Novalee Nation doesn’t have the best of luck with the number seven. Her bad luck with the number seven started on her seventh birthday when her mother, Nell ran away with another man. Her bad luck continued on to the seventh grade when her best and only friend, Rhonda Talley got into some trouble and was sent to a private school in Tennessee. Novalee unlucky sevens streak continued as a woman cut her from the wrist to elbow causing Navalee to receive seventy-seven stitches.
When Novalee turns seventeen she finds out she is pregnant by her boyfriend, Willy Jack. Willy Jack was a jerk of a boyfriend. Novalee and Willy Jack were traveling to California for work for Willy Jack when Novalee had to stop to use the restroom and to buy a pair of sandals because hers fell through the floor of the old car. After Novalee leaves Walmart she is shocked to see that Willy Jack had left her with only $7.77 from the change at Walmart. Novalee had nowhere else to go and was forced to live in Walmart. Novalee meets a lot of people while staying in Walmart for example, she runs into Sister Husband who mistakes her for someone
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When Novalee has her baby they become news famous. Novalee mother was watching the news when she found out which hospital Novalee was in, but Novalee is surprised and heartbroken to find out the only thing her mother was interested in was money. After Novalee is able to leave the hospital she decides to make a visit to Sister Husband’s house to ask is she can plant her buckeye tree there. Novalee and Sister Husband become very close so they take care of each other. Later in the novel there is a tornado that kills Sister but in her will she left the property to Novalee. Novalee feels bad for befriending her nurse, Lexi and her four kids and invites them to live with her on the
After a year of pampering, Logan becomes demanding and rude, he went as far to try to force Janie to do farm work. It was when this happened that Janie decided to take a stand and run away with Joe. At this time, Janie appears to have found a part of her voice and strong will. In a way, she gains a sense of independence and realizes she has the power to walk away from an unhealthy situation and does not have to be a slave to her own husband. After moving to Eatonville and marrying Joe, Janie discovers that people are not always who they seem to be.
The story is told in first person through Tangy Mae Quinn, the darkest child of Rozelle Quinn. Rozelle is a light-skinned woman with ten children by ten different fathers, who separates her children based on skin color. She shows favoritism to her lighter skinned children and hatred to her darker skinned children. This is important because the story takes place in Parksfield, Georgia in the late 1950’s, right before the civil rights movement. It starts off with Rozelle Quinn teaching Tangy Mae how to clean her employer’s house because she believes she is going to die over the weekend. News of Rozelle “dying” spreads throughout the town and even beyond which brings her oldest child, Mushy, back into town. It is later revealed that Rozelle is only acting as if she is dying because she is pregnant. While in town, Mushy promises her siblings that she is going to save them from the abuse of Rozelle, but says Tarabelle has to be first due to Tarabelle’s exposure to prostitution. Months after giving birth to her child, Judy, Rozelle kills her by throwing her off the stairs. After this incident, the children slowly start to leave her although Tangy Mae and Laura stay by her side. After majority of her children have left, Rozelle is diagnosed with insanity and is forced to move in with Mushy. By the end of the story, Tarabelle is killed by a fire started purposely by her mother; Tangy Mae has graduated high school and taken Laura with her to cross the Georgia border.
Throughout the story, Taylor grows as a person and learns what it means to be part of a family. Kingsolver's choices for point of view, setting, conflict, theme, characterization, and style help support the plot and create an uplifting story with a positive message.
Baby narrates her story through her naïve, innocent child voice. She serves as a filter for all the events happening in her life, what the narrator does not know or does not comprehend cannot be explained to the readers. However, readers have reason not to trust what she is telling them because of her unreliability. Throughout the beginning of the novel we see Baby’s harsh exposure to drugs and hurt. Jules raised her in an unstable environment because of his constant drug abuse. However, the narrator uses flowery language to downplay the cruel reality of her Montreal street life. “… for a kid, I knew a lot of things about what it felt like to use heroin” (10). We immediately see as we continue reading that Baby thinks the way she has been living her life is completely normal, however, we as readers understand that her life is in fact worse then she narrates. Baby knows about the impermanent nature of her domestic security, however, she repeatedly attempts to create a sense of home each time her and Jules move to another apartm...
She’s considering having an abortion. On the other hand the daughter wants to get merry to her African boyfriend he wants her to move with him to Africa. Momma is very excited to own her first home and they also refuse to take the money from Mr. Linden, they are tired of living in the apartment, momma thinks a house is the best investment. The son is going through some extremely hard times after losing all that money trying to open a liquor store. In the story the son faces more problems the son has the most problems for example he’s in charged of the house after his father die he took over all the responsibility he’s father had. During the 1950s after the father die the son usually took over the family and all its
...her father’s intense racism and discrimination so she hid the relationship at all costs. Connie realized that she could never marry an African American man because of her father’s racial intolerance. If she were to have a mixed child, that child would be greatly discriminated against because of hypodecent. One day, Connie’s dad heard rumors about her relationship so he drove her car to the middle of nowhere, and tore it apart. Then, he took his shotgun and went to look for Connie and her boyfriend. Connie was warned before her father found her, and she was forced to leave town for over six months. Connie’s father burned her clothes, so she had to leave town with no car, no clothes and no money at sixteen years old. Connie had lived in poverty her entire life, but when she got kicked out she learned to live with no shelter and sometimes no food at all.
Her parents meet at a social gathering in town and where married shortly thereafter. Marie’s name was chosen by her grandmother and mother, “because they loved to read the list was quite long with much debate over each name.” If she was a boy her name would have been Francis, so she is very happy to have born a girl. Marie’s great uncle was a physician and delivered her in the local hospital. Her mother, was a housewife, as was the norm in those days and her father ran his own business. Her mother was very close with her parents, two brothers, and two sisters. When her grandmother was diagnosed with asthma the family had to move. In those days a warm and dry climate was recommended, Arizona was the chosen state. Because her grandma could never quite leave home, KY, the family made many trips between the states. These trips back and forth dominated Marie’s childhood with her uncles and aunts being her childhood playmates.
