In Trouble Follows, by Monica McKayhan, Indigo has everything she wants: a spot on the dance team, a hot boyfriend by the name of Marcus, and her best friend Jade is moving back to Atlanta. Jade is suddenly getting too cozy with her History teacher. Instead of playing basketball, Marcus is sitting in a courthouse, forced to prove his innocence for something he didn’t do. Indigo is feeling the pressure - from the dance team, her friends, and family. It’s time to show everyone and herself that she is not weak.…
In the short story, Marigolds, Eugenia Collier wrote in the eyes of a 14 year old girl that’s transitioning to adulthood during the Great depression. Lizabeth and the other children feel like their world is falling apart. They try to pretend that their world is fine, until it starts to affect their families. In Marigolds, Collier constructs a theme of self struggle through the eyes of the innocent. The theme is shown throughout the story.…
Both of these athletes have made large sacrifices for the chance to become Olympians, but Sadie’s failure to grasp the more important things in life led to her demise. On her way to a ski trip with Digger, Sadie fractured her L3 vertebrae in a car accident which prohibited her from competing at the Olympics, while Digger, riding in the same vehicle was unharmed. Sadie’s actions are the seeds to her fate that ultimately leads to her destiny. Her poor work ethic, along with her choice of being alienated and missing out on the most important things in life including family and friends, led her to remain an athlete instead of becoming an Olympian. In the end, Sadie blames the accident for her missed opportunity, but it was no accident, it was destiny…
A Raisin in the Sun Title Controversy; Emotion v. Plot Titles are not to be taken lightly as they are what a reader keeps in mind throughout a piece. “Mother to Son” and “Harlem” are both written by Langston Hughes and portray the struggles of maintaining a dream during difficult times. “Mother to Son” uses the extended metaphor of a staircase that parallels the struggles and overall actions in the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, while “Harlem” uses graphic images in order to form a well developed motif and mood of the idealistic dream, which is matched in the play. As a title is meant to add to a piece of work, and enhance a certain idea the author deems significant, Lorraine Hansberry contemplated using the title The Crystal…
Childhood introduces people to a world of love and happiness, starting within the home. Although, there are some children who experience heartache and confusion at an early age. David Sedaris was one of those children in his short biography “Let It Snow” when he reflected on when he and his siblings faced trials that are usually not experienced until adulthood. This led them to drastic solutions that could have caused more pain for their family. As the day came to an end, Sedaris came to an important realization that he continues to apply to his life and in his writing.…
Killing is something that is done by someone that despises, wants to harm, or even wants to get even with you. In “The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die “ by April Henry, a sixteen year old girl get kidnapped and doesn’t even know her name, address, phone number, here age, or where she is from. She find that she feels normal about driving the car and fight the man she killed. The man she killed was supposed to kill her, but she found a way to get free and fight back even though she didn’t have any strength at all.…
Conflicts In The Work Of Maxine Hong Kingston And Alice Walker Recently I came across two readings that were strong-minded on conflicts that heavily affected the main characters path. These two readings I came across were " No Name Woman" By Maxine Hong Kingston and " Beauty: When The Other Dancer Is The Self" By Alice Walker.…
Tommy loses his grip and balance and flys Into a pole, separating his shoulder. Tommy cannot play in his championship game. While watching the game, Tommy makes a few calls and ends up being the reason the team won. The main conflict in the story is when Tommy’s father dies and Tommy has a difficult time dealing with his death.…
The Sandlot is a baseball movie about friendship and sticking together when someone gets in a “pickle.” It’s summer time in 1962 in the California, which is “the same summer Dodger Maury Wills would break the stolen bases record.” Our main character, Scotty Smalls just moved to the valley two weeks before school gets out for summer, and like all new kids he is afraid to make new friends. While he is unpacking he sees a boy with his baseball glove walking across the street, so that night he asks his stepdad to teach him how to throw a ball. This movie is so special to me because I remember playing softball with my friends every chance we got but also because I know what it’s like to not only be the new kid.…
At a young age, many individuals are told of how they should behave and how they should think. To this day individuals are pressured to conform to society’s standards. These rules and expectations were established and kept in the interest of the human need to belong. However, history has shown that these expectations negatively impacts an individual’s development. The struggle in pursuing a belief different to society’s is challenging.…
Imagine not being able to provide the basic needs for your children. Imagine not knowing if you ever will get back on your feet. These are the thoughts thousands Americans face every day. Throughout history every great civilization has had poverty; Rome, Egypt, Britain and of course America. Poverty effects every race, age, gender and religion, no one is assured to be unaffected by it.…
It was a brisk fall evening with the sun just about to set behind a hill. I was 10 years old, playing in my third season of football, and my first ever game under the bright lights surrounding the high school stadium. The time had finally come, the lights had been on and warming up for several minutes, I was going to play a game under the lights on the high school field. My experiences that night were not forgotten, but today I couldn’t even tell you if we won the game that night. The lessons I learned that night weren’t about winning and losing, I had done plenty of that already in my life.…
This story revolves around and old man and his unconventional relationship with his caretaker. The postmaster hailing from Calcutta, feels like a fish out of water in the remote village of Ulapur where he works. There, he led a lonely life, with little company and minimal work to do. To cope with this, he often engaged himself in writing poetry describing his peaceful and isolated surroundings. He had Ratan, an orphan girl of the village, to do odd jobs for him.…
The New Girl by Marc Mitchell In this essay I will write a brief summary of the short story “The New Girl”, written by Marc Mitchell, an author from Florence, Alabama. I will continue by characterizing the narrator and discuss the reasoning behind Allison’s behaviour and narrator’s response (which will be included in his characterisation). The story takes place on Prospect Street, a white, lower-middle-class neighbourhood, where there are old houses aplenty.…
Half a Day and Zaabalawi Najib Mahfuz was born in Cairo in 1911. Mahfuz is a 1988 Nobel Prize winner in literature, by displaying artistic, cultural, and structure through his writing. Mahfuz uses symbols and hidden messages in his writing to make the reader search for the true meaning be hidden them. Two of Mahfouz stories show his rage of creativity, Half a Day and Zaabalawi.…