Mee Maw
Ray and Lori Jean had experienced some of the same abusive pain in their lives as children. The difference was that Lori Jean had someone who loved her and taught her early on about life and faith. Mee-Maw was respected by all the character’s in the book. I thought this to be of true Southern significance. Mee-Maw’s role was so great that when she died Ray took advantage of her death. Her death opened the door for him to move in, take her money, verbal and physical abuse of Lori Jean and her mother. Not only did her grandma, Mee-Maw, teach her about life and faith, she also taught her about wisdom and strength. Mee-Maw was such a great influence on Lori Jean. I believed, while reading the novel, that when Mee-Maw died, she left
…show more content…
She taught Lori-Jean respect, love, forgiveness, gentleness and compassion. Throughout the book Lori-Jean would often reflect back on something Mee-Maw had told her. Lori Jean would then use that recollection to make her choice. Lori Jean was raised by a multitude of adults. All of the adults were oppressed, underserved and lower class. Yet, some of them had a kind of pride that shined like a golden coin. It was a kind of pride that runs deeps. A pride that is not spoken of, but instead viewed on the outside. All of the adults who helped raise her dealt with a variety of social ghosts. The lower class folk were always treated like they were less than. No matter how hard they worked. Lori Jean’s family were close and helped one another as much as …show more content…
I would estimate that to be in the 1930’s. However, in the 1930’s therapeutic interventions did not exist. I will, therefore, attempt to state what I would do in current times. If Ray were to come into a facility that I was working in, I would first obtain a brief history. It would be my hope that I would have also attained information over the phone or via internet prior to his first appointment. With that initial information I would assemble a team. This team would work with Ray to establish a treatment plan best suited to assist Ray with this anger and drinking. Of course, Ray would need to be willing to take the first step. He would also need to commit to AA. I would attempt to work with Ray to recount the abuse of his childhood in an attempt to gain some amount of healing. My personal belief about childhood sexual abuse is that you can never overcome it. You can only learn to accept that it happened, that is was not your fault, and that someone should have protected you. Regardless, Ray had a long road of healing ahead of him. If he continued to be abusive towards Lori Jean and her mother I would be forced to
As a result, she wanted to provide a better and memorable childhood for her children by educating them in a better way. For instance, by showing and transmit them love and at the same time doing so with other people and animals. That animals are not just an object or an insignificant life but to treat them as part of the family. She wanted to show them those principles by not having a repetitive cycle about her own experiences as a child.
In the high criminal neighborhood where the other Wes lived, people who live there need a positive role model or a mentor to lead them to a better future. Usually the older family members are the person they can look up to. The other Wes’s mother was not there when the other Wes felt perplexed about his future and needed her to support and give him advises. Even though the other Wes’s mother moved around and tried to keep the other Wes from bad influences in the neighborhood, still, the other Wes dropped out of school and ended up in the prison. While the author Wes went to the private school every day with his friend Justin; the other Wes tried to skip school with his friend Woody. Moore says, “Wes had no intention of going to school. He was supposed to meet Woody later – they were going to skip school with some friends, stay at Wes’s house, and have a cookout” (59). This example shows that at the time the other Wes was not interested in school. Because Mary was busy at work, trying to support her son’s education, she had no time and energy to look after the other Wes. For this reason, she did not know how the other Wes was doing at school and had no idea that he was escaping school. She missed the opportunities to intervene in her son’s life and put him on the right track. Moreover, when the author was in the military school, the other Wes was dealing drugs to people in the streets and was already the father of a child. The incident that made the other Wes drop out of school was when he had a conflict with a guy. The other Wes was dating with the girl without knowing that she had a boyfriend. One night, her boyfriend found out her relationship with the other Wes and had a fight with him. During the fight, the other Wes chased the guy and shot him. The guy was injured and the other Wes was arrested
The Power of an Author Authors have the ability justify the worst actions. Authors have a way of romanticizing certain situations in order to convey a specific message. A good author has power to influence the reader into believing whatever it is the author wants. When it comes to the story of Hannah Dustan, authors such as John Greenleaf Whittier have romanticized her captivity story along with the actions she took throughout her journey. Introducing a character that will be seen in the story is one of the most vital parts when creating a piece of literature.
Kien Nguyen, the author of The Unwanted, is a very interesting character because of the ways he describes the entire situation he is in. As an author, Kien is providing the reader with vivid details and constantly showing terrific scenes. However, as a child and one of the characters in the book, Kien is a very considerate and caring person. Throughout the book, Kien took good care of his younger brother, Jimmy. It showed that even though Kien himself is a child and is still innocent, he took into consideration to protect his younger brother.
