Play Summary Of The Play 'Helping'

Decent Essays
What do you think the play says about the treatment of the elderly?
It seems as if the author is saying that people do not respect their elders. Mommy and daddy simply drop grandma into the sandbox and ignore her as she tries to call out to them. They don't even bother to try and make conversation with her. But grandma does mention that when mommy married daddy they moved her off the farm and into their townhouse in the city. This could be her where are you of “Helping” her mother, but grandma refers to herself as being treated like a solider would at boot camp. Mommy and daddy don't seem to be too terribly saddened when grandma passes and go on with their days as gracefully as one could.

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    A Good Man is Hard to Find, by Flannery O’Connor is taken place in 1953 in Tennessee. The story revolves around a family of seven who are taking a vacation to Florida. Unfortunately for the family, a familiar criminal who calls himself the Misfit has absconded the penitentiary and is also heading for Florida. The author apprises the majority of her story through the grandmother’s eyes. Everything the audience learns about the characters are absorbed from the grandmother and her own opinions.…

    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The speaker’s voice in “Snapping Beans” by Lisa Parker seems to be like he or she is hiding something from their grandmother. This poem has more of a sad type of mood. The words in the poem seem to flow freely. The speaker seems to have come home from school up North. I would suppose that this is because he or she is in college.…

    • 1033 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Taking a look at the grandmother, it is important to note her namelessness, because this characteristic signifies a deeper symbolic meaning. The story begins, “The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida” (1). There are three unnamed characters in the story: the grandmother, the children’s mothers, and The Misfit. Throughout, the grandmother is referred to by her title in place of her name, which allows the reader to see the grandmother as an illustration of the typical person. Because of her namelessness, she comes to represent everyone, and her external and internal conflicts with vanity, control, and egotism represent the collective of humanity’s struggles.…

    • 104 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    It is clear that the past is still relatable to the present. I believe the messages of the play are to remember that everyone belongs somewhere, but you might have to take a risk to figure out where and that you have to be brave sometimes, not just for yourself, but for other people…

    • 2037 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    An article was written by Michael J. Broyde, published by CNN, and titled “Transgender Bathroom Issue: A Solution?”, gives a synopsis of the issue of letting people go into the bathroom of their identified gender, rather than just their birth gender. The article opens by just explaining how that this topic got into the limelight when the supreme court took up a case of a high school student trying to use a boy’s bathroom, and whether or not that should be allowed (Broyde). Broyde then goes on to explain that in many religions, including his own, using the bathroom is seen as an extreme private time and shouldn’t be shared with anyone regardless of gender. Then, Broyde gives what he believes to be the best solution to this problem is to make…

    • 726 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Point of View in “To Build a Fire” and “Blues Ain’t No Mockin Bird” In “To Build a Fire” by Jack London and “Blues Ain’t No Mockin Bird” by Toni Cade Bambara, the authors explore the idea of human flaws through their storytelling. In each story, the author conveys the flaws of various characters and how they affect themselves and others. Although the narrators in “To Build a Fire” and “Blues Ain’t No Mockin Bird” are portrayed very differently, both stories achieve their objectives by allowing the reader to see the human flaws and errors in man’s way in each story.…

    • 1130 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Life comes with its highs and its lows, and some of those lows are matters that are difficult to get past. With this, comes one of the most crucial parts of overcoming a difficulty: acceptance. There are those who can easily push past hardships, but a majority of people can never truly get over the personal catastrophies that life brings. Times of pain and crisis are some of the most stressful moments in life that one can attempt to get past. In The Jilting of Granny Weatherall by Katherine Ann Porter, Granny, the protagonist, is having trouble accepting events in her life.…

    • 771 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    1. How does O'Connor portray the family? The family is portrayed to be a close knit American family. One aspect of the family that stands out however is that the children disrespect the grandmother and the father doesn't reprimand them for it.…

    • 803 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As people live on to be 70 to 80 years old they carry memories from their childhood days till they die. Many memories can shape them in a high-minded way or in an inadequate way. “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Flannery O 'Connor, Granny Weatherall faced multiple hardships in her lifetime up that she cannot forget. The results she received made Granny Weatherall not rely on anybody to help her out because she took control over her life. While in “A good man is hard to find” nameless grandma came from a childhood where all people gave and received “respect”.…

    • 1067 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Grandparents have helped shape the lives of young people. In “Grandmothers” by Nikki Giovanni and “One Million Volumes” by Rudolfo Anaya shows clear examples on how our grandparents and others shaped our lives. First, our elders helped us go out and learn. In “One Million Volumes” He learned the magic of words and wisdom from his elder’s stories.…

    • 105 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    Given Circumstances 1. Geographical location, including climate: “The Help” is a drama film released in 2011 focusing on racism, discrimination, and inequality that the African American maids faced. The story of the movie focuses on the relationship between two black maids with a white woman journalist in Jackson, Mississippi. The warm, bright, and sunny days in the movie give the climate condition of Jackson, Mississippi. 2. Date; year, season, time of day:…

    • 1396 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Bandy, Stephen C. " 'One Of My Babies ': The Misfit and the Grandmother. " Studies in Short Fiction 33.1 (Winter 1996): 107-118. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed.…

    • 804 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In her short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’Connor introduces the reader to a world of family issues, danger, and murder. The story was written in 1955 during a period of social and racial unrest in the southern United States. Mostly, the story follows O 'Connor 's basic Southern Gothic writing style, a work that is "cold and dispassionate, as well as almost absurdly stark and violent" (Galloway). While the quote gives major insight into the tone of the story, it does not offer a glimpse into O 'Connor 's real message of the story. Her take on the characters is a complex mixture of agreement and disapproval.…

    • 1097 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    There were two words mentioned, in My Daughter the Racist, that occurred significantly more times than any others: daughter and mother. Helen Oyeyemi wrote these words seventy- eight times, which gave support to a theme of the short story. The theme is the strength of relationships between daughters and mothers, which is established through Oyeyemi’s characters and their attributes. Oyeyemi wrote her story from the first-person point of view.…

    • 1421 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the very last sentence of the play it says that, “ The door opens and she comes, back in, grabs her plant, and goes out for the last time.” The plant holds a key concept to mama, to her the plant is a symbol of the family’s life. This developes the idea that mama does care and wants what is the best for her family. In novels the main ideas are revealed, but through plays the little pieces of information and the dialogue is what develops the story line. Readers are able to interpret a play more in depth than a novel, because of the added benefits a play holds to a story line.…

    • 463 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays