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A Happier Tomorrow in Today Will Be a Quiet Day
In the story "Today Will Be a Quiet Day" written by Amy Hempel, one may be inclined to believe that there is a tone of depression or sadness among the father and the two children. This is shown in the opening sentence, while the three are stalled in traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge. The boy states, "I think if the quake hit now the bridge would collapse and the ramps would be left" (Hempel 1202). We also learn that the boy had a best friend who committed suicide about a year before. Finally, the fact that a mother is not mentioned leaves the reader with a suspicion that the parents may be divorced, separated, or even worse, the mother may be deceased. Even though these incidents probably make the reader feel as if a disaster is likely to occur, there is also ample evidence to show that the family is moving on in their lives, and happier times are yet to come.
First, the father decides to take the day off and spend some time with his children. He lets his son and daughter skip their music lessons and they all take a trip...
Growing up Emily was an all-around vibrant girl. Over time, she becomes a secretive old woman. In a “A Rose for Emily, “she was described as shuttered, dusty, and dark just like the outside of her home. She inherited mental illness from her father side. “She exhibits the qualities of the stereotypical southern “eccentric”: unbalanced, excessively tragic, and subject of a bizarre behavior” (SparkNotes Editors 2007, pg 4). When her father passed away, she refused to give up his body. In all, Emily is a scared soul whose loneliness and co-dependent upbringing let her to remain socially unfit, and unable to make healthy human connections (Enotes, 2016 pg 1). Her upbringing slowly affected her ability to function like the rest of the townspeople. The townspeople never labeled her with a mental illness, but she was constantly talked about because of the relationship she had with Homer, and curiosity of the way Emily was living got the best of the
Emily Grierson is a reserved person and does not associate with anyone in the town. Colonial Sartoris, the mayor in 1894 remitted Emily’s taxes dating from the death of her father till th...
The story is about a family that doesn’t get along very well. The Father, Bailey, decides he wants to take the family on a vacation. Of course there’s a disagreement about where they want to go. Bailey wants to take his family to Florida which includes, his wife, two children, and his mom, also...
Some readers see death, but when I read the story "Today Will Be a Quiet Day" by Amy Hempel, I find it to be a light hearted, first-hand account of people coping with transition. Even its location in the table of contents under the heading "Childhood and Adolescent" (Barnet), implies that the story is not about death at all. A newly defined family, one man, a boy and a girl, is faced with the aftermath of divorce and explore among themselves the intricacies of life. The story gives us sublime but keen insight into the transition and adjustments these three people make in this story.
Homosexuality as a whole has been and is still a very controversial topic globally. There are many different kinds of discussions about the LGBT community, such as gays and lesbians being parents. Some critics tend to believe that homosexual parenting is bad for kids, as if a person’s sexuality determines whether or not they are a good parent.. There is no definite proof that being homosexual makes you a good or bad parent. So, there is no way of being one-hundred percent sure that homosexual parenting results in gender role confusion, psychological harm, or a child being homosexual themselves.
Scientific studies have shown that children who grow up in one or two-parent gay or lesbian households fare just as well emotionally and socially as children whose parents are heterosexual. Studies have shown that children are more influenced by their interactions with their parents, than by their sexual orientation. (Kathy Belge, 2014)
For instance, one of the paragraphs states "Do you know, I won 't miss anything but you and the girls. I never liked cities or autos or factories or my work or anything except you three.” Which reminds of how content they are in their lives, they did not need to cheat, and steal or party the last night of their lives; just doing their usual routine made them happy and no fear of dying. The couple also meets its fate with grace and bravery, two traits that are admirable considering the situation. It is amazing to know that perhaps when the last night arrives everyone would be clam and going on with their usual business without having a mini heart attack in the process. Interestingly enough, the children are barely included in their plans. As if they do not want to upset them by telling them, but it causes the reader to wonder if the kids have also had ominous dreams. While this is not the focus of the short story, the relationship between the parents and children is worth discussing. Are the parents really protecting their children, or are they doing them a disservice by not allowing them to make a conscious decision about how they would like to spend their last night of the world? The lack of communication between the two groups could be a result of the situation, or it could be indicative of their relationship every other day of the year, which goes against my typical understanding of the parents and children
Suffering from the death of a close friend, the boy tries to ignore his feelings and jokes on his sister. His friend was a mental patient who threw himself off a building. Being really young and unable to cope with this tragedy, the boy jokes to his sister about the bridge collapsing. "The mention of the suicide and of the bridge collapsing set a depressing tone for the rest of the story" (Baker 170). Arguments about Raisinettes force the father to settle it by saying, "you will both spoil your lunch." As their day continues, their arguments become more serious and present concern for the father who is trying to understand his children better. In complete agreement with Justin Oeltzes’ paper, "A Sad Story," I also feel that this dark foreshadowing of time to come is an indication of the author’s direct intention to write a sad story.