In the novel All Over but the Shoutin’ Rick Bragg shows the love and devotion of what every mother should have through his mother. The only woman that Bragg truly cares for and takes time out of his day is for his mother Margaret Marie. Bragg tries to do the best for his mother and tries his best to make her proud of him. Bragg learned early in life that his mother strived to give her children everything possible. For Mrs. Bragg her children are the reason she wakes up everyday and tries to make a better life for them.
In the book, the author put much emphasis on the mothers of the two Wes’. Author Wes’s mother Joy immigrated to the U.S and had to learn how to fit into American society at a very young age. She joined an activist group while attending American University in Washington, D.C. The things she experienced as she assimilated into a new county and culture developed in her a passion for justice and decisiveness when faced with choices. Joy learned, in a conversation with the Dean of Wes' school, that Wes was being put on academic and disciplinary probation for his bad grades, class absences, an incident with a smoke bomb and even more seriously, an assault on Shani. Realizing her son might start to “go astray”, Joy made the important decision to send Wes to military school without hesitation, even though she had to sacrifice many things to send him there.
The play Kamau by Alani Apio exhibits a very strong example of the dramatic difference between the ways that local and non-local people view the value of land. The main character Alika is much attached to the land that his family has lived on for years, as the land that they’ve lived on has become their undeniable home. Alika works for a tour company that takes tourists around the island and gives a brief history of things that have happened on the island. However, Alika’s boss, Jim, is employed at a company that has just bought the land that Alika and his family live on and this company plans to build a resort in place of Alika’s home. The land in question has two very different meanings to two very different people. The struggle and
The play “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry has many interesting characters. In my opinion, the most fascinating character is Ruth because of her many emotions and captivating personality. She goes through extreme emotions in the play such as happiness, sadness, anger, stress, and confusion. Ruth is very independent, firm, kind, witty, and loving.
...daries and what belongs to her. She seems to think that objects that are important in Mother and Maggie's life are just aesthetic pieces of art instead of real life tools. Her idea of reality became warped around the lack of respect she showed the rest of her family.
Marie, who is a product of an abusive family, is influenced by her past, as she perceives the relationship between Callie and her son, Bo. Saunders writes, describing Marie’s childhood experiences, “At least she’d [Marie] never locked on of them [her children] in a closet while entertaining a literal gravedigger in the parlor” (174). Marie’s mother did not embody the traditional traits of a maternal fig...
Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s
...ver the period of his absence, Norma Jean develops into a stronger person from being on her own. Having Leroy home makes her realize she needs to move on and employs her assertiveness to get out of the situation. Although they remain loyal to their duties through all of the drudgery, the Native American women are strong because they lead a very important role in the family. Norma Jean also proves herself to be strong as she leaves her husband to move on to achieve more in her life. The women share different experiences, but they all exhibit strength in being the way they want to be.
Cecilia was diagnosed with cancer while Ruth was in high school and the day before her daughter’s graduation, she passed away (Salokar & Volcansek, 1996). One of the greatest influences on Ruth’s life was her mother and the values she instilled in her from a young age. Two of the greatest lessons that Ruth learned from her mother was to be independent and to be a lady, and by that she meant not to respond in anger but to remain calm in situations (Reynolds, 2009).... ... middle of paper ... ...
Mama, as a member of an older generation, represents the suffering that has always been a part of this world. She spent her life coexisting with the struggle in some approximation to harmony. Mama knew the futility of trying to escape the pain inherent in living, she knew about "the darkness outside," but she challenged herself to survive proudly despite it all (419). Mama took on the pain in her family in order to strengthen herself as a support for those who could not cope with their own grief. Allowing her husband to cry for his dead brother gave her a strength and purpose that would have been hard to attain outside her family sphere. She was a poor black woman in Harlem, yet she was able to give her husband permission for weakness, a gift that he feared to ask for in others. She gave him the right to a secret, personal bitterness toward the white man that he could not show to anyone else. She allowed him to survive. She marveled at his strength, and acknowledged her part in it, "But if he hadn't had...
...nspired to make a change that she knew that nothing could stop her, not even her family. In a way, she seemed to want to prove that she could rise above the rest. She refused to let fear eat at her and inflict in her the weakness that poisoned her family. As a child she was a witness to too much violence and pain and much too often she could feel the hopelessness that many African Americans felt. She was set in her beliefs to make choices freely and help others like herself do so as well.