“Ashes” by Susan Pfeffer is about a young girl experiencing the lies and betrayal her father partakes upon her. It shows how he leads her to falling under his plans, all while pulling her farther to believing his love for her is real. Throughout the entire story, young Ashley has felt her dad was the type of man to never do harm. She trusted him, she cared for him, and she helped him out. But what she didn’t know was that he was simply using her to get what he wanted. Deception is the theme of this story because Ashley is ordered by her father to do what he wants through sweet talk and bribing.
From the very beginning, the story’s details show deception. Even when her parents argued over if her nickname was ethical, she believed her father gave it to her as a way to signify his care. “That’s just my nickname for her, dad replied. But ashes are cold, gray, dead things, mom yelled.” Ashley felt that her father truly thought of this nickname through love, but he most likely did it so that she might not suspect he’s an inferior person.
Another detail that shows deception is the fact that her father lured her into doing crude acts, such as him wanting her to steal her mother’s safety
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It helps show that Ashley’s father acts like he is there for her, but he seems to ignore the fact that he doesn’t treat his daughter the way a father should. “A couple days later, when dad forgot to pick me up from school, or didn’t have the money for the class trip, or got all his favorite kinds of Chinese and none of Mom’s and mine, I thought maybe Mom was right, and dad did call me Ashes just to annoy her.” This shows that Ashley felt her father didn’t think of others a majority of the time. He thought of himself, when in reality, a father figure should be there to guide and teach his child the ways of life. Ashley’s father constantly conceives people that he will be there for his daughter, but he uses her purely for his
The back panel of 1 Dead in Attic: Post-Katrina Stories by columnist Chris Rose does not summarize his self-publication. Rather, it dedicates the book to a man named Thomas Coleman who met his demise in his attic with a can of juice and the comforts of a bedspread at his side. This dedication closes with “There were more than a thousand like him.” That is the life force of Rose’s book. It is not a narrative, it does not feature a clear conclusion, and there is not a distinct beginning, middle, or end. Rather, it exists as a chronology of Rose’s struggle to reestablish normalcy following a time of turmoil. Rose himself states in his introduction “After the storm, I just started writing, not attempting to carve out any niche but just to tell
It is easily perceptible that Sylvia’s father was abusive, and “grinded her gears”, which is then revealed she is a victim of
In Why I Live at the P.O. something that I discovered to be very ordinary was the confrontation of Stella-Rondo telling lies about the narrator (sister). There are two instances when this happens, the first lie is Stella-Rondo says “Papa-Daddy, Sister says she fails to understand why you don’t cut off your beard” (438 Welty). The second lie is when Stella-Rondo says, “Sister has been devoting this solid afternoon to sneering out my bedroom window at the way you look” (443 Welty). By Stella-Rondo pinning these lies on her sister it turns the family members against her sister and for the family to favor Stella-Rondo over sister. It all started too with sister assuming that Stella-Rondo’s baby is not adopted “She was the spit-image of Papa-Daddy….
In “Oxygen” Mary Oliver focuses on the importance of oxygen, and how vital it is. She is talking about how important her love is with her husband. Their love together is like oxygen that keeps them going strong. She is doing whatever she can to keep the fire going stirring it with a stick of iron. Letting the logs lay loosely, while he is in the upstairs room. He is in his usual position dealing with his aching right shoulder. Her husband is breathing patiently in the upstairs room and she refers to the breathing as a beautiful sound. She feels as if she is in the same postion with him because she doesn’t know the measure between one another. They are so close you couldn’t cut them apart with a knife. “It is your life, which is so close to my own that I would not know where to drop the knife of seperation.” (Lines 13-17). That has everything to do with love, the fire rises and offers a
The lie about Aunt Birte even affected her relationship to the adults in her life. Annemarie was losing her trust in the adults, but was also
Lies play a central part in the play as the story is based around lies
A father can play many roles throughout a child’s life: a caregiver, friend, supporter, coach, protector, provider, companion, and so much more. In many situations, a father takes part in a very active position when it comes to being a positive role model who contributes to the overall well-being of the child. Such is the case for the father in the poem “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden. In this poem, readers are shown the discreet ways in which a father can love his child. On the other hand, there are also many unfortunate situations where the fathers of children are absent, or fail to treat the children with the love and respect that they undoubtedly deserve. In the contrasting poem “Like Riding a Bicycle” by George Bilgere, readers are shown how a son who was mistreated by his drunken father is affected by their past relationship many years later. Although both of these poems have fairly similar themes and literary techniques, they each focus on contradicting situations based on the various roles a father can play in a child’s life.
The poem is written in the father’s point of view; this gives insight of the father’s character and
Although single parenthood is on the rise in homes today, children still often have a father role in their life. It does not matter who the part is filled by: a father, uncle, older brother, grandfather, etc...; in almost all cases, those relationships between the father (figure) and child have lasting impacts on the youth the rest of their lives. In “I Wanted to Share My Father’s World,” Jimmy Carter tells the audience no matter the situation with a father, hold onto every moment.
This detail exhibits the flat characteristics of Ashley through the lack of detail, but the concern she has for her dad and the money explains that she understands the depth of the situation. Ashleigh is a flat character, but the author has included enough detail about her reactions that the reader is still able to pick up on her disguised
The author uses the denial and concealment of truth in order to reiterate that in the closed environment of the household, pampered upbringing only yields to immaturity in the outside world. In the narration, Stella-Rondo easily regains the position of the family “favorite” through the lies she produces and the family’s seeming acceptance of these lies as pure truths. In fact, however, Mama constantly questions these lies. She reprimands Sister for suggesting that Shirley-T is Stella-Rondo’s biological daughter, but she herself wonders how Stella-Rondo could possibly prove that Shirley-T is adopted. Later, she links Shirley-T’s silence and strange behavior to Mr. Whitaker’s consumption of chemicals, suggesting that she knows that Mr. Whitaker is, in fact, Shirley-T’s biological father. The author uses this characterization of Mama in order to show, that rather than not understanding the difference between truth and lies, she prefers one version over another, therefore...
An example is her torture during the majority of the book. In 6th grade she went to her friends party, and to her astonishment, a couple began making out in the closet. She called her mom to tell her what was going on and her mom told the mother ...
It is the first time that Lizabeth hears a man cry. She could not believe herself because her father is “a strong man who could whisk a child upon his shoulders and go singing through the house.” As the centre of the family and a hero in her heart, Lizabeth’s dad is “sobbing like the tiniest child”She discovers that her parents are not as powerful or stable as she thought they were. The feeling of powerlessness and fear surges within her as she loses the perfect relying on her dad. She says, “the world had lost its boundary lines.” the “smoldering emotions” and “fear unleashed by my father’s tears” had “combined in one great impulse toward
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Deception is the driving force of the play, the key theme that causes the character’s action that shapes the story. In Act I, Nora deceives her husband, Helmer, in several different ways. The reader gets their first glimpse of deceit when Nora snacks on some macaroons and then hides them from her husband.