The 57 Bus. A true story of two teenagers and the crime that changed their lives. Dashka Slater tells the story of a boy, Richard, towards an agender teen, Sasha. Sasha is set on fire, while riding the 57 bus. The crime is told starting with the backstories of both characters and emerges from there. It is a book that explores many themes of race, class, gender, and crime. Throughout the text, Richard’s past experiences reveal a character who is easily manipulated, and does not reflect his true self. His childhood, present life, and the people he surrounds himself with are all factors that prompted the crime Richard commits. Richard grew up in a lower class household. This childhood is what contributed to the setting on fire of Sashas skirt. …show more content…
After joining Kaprice Wilson’s program for struggling teens at Oakland High School, Richard is doing better as a student and is trying to graduate. He is determined to be. After this, Richard is robbed by a boy who has killed people. “Two tongues in their mouths, the one they use to promise, and the one they use to lie.” (101) This line is part of a poem that Richard writes, right after he is robbed, showing he feels betrayed and now has a different mindset than graduating and becoming a good student. This distraction and deterrence in his plans are what contributed to Richard committing the crime. This event in Richard's life is what caused him to change his character, not reflecting his true self, resulting in him lighting Sasha’s skirt on fire. The people Richard surrounds himself with are not a very good influence on him or others. These people are what convince him to commit the crime. “Go ahead, you do it” (112) This is said by Jamal, Richard's friend. Jamal urged and pressed Richard into lighting Sasha’s skirt on fire. This shows that Richard is very impressionable and easily influenced into doing things he may or may not already want to
For my reading assignment I read “Car Trouble” by Jeanne Duprau. The story takes place in many cities in the United States. Some are real places like Richmond, Virginia, St. Louis, Missouri, and Los Angeles, California. The book also has some fictional towns like Sunville, New Mexico, a town built completely off of solar power and other natural resources. There are many more real and fake cities throughout the story, but the ones mentioned are the most written about and most important to the story.
Ruta Sepetys is the author for Between the Shades of Gray, a novel that captures the truth of Siberian camps and the annexation of the Balkans by Stalin. Ruta Sepetys got the idea to write this fictional story when she visited her family in Lithuania and got the chance to discover more about her heritage. She got very fascinated about her family’s struggle to keep memories of her grandparents because of the annexation of Lithuania to the USSR. This conflict urged her to find out more about the feelings and people’s memoirs during this period in World War II so, she started interviewing the survivors from the Siberian gulags and gathered information to write her novel. The book was also inspired by her father, Jonas Sepetys, who escape the Stalin furry with his family when he was a little boy. This fictional account is part of a historical event filled with several true stories intertwined to create this wonderful story filled with love, hope, pain and tears. Ruta said, “I took two research trips to Lithuania while writing the novel. I interviewed family members, survivors of the deportations, survivors of the gulags, psychologists, historians and government officials. The experience was life-altering. I spent time in one of the train cars that was used for the deportations. I also agreed to take part in an extreme simulation experiment and was locked in a former Soviet prison. Let’s just say the experience left me certain that I never would have survived the deportations.” In an interview with conducted by rutasepetys.com. She started writing Between the Shades of Gray in 2005 after several visits to Lithuania. Sepetys said in a blog that she wrote titled “My Family’s Story” that her main goal while writing this book was “On...
Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is a story written in the first person about a young girl named Melinda Sordino. The title of the book, Speak, is ironically based on the fact that Melinda chooses not to speak. The book is written in the form of a monologue in the mind of Melinda, a teenage introvert. This story depicts the story of a very miserable freshman year of high school. Although there are several people in her high school, Melinda secludes herself from them all. There are several people in her school that used to be her friend in middle school, but not anymore. Not after what she did over the summer. What she did was call the cops on an end of summer party on of her friends was throwing. Although all her classmates think there was no reason to call, only Melinda knows the real reason. Even if they cared to know the real reason, there is no way she could tell them. A personal rape story is not something that flows freely off the tongue. Throughout the story Melinda describes the pain she is going through every day as a result of her rape. The rape of a teenage girl often leads to depression. Melinda is convinced that nobody understands her, nor would they even if they knew what happened that summer. Once a happy girl, Melinda is now depressed and withdrawn from the world. She hardly ever speaks, nor does she do well in school. She bites her lips and her nails until they bleed. Her parents seem to think she is just going through a faze, but little do they know, their daughter has undergone a life changing trauma that will affect her life forever.
