“Suzy and Leah” Essay The short story “Suzy and Leah” is written by Jane Yolen taking place in the U.S.A. This story explains the relationship between Suzy and Leah through their diary entries. They both realized the truth later on by reading more about each other throughout their diary entries. First of all, Suzy and Leah did not get along very well to start off with. Although that all started to changed when suddenly Suzy stumbled over Leah’s diary while packing her things from school. After reading her diary, Suzy figured out what Leah had been going through, and felt really sorry. When Suzy visited Leah later that day she pleaded, “I am sorry. I am so sorry. I did not know. I did not understand” (Yolen 8). Leah knew that it was it mistake,
The short story, “Likes”, by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum follows the various emotions a father, Dave, feels for his pre-teen daughter, Ivy, who has inherited his joint problems. Throughout the story, a therapist helps Ivy better her joints and Dave learns how to communicate with his daughter in ways he did not before imagine. The story is about bettering oneself physically, but also about how parents have a hard time communicating and engaging with their growing children. However, once parents stop avoiding and feeling uncomfortable with their children’s differences, they can find a way to grow back together with them.
Sarah and her mother are sought out by the French Police after an order goes out to arrest all French Jews. When Sarah’s little brother starts to feel the pressures of social injustice, he turns to his sister for guidance. Michel did not want to go with the French Police, so he asks Sarah to help him hide in their secret cupboard. Sarah does this because she loves Michel and does not want him to be discriminated against. Sarah, her mother, and her father get arrested for being Jewish and are taken to a concentration camp just outside their hometown. Sarah thinks Michel, her beloved brother, will be safe. She says, “Yes, he’d be safe there. She was sure of it. The girl murmured his name and laid her palm flat on the wooden panel. I’ll come back for you later. I promise” (Rosnay 9). During this time of inequality, where the French were removing Sarah and her mother just because they were Jewish, Sarah’s brother asked her for help. Sarah promised her brother she would be back for him and helped him escape his impending arrest. Sarah’s brother believed her because he looks up to her and loves her. As the story continues, when Sarah falls ill and is in pain, she also turns to her father for comfort, “at one point she had been sick, bringing up bile, moaning in pain. She had felt her father’s hand upon her, comforting her” (Rosnay 55).
The book I enjoyed most in the past year is A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. The story switches back and forth between the diary of Nao, a suicidal teenage girl who is determined to record the life story of her great-grandmother Jiko, and Ruth, a women who lives on a remote Pacific island and discovered Nao’s diary washed up on the shore, as a result of the 2011 tsunami in Japan. After reading a few pages of the diary, Ruth is mesmerized by it and decided to find out about Nao’s life. The book covered numerous themes, including Zen Buddhism, natural disaster, Kamikaze pilots, suicide, bullying, quantum mechanics, and time. But something that intrigued me the most is the personal growth of Nao.
In the short story “A Kind of Courage” by Ruth Sterling, the protagonist, Davy, is trying to win Ginny’s heart.
Lillian Jean’s father, Mr. Simms twists Cassie’s arm, and demands an apology. Cassie apologized but apparently it was not good enough for LIllian Jean. Lillian Jean told Cassie to get down onto the road and start asking for forgiveness. Cassie refused, so Lillian Jean´s Father Mr. Simms comes over there and twists her arm, and throws her on the road. To begin with, Lillian Jean said ¨You bumped into me. Now you apologize.¨ Cassie did not feel like messing with Lillian Jean, and she had other things on her mind. So Cassie Said ¨Okay, I´m sorry.¨ Cassie thought the world would be fair to everyone, but not exactly.Cassie knew the world was unfair, but little did she know that the people in this world could be even
The story is told by the main character Vanessa who is reflecting back on a memory of when she was ten. Throughout the short story plot, conflict, character, theme, and symbol, which are all extremely important elements of fiction, are depicted. The plot of the short
In the poem Happiness by Jane Kenyon, the main idea is that happiness comes in many forms to our lives and it is very difficult to see it, rather we need to experience it. The poet also conveys to treasure the happiness in our lives, even if it occurs in its miniature forms. Happiness is an emotion that is unique to an individual, rather than an event. Additionally, the poet tries to point out that happiness comes to everyone and everything – even though we are not aware of it. The poet effectively utilizes the parable of return of the prodigal son to explain what happiness is, then suddenly takes a turn to claim “happiness is the uncle that you never knew about.” Now the scene is set with the uncle arriving in his plane and to find you “asleep
Human beings are the only living species that base their lives around time. We have calendars, we have clocks, and we have created an entire system in order for us to feel like we are aware of everything. The reasoning behind this is that we fear uncertainty. Since we consider ourselves at the top of the living food chain, we hate to feel as though there is something more powerful than us. When we don’t know things, we feel helpless because we can’t do anything to stop it. Whether it be if your crush likes you back, whether there will be a pop quiz next week, or whether life continues after death: no one likes the uncertainty of not knowing something. In the novel A Tale for the Time Being, the author, Ruth Ozeki, brings light to many different concepts but the one concept that stood out to me was this one. Instead of allowing allows her characters to combat the fear of uncertainty instead of fall prey to it. Ruth Ozeki shows us through Nao’s behavior and the suicidal tendencies of her father, through time, and through the helplessness that Ruth feels towards Nao, that it is okay to accept the unknown.