The passage above comes from the book Potiki. It’s when granny Tamihana breathes life into Toko and gives him the name of her deceased brother. In Potiki, a novel written by Patricia Grace, we are introduced to a family that is given a special gift. That gift is in a form of a child named Toko. Toko isn’t any ordinary child for he knows all his past stories and has the ability to see future stories. Toko was born by Mary and is cared for by Mary’s brother Hemi and his wife Roimata. In yet another novel, there is a strong presence of mythological icons being incorporated into a book. Grace ties the legend of Maui into the character of Toko. Toko and Maui were both born prematurely. Another similarity Grace ties in with the legend of Maui is the fishing story. Maui goes out fishing with his brothers and brags that he’ll catch a bigger fish than his brothers and Toko’s fishing with his family in the lagoon and catches a big eel. Lastly, Grace links the legend of Maui’s death to Toko’s death. In Potiki, Toko enters the wharenui to bring back Manu who was sleepwalking. Instead a gunshot was heard and Toko was killed. In the legend of Maui, Maui tried to capture death by trying to crawl into the death goddess “hidden source of life” to capture her heart. A bird laughs, which woke the death goddess and closed her mouth. The teeth of the death goddess cut Maui in the center and killed him.
While in his early 20’s, Poulenc began to have great success as a composer in several genres: orchestral, chamber music, ballets, concertos, film scores, and opera, as well as powerful choral and sacred music. During the 1930’s, he rediscovered his Catholic faith and began writing religious music, establishing himself as one of the great religious and choral music writers of the century. He endured the German occupation of Paris during WWII, which gave rise to his most impassioned and difficult work Figure Humaine, or The Face of Man, which was a covert work of protest. Some of his other major religious works include his Mass in G (1937), Stabat Mater (1950), and Gloria (1959). He also wrote the religious opera The Dialogues of the Carmelites (1957) and a one-act tragedy for soprano, The Human Voice (1959).
This is due to the fact there are many different inputs on same-sex couples raising children. California and some countries in the United States who disagreed with legalizing same-sex marriage, went forward with trying to amend the state constitution and exclude same-sex couples from adopting children. There are many augments on why same-sex couples should not be able to raise children. According to Crytstal Lombardo (2015), there are pros and cons to same-sex couples raising families. Some of the cons of gay parenting are “Children do not grow in an environment not having well-balanced adults. There are people saying that children should have role models from both sexes”. Although this is a commonly used argument, there has been many researches done to prove otherwise. According to April Martin, a Clinical Psychologist (1998), a child raised by a homosexual parents shows no characteristics that differ from children raised by heterosexual parents. Not only is that the case, if the child is living with one parent who is not open about his or her
Death is so normal, young men think about writing wills at eight-teen. In my apartment building, I walk through broken glass in the hallway and bloodstained floors. When I come from the corner store neighbors, look at every bag you bring through your doors. Once I come through my door I lock the top lock, my mother would love have cuffed me to the radiator so I wouldn’t go out. Just imagine and try to envision these sentences as the depict various scenarios that go on as you read this essay. These events probably won’t make it to your evening news, but stories as such affect people in a lesser or same magnitude that the victims of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and crashed airplane accidents.
There indicators of child developmental outcomes were categorized into parent and child relationship quality, children’s cognitive development, children’s gender role behavior, children’s gender identity, children’s sexual preference, and children’s social and emotional development. There analysis showed that children with same-sex parents fared equally to children raised by heterosexual parents when comparing developmental outcomes. Same-sex parents also reported a significantly better relationship with their children than heterosexual parents, which was measured by the parent or child perception of the quality of their relationship. This goes back to the argument that parent sexuality has no impact on the child but rather the relationship between the parent and the child has is the most impactful. In Crowl, Ahn and Baker (2008) meta-analysis study also found that the parent sexual orientation had no effect on gender identity, cognitive development, psychological adjustment, and sexual
The father seems to be a single dad who has picked his children up for the weekend. The mother isn’t mentioned in the story, which makes me believe that the parents are already split up and maybe going through the finalizing of the divorce papers. The children happen to be staying with their mother throughout the separation, and they are now with their father for the weekend. Since he doesn’t get to see them that often now, he decides to take a day to spend completely with the children and go on a little trip. The father does this because he "wanted to know how they were, is all" (Hempel 1202). They seemed to be doing great on their own, but he just wanted to make sure.
Poverty, also known as the silent killer, exists in every corner of the world. In fact, almost half of the world’s population lives in poverty. According to the United States Census Bureau, there were 46.7 million people living in poverty the year of 2014 (1). Unfortunately, thousands of people die each year due to this world-wide problem. Some people view poverty as individuals or families not being able to afford an occupational meal or having to skip a meal to save money. However, this is not the true definition of poverty. According to the author of The Position of Poverty, John Kenneth Galbraith, “people are poverty-stricken when their income, even if adequate for survival, falls radically behind that of the community”, which means people