One can learn responsibility through experience, whether the experience is great, or if it is tragic. In The Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes, twelve year old Lanesha demonstrates her growth by bringing her and others to safety during a deadly storm. Once nurtured and cared for by her non-biological grandmother, Lanesha learns to take care of herself and others. This significance shows her transitioning from a girl to a young woman. Hurricane Katrina is approaching New Orleans, Louisiana, including the Ninth Ward, where Lanesha and her guardian, Mama Ya-Ya live. The chapter, titled “Sunday”, starts off with the newspapers and the televisions emphasizing the word “evacuate”. Mama Ya-Ya, who is normally up and about, ready to greet the day, is curled up on the couch asleep. Something has been bothering Mama Ya-Ya; Lanesha even sees it when she wakes up. “I walk through the house. Even though it’s Sunday, there’s no smell of cinnamon-spiced waffles or pancakes. I can’t smell any bacon. (I’m not hungry anyway.) There’s quiet when there should be pots rattling in the kitchen. Me and Mama Ya-Ya should be at the table, talking up a storm” (Rhodes, 70). Towards the middle of the chapter, Lanesha notices that her neighbors are preparing for the storm’s arrival. This gets her worried: “I feel nervous, watching my neighbors readying for the storm. Tonight when it hits, we’ll all be inside our houses. I wonder if they feel like I do. Scared. If they worry about getting hurt or not having enough to eat. Afraid that like the big bad wolf, the wind might blow all our houses away” (Rhodes, 73). Seeing this, Lanesha comes to a realization that something must b... ... middle of paper ... ... of these important decisions. As the stories goes on, Mama Ya-Ya is withering away as the storm goes on and as the days go by. Lanesha uses Mama Ya-Ya’s wisdom and visions to guide her through preparing for the storm. When Mama Ya-Ya passes away during a significant part of the storm, Lanesha takes into account that she is now a grown woman, who needs to get out alive. The chapter “Sunday” specifies how Lanesha comes to the realization that she must grow up quickly. Her transition from being Mama Ya-Ya’s child to an independent soul stands out in this part of the story. Lanesha proves to the readers that she is able to make constructive decisions by herself and that she can hold her own. She also shows that she can truly take care of others such as Mama Ya-Ya, her friend TaShon, and his dog, Spot. Sometimes, we may need an experience, good or bad, to help us grow.
A storm such as Katrina undoubtedly ruined homes and lives with its destructive path. Chris Rose touches upon these instances of brokenness to elicit sympathy from his audience. Throughout the novel, mental illness rears its ugly head. Tales such as “Despair” reveal heart-wrenching stories emerging from a cycle of loss. This particular article is concerned with the pull of New Orleans, its whisper in your ear when you’ve departed that drags you home. Not home as a house, because everything physical associated with home has been swept away by the storm and is now gone. Rather, it is concerned with home as a feeling, that concept that there is none other than New Orleans. Even when there is nothing reminiscent of what you once knew, a true New Orleanian will seek a fresh start atop the foundation of rubbish. This is a foreign concept for those not native to New Orleans, and a New Orleanian girl married to a man from Atlanta found her relationship split as a result of flooding waters. She was adamant about staying, and he returned to where he was from. When he came back to New Orleans for her to try and make it work, they shared grim feelings and alcohol, the result of which was the emergence of a pact reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet. This couple decided they would kill themselves because they could see no light amongst the garbage and rot, and failure was draining them of any sense of optimism. She realized the fault in this agreement,
This book is about a girl name Ellen Foster who is ten years old. Her mother committed suicide by over dosing on her medication. When Ellen tried to go look for help for her mother her father stopped her. He told them that if she looked for helped he would kill them both. After her mother died she was left under her fathers custody. Her father was a drunk. He would physically and mentally abuse her. Ellen was forced to pay bills, go grocery shopping, cook for herself, and do everything else for herself. Ellen couldn't take it any more so she ran away her friends house. Starletta and her parents lived in a small cabin with one small bathroom. One day at school a teacher found a bruise on Ellen's arm. She sends Ellen to live with Julia the school's art teacher. Julia had a husband named Roy. They were both hippies. Julia and Roy cared a lot about Ellen. After Ellen turned 11 years old she was forced to go live with her grandmother. Ellen didn't want to leave Julia and Roy but her grandmother had won custody. Her grandmother was a cruel old lady. Ellen spends the summer with her grandmother. Living with her makes her very unhappy. Since her grandmother owns farmland she forces Ellen to work on the field with her black servants. Ellen meets a black woman named Mavis. Mavis and her become good friends. Mavis would talk about how she knew Ellen's mother and how much Ellen resembled her mother. Her grandmother didn't think the same. She thought that Ellen resembled her father. She also hated that man. Her grandmother would often compare her with her father. Her grandmother would torture her because she wanted revenge from her father. Her grandmother also blames her for the death of her mother. While Ellen was staying with her grandmother her father died. When her father died she didn't feel sad because she had always fantasized about killing her father. Ellen just felt a distant sadness. Ellen cried just a little bit. Her grandmother was furious because Ellen showed some emotions. She told her to never cry again. After that Ellen becomes scarred for a long time. One day her uncle Rudolph bought the flag that had been on Ellen's father's casket. Her grandmother turns him away. Later that day she burned the flag.