A History of Marriage by Stephanie Coontz speaks of the recent idealization of marriage based solely on love. Coontz doesn’t defame love, but touches on the many profound aspects that have created and bonded marriages through time. While love is still a large aspect Coontz wants us to see that a marriage needs more solid and less fickle aspects than just love.
The Bell Jar is an autobiography of a female sophomore. The girl-Esther, who is 19 years old, came from suburban area of Boston. As she had talent writing skills, she was invited to New York to serve as guest editor in a national fashion magazine office. In her one-month stay in New York, on one hand, Esther was cautious and conscientious to learn from an able and efficient female editor-Jay Cee, and she dreamt to follow Jay Cee’s successful step. On the other hand, she met various men and women in her colorful social life. These experiences reminded her of her life in women’s university, especially her relationship with her boyfriend- Buddy Willard. As the recollection often interweaved with reality, they brought Esther perplexity, discouragement and lost. Esther could not even more figure out the significance of reality as well as the goal of her own life. When her life in New York came to an end, Esther came back her hometown to spend the summer vacation with her mother. However, a new incident hard hit Esther- she was rejected by the writing course that she was given high expectation by professors in her university. The conservative atmosphere in the town made Esther feel days wear on like years. Esther denied completely that all achievements she got in past 19 years, and she even felt doubtful and terrified toward the future. Facing such heavy pressure, she was broken down totally. Since she was lost at that time, she tried to put an end to her life. After she was saved, she received psychological consultation in a psychiatric hospital. In this period, she rethought and relocated her position, and she rebuilt confidence step by step. At the end of the novel, Esther waited to leave hospital and she looked forward to starting a...
The conflict between Waverly and her mother was very realistic due to the nature that many mothers and daughters have different views which causes disagreements. The people of Chinese descent have their Chinese heritage, but struggled to keep true to their traditions while living around American culture. The major conflict in the story, the clash of different cultures, led to the weakening of the relationship between the two characters. For example, when Waverly reentered the apartment after running away, she saw the "remains of a large fish, its fleshy head still connected to bones swimming upstream in vain escape" (Tan 508). Waverly saw herself as the fish, stripped clean by her mother 's power, unable to break free. Through the major conflict,
Anne’s diary began on her thirteenth birthday. She had a normal life for a girl of her age, and valued the same things as any girl; she loved being with her friends, enjoyed school and already had established a passion for writing which she expressed through her diary. She first wrote “I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support,” it is established that Anne, although a very social young girl, felt that she could not confide in her friends. The tone with which she wrote and the trivial matters that she wrote about exemplify her young age and lack of maturity. She wrote for the sake of writing, and wrote about the happenings in her life. When the first signs of anti-Semitism started to show, signs of worry showed through her writing, but she never wrote too deeply about it.
Form: This book is a biographical account from a little girl’s perspective “Anita Lobel” of
...es these primitive standards, she becomes melancholy because she does not attune into the gender roles of women, which particularly focus on marriage, maternity, and domesticity. Like other nineteen year old women, Esther has many goals and ambitions in her life. Nevertheless, Esther is disparaged by society’s blunt roles created for women. Although she experiences a tremendous psychological journey, she is able to liberate herself from society’s suffocating constraints. Esther is an excellent inspiration for women who are also currently battling with society’s degrading stereotypes. She is a persistent woman who perseveres to accomplish more than being a stay at home mother. Thus, Esther is a voice for women who are trying to abolish the airless conformism that is prevalent in 1950’s society.
The persuasive attempts in both literary works produce different results. The effectiveness of the mother’s guidance to her daughter is questioned since the girl cannot recognize the essence of her mother’s lesson. Despite that, the mother’s beneficial instruction serves as a standard for the daughter to reflect her future behaviors in order to live up to the community’s expectations. On the other hand, Anne’s value of candid expression and lasting relationship dissuades her from obliging to her family’s meaningless duty to place her love and interest above to experience fulfillment in life.