoot it. This comparison of being hungry and losing an animal, shows Junior’s great strength at a young age about going through poverty, and sometimes even hope...
This connection and kinship is also seen when the Joad’s and the Wilson’s meet, the two different biological families quickly become one new family and collectively share each other’s hardships and commitments to survival. This new family is able to form because both the Joad’ and the Wilson’s are able to rely on this kinship that is needed for both families to survive in this new reality. Another example of how the Joad’s are able to shape their family into one that is based on kinship is inside the unions that Tom Joad and Jim Casy, a former preacher, set out to create to protect the people from the wealthy and the government. The lives of the migrants’ rest on the unions ability to look out for one another in the face of danger.
Mary went from not even attending school in Russia, to star pupil in America, illustrating the promise that America had to offer immigrants. American afforded Mary with opportunities that were impossible in her home country of Russia. Even though Frieda also lived in America, her circumstances represent the realities of the Old World. For instance, Frieda’s only way of learning about American history was through Mary, as she was not afforded time to read while working. By not attending school, Frieda did not only became stuck in the Old World mentality in terms of education but also in terms of marriage. Her father “had put Frieda to work out of necessity. The necessity was hardly lifted when she had an offer of marriage, but my father would not stand in the way of what he considered her welfare” (Antin, 218). Frieda was not given the opportunity to marry for love, as was the American way, but was married out of necessity for her welfare, reminiscent of the Old World mentality. Public education provided Mary with the opportunity to marry not because she had to in order to survive, but because she wanted to. The stark contrast between the lives of Frieda, representing life in the
...voluntary is not a moral duty, but it is an owed duty. On the other hand, the obligation to the involuntary is a definite moral duty; it must be done (119). An individual can make a difference with just a smile, a kind word, or even a hot meal. The homeless are human after all, and they do have feelings.
In Jean’s case, moving to a retirement village generated both feelings of despair, and ultimately integrity. She worried about her ability to look after Frank, and who would eventually take care of them both. Furthermore, Jean did not want to burden their children with their care. In fact, these are all too common concerns shared by those in late adulthood (Berk, 2010). The stress of...