After Junior’s sister Mary dies in a terrible fire, he feels sad and alone. At school, his fellow students and friends make him feel better by giving him hugs and small slaps on the back. “They were worried for me. They wanted to help me with my pain. I was important to them. I mattered. Wow,” (Alexie 212). Back on the Reservation, Junior never felt important, which really put a damper on his confidence. However, at school he knows people care about him and it makes him feel good and appreciated. This experience impacts Junior’s identity and makes him a better, and more confident person. Junior goes to his first school dance, and afterwards him, his girlfriend, and a few of his friends go to a Denny’s to eat pancakes. He is poor and obviously cannot pay for the food, but he orders it anyways. Later that evening, his friend Roger finds out that he does not have enough money to pay. Instead of getting mad, Roger lends him forty dollars and goes on his way. When they got back to the school after having pancakes, Penelope, Junior’s girlfriend, finds out that he is poor and kisses him on the cheek. “But then I realized she was being my friend. Being a really good friend, in fact. She was concerned” (Alexie 127). This entire event shows Junior that being poor is not a bad thing. It lets him know that people will still be his friend even when they know he is
Lori was the first one to leave for New York City after graduation, later, Jeanette followed her and moved into her habitat with her. Jeanette promptly found a job as a reporter, the two sisters were both living their dream life away from their miserable parents. It wasn’t difficult for them since they cultured to be independent and tough. Everything was turning out great for them and decided to tell their younger siblings to move in with them, and they did. Jeanette was finally happy for once, enjoying the freedom she had and not having to be moved every two weeks. She then found a guy whom she married and accustomed her lifestyle. Furthermore, her parents still couldn’t have the funds for a household or to stay in stable occupation, so they decided to move in with Jeanette and her siblings. Jeanette at that moment felt like she was never going to have an ordinary life because her parents were going to shadow her.
As she got older, Jeannette and her siblings made their own life, even as their parents became homeless. Jeannette and her older sister Lori decide to run away from their family in Virginia and go start a new life in New York City. However, after a few months, the rest of the family moves to New York and settles down. While in the City, Jeannette gets a job as a reporter, which was her life goal, and one day on her way to an event she sees her mother rummaging around in a dumpster. While the rest of the family gets along, Maureen, the youngest of the family goes insane and stabs their
As the novel begins, Janie walks into her former hometown quietly and bravely. She is not the same woman who left; she is not afraid of judgment or envy. Full of “self-revelation”, she begins telling her tale to her best friend, Phoeby, by looking back at her former self with the kind of wistfulness everyone expresses when they remember a time of childlike naïveté. She tries to express her wonderment and innocence by describing a blossoming peach tree that she loved, and in doing so also reveals her blossoming sexuality. To deter Janie from any trouble she might find herself in, she was made to marry an older man named Logan Killicks at the age of 16. In her naïveté, she expected to feel love eventually for this man. Instead, however, his love for her fades and she beco...
Taylor had a goal, a reason to achieve it, had many challenges along the way and in the end found her reason to thrive. Had Taylor stayed in town, there is a good chance she would have followed the rest of her peers, getting pregnant ad married without any thought to the world outside. Taylor Greer learned that she could rise above small town culture, be herself and thrive. This can be a lesson to readers and critics that life is a quest, and the most important part of it is our development and to find our place in the
Rose Mary is a selfish woman and decides not to go to school some mornings because she does not feel up to it. Jeannette takes the initiative in making sure that her mother is prepared for school each morning because she knows how much her family needs money. Even though Rose Mary starts to go to school every day, she does not do her job properly and thus the family suffers financially again. When Maureen’s birthday approaches, Jeannette takes it upon herself to find a gift for her because she does not think their parents will be able to provide her with one. Jeannette says, “at times I felt like I was failing Maureen, like I wasn’t keeping my promise that I’d protect her - the promise I’d made to her when I held her on the way home from the hospital after she’d been born. I couldn’t get her what she needed most- hot
It is the day Cali will remember for the rest of her life, for it is the day Cali Millhouse discovers her uncle was murdered by a family member. It is Two o'clock and half of the town of Rosewood is piling inside the local funeral home. Mrs. Dunham pays her respects to everyone except Cali’s father, Steve, for Mrs. Dunham finds him to be evil. Maybe she is right, and he killed Cali’s uncle? Whether he was or not, it is still a sad day and she needed the comfort of her father. That morning the sheriff came by and informed Cali and her family that someone related to Keith killed him. Surprisingly, her father made a comment that he believed it was her Aunt Audrey. Audrey was a money hungry, mean, gold-digger who dated men for their money, and she knew Keith had a two billion dollar company that would be left to someone if he passed.Steve felt much animosity towards his older sister, and would vituperate her name any chance he got. Audrey blamed Steve as much as her blamed her, nevertheless you could feel their acrimony towards each
The couple spent the summer together and developed the meaning of true love. One evening, Noah takes Allie, to an old farmhouse, tells her his dream of buying and restoring it one day, she tells him she wants to be a part of that dream, she wants the house white, have blue shutters, a wrap-around porch, and wants a room that overlooks the creek so she can paint. With all the excitement the two lost track of time and when she returned home she found out her parents called the police; her parents forbid her to ever see Noah again. Allies parents did not approve of the social differences in the teens upbringing. Allie’s mother moved her away to New York, for her to forget Noah, and interact with people of her social lifestyle at college.