Living with uncertainty and fear creates a personal space for growth, independence, and maturity. In The Girl Who Was Saturday night, Heather O'Neill portrays how the protagonist Nouschka Tremblay experiences life-changing circumstances. She explores her inner self which ultimately influences her strong, stable personality. However, Nouschka's childhood and ultimately her future has been impacted by a variety of relationships that include family and friends. Nouchka and her brother were brought up by their grandfather LouLou due to their unstable relationships with their parents. At the same time the political uncertainty amidst the referendum. This had the potential to cause a separation of Quebec from Canada. Nouschkas personal life and …show more content…
the referendum were both parallel to each other. Noushcka wanted to separate from her relationships while Quebec wanted to separate from Canada. Nouschkas twin brother Nicholas was her best friend with whom she had a loving but rocky relationship with. Nicholas was a high school dropout and influenced Nouschka negatively, because of their nonexistent relationship with their mother and strained relationship with their father.
It is revealed that their mother is remarried with children and had been a nanny to their close friend Adam. Nicholas feels betrayed because their Mother still refuses to have them in her life. Nicholas is deeply traumatized by this and consistently mentions it to Nouschka, but she remains stable and does not allow this to influence her attitude. Nouschka and Nicholas had an extremely close relationship which is portrayed by them sleeping in the same bed. As they matured Nouschka was influenced by alcohol and parties but remain grounded and applied to return to school to advance her learning.Nicholas, being abandoned by the mother of his child turned to petty crime in an attempt to provide for his son, Pierrot. The emotions Nicholas experiences hurt him, due to the lack of parenting he received and wished to do better for his own child. QUOTE. Their singing Father, Etienne, was a well-known country artist who lived life precariously. Nouschka's world was no ordinary world. Her Father paraded the twins on …show more content…
the stage when they were younger. They became as famous as their Father, leading them to be recognized all around Montreal and having a lavish lifestyle. However, their father believed he was above the law until he was sentenced for underage sex with a fourteen-year-old girl. The twins were continuously recognized, much to their dismay. As they matured they were often followed by film crews and the media. Nouschkas friends were limited to Adam, Misha. and Nicholas. Misha gave her love and affection she had been missing from her life, but she did not feel the same way. Nouschka frequented a local bar and was drawn to Raphael a young man she had known at school. He once had a promising career as a figure skater but succumbed to issues with his mental health, and was once arrested for abusing dogs. Nouschka fell madly in love with Raphael. He gave the love that she had never known before. Life in 1995 was a different year that the Quebecois were questioning just like Nouschka when her life was under the microscope in public eye. The life she was living had noticeable parallels to the division in Quebecs society. The decisions Quebecois citizens had to make about remaining part of canada, Nouschka saw her future branching into two possible paths as well. After meeting Raphael, they fell in love and decided to get married, With marriage they found out they were expecting a baby. Once Nouschka found out she knew she had to change herself. Nouschka went back to night school to try and finish her education. She had tried to get Nicholas to go back but she always knew he would never would join her, She wished that he would try and get a job but, with his distaste for authority figures of any type that would never happen. When the police arrived banging loudly on the door waking the twins up Nicholas knew he was going to jail.
