Make Lemonade by Euwer Wolff

1549 Words4 Pages

The novel Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff is mainly about a seventeen year old girl named Jolly, who encounters many difficulties as she has two children from two different, absent fathers. Jolly desperately needs help raising her two children, Jeremy and Jilly, and LaVaughn helps babysit temporarily. LaVaughn is caught up in Jolly’s problems and she guides her on the right path. However, LaVaughn cannot sacrifice her academics to babysit for her because she wants to go to college and she wants to start to build her future. These two main characters take separate paths as they each develop and mature throughout the stages of the novel and they have similarities and differences. Both, Jolly and LaVaughn, illustrate actions that demonstrate the theme of “making lemonade” from the situations they are given.
Jolly flourishes from the person who she was at the start of the book to the person she is now. Before, Jolly did not have her life in order and she couldn’t raise her family with her low-income. In page 7 of the novel, Jolly repetitively states,“I can’t do it all alone”, because she had nobody that supported her or at least gave her advice on parenting, life, etc. Jolly left school three years ago because she was pregnant with Jeremy. According to LaVaughn, she can barely spell and she depends on everyone to help her. For example, when she was filling out the Department of Human Resources application, Jolly states, “Nobody ever tells me. Do you know there ain’t a single person in the whole world I can count on?” (Pg 113). Her apartment is very disorderly and smells and she does not receive any medical benefits. However, things get worse for Jolly when she loses her job at a factory after she got sexually harassed by her bos...

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...aVaughn a story about a blind lady, Jolly’s point is that you have to be careful with who you trust and that you can’t change your past. Plus, LaVaughn states,“I suddenly see the sign of her life: Nobody told me.” She also understands that Jolly didn’t get herself into her mess. Jolly learns from LaVaughn how to prioritize and that getting an education was a good idea. Jolly becomes more dedicated and responsible after she goes to school and it made her life easier. Jolly and LaVaughn may have diverse personalities, but they still learned something from each other.
In final analysis, Jolly and LaVaughn are diverse characters. They each had something to learn from each other over the course of the novel. These characters each get their life on track and portray actions that conveys the theme of “making lemonade”.

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Make Lemonade By Virginia Euwer Wolff

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