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More handpicked essays just for you.
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"The Semplica Girl Diaries” on a social issue
Characterizing identity is very difficult and challenging, which put every person in a tough situation to look for where, who and how she or he belongs and is defined as. People most often defined as their race or country they came from. However, especially in the American society race and ethnicity is a big social problem specially with the huge amount of immigrants Seeking the United States. This is what George Saunders presented in his dystopian story “the semplica-girl diaries” (A story from the collection “Tenth of December” by George Saunders). In the story Saunders displayed the impression of immigrant girls selling their bodies as of idea to show how foreign people and immigrants lower their
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.
The War Against Boys is the story of our cultural attack on the modern male. Twenty-first century men are looked down-upon, laughed at, and many times emasculated in our day-to-day lives. In her book, Christina Hoff Sommers does an excellent job reminding us that men are responsible for a lot of good in the world: “This book tells the story of how it has become fashionable to attribute pathology to millions of healthy male children. It is a story of how we are turning against boys and forgetting a simple truth: that the energy, competitiveness, and corporal daring of normal, decent males is responsible for much of what is right in the word.” Our culture has promoted a skewed view; most people believe that women are treated unfairly, that
She’s just so weak. If she would stand up for herself, no one would bother her. It’s her own fault that people pick on her, she needs to toughen up. “Shape of a Girl” by Joan MacLeod, introduces us to a group of girls trying to “fit in” in their own culture, “school.” This story goes into detail about what girls will do to feel accepted and powerful, and the way they deal with everyday occurrences in their “world.” Most of the story is through the eyes of one particular character, we learn about her inner struggles and how she deals with her own morals. This story uses verisimilitude, and irony to help us understand the strife of children just wanting to fit in and feel normal in schools today.
In Judith Ortiz Cofer’s “The Story of My Body” Ortiz Cofer represents herself narrative story when she were young. Her autobiography has four headlines these parts are skin, color, size, and looks. Every headline has it is own stories underneath it. Ortiz Cofer’s is expressing her life story about her physical and psychological struggle with her body. Heilbrun’s narrative, “Writing a Woman’s Life” shows that, a woman’s does not have to be an ideal to write a self-autobiography to tell the world something about herself and her life. Ortiz Cofer’s facing a body struggle that is not made by herself, but by people around her. Therefore, every woman is able to write can write an autobiography with no exception.
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.
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.
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain is her own story that she wrote about during the Great War otherwise known as World War One. The main theme of her story is the struggles that she had to face, whether it dealt with her family, or her personal goals such as attending college or the world that she was surrounded by. On page 17 Brittain stated that "When the Great War broke out, it came to me not as a superlative tragedy, but as an interruption of the most exasperating kind to my personal plans." Another important aspect of Vera's goals was the aspiration and ambition that she had, that aspiration allowed her to move forward in her life.
The eternal endeavor of obtaining a realistic sense of selfhood is depicted for all struggling women of color in Gloria Anzaldua’s “Borderlands/La Frontera” (1987). Anzaldua illustrates the oppressing realities of her world – one that sets limitations for the minority. Albeit the obvious restraints against the white majority (the physical borderland between the U.S. and Mexico), there is a constant and overwhelming emotional battle against the psychological “borderlands” instilled in Anzaldua as she desperately seeks recognition as an openly queer Mestiza woman. With being a Mestiza comes a lot of cultural stereotypes that more than often try to define ones’ role in the world – especially if you are those whom have privilege above the “others”.
Rape Fantasies by Margaret Atwood "Rape Fantasies" was written by Margaret Atwood in 1977. Basically, this short story is about the narrator, named Estelle, recalling a conversation between several women during their lunch hour. It starts with one of Estelle's co-workers, asking the question 'How about it, girls, do you have rape fantasies? ' (pg 72) The story goes on with each woman telling their supposed 'rape fantasy' to one another.
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank was published in 1947. When the book was published a lot of people were impacted. It started getting more and more famous all around the world. In no time 30 million copies of the book was sold. Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett decided to make a play based on Anne Franks book. The play was a huge success and it was nominated for 8 Oscars and won 3. After George Stevens decided to make a movie about Anne Frank. There were some famous actors in the movie like, Shelley Winters playing Mrs. Van Pels and Millie Perkins as Anne Frank (pg.282, The Diary of a Young Girl).
The plot of Rape Fantasies by Margaret Atwood is all within the mind of Estelle, who talks to the reader as she might to a new friend. Estelle's personality becomes exposed to us through the narration of her fantasies and lunchtime work experiences.
This research study focuses at negotiating the shifting identities of immigrants and their traumas in postcolonial literature with reference to Lahiri’s fiction. The suffering of every immigrant in achieving a shelter and identity in a foreign land often leads to loss of identity. The qualms, agitation and nervousness of immigrants often increase the issues of identity, and immigrants often feel alienated in the midst of exotic land, they even start to think about achieving new identities. Stuart Hall (1987) a famous cultural theorist discusses the issues of cultural identity and migration as he says “Migration is a one way trip. There is no “home” to go back to”. Change in the place and ambience totally change the circumstances in the lives of immigrants in Lahiri’s fiction, they often try to cling to their own cultural identity and costumes. But the cultural effect is often so strong that it deeply affects the identity of immigrants and they ultimately try to change their identities. Immigrants make an absurd attempt to get mingled in the culture of foreign country. Hall discusses “Cultural identities are those which are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through transformation and difference” (235).
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).
Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” shows in society how a woman should be placed and what it means to be a woman. A women doesn’t question her partner, instead she is subservient to him. A woman’s duties include staying at home taking care of the children and cooking; while the man works and brings home the money. A feministic approach to Kincaid’s “Girl” points to the idea of the stereotypes that women can only be what they do in the home, they should only be pure and virtuous, and their main focus should be satisfying their husband.
Hiromi Goto is the author of The Body Politic, a poem depicting racialized identity struggle. She is a Japanese-Canadian writer, whose poem is based upon her own personal experience. Goto presents this first-hand experience of the identity crisis immigrants and those who do not fit into rigid binary stereotypes face in daily life. She highlights her internal struggle to extend into public spaces when she doesn’t fit into the normative structures around her. The Body Politic is a journey for Goto that shows her audience her struggle to accept and understand herself. For Goto, this ability to understand her difference and the binary she fails to be apart of is the first step for her to begin to navigate an alternative way to extend through spaces within socially constructed institutions where her body does not fit in accordingly. Throughout this essay I explore the way binaries work in our world, and culture through the use of Sara Ahmed’s Queer Phemenology and the implications of