“I meant what I said and I said what I meant… An elephant’s faithful one hundred percent!” –Horton from Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hatches the Egg. From the time most children can read, they know many of Dr. Seuss’s wonderful works. Here, however, the case is whether or not Horton, the elephant, or Mayzie, the bird, should have custody of the baby in Horton Hatches the Egg. Many may argue that Mayzie was lazy, or not a prepared parent to keep the youngster, but others think otherwise. A few reasons are that she laid the egg, Horton agreed to sit on her egg, and Mayzie had sat on the egg, also. For instance, Mayzie laid the egg and is therefore rightfully the mother of the baby. After sitting on the egg for a while, she decided that she needed
Harwood’s poem Barn Owl, expertly conveys the poem with emotion and tells the story of a young girl losing her childish innocence by rebelling against her father and killing a barn owl. Using a variety of literary techniques, the poem has the ability to provide the audience a visual image of the scene. Expressed in great detail, the themes of innocence, death and rebelling against authority within the poem offer the audience another intriguing poem written by Gwen
Dr. Seuss, also known as Theodore Seuss, has written many poems as well as short stories, and is considered one of the greatest children’s author in history. His silly stories are able to excite children in ways that make them want read. His Wife says,” Ted doesn’t sit down to write for children. He writes to amuse himself;” Little do children know that often, in his stories, there is a lot of political undertone, a few examples include The Lorax, Yertle the Turtle, The Sneethces, and The Butter Battle Book. If you were to really critique some of his books or poems, you might see that some of his themes wouldn’t seem to pertain to children. But what he’s doing, is hoping that they will understand the main idea of the story enough that it challenges them to stand against the crowd of judgment and evil. Take notice of the issues around them, and make a change. He feels that they deserve to know about the issues, just as much as adults do. He is showing them early on, telling them that they do not need adults to make a difference.
...ve with her powers. In general no matter the conflict that arises the elephants always stick together and never become mad at one another. This collectiveness/family unity is a great message to any reader searching for life answers.
Birds are a class of vertebrates that live in nature. Most of them are characterized by an ability to fly, free to roam the sky. They are not meant to live in captivity. Therefore, the short story entitled "A Bird in the House" suggests a theme of entrapment and a struggle for freedom, a topic that resonates throughout the novel. Vanessa is one character who experiences a sense of confinement in the story. Her family lives with her grandmother MacLeod, a tyrannical woman who loves order, and who wants to continue living like she did in the past, before the Depression, with a housekeeper to cook and clean, and to be able to make frequent purchases of table-cloths and handkerchiefs of Irish linen. Vanessa's father, Ewen, explains that, "the house is still the same, so she thinks other things should be too" (55). Vanessa experiences a physical confinement in the MacLeod house, being forbidden to enter those rooms that contained valuables objects such as her grandmother's bedroom and the living room which she calls, "another alien territory where I had to tread warily" (47). This physical confinement led to an emotional detachment. As an adult reflecting on her time growing up, Vanessa says that "the MacLeod house never seemed like home to me" (46). Moreover, Vanessa experienced some emotional confinement in the Connor house as her grandfather Connor was a domineering man who did not approve of many types of people so Vanessa grew up without the interaction with many people outside her immediate family. To combat these forms of entrapment, Vanessa would write stories about pioneers, and love and death, as an escape.
Throughout a person’s lifetime, an individual will have encountered an array of people with different qualities that make up their personalities. In general, people who are characterized as strong-willed are the one who have the initiative and they are risk takers. Also, they deviate from normalcy by looking for something new, different, or other ways of doing things because of the tedious situations they wound up in. As once Philosopher David Hume stated two hundred and fifty years ago that unlike those who deviate from the world of normalcy and clichés, most of the people go on with their lives in a “dogmatic slumber… so ensnared in conventional notions of just about everything that we don’t see anything; we just rehearse what we’ve been told is there” (Rosenwasser 4). In the anecdotal piece “Terwilliger Bunts One”, Annie Dillard has expressed her feelings and emotions towards her mother. Writing from the first person point of view, Annie Dillard also explains to her audience the attitude her mother took through many different circumstances and anecdotes that Dillard revealed thus admiring the personality of her mother as a child. By mentioning the qualities that her mother possesses, she is putting the spotlight on the impact her mother has made on her life using her parenting philosophy. The first parenting philosophy Dillard’s mother has taught her is to be very expressive in everything using surprising and strange-sounding words as part of the observation to other people. As Dillard recalls in her story, it happened when her mother heard the announcer on the radio cried out “Terwilliger Bunts one” and she started using this phrase as part of her “surprising string of syllables… for the next seven or eight years” (Dillard). ...