In the story “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros, it follows a girl named Rachel as she talks about growing up and becoming an eleven-year-old. By using details, imagery, and language, the author creates a character with many different emotions that get the reader’s attention and creates a compelling story.
Kahn was a writer and contribute editor of magazines for wired and national geographic. Stripped for parts appeared in wired in 2003. Kahn was awarded award in 2004 for a journalism fellowship from the American Academy of Neurology. She wrote this short essay describing how organs can be transplanted. The Stripped essay is an- eye opener. Though not many people tend to think of how a body should be maintained after death. Jennifer Kahn depicts a dramatic image for her audience. She uses the terminology “the dead man “though technically correct, the patient is brain dead, but his or her heart is still beating.
Throughout a lifetime, one can run through many different personalities that transform constantly due to experience and growing maturity, whether he or she becomes the quiet, brooding type, or tries out being the wild, party maniac. Richard Yates examines acting and role-playing—recurring themes throughout the ages—in his fictional novel Revolutionary Road. Frank and April Wheeler, a young couple living miserably in suburbia, experience relationship difficulties as their desire to escape grows. Despite their search for something different, the couple’s lack of communication causes their planned move to Europe to fall through. Frank and April Wheeler play roles not only in their individual searches for identity, but also in their search for a healthy couple identity; however, the more the Wheelers hide behind their desired roles, the more they lose sense of their true selves as individuals and as a pair.
The aforementioned is not always easy to do, as interests and beliefs are constantly nourished with new information. It becomes easier to follow the behavior of a popular music artist if exposure derives from friends in a group or growing personal interests. Drugs are prominent in poor Black communities, but gangs are equally dangerous for young Americans. Territorial obsession and superficial pride will warp the mindset of young Black Americans in neighborhoods like Citrus Grove, and sometimes it becomes too late for them to realize what’s important. Although Dexter’s specialty is not the best, Pam Noles uses him to show both the consequences of apathy and exhibiting a flawed mindset. As with false idols, Dexter’s lust for Tamika and projection onto her of everything he wants shrouds his thoughts as he “couldn’t imagine her ever forgetting him”. What is saddest about Dexter and Tamika’s relationship is the underlying truth she refuses to share. When “the last bits of him [flowed] from every part of her”, Dexter’s emotions exploded with rage, frustration, and depression. Even when Tamika prizes keeping her friendship with Peek and attempts to swoon a player, Tamika is disparaged for her erotic behavior by her friend. Crowning the wrong people leads only to disappointment in the end. Acting this way induces confusion. Revering the wrong individual can damage one’s decision-making capabilities. You can lose sight of who you are and what you believe in by performing for other’s benefit and not your
Marilyn Frye, a feminist philosopher, discusses the idea of oppression and how it conforms people into gender roles. She claims that it is based upon membership in a group which leads to shaping, pressing, and molding individuals, both women and men.
In Harlem Runs Wild, Claude McKay depicts the Harlem Riot of 1935 as merely "…a gesture of despair of a bewildered, baffled, and disillusioned people." (McKay 224) The Harlem Riot of 1935 was spontaneous and unpremeditated. It was not a race riot in the sense of physical conflict between white and non-white groups as there was little direct violence to white persons. McKay states, "The mass riot in Harlem was not a race riot." (McKay 221) Its distinguishing feature was the persons' attack upon property rather than persons, and resentment against whites that, while exploiting Negroes, denied them an opportunity to work. Communists did not instigate the riot, though they sought to profit by it and circulated a false and misleading leaflet after the riots were well underway. In The Invisible Man, Ras the Destroyer is shown as the primary cause of the riot that breaks out in Harlem. Scofield and Dupre begin to blame the riot on Ras, but change their beliefs and say that it is because of the heat, calling them dog days....
