The river of a developing identity. Identity is an exceptionally dynamic concept throughout an individual's life. The novel Saving Francesca explores how identity characterises a person, making them unique from others. This theory is particularly fluid during adolescence. This award-winning novel by Melina Marchetta, set in the outskirts of Sydney in 2003, depicts Francesca Spinelli, a seventeen-year-old girl, during an identity crisis. This is amplified by her mother Mia's sudden depression and in the midst of changing schools she finds herself struggling to find a place for herself. Over the course of this novel, Francesca’s identity is depicted to be lacking, culminating in her self-discovery. Saving Francesca implores readers to understand how an adolescent's …show more content…
Initially, it is clear Francesca is struggling to find a sense of self-sufficiency. The catalyst of the novel is her mother’s debilitation, causing conditions to worsen, striking the whole family apart and spiralling her into an existential crisis. It is prevalent during the text that Francesca has no personality or relies on her friends. It is revealed that she does not have her own taste in music but listens to the music her Saint Stella friends or her mother plays. However, with the drastic disappearance of friends and her mother, she must find her own personality. Early in the novel, her lack of identity is made clear by her confession “Today the Mia we all know disappears and she becomes someone with nothing to say.
As people grow up and experience life more and more, their personalities are revealed more. In the story “Barbie-Q”, Sandra Cisneros describes what it feels like to still be searching for one's identity. “Barbie-Q” is about a little girl and her sister that have dolls that don’t compare to others. There Barbies don’t have new dresses, and fancy red stilettos, but instead they have homemade sock dresses, and bubbleheads. This changes when these two girls go to a flea market, and find new dolls that were damaged in a fire. They may have been damaged with water and had melted limbs but it still meant a lot to these little girls. Sandra Cisneros expresses how these girls have struggled with self identity and how they have finally came to be there
Lisa Genova, the author of Still Alice, a heartbreaking book about a 50-year-old woman's sudden diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, graduated valedictorian from Bates College with a degree in Biopsychology and holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Harvard University. She is a member of the Dementia Advocacy, Support Network International and Dementia USA and is an online columnist for the National Alzheimer's Association. Genova's work with Alzheimer's patients has given her an understanding of the disorder and its affect not only on the patient, but on their friends and family as well (Simon and Schuster, n.d.).
After the Bomb written by Gloria Miklowitz is a thrilling novel that takes place before, during, and after a bomb which supposedly was sent from Russia by accident. L.A. and surrounding cities are all altered by the disastrous happening.
In Under a Cruel Star, Heda Margolious Kovaly details the attractiveness and terror of Communism brought to Czechoslovakia following WWII. Kovaly’s accounts of how communism impacted Czechoslovakia are fascinating because they are accounts of a woman who was skeptical, but also seemed hopeful for communism’s success. Kovaly was not entirely pro-communism, nor was she entirely anti-communism during the Party’s takeover. By telling her accounts of being trapped in the Lodz Ghetto and the torture she faced in Auschwitz, Kovaly displays her terror experienced with a fascist regime and her need for change. Kovaly said that the people of Czechoslovakia welcomed communism because it provided them with the chance to make up for the passivity they had let occur during the German occupation. Communism’s appeal to
Of Nightingales That Weep Chapter 1 This chapter is about Takiko and her first family home. It tells a lot about her family. They talk about the war in this chapter also. Takiko’s mother decides that she will remarry after her father dies.
Vanitas paintings are two dimensional compositions of symbolic content and iconography. The various objects used in the design of these paintings symbolize the brevity of life, the vanity of wealth and beauty, and the inescapable reality of death. This form of art was developed out of Northern Europe in the mid-16th century and through the 17th century. The word “vanitas” is Latin for “vanity.” Vanitas paintings are designed to remind its viewers of the verse in the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes that says all earthly things are “vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Artists who painted vanitas wanted their viewers to remember that the wealth, beauty, and achievements that people desire and obtain will pass away and that death is a sure thing. Mortality is the message present in each vanitas painting and each artist expresses this meaning individually with the use of iconography, color, and various techniques.
Summary and Response to Barbara Kingsolver’s “Called Home” In “Called Home”, the first chapter of the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year in Food Life, Barbara Kingsolver presents her concerns about America's lack of food knowledge, sustainable practices, and food culture. Kingsolver introduces her argument for the benefits of adopting a local food culture by using statistics, witty anecdotal evidence, and logic to appeal to a wide casual reading audience. Her friendly tone and trenchant criticism of America's current food practices combine to deliver a convincing argument that a food culture would improve conditions concerning health and sustainability.
Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate is the story of an African boy, Kek, who loses his father and a brother and flees, leaving his mother to secure his safety. Kek, now in Minnesota, is faced with difficulties of adapting to a new life and of finding his lost mother. He believes that his mother still lives and would soon join him in the new found family. Kek is taken from the airport by a caregiver who takes him to live with his aunt. It is here that Kek meets all that amazed him compared to his home in Sudan, Africa. Home of the brave shows conflicts that Kek faces. He is caught between two worlds, Africa and America. He feels guilty leaving behind his people to live in a distant land especially his mother, who he left in the midst of an attack.
In the poem pride, Dahlia Ravikovitch uses many poetic devices. She uses an analogy for the poem as a whole, and a few metaphors inside it, such as, “the rock has an open wound.” Ravikovitch also uses personification multiple times, for example: “Years pass over them as they wait.” and, “the seaweed whips around, the sea bursts forth and rolls back--” Ravikovitch also uses inclusive language such as when she says: “I’m telling you,” and “I told you.” She uses these phrases to make the reader feel apart of the poem, and to draw the reader in. She also uses repetition, for example, repetition of the word years.
In her book, Immaculée Ilibagiza shares the power of faith in God through her moving experience of the Rwandan genocide. God saved her life for a reason. “He left me to tell my story to others and show as many people as possible the leading power of his Love and Forgiveness” (208-09). Her book proves that “with God all things are possible”. Her objective is not to give a historical account of Rwanda and/or of the genocide. She gives her own story. She attests that through God’s help, forgiveness is possible – even to those who killed her parents. Her book is meant to help people to let go of the chains of hatred and anger, and be able to truly live in God who is love. Left to Tell is a breathtaking book that proves the fact that “the love of a single heart can make a world of difference” (210). The book is divided into three parts, and each part into eight chapters. The author recounts how God saved her from the shadows of death and helped her discover who He really Is.
A Love Affair in The Storm by Kate Chopin Kate Chopin's "The Storm" is a short story about a brief love affair that takes place during a storm that has separated Calixta from her husband and son. The title "The Storm" is an obvious reference to the storm outside, but more importantly to the love affair that takes place. The title refers to nature, which is symbolically used again and again in the story. Chopin uses words like "somber clouds", "threatening roar", and "sinister intentions" to describe the approaching storm. Later in the story those same words in reference to the storm outside, will also be represented symbolically to the storm brewing inside with the love affair.
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” tries to shed light on the conflict between women and a society that assign gender roles using a patriarchal approach. Specifically Margaret Bauer highlights, that most of Chopin’s works revolves around exploring the “dynamic interrelation between women and men, women and patriarchy, even women and women” (146). Similarly, in “The Story of an Hour” Chopin depicts a society that oppresses women mostly through the institution of marriage, as women are expected to remain submissive regardless of whether they derive any happiness. The question of divorce is not welcome, and it is tragic that freedom of women can only be realized through death. According to Bauer, the society depicted in Chopin’s story judged women harshly as it expected women to play their domestic roles without question, while on the other hand men were free to follow their dream and impose their will on their wives (149).
There is perhaps no greater joy in life than finding one’s soul mate. Once found, there is possibly no greater torment than being forced to live without them. This is the conflict that Paul faces from the moment he falls in love with Agnes. His devotion to the church and ultimately God are thrown into the cross hairs with the only possible outcome being one of agonizing humiliation. Grazia Deledda’s The Mother presents the classic dilemma of having to choose between what is morally right and being true to one’s own heart. Paul’s inability to choose one over the other consumes his life and everyone in it.
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.
Simone de Beauvoir, the author of the novel The Second Sex, was a writer and a philosopher as well as a political activist and feminist. She was born in 1908 in Paris, France to an upper-middle class family. Although as a child Beauvoir was extremely religious, mostly due to training from her mother as well as from her education, at the age of fourteen she decided that there was no God, and remained an atheist until she died. While attending her postgraduate school she met Jean Paul Sartre who encouraged her to write a book. In 1949 she wrote her most popular book, The Second Sex. This book would become a powerful guide for modern feminism. Before writing this book de Beauvoir did not believe herself to be a feminist. Originally she believed that “women were largely responsible for much of their own situation”. Eventually her views changed and she began to believe that people were in fact products of their upbringing. Simone de Beauvoir died in Paris in 1986 at the age of 78.