“Suzy and Leah” by Jane Yolen is about two girls who learn an important lesson about relationships. The girls judged each other based off of one meeting. Suzy, an American girl, disliked Leah, a German refugee, because she saw Leah as a “prickly porcupine”. Even though Suzy didn’t really know who Leah was in private, she still thought and wrote rude things about her. The abhor Suzy felt for Leah was neutral. Where Suzy found Leah to be uptight and standoffish, Leah thought of Suzy as a fake, snotty American girl “... the girl with the yellow hair who smiles so falsely at me.” Although neither of the girls took the time or effort to actually find out what kind of person each was, they still made judgements of one another. Their first encounter
was at the fence where Suzy was giving the refugee children candy bars. Suzy thought of the refugees as beneath her when they swarmed to her for the candy she had. All the children flocked to her, except for Leah. She had said, “I will not take a sweet from the yellow-haired girl.” Suzy was confused about why Leah would dislike her. The second encounter between the two girls was when Leah went to school for the first time in America. Suzy did not like that Leah was strong-willed and uptight. The two adolescents got paired up for a reading project at school, and neither of the girls were very joyed about this. Suzy was furious that Leah was wearing her old dresses and didn’t want to give the girl anymore of her things, “We’re going to bring several of my old dresses, but not my green one with the white trim. I don’t want her to have it. Even if it doesn’t fit me anymore.” The girls continued to be around one another in and out of school, yet they still could not understand each other. One day, Leah wasn’t at school so Suzy was assigned to bring Leah’s stuff from school to the hospital, at which she was located. When she was putting her stuff in a box, she found Leah’s diary. Suzy did a horrible thing, and read Leah’s diary. Though what she did was not acceptable, Suzy got an inside view of Leah’s life. She couldn’t believe what she was reading, “It was so awful I could hardly believe it, but Mom said it was true,” and was very shocked about what she found, “How was I supposed to know all that? How can Leah stand any of us? How could she live with all that pain?” This understanding built a friendship between these two girls, “... And - it is just possible - a new friend.” Leah understood that what Suzy did was wrong, but it did teach her that different people go through different things, “She read my notebook. But it helped her understand.” Ultimately, Suzy gave Leah the dress she never ever wanted her to have, and Suzy and Leah started a new friendship and perspective on life.
Have you ever had something of great value be taken from you and then feeling emotionally empty? In Celia Garth, Gwen Bristow desires to share the important message of Celia Garth’s past to the characters and readers. Memories prove that Celia got through the war and the bells provided a stress free period. Her memories were resembled through the bells of St.Michaels Church. The past demonstrated in Celia’s eyes about the war and what the bells reminded her of.
In the young life of Essie Mae, she had a rough childhood. She went through beatings from her cousin, George Lee, and was blamed for burning down her house. Finally Essie Mae got the nerve to stand up for herself and her baby sister, Adline as her parents were coming in from their work. Her dad put a stop to the mistreatment by having her and her sister watched by their Uncle Ed. One day while Essie Mae's parents were having an argument, she noticed that her mothers belly was getting bigger and bigger and her mom kept crying more and more. Then her mother had a baby, Junior, while the kids were out with their Uncle Ed. Her uncle took her to meet her other two uncles and she was stunned to learn that they were white. She was confused by this but when she asked her mom, Toosweet, about it her mom would not give her an answer one way or the other. Once her mom had the baby, her father started staying out late more often. Toosweet found out that her dad was seeing a woman named Florence. Not long after this, her mother was left to support her and her siblings when her father left. Her mother ended up having to move in with family until she could obtain a better paying job in the city. As her childhood went on she started school and was very good at her studies. When she was in the fourth grade, her mom started seeing a soldier named Raymond. Not too long after this, her mother got pregnant and had James. Her mother and Raymond had a rocky relationship. When James was born, Raymond's mother came and took the baby to raise because she said that raising four children was too much of a burden for a single parent to handle. Raymond went back to the service for a while but then when he came back he and Toosweet had another baby. Raymond's brothers helped him build a new house for them to live in and they brought James back to live with them. During this time Essie Mae was working for the Claiborne family and she was starting to see a different point of view on a lot of things in life. The Claiborne's treated her almost as an equal and encouraged her to better herself.