“He tried to jump out our bedroom window” (O'Neill 370). LouLou decided to dress in his cleanest clothes possible to show the police that they were clean people. He ran out of the apartment with a photo of Noushcka and Nicholas, asking one of the police officers “ Weren’t they cute?”( O’Niell 366). Their grandfather was proud of the kids but did not want to accept the fact Nicholas was going to jail. He believed they had “good natures but they were always with the bad crowds” (O'Neill 367). Everytime Noushcka would visit Nicholas they would talk about all the good times they had. The times where they fought “remember when I hit you on the head with a pot for no reason?” (O'Neill 370). Nicholas stated that he missed her and never thought he would be able to live without her. The jail Nicholas was placed in was the same jail they had visited their father at for
years. With a dynamic characteristic Nouschkas childhood upbringing makes her realize she does not want her child to grow up without a mother especially when they will not have their biological father around. She realizes changes have to be made after suffering the loss of her husband to suicide and her brother ending up in jail. With Nicholas in jail she loses her best friend and her everything.With all those hard times going on Nouschka has to mature by finding out who she really is. Nouschka has a hard time knowing the person she looked to the most was not able to help her raise her child who would have no uncle. Nouschka knew these life events would affect her but nothing would stop her changing for the best. Meeting Raphael had a small impact with her relationship with her brother, he did not totally agree with them being together. After losing Raphael, Nouschka was scarred but she knew this was her time to move forward and gain her independence. Nouchka had been trying to learn how to live alone but not everyday was easy for her . Nouschka walked down the street to Raphaels funeral and held her hand out for Nicholas but all she felt was emptiness when he wasn't there. Nouschka was in a place where all she could do was think about him returning. During the funeral when she had no one to comfort her she felt that everything in her was empty and she had nothing. When she saw her father at the funeral and he did not even attempt to walk over and comfort her. Even looking at LouLou “ he was shaking his head in disbelief the way he did when I told him i was marrying Raphael.” Nouschka couldn't help but think “ How can I ask Raphael to come out of his coffin and tell me i'm the most wonderful girl in the world?”
Elizabeth Fernea entered El Nahra, Iraq as an innocent bystander. However, through her stay in the small Muslim village, she gained cultural insight to be passed on about not only El Nahra, but all foreign culture. As Fernea entered the village, she was viewed with a critical eye, ?It seemed to me that many times the women were talking about me, and not in a particularly friendly manner'; (70). The women of El Nahra could not understand why she was not with her entire family, and just her husband Bob. The women did not recognize her American lifestyle as proper. Conversely, BJ, as named by the village, and Bob did not view the El Nahra lifestyle as particularly proper either. They were viewing each other through their own cultural lenses. However, through their constant interaction, both sides began to recognize some benefits each culture possessed. It takes time, immersed in a particular community to understand the cultural ethos and eventually the community as a whole. Through Elizabeth Fernea?s ethnography on Iraq?s El Nahra village, we learn that all cultures have unique and equally important aspects.
The book “Dead Girls Don’t Lie” written by Jennifer Shaw Wolf focuses on a variety of different ideas and topics, mostly fixating the murder of the main character’s best friend Rachel. With this also comes gang violence, lost and found relationships, and the fact that some people will go to great extents in order to keep a lethal secret from the public eye. Rachel and Jaycee were best friends up until 6 months before where the book started. But, an altercation between them caused the breakup of their long lasted friendship. It is soon found out that Rachel was shot through her bedroom window, which is at first suspected to be gang violence. When Jaycee doesn’t answer her phone on the night Rachel was murdered, she received a text that circulates
Alexander Stowe is a twin, his brother is Aaron Stowe. Alex is an Unwanted, Aaron is a Wanted, and their parents are Necessaries. Alex is creative in a world where you can’t even see the entire sky, and military is the dream job for everyone and anyone. He should have been eliminated, just like all the unwanteds should have been. He instead comes upon Artimè, where he trains as a magical warrior- after a while. When he was still in basic training, and his friends were not, he got upset, he wants to be the leader, the one everyone looks up to.
In “Youthful Indiscretions: Should Colleges Protect Social Network Users from Themselves and Others?” Dana Fleming presents an essay concerning the safety of social networking sites and how Universities can deal and prevent problems. This article is targeted towards school administrators, faculty, and a social networking user audience who will either agree or disagree with her statement. I believe Fleming presents an excellent, substantial case for why she reasons the way she does. Fleming gives a sound, logical argument according to Toulmin’s Schema. This essay has an evident enthymeme, which has a claim and reasons why she believes in that way. Toulmin refers to this as “grounds."
After a basketball game, four kids, Andrew Jackson, Tyrone Mills, Robert Washington and B.J. Carson, celebrate a win by going out drinking and driving. Andrew lost control of his car and crashed into a retaining wall on I-75. Andy, Tyrone, and B.J. escaped from the four-door Chevy right after the accident. Teen basketball star and Hazelwood high team captain was sitting in the passenger's side with his feet on the dashboard. When the crash happened, his feet went through the windshield and he was unable to escape. The gas tank then exploded and burned Robbie to death while the three unharmed kids tried to save him.
