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Character conflicts
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Throughout pages 45-50, the author uses the literary element of conflict to further develop Pecola's character as well as to increase the understanding of the environment. Within the pages 45-50, a continuous dilemma that is depicted is a conflict amongst Pecola and her identity. As stated on page 45 " She had long ago given up the idea of running away to see new pictures, new faces...As long as she looked the way she did, as long as she was ugly, she would have to stay with these people.Long hours she sat looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of the ugliness." Evidently, it can be noted that Pecola had loathed her appearance and yearned for liberation from her family. She considered herself repulsive, and from her constant
Experts believe that writing workshops are an excellent way to get elementary school children interested in writing and setting the stage for a lifelong joy of writing. Lucy Calkins developed Writer’s Workshop which was based on many positions taken by her mentor Donald Graves (Feinberg 2). She identified six major components of the Writer’s Workshop, which make it so successful. The six components are: predictable structure, free choice, useful mini-lessons, daily independent writing time, conferencing with teachers and peers and modeling good writing.
This next quote can be considered both pathos as well as ethos. Cookie is dependent upon Camille and Regina, in the way they should be dependent upon Cookie. For instance at one point Cookie told her daughters, “I’m going to find the hair of the dog that bit me. Feed the kids” (15) This appeals to pathos, because no ten-year-old child should be responsible for feeding her younger siblings, and Cookie does not even refer to Regina or Camille as children, in Cookie’s mind, only Norman and Rosie are young enough to be considered children or “kids”. However, at the same time due to the fact that Regina and Camille were so young and responsible for caring for Norman and Rosie, it shows how mature, responsible, and trustworthy they were throughout the book. Not only were they the people providing for the family, but they were feeding, bathing, comforting, and caring for them, meanwhile there was nobody but themselves to to do that for one another. Along with many rhetorical appeals, Calcaterra used many literary devices/techniques. The technique focused on below is imagery. There was a point in the excerpts we read that had very vivid imagery that helped appeal to
In the beginning of “Barbie Doll”, pleasurable and unpleasurable imagery is given so that the reader can see the extremes girls go through to be considered perfect.
Although Patria is concerned with the regime she isn’t on board with the revolution yet, unlike her sisters Minerva and Mate. While on the church retreat Patria watches a boy get shot in the back by guards. She is so stricken by his death that she feels like she has lost another child, “My stillborn of thirteen years ago. My murdered son of a few hours ago.” (162). Patria is so devastated by the loss of her “son” that she decides for herself that it is time to take action. The unforeseen murder prompts Patria to begin another metamorphosis. Because Patria is so pious and protective over her family it is not expected of her to take part in such a risky movement, but it is those same characteristics that give her the courage to resist the regime. The concern for the well being of her family and the involvement of the church in the revolution bring Patria to form her new conclusion: “Amen to the revolution” (164). Patria wants a better life for her family and she now sees that the only way to achieve this is through the revolution; she must make a sudden change which is similar to the quick transition of a caterpillar to a butterfly. After some convincing, Patria is able to persuade her husband Pedrito to allow revolutionaries to meet in their backyard and eventually turn their home into a rebel control center. Patria evolves from an innocent bystander to a
In the second stanza, Piercy describes the girl as healthy, intelligent, and strong (7-8). Yet these positive equalities alone, could not keep people from criticizing her, so the girl feels inferior. “She went to and fro apologizing,” which demonstrates her collapse of confidence with the people she is surrounded with, who kept putting her down (10). She gives in to the hurtful things people say about her: “Everyone [kept] seeing a fat nose on thick legs” (11). The girl thus lets people push her in the direction of society’s standard of beauty, instead of affirming her own unique beauty.
As a key character, Pecola Breedlove shows how past history repeats itself in the living present. Pecola is a victim of her parents’ background,
Since the protagonist leads the story as a narrator, the loneliness of the narrator is depicted through internal and external conflicts that arise by situations and the feelings of being alone. The first person point of view allows readers to be immersed in her situation easily. For instance, no one gives her love after she gets measles first which further get extended to Porphyria. The narrator’s father does
...the horrific incident of his murder to his dearest Porphyria. Finally, the employment of the clever use of irony serves in proving the persona’s inner madness, as what he thinks and does is contrary to what Porphyria has done earlier prior to her death. Though the persona’s execution of his late lover was done to keep his everlasting moment of intimacy with her, the act was still malevolent and evil, and was a poor and foolish attempt in displaying his own affection for his love. In the end, it greatly epitomized his greediness over keeping Porphyria to himself, and his cruelty by taking away her life for his own benefit.
Pecola has a deep admiration for Shirley Temple and therefore thinks that she is ugly because she looks nothing like Shirley. All across socie...
and white society has conditioned her to believe that she is ugly. Pecola.s physical features
...er known what it should have been like. His past was laced with rejections and so he never knew how to give anything else but rejection. And so even if he thought he loved her, he was rejecting her. Which brings me to Pecola. Pecola doesn't have much of a past because no one allows her to have any. Everyone is always giving her their past, enforcing restrictions upon her and placing her into categories. Because of this she lives vicariously through these much wanted blue eyes. She is given this offspring of hate and rejection and forced to live in a present more vile than any past of any one particular character.
The first stage of Pecola coming to believe she is ugly starts with her family's attitude toward her. Right from the very start of Pecola's life her parents have thought of her as ugly on the outside as well as on the inside. When Pecola was born, Pecola's mother, Pauline, said: "Eyes all soft and wet. A cross between a puppy and a dying man. But I knowed she was ugly. Head full of pretty hair, but Lord she was ugly" (Morrison 126). Pecola became labeled ugly as soon as she was born. The reason people think of her as ugly relates to the way she gets treated by her family. Her parents never even gave her a chance to prove that she is worth something and not just a piece of trash. In the first stage of Pecola's realization of being ugly, she starts to feel the way she does because her family does not give her any support and tell her she actually means something to them. Pecola does not really have anyone that she can go to talk about things. All of the weight of her problems rests on her shoulders with no one to help her out, not even her parents, the two people that brought her into this very world.
The concept of physical appearance as a virtue is the center of the social problems portrayed in the novel. Thus the novel unfolds with the most logical responses to this overpowering impression of beauty: acceptance, adjustment, and rejection (Samuels 10). Through Pecola Breedlove, Morrison presents reactions to the worth of physical criteria. The beauty standard that Pecola feels she must live up to causes her to have an identity crisis. Society's standard has no place for Pecola, unlike her "high yellow dream child" classmate, Maureen Peals, who fits the mold (Morrison 62).
Literature has been part of society since pen met paper. It has recorded history, retold fables, and entertained adults for centuries. Literature intended for children, however, is a recent development. Though children’s literature is young, the texts can be separated into two categories by age. The exact splitting point is debatable, but as technology revolutionized in the mid-twentieth century is the dividing point between classic and contemporary. Today’s children’s literature is extraordinarily different from the classics that it evolved from, but yet as classic was transformed into modern, the literature kept many common features.
Pecola is a quintessential example of the pressure colored women often feel to shed themselves of their own heritage. We see early-on in the novel that she has an affinity for white culture as she gazes