Janie’s first parental, godlike figure is Nanny, and she is the first to assume the form of a metaphorical hurricane or “[s]omething resembling a hurricane in force or speed” (“Hurricane”). Nanny establishes her parental, godlike status to Janie when she says, “’You ain’t got no papa, you might jus’ as well say no mama, for de good she do yuh. You ain’t got nobody but me…Neither can you stand alone by yo’self’” (15). While acting as the sole provider of love and protection to Janie, Nanny assumes the speed and force of a hurricane; “she bolt[s] upright” upon witnessing Janie’s first kiss an...
Corwin highlights the corrupted foster care system through detailed progression of the central character, Olivia. She is one of the most brilliant students in the novel and views school as a positive distraction from the daily physical abuse she encounters at home. In a sense, intelligence saves her. She manages to disconnect her emotions and use her intellect to excel in and out of school. With a molested mother and lack of father figure, Olivia becomes a ward of the county. Children who enter foster care often have been exposed to condition...
Zeitoun is very close with his family and he takes his family like nobody else. When Hurricane Katrina landed in 2005, an endless number of people were affected. Mayor Nagin ordered a first-ever mandatory evacuation. Kathy moved with the children to her sister’s house in Baton Rouge. Zeitoun refused to leave with his family because he didn’t want to lose his property, but at the same time, his customers trusted him and gave him their house keys to check on their houses, which caused his separation from his family.
Even though Mama is a strong woman, there are many flaws. Not so much with her, but more so with her family. Her youngest daughter Maggie was burned in a house fire, which has left her broken and battered. Mama really talks down about Maggie, but it’s all true, she says “Have you ever seen a lame animal,
It can be examined from a few different standpoints, from the dramatic, psychological, and even mythical. Although this play has so many different views to explore, they all mainly focus on the protagonist of the play, Jessie, and her motivations for her decision to take her own life. Through further exploration, I will analyze one of the major scenes before Jesse takes her own life and would like to further explore the character of Mama.
The story “Eleven,” shows the morning of a girl’s eleventh birthday. However, her day turns sour when she faces an unexpected problem that morning. In the story, the author, Sandra Cisneros, uses imagery, childish diction, and first person point of view to characterize Rachel, the main character.
The readers become sympathetic to the author by looking into her frustrations of continually falling short of her mother’s expectations, her resistance to being changed, and even the way she describes others. They can further understand the desire to be loved, which leads to her misbehaviour. This story suggests that both the mother and the daughter have their own strong standpoints, and will behave in the way which is most suited to her own beliefs.
It must soon be time for the Beasts to roam. The Beasts roam ever earlier in the day, and it is not safe to be out of doors. When she was a child, the Beasts dared not appear while the sky held light. Monsters are bolder now.
The thunder and lightning were getting bigger and bigger in the sky. He heard a window crash underneath him and saw kids running around on the wet concrete. “Get back into your houses and stay there until this is all over. I don’t want anybody to get hurt.”
Fink, Sheri. "Hurricane Katrina: after the flood." The Gaurdian. N.p., 7 Feb. 2014. Web. 17 Apr. 2014.
I look around at my family with a smile on my face as I sit on the faded brown couch in my living room soaking in just how great my life is. Suddenly a loud alarm sounded from the TV, jerking me from my thoughts. I quickly turned my head toward the TV to see what was going on. Frantic, commanding voices came from the TV. “Attention citizens of New Orleans and surrounding areas.
Today’s readings we looked at the effects that Hurricane Katrina had on the women and children in New Orleans. The devastation that was caused by Katrina was massive and in “Women of Katrina: Taking Care, Weaving Networks, Crossing Borders” looks into how women got through the disaster with displacement and their families. During Super Storm Sandy my mom was not pleased when my sister said that she was going to wait out the storm at her boyfriends at the time. Her reasoning was that we need to be together as a family during this difficult time, and that was the reasoning for those who did not evacuate during Katrina. During disasters women are more likely to want to evacuate because of the mentality of protecting the family however, the final
Eleven by Sandra Cisneros, uses many literary devices to characterize a complex eleven-year-old. Rachel, the ingenuous 1st person narrator, relates the details of her humiliating eleventh birthday. Although her diction reflects her age, Rachel conveys the difficulty of growing up with adult precision. She is embarrassed and feels helpless, but knows she will soon be home with her parents, and her terrible day will drift away. Rachel's age is given away not only by the title, but by her word choice. She employs numerous similes, describing crying like uncontrollable hiccups, drinking milk to fast, and little animal noises. Her confidence rattles like "pennies in a tin Band-Aid Box," and she is always on the edge of lapsing into another session of tears. However, Rachel's diction does not simple betray her age. Descriptions like "smells like cottage cheese" are insights into her true personality. She is passionate and curious, almost to a fault. Because she describes things like runaway balloons, she is a believable eleven-year-old. First person narration reveals though Rachel's thoughts are those of a typical eleven-year-old her descriptive ability is more mature. Rachel has an uncanny ability to convey her feelings. However, because she is an ingenuous narrator, she sometimes misses the deeper significance of her feelings. Although she twice mentions she is looking forward to cake, her birthday song, and normal birthday things, she does not mention she also needs the comfort of her parents. On the other hand, unlike most older, or mature, people, she understands enough about life experience to know she does not have enough.