Linoleum

I’m nearly late to my lab that day. I rush up the stairs of the old brick building, laughs and conversations of the luckier students who had just gotten out of class echoing through the halls. My feet pound against the dingy linoleum, almost loud enough to drown them all out. I step into the lab room, exhale in one long woosh, and let my shoulder’s drop – the professor isn’t there yet. But the TAs are. They sweep through the aisles with strange plastic cylinders in their hands. I step foot in…

The federal minimum wage of the United States is $7.25 an hour. This is the baseline that all states have to abide by. This does not mean that the minimum wage in all states is $7.25 an hour but it is the baseline that each state cannot drop below. The minimum wage in the United States should be raised to at least $15 an hour in order to support the economy and increase the standard of living. When the minimum wage was introduced in 1938 with the Fair Labor Standards Act it was met with…

for a few days Arturo had a realization about how his expectation seemed completely wrong. One of the first things that they saw was their new house, walking in with smiles on their faces that quickly fell to frown, “The linoleum floors were dingy and worn. Every wall was painted a dark mustard yellow. There were two windows - a large one at the front and a smaller one at the back in the only bedroom - both covered by plastic sheets held in place with tape, the wood casings…

us of western and male concepts of beauty and sexuality. The female subject has a blissful expression on her face as if she accepts her domesticated role in life. Quietly nestling on her hip and not noticeable at first glance is her matching blue linoleum gun in its similar holster. This returns to Lisa Brice’s theme of domestic security. She must protects the hearth and…

Life a century ago was starkly different—for many different reasons. Specifically speaking, the role of women and men have changed for the better, to say the least. Currently, women are viewed as equal to men, or close to equal to some ignorant people. If women were to be compared to men over one hundred years ago, however, this would not be the case. Women, in the past, were often viewed as subsequent to men. Women’s views and opinions were blocked out and oppressed because it was commonly…

The smell of corn was strewn along the roadside, with other crops mixed in as well. The scent was dense enough to be able to taste the uncooked food. The road was rough and cracked, with small bumps every few seconds. A calm breeze blew throughout the area, keeping everything at a nice cool temperature. There were fields of all kinds on either side of the road, with foods like corn, soybeans, and potatoes growing throughout. A large house sat on a small hill on one side of the road. With white…

I was instantly brought back to reality. The once frigid handle of my knife had become warm in my deathly grip, and I remembered what I was doing. Slowly I crept across the linoleum floor, my feet as quiet as a mouse, thanks to the heel to toe method, something my Honors teacher had taught me. Another can flew over a number of aisles, and missed again. An idea formed in my head. “Wait, don’t do anything else. I’m friendly.”…

Esperanza notices how her attractiveness conceals her from fulfilling her entire potential. After having gotten married at a young age, Sally says when her husband is not home, “She likes looking at the walls, at how neatly their corners meet, the linoleum roses on the floor, the ceiling smooth as wedding cake” (Cisneros 73). Though there is more to Sally than being beautiful, her appearance is the only aspect taken into consideration by her husband. As her spouse is at work, she is forced to…

In her novel The House on Mango Street (1984), Sandra Cisneros expresses the story of a young, indigent girl, Esperanza, who had recently moved onto Mango Street and is ashamed of the family’s shabby new community. Cisneros develops the story through a series of vignettes that express Esperanza’s experiences in her new home like the people she meets, their lives, hardships they face, obstacles that she has encountered, how they’ve affected her, and how her mind was changed. Through these…

When I was born my mother was living in Calumet, so that’s where I was. My birth put a delay on things. She was 18 by one day and still finishing high school. That is where we lived for the first two years of my life. I don’t recall anything from that time but I’ve frequently gone back to the house, until recently. The house itself is not within the city limits of Calumet; it is alongside Lake Superior. The road going to it passes by the soccer fields and slopes down the longest hill i 've…