First and foremost, the novel Hush by Jacqueline Woodson deals with a lot of issues, but if we really look closely at Toswiah/Evie’s internal journey we really understand that the book revolves around Evie/Toswiah and how she needs to about figure out who she is. Toswiah/Evie asks herself questions within the novel about her identity. So, if I were to judge: I believe the uprising theme of Hush is to never forget who you are. I say this because her character keeps reminiscing about how her life was in Denver how she had what she believes is “the perfect life” she had a roof over her head, food on the table, and a best friend who meant to world to her. In the novel Toswiah/Evie begins to question her external circumstances. For instance, being placed in the Witness Protection Program, and being
The United States of America, the land of the free. Mostly free if the skin tone matches with the approval of society. The never ending war on racism, equality, and segregation is a huge part of American culture. Prior to the Civil Rights Movement equality was laughed at. People of color were highly discriminated and hated for existing. During the years nineteen fifty to nineteen seventy, racism began to extinguish its mighty flames. Through the lives of numerous people equality would soon be a reality. Through the Autobiography “Coming of Age in Mississippi” by Anne Moody first person accounts of all the racism, social prejudice and violence shows how different America used to be. The autobiography holds nothing back, allowing the author to give insight on all the appalling events and tragedies. The Re-telling of actual events through Anne Moody’s eyes, reveal a connection to how wrong segregation was. The “Coming of Age in Mississippi” is an accurate representation of life in the south before and during the Civil Rights Movement.
Throughout Amy Tan’s novel, The Joy Luck Club, the reader can see the difficulites in the mother-daughter relationships. The mothers came to America from China hoping to give their daughters better lives than what they had. In China, women were “to be obedient, to honor one’s parents, one’s husband, and to try to please him and his family,” (Chinese-American Women in American Culture). They were not expected to have their own will and to make their own way through life. These mothers did not want this for their children so they thought that in America “nobody [would] say her worth [was] measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch…nobody [would] look down on her…” (3). To represent everything that was hoped for in their daughters, the mothers wanted them to have a “swan- a creature that became more than what was hoped for,” (3). This swan was all of the mothers’ good intentions. However, when they got to America, the swan was taken away and all she had left was one feather.
The major idea I want to write about has to do with the way Mrs. Hale stands behind Mrs. Wright even though it seems like everyone else especially (the men) would rather lock her up and throw away the key. We see this right away when she gets on the County Attorney for putting down Mrs. Wright’s house keeping. I find this to be wonderfully symbolic in that most women of this time usually allowed the men to say whatever they wanted about their sex, never standing up for themselves or each other
Human; relating to or having characteristics of a person(Merriam-Webster). A human is truly just a soul combined with characteristics of other people, and this is proven by Jenna Fox; the main character in The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson. After finding out what her body is made up of, Jenna along with other characters think she is not human. Despite this Jenna Fox has always had the key elements it takes to be a human been. Jenna for one has a past and memories that make up her life even after the accident. More importantly it is unfair to call her a “monster” when she shows characteristics similar to that of other humans. Needless to say, Jenna just as any other human isn’t perfect, and she later learns that in order to be one hundred percent human she must have the same chances of succeeding in life as any other human would. Jenna Fox is human because she has a soul regardless of her differences.
Like Gail Hightower, Joanna Burden is an outcast because of the past. However, Hightower idealizes the heroic southern past, while Joanna was raised to reject southern ideas of race. Hightower’s ancestors inadvertently affect his present state; Joanna’s ancestors directly influence her social position in the town. When her family first arrived they were outcast, “they hated us here. We were Yankees. Foreigners. Worse than foreigners: enemies. Carpet baggers . . . Stirring up the negros to murder and rape, they called it. Threatening white supremacy” (Faulkner 249). The hatred that the townsfolk held for them stemmed from the fact that her family did not hold the same southern values that they did. While Hightower’s family were heroic Civil
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 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,
Growing up can be both exciting and challenging. Sandra Cisneros in “The Family with Little Feet” describes one of her first experiences of being a young woman. Cisneros uses heels as a metaphor to describe an experience that is both exciting and challenging.
In “Behind Grandma's House” by Gary Soto it tells a story of a young ten year old kid, who wanted to be known and famous. From what I understand the tone in this poem that is being exhibited is that the kid in the poem is trying to act tough and had a unexpected plot twist. To prove that he was trying to portray that he was tough, he would kick over trash cans, threw light bulbs around and threw rocks at stray cats. Other than what was stated there was more bad things that he has done around his neighborhood. This was just a ordinary bad boy trying to attract attention.
Although Judy Brady discusses how women need to be the perfect homemaker and take care of their families, Brady uses irony to convey that this mentality is the way men think. Brady sees women as very powerful, entitled humans who should not be treated as so. In the article, she explains all the things that the male expects the ideal wife would do. They cook, clean, nurture children, and do all the household duties. Judy Brady sees women as something so special to this earth and men do not respect that.
Whether one would like to admit it or not, change is a difficult and not to mention uncomfortable experience which we all must endure at one point in our lives. A concept that everyone must understand is that change does not occur immediately, for it happens overtime. It is necessary for time to pass in order for a change to occur, be it days, weeks, months, or even years. The main character, who is also the narrator of “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, realizing that “things felt less foreign in the dark” (Russell 225), knows that she will be subject to change very soon. The author makes it evident to readers that the narrator is in a brand new environment as the story begins. This strange short story about girls raised by wolves being trained by nuns to be more human in character is a symbol for immigration, as the girls are forced to make major changes in their lives in order to fit in with their new environment and adapt to a new culture.
“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.