Topic: Discuss the ways in which the title Survival Zones relates to the story. Everyone can rest at home after a day of laborious work. Homes temporarily replace our problems with the love of our family members and restores our optimism. In the story “Survival Zones” by Barbara Kingsolver, the characters encounter different problems and the town provides refuge for different parties. First, the survival zone refers to the town Elgin in the story. The town locates in the countryside as “a band of small communities around Cincinnati” (2) which usually makes no difference in the lives of most people. Yet, set in wartime, the citizens constantly face the threat of nuclear bombs, and “people from the populated areas would flee for sustenance and shelter” (2) to Elgin. In other words, although the town accommodates few people under normal circumstances, it controls the lives of thousands of people from the city at critical times. It saves those urbanites’ lives and help them survive, which coheres with the town’s name of the survival zone. Since the main characters considers Elgin as their hometown, their …show more content…
When her daughter Roxanne asks Roberta for advice, she tells Roxanne that she has been “chasing [her] tail doing nothing” (21) in the past years and becomes inclined to leaving the town recently. Her response reveals that she never realizes her importance in the town and finds her life futile. Her daughter, however, notices her contributions as she explains that her work differs from“the jobs [other] people have, … but it’s something to her” (39). Roxanne’s explanation indeed implicitly appreciates Roberta’s effort of raising her in the past. This reveals that the fact that only in Elgin, Roberta can thrive and contribute as a mother, preparing meals and cleaning the household for her family. Only in this place can Roberta truly survive as a meaningful individual and thus the title Survival
In this book, Kolbert travels to many places to find out what is happening with global warming. Quite often she ran into the same fear at the places she went, the fear for loss before the next generation. When she went to Alaska, many people were fleeing from their homes because the sea ice surrounding them, creating a buffer zone for storms, was melting and that was causing houses to just be swept away.
When nothing is going right in life, what do you do? Do you just quit and hope for the best or do you pick yourself up and work even harder to succeed? Iliana Roman, a single mother of three children and an owner of a hair salon, kindles the message that individuals who face adversity can still persevere in life. According to Roman’s memoir “First Job”, it is never too late to turn your life around. At seventeen years, old Roman unexpectedly became pregnant. This event led to Roman’s life changing completely causing her to drop out of high school. She was nearly to the point of no return, she simply could not hold down a proper job, and the only way to support herself and her child is working three to four odd jobs every week. Roman presents her message of persevering in life by incorporating hyperbole, repetition, and pathos.
No matter what actions or words a mother chooses, to a child his or her mother is on the highest pedestal. A mother is very important to a child because of the nourishing and love the child receives from his or her mother but not every child experiences the mother’s love or even having a mother. Bragg’s mother was something out of the ordinary because of all that she did for her children growing up, but no one is perfect in this world. Bragg’s mother’s flaw was always taking back her drunken husband and thinking that he could have changed since the last time he...
The definition of home is: the place where one lives permanently. Home is a place where one feels accepted, loved, and comfortable enough to be themselves completely. In Nella Larsen’s “Quicksand”, main character Helga is a bi-racial woman in the 1920’s who struggles internally with where she feels she belongs and where she can call home. Throughout the entire novel Helga moves to many different places to try and feel at home. In the society that Helga is cursed to have to live in, biracial people are not common and rarely accepted in many communities. Personally I don’t feel like Helga would have ever found a place to call her real home, using the definition where home is a permanent place to comfortably live, where she would chose to stay
The novel Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is one of Tyler’s more complex because it involves not only the growth of the mother, Pearl Tull, but each of her children as well. Pearl must except her faults in raising her children, and her children must all face their own loneliness, jealousy, or imperfection. It is in doing this that they find connections to their family. They find growth through suffering.
When you think of home, most of the time thoughts of love, warmth and family come to mind. Although a drab exterior , it is no difference for the thousands of people who reside in the Robert Taylor Homes on the Southside
George and Ophelia grow up in significantly different environments with exposure to vastly dissimilar experiences; their diverse backgrounds have a profound impact on the way they interpret and react to situations as adults. George and Ophelia both grow up without their parents, but for different reasons. George grows up at the Wallace P. Andrews Shelter for Boys in New York. The Shelter’s strict surroundings did not provide the warm and inviting atmosphere that a mother strives for in a home. The employees at the Shelter are not “loving people,” (p. 23) but they are devoted to their job, and the boys. At a young age, Ophelia loses her mother. We learn very little about her apparently absent father. Mama Day and Abigail raise Ophelia. Abigail provides a source of comfort and love for Ophelia as she fulfills the role of mother figure. Mama day, Ophelia’s great aunt, acts more as a father figure. “If Grandma had been there, she would have held me when I broke down and cry. Mama Day only said that for a long time there would be something to bring on tears aplenty.” (p. 304). Ophelia grows up on the small island of Willow Springs. Everyone knows each other and their business, in the laid-back island community. The border between Georgia and South Carolina splits down the middle of the island. Instead of seeing any advantage to belonging to either state, the townspeople would prefer to operate independently. For George and Ophelia, the differences in their backgrounds will have a tremendous impact on many facets of their adult lives.
Stephen Crane accentuates the importance of self-reliance through Maggie’s incapability to support her. Maggie is born into a family with social and economic constraints. She is brought up in a low-l...
Hooks describes a homeplace as a place where one could resist, foster his or her spirit, grow, and develop with the support of others. This place could be someone’s home, a home of a friend, or really anywhere where people could congregate and feel safe. An important characteristic of a homeplace in the African American community was that they were free
The lack of support and affection protagonists, Sula Peace and Nel Wright, causes them to construct their lives on their own without a motherly figure. Toni Morrison’s novel, Sula, displays the development of Sula and Nel through childhood into adulthood. Before Sula and Nel enter the story, Morrison describes the history of the Peace and Wright family. The Peace family live abnormally to their town of Medallion, Ohio. Whereas the Wrights have a conventional life style, living up to society’s expectations.The importance of a healthy mother-daughter relationship is shown through the interactions of Eva and Hannah Peace, Hannah and Sula, and between Helene Wright and Nel. When Sula and Nel become friends they realize the improper parenting they
For so long she has been around what she saw as the destination for her life, which was success and happiness, in the lifelong family friends the Lowells. She assumed they were just given this life without ever thinking they had to work as hard as she did to get there, consequently envy and resentment ensued. The resentment started with the whole family and then got more intense and personal when it came to the daughter of the Lowells, Parker, someone Andrea could identify with on a personal level. This story illustrated for us the unseen factors and repercussions that too much ambition to be accepted by anyone can have one's long lasting development into their own person. This journey to prove who you are to others can lead to intense emotions and motives that aren’t normal yours and can cause you to lose sight of the very person you’re trying to prove that you
Although, a mother’s determination in the short story “I Stand Here Ironing” mother face with an intense internal conflict involving her oldest daughter Emily. As a single mother struggle, narrator need to work long hours every day in order to support her family. Despite these criticisms, narrator leaves Emily frequently in daycare close to her neighbor, where Emily missing the lack of a family support and loves. According to the neighbor states, “You should smile at Emily more when you look at her” (Olsen 225). On the other hand, neighbor gives the reader a sense that the narrator didn’t show much affection toward Emily as a child. The narrator even comments, “I loved her. There were all the acts of love” (Olsen 225). At the same time, narrator expresses her feeling that she love her daughter. Until, she was not be able to give Emily as much care as she desire and that gives her a sense of guilt, because she ends up remarrying again. Meanwhile narrator having another child named Susan, and life gets more compli...
The narrator, Twyla, begins by recalling the time she spent with her friend, Roberta, at the St. Bonaventure orphanage. From the beginning of the story, the only fact that is confirmed by the author is that Twyla and Roberta are of a different race, saying, “they looked like salt and pepper” (Morrison, 2254). They were eight-years old. In the beginning of the story, Twyla says, “My mother danced all night and Roberta’s was sick.” This line sets the tone of the story from the start. This quote begins to separate the two girls i...
In conclusion, the tenuous relationship Sethe shared with her mother led to Sethe’s inability to provide for her children. Consequentially, the murder of Beloved built an emotional barrier that added to the preexisting issue of concerning her stolen milk left Denver with too little milk and the primitive drive to live that at first seemed foiled by her mother’s overbearing past. Yet, against all odds Denver was able to break her family’s legacy of being engulfed in the past and began taking steps for a better future.
Cather regards a sensitive, caring family which can bring positive influences in communities as a success. Rosicky is sensitive enough to know that Polly, a city girl, does not get used to life in a country, and is caring enough to offer the Rudolphs the car but washes dishes himself. Washing dishes does not fit in the expected role of men in families, but Rosicky does it because he cares about his families’ feelings and wants to help Polly get over a hard time. His sincerity is also why he can look into Polly’s face “with his peculiar, knowing, indulgent smile without a shadow of reproach in it” (Cather, 689). Furthermore, the Rosickys show kindness to the community. When Doctor Ed went to the Rosickys’ house for breakfast, Mary “threw back her head and spoke out as if she were announcing him to the whole prairie,” (Cather, 681) and claimed that she would never let a doctor go without serving him breakfast. As Doctor Ed reflected, “people as generous and warm-hearted and affectionate as the Rosickys never got ahead much” (Cather, 682). Moreover, Cather illustrates that the occupation of lands helps shape the Rosickys’ attitude toward life. Rosicky thinks land can support people, and his kids do not “have to do with dishonest and cruel people” (Cather, 695) in cities, so that the Rosickys pay more attention to building a friendly community and standing on their