The chicken has become something that the family not only praises, but also honors as depicted with the use of the word “queen”. This allows the reader to understand that the chicken is now seen as royalty as she has become an asset to the family. However, this quickly changes once the family realizes that her eggs are infertile and so they decide to kill her as illustrated when the author writes, “Until one day they killed her, ate her and years went by” (130). After the eggs prove to be infertile, the chicken is no longer viewed as a benefit to the family and so she is killed and
As a young child, mother goose nursery rhymes are nearly the entire basis for learning. By memorizing and reciting these verses, children develop memorization skills, verbal skills through communicating them effectively, and vocabulary. Of course, these nursery rhymes also establish valuable life lessons too. “Humpty Dumpty” and “Jack and Jill” both teach us about the violence that can occur as a result of carelessness, and “Queen of Hearts” teaches children that bad things happen to those who steal. But not all of these nursery rhymes come with such happy lessons. The two that I have chosen teach a more morbid lesson. Each is about how men pursue women for sex. Both illustrate examples of men using women for sex and discarding them, however, their approaches stem from roots as far apart as the polar caps.
Baby M saga resulted in a groundbreaking court decision that is still with us today. Baby M is the story of a married woman, Mary Beth Whitehead agreed in 1985 to have another man’s for $10,000. When the time came to turn over the child, Mrs. Whitehead reneged on the arrangement, renounced the fee and took the child to Florida. On appeal the New Jersey Supreme court restored Mrs. Whitehead’s parental rights, while at the same time giving custody to the biological father and his wife. The high court comment; “This is the sale of a child, or at the very least, the sale of a mother’s right to her child, the only mitigating factor being that one of the purchasers is the father.”
A devoted mother, Anne Bradstreet is concerned with her children as she watches them grow up. “Or lest by Lime-twigs they be foil'd, or by some greedy hawks be spoil'd” Anne Bradstreet uses to describe her fear for her children. Not wanting to see her children suffer, Anne Bradstreet turns to God to help her children. Bradstreet imagines her bird’s being stuck on a branch and a hawk eating them, a grim image of all of her sacrifice being lost in a single moment. “No cost nor labour did I spare” describes how much Anne loves her children.
lived with and was raised by her father and the maid. She never had a
Are adults overprotective of their children? To what point do we protect children? Where should the line be drawn? Along with those questions is how easily children can be influenced by these same adults. Two poets, Richard Wilbur and Billy Collins, express the ideas of how easily children can be manipulated and how sometimes adults think they are protecting their innocent children, when in reality they are not. Wilbur and Collins express these ideas in their poems through numerous literary devices. The literary devices used by Wilbur and Collins expose different meanings and two extremely different end results. Among the various literary devices used, Wilbur uses imagery, a simple rhyme scheme and meter, juxtaposition of the rational and irrational, and a humorous tone to represent the narrator’s attempt to “domesticate” irrational fears. Conversely Collins uses symbols, historical interpretations, imagery, diction and other literary devices to depict the history teacher’s effort to shield his students from reality. In the poems, “A Barred Owl,” by Richard Wilbur, and “The History Teacher,” by Billy Collins, both poets convey how adults protect and calm children from their biggest, darkest fears and curiosities.
He claims that the child is born in a neutral state, with no needs until he/she interacts with the parents. By responding to the child’s behavior, the parents will determine the behavior and the character of the child. Parents have the power to bestow or withhold love in relation to their own peculiar needs for love. This creates dependency as the basic feature of the child’s existence. Parents are the first contact and relationship and play an essential role on the child’s development. Their actions and demeanor have a heavy impact on the way their offspring will relate to others, and develop future relationships.
Elephants'." Studies in Short Fiction. 17.1 (Winter 1980): 75-77. Rpt. in Literature Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 75-77. Literature Resource Center. Gale.
Abandonment may be physical (the parent is not present in the child's life) or emotional (the parent withholds affection, nurturing, or stimulation)”(Wiki). The author Durrow uses a lot of bird imagery in the other main character Jamie's/Brick's narrative. To clarify, Jamies reported,”I saw a bird, he wanted to say. A great egret in the sky. I saw it swoop down below my window. I wanted to see it land….His eyes saw everything wrong. Shadows, mothers, birds”(Durrow 41). The imagery is prevalent precisely because birds can escape and be free of anything that ails them: they can fly away at any moment. In all of the hardships Rachel faces, she often wishes for these very qualities. Similarly, the birds, then, end up symbolizing Rachel's dreams and hope that is weighed down by sadness at the loss of her family. Rachel dreams and hopes of fitting in. In other words, when Rachel's mother and siblings’ fall, they look like birds at first. In details Rachel said,”We take small steps toward the edge. Closer. Closer. The way people look at us. The things that people say. She will protect us from these things too. We are closer still. We fall. Robbie, Mor, Ariel, Then me. As a family, we fall. Hance, it looks as though Rachel's hopes and dreams have died, from that moment on her only role model left, and so she begins to feel abandoned child
We learned that she was crippled and that she couldn’t travel as fast as the rest of the herd. However, we saw that the elephants in Babyl’s group didn’t leave her behind; they waited for her.” The guide had explaoined that the elephants always waited for the elephant name Babyl, and they had been doing it for years. The guide explained how the group would walk for a while, then stop and look around to see where Babyl was. If Babyl was too far back, they would stop and wait. (Bekoff, 2007, p. 3). This shows the value of emotions that enhanced Babyl 's chance at survival. The group must of cared for Babyl, or they wouldn 't do what they were doing to halp take care of the elephant, if they had not, the elphant would have more than likely parished a long time ago, becoming prey and a food source for another animal.