So far in the book the main character (narrator) remains anonymous to the reader, and refers to himself as the “Invisible Man”. According to himself, he believes he is invisible due to the fact that he has no place in society. Throughout the book he has been constantly rejected by everyone, his friends, fellow african americans, and the white americans who were “superior” at the time. However, besides his depressive feelings for himself, he isn’t as innocent as he portrays himself to be. The Invisible man is actually rather threatening than he is friendly, which feeds the reasoning why he is constantly rejected by everyone. The reader can witness his lack of innocence in a quote the narrator stated “I sprang at him, seized his coat lapels
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.
Wintergirls is a book related to eating disorders. The author’s purpose of writing this book is to inform readers what a person with an eating disorder. It depicts the inner and outer conflicts that characters like Lia and Cassie face with disorder. It all began with a competition between two characters of who can be the skinniest. Cassie dies in the attempt of winning the game. Lia, the main character in this novel, always keeps track of her food consumption. For example, one breakfast morning, Lia said she didn’t want “a muffin (410),…orange (75),…toast (87),…waffles (180)” (Anderson 5). Lia constantly keeps track of the calories she eats. Unlike Cassie who follows the path of bulimia, Lia inhibits herself from eating, therefore not getting the proper nutrients. This allows the readers to know how a person with a disorder like Lia can restrain herself from eating foods that we’re used to eating in our regular lives. Her ultimate goal frequently change, getting lower and lower each time. Lia strives for a “five hundred calories a day” (Anderson 189). Her constant change of goals allows the readers to know the struggles a girl with such a mindset may feel.
Sanity is subjective. Every individual is insane to another; however it is the people who possess the greatest self-restraint that prosper in acting “normal”. This is achieved by thrusting the title of insanity onto others who may be unlike oneself, although in reality, are simply non-conforming, as opposed to insane. In Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, this fine line between sanity and insanity is explored to great lengths. Through the unveiling of Susanna’s past, the reasoning behind her commitment to McLean Hospital for the mentally ill, and varying definitions of the diagnosis that Susanna received, it is evident that social non-conformity is often confused with insanity.
Diamant has Dinah effectively tell her story from three different narrative perspectives. The bulk of the novel is related by Dinah in first person, providing a private look at growing up and personal tragedy: "It seemed that I was the last person alive in the world" (Diamant 203). Dinah tells the story that she says was mangled in the bible.
For as long as man has walked the earth, so has evil. There may be conflicting moral beliefs in this world, but one thing is universally considered wrong: serial killers. Although some people may try to use insanity as an explanation for these wicked people, they cannot explain away the heartlessness that resides in them. As shown in The Stranger Beside Me, infamous serial killer Ted Bundy is no exception to this. Even though books about true crimes may be considered insensitive to those involved, the commonly positively reviewed book The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule handles the somber issue of Ted Bundy’s emotionally destructive early life and the brutal crimes he committed that made people more fearful and aware of the evil that can exist in seemingly normal people well.
Woman’. When I first read the first part of the story I thought it was
We have all heard the African proverb that says, “It takes a village to raise a child.” The response given by Emma Donoghue’s novel Room, simply states, “If you’ve got a village. But if you don’t, then maybe it just takes two people” (Donoghue 234). For Jack, Room is where he was born and has been raised for the past five years; it is his home and his world. Jack’s “Ma” on the other hand knows that Room is not a home, in fact, it is a prison. Since Ma’s kidnapping, seven years prior, she has survived in the shed of her capturer’s backyard. This novel contains literary elements that are not only crucial to the story but give significance as well. The Point-of-view brings a powerful perspective for the audience, while the setting and atmosphere not only affect the characters but evokes emotion and gives the reader a mental picture of their lives, and the impacting theme along-side with conflict, both internal and external, are shown throughout the novel.
In The Boy No One Loved the author, Casey Watson, discusses child abuse in a boy named Justin and some of the life events that he has gone through. Justin is an example of how child abuse can be correlated with violence. Some of the forms of child abuse that Justin went through while being with his birth mother include: neglect, maltreatment, sexual abuse, and being in an unsafe environment. When these circumstances happen, though, Justin was lucky because he was able to find a family that grew to care for and love him. Finding a family (or even being a member of a family) like this is a wonderful experience that not every child gets to have.
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.