Inside Toyland, written by Christine L. Williams, is a look into toy stores and the race, class, and gender issues. Williams worked about six weeks at two toy stores, Diamond Toys and Toy Warehouse, long enough to be able to detect patterns in store operations and the interactions between the workers and the costumers. She wanted to attempt to describe and analyze the rules that govern giant toy stores. Her main goal was to understand how shopping was socially organized and how it might be transformed to enhance the lives of workers. During the twentieth century, toy stores became bigger and helped suburbanization and deregulation. Specialty toy stores existed but sold mainly to adults, not to children. Men used to be the workers at toy stores until it changed and became feminized, racially mixed, part time, and temporary. As box stores came and conquered the land, toy stores started catering to children and offering larger selections at low prices. The box stores became powerful in the flip-flop of the power going from manufacturers to the retailers. Now, the retail giants determine what they will sell and at what price they will sell it.
Ronald Reagan once said, “We fought a war on poverty, and poverty won.” I read the book, Dancing in the dark by Morris Dickstein. This book was about the great depression, and the impacts it had on American life. The traditional thought of poverty, people dying of hunger and people lying in the roads, has been erased. America has abolished poverty by the traditional standards but the thought of poverty and what it is has changed. In America we consider poverty to be spending all your money on bills, so you have no money left for food to feed your family. We consider poverty to be just being poor. One-Third of our population makes less than $38,000. This is not enough to be able to be above the poverty line. Anything below this “line” is considered being poverty. How do they decide this line? They take the cost of a very basic diet, and they multiply it by three, for a family of three. That being said, One-half of the jobs in America pay below $38,000 a year, so no wonder we are losing the war on poverty.
Daydreaming that the girls will all be fawning over him, Sammy makes a stand against Lengel and his motive is to receive thanks from the girls for his brave deeds. Yet, 180 degree turn for his expectation when he quits and departs from A&P, “they are gone of course” (835). Sammy may have quit his job and announces it loudly, the girls think about the embarrassment they had before and left Sammy with resentment. The idea dawned upon regarding in this situation is Sammy made an involved mistake. This type of mistake is familiar with nature of a person but take efforts to prevent it. Without distinguishing what is right or wrong, defending from the right side may results a fake vision and the wrong side may leads the person to misery. Along with the depression from the being left behind, Sammy regrets about the gestures that is “[fold the apron, ‘Sammy’ stitched in red and put it on the counter]” (835), he made before he walks out of the doors. As soon as he steps out of A&P, Sammy does not know what to expect or do. All he realized is that he was forced to be a dynamic character when he quit his job and has to put away in juvenile self to go into adulthood. This reveals one complex mistake which is making decisions that has unpleasant outcomes and unable to avoid them. The complex mistake that young people tend to results make is making a sudden
“In Appalachia the country is beautiful and the society is broken.” Williamson argues many aspects varying from misery to poverty to criminal activity to the “drawing” of welfare checks to survive. Although poverty doesn’t tie into the paper directly it’s the foundation to where the crime starts. Williamson is not from the Appalachia region, but he does a good job delivering the information in way that many can visual what he is talking without feeling he is trying to make you feel one way or another about Appalachian poverty and crime (Williamson, 2014).
that he is a young boy, as he seems surprised by the fact that he is
In Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder teaches philosophy and it explains basic philosophical ideas better than any other reading book or textbook that I have ever read. The many philosophical lessons of the diversified thinkers of their own time were dexterously understood. The author has a wonderful knack for finding the heart of a concept and placing it on display. For example, he metamorphoses Democritus' atoms into Lego bricks and in a stroke makes the classical conception of the atom dexterously attainable. He relates all the abstract concepts about the world and what is real with straightforward everyday things that everyone can relate to which makes this whole philosophy course manageable. ''The best way of approaching philosophy is to ask a few philosophical questions: How was the world created? Is there any will or meaning behind what happens? Is there a life after death? How can we answer these questions? And most important, how ought we to live?'' (Gaarder, Jostein 15).