“Walk on Earth a Stranger” written by Rae Carson, focuses on the trials faced by the protagonist, 15-year-old Leah Westfall who harbors a valuable secret; she can sense gold around her. The gold can be in a deep river, veins underneath the ground, and even the smallest amount underneath a fingernail. Yet when disaster strikes her life, her gift becomes a curse as she must flee from various dangers such as greedy people seeking to benefit from her gift, which now surround her. Disguised as a boy, she embarks on a journey to California where hopefully a girl with such powers can live normally. Throughout the trip she finds herself in both demanding and awkward situations, and learns much about surviving on her own and much about herself. …show more content…
Rae Carson did a fabulous job in helping the reader easily imagine the place and era of the story transporting them into Leah’s world. This example from the beginning of the novel shows how exquisitely Carson sets the scenes for the reader; “Snow fills the cracks between the branches, creating a barrier to the wind…The snow around me clinks and tinkles like bells, melting in the early morning warm snap.” This shows the creativity that Rae has, which truly makes the book more enjoyable. If not for the descriptiveness, the reader would spend more time being confused instead of enjoying the book and its creative plot unfolding. Carson also does an excellent job of describing the feeling that Leah has when near gold. “It creeps down my throat and into my chest, where it diffuses into a steady buzz, like dancing locusts…like a string tugging my chest…” When the author explicitly depicted Leah’s feelings, I could not help but muse about a scenario involving my gold toothed, El Salvadorian grandparents. I imagined Leah having an awkward dinner with them, having this sensation throughout the meal, and not being able to communicate with my grandparents (they do not speak a word of English)! By portraying the feeling so beautifully, the author makes the reader feel as though they are really hearing of a true …show more content…
Not being a historical reader, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the underlying historical lesson. Throughout the novel I was subtly being taught about life in the Gold Rush era, which overall made the story seem more authentic and therefore more enjoyable. This excerpt from the book, shows how Leah had to haggle at the local general store for a decent price on her horses “’I’ll throw in the wagon too.’… We’ve been haggling all this time. ‘Tell you what. I’ll throw in a few men’s shirts.” This is an example of what people had to do in the Gold Rush era, in order to get enough money to go to California. By including pieces of history such as this, Carson parallels the fictional side of stories with the historical. Throughout the story, Leah “Lee” meets a variety of people, and the way that the author’s choice of introduction enthralled me as I read! “It’s a gray-haired lady in sensible navy wool, with a straw hat and a patched satchel… She chatters at me while I continue to load cargo…” The description and personalities given to each of the characters is well developed, and each one plays a meaningful role in the story, making the characters more
The protagonist is Aja Houston. She grew up in Middletown Delaware. She was the oldest out of three daughters. She considered herself the "experimental “child. Her parents were very young when they started a family. Her mother struggled to graduate high school because she got pregnant with Aja and biological father never step up and decided to stay in the streets collecting drug money. Houston was very lucky that at age two her mother found the man of her dreams and he was said to be one of the greatest gifts god had given her. She had a very special bond with her beautiful mother she was her first child, who she had raised alone for two years with the support of her mother and grandmother. Her mother was a very strong minded independent woman
Similarly, Harte’s story features the “glimmer of hope” that Bierce incorporated into her story. The town of Roaring Camp is greeted with a child who they hope will bring Luck to the Gold Rush town, where Cherokee Sal, the only woman in the town, gives birth to Thomas Luck named by Oakhurst, and the miners become proud of their town, and the talk of the town is bright. As things begin to look bright the town is infatuated with their own deception, believing their rotten luck has ended, and their hope is destroyed in a flood that kills
... harsh and tragic. Similarly, Hodgins symbolizes a life full of hardships in Portuguese Creek with the death of Elizabeth, for she had been the only good thing that had come out of the war. The positives of the families and communities working together were ultimately overshadowed by the negativity of these same families and communities falling apart; only further showing readers that new beginnings are not a chance for a better life, but center stage for one that is worse.
The story also focuses in on Ruth Younger the wife of Walter Lee, it shows the place she holds in the house and the position she holds to her husband. Walter looks at Ruth as though he is her superior; he only goes to her for help when he wants to sweet talk his mama into giving him the money. Mama on the other hand holds power over her son and doesn’t allow him to treat her or any women like the way he tries to with Ruth. Women in this story show progress in women equality, but when reading you can tell there isn’t much hope and support in their fight. For example Beneatha is going to college to become a doctor and she is often doubted in succeeding all due to the fact that she is black African American woman, her going to college in general was odd in most people’s eyes at the time “a waste of money” they would say, at least that’s what her brother would say. Another example where Beneatha is degraded is when she’s with her boyfriend George Murchison whom merely just looks at her as arm
...people seem barbaric from the sophisticated people of Boston. Though, this was not Willa Cather’s intent, she only meant to glorify the strength and endurance required to be a pioneer. She had written this text to bring the true nobility of frontiers people to the cities attention. The nephew of this story, also the speaker of this text, had bared the rough world of being a pioneer and respected his Aunt so much more because of her perseverance of staying out in the isolated world. The truly depressing part of the story was the end, when the music was over Aunt Georgiana cried out in plea to her nephew that she did not want to return to the West. Her nephew understood because he had experienced the harsh environment of the unsettle land. Cather’s main theme of this writing was to praise the pioneers who had settled the land of America for the people of the future.
Jessie Fremont, daughter of a prominent Missouri Senator, was the personification of a pampered, bureaucratic youth; she had strong connections with other high-profile politicians in Congress and a high-caliber private education. With such an indulgent and lavish childhood, it seemed likely that Fremont would grow into a spoiled and wanting adult. However, defying this logic just as Fremont defied social norms, she “matured into an assertive and determined young woman, who enjoyed flouting convention.”1 Since Jessie Fremont had an inbred hatred of slavery from her mother, Elizabeth McDowell, she addressed the controversial
In January of 1939, a man was born by the name of Bruce Tressler in Connersville, Indiana. His parents came from Cincinnati on his father’s side and his mother came from Shelby county, Indiana. At the time, Connersville was a very big industrial town. Connersville was also known as Little Detroit in the 1920s because there were factories in Connersville that made cars. Then when war came upon the United States, all of the factories turned to something in the war production. Bruce’s early years were remembered with sights of war and victory and news of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. During that time, rationing was a big memory for the time period. Meat and butter were highly rationed in Bruce’s childhood. Growing up in this tie proved to be on of the best experiences for Bruce. He was always outside and acting like a kid should. Him and his friends used their imaginations a lot as was the trend at the time. After the war was over, Bruce attended grade school at Maplewood School. His junior high school and high school days were largely influenced by the great economic boom of the 50s.
One of the many nationalities in America that have made stellar achievements are African-Americans. Some citizens have overcome obstacles, and will always be in the history books. Sadly, many examples of greatness go unrecognized. One of the hidden figures in African-American history is Alonzo F. Herndon. He was the founder of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company. (Statistic) Mr. Herndon was one of the first African-American millionaires in the United States. (Statistic) Today, I am going to talk about Alonzo F. Herndon: his childhood, businesses, philanthropy, and final years in life.
Harleen Quinzel, a.k.a Harley Quinn, is a supervillain from the DC Comics franchise. She is best known for her toxic relationship with the Joker. She was created by Paul Dini who is responsible for works such as “Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker” and the retelling of Mr. Freeze’s origin in the Batman animated series. She was modelled after one of Dini’s friends, Arleen Sorkin, from Days of our Lives. He even borrowed some personality traits from Sorkin and allowed her to voice the character. Unlike most comic book characters, she was introduced on a television series and then later added to the comics as she rose in popularity. Her first appearance is on the television series, “Batman: The Animated Series”, in the episode, “Joker’s Favour” and her first comic book appearance was in “The Batman Adventures Issue: #12”. Thus, on September 11, 1992, when the episode was aired, Harley Quinn was born (VariantComics, 2015). Even though Harley was created on television, her original and most popular origin story is found in the comic, “The Batman Adventures: Mad Love”, by Paul Dini. In this comic, we first
Through out the course of history, many people have done great things. Maybe at some point they were recognized, but how long did that really last? Even though athletes and entertainers have their few minutes of fame, they are quickly pushed to the side and overlooked by future generations. Some of those who are only seen in their few seconds of fame mean so much more and more so teach than the few seconds they have allow them to give to the world. An athlete who I admire is like this, Wilma Rudolph. Wilma Rudolph overcame large obstacles early in her life and went on to become the first American woman to win three gold medals in the Olympics. Rudolph
Success is the accomplishment of an aim or purpose (Macmillan), Ben Carson was successful, but how? It would seem prosperity just requires academic success, and a good career choice, but in reality being triumphant requires certain attributes. Talent, Time, Hope, Honesty, Insight,to be Nice, Knowledge, In-Depth-Learning, and God are all of the aspects Dr. Carson thinks we need in order to be successful. . Not only are these traits essential for success, they can build your character as well. Although all of these traits are crucial, but a few of them are of more significance than the rest. One example is Time, Time is an indefinite during which events, conditions, and actions occur and exist, or continue with uninterrupted succession (Macmillan).
Like any other novel or short story, a lot can be learned about the actual story by understanding the historical content embedded in the piece. Louise Erdrich draws from her her imagination, life experiences, and social climate to piece together American Horse into a fictitious short story that somehow manages to give the reader a very real sense of the socioeconomic divide between the two groups portrayed in the story.
own rules,standards,moirails. All of his “rules” are for success and what helped him to become so successful. He expresses these “morals” by telling people his Philosophy for success is “Thinking big.” He plans them out by using The first letters of his Philosophy for example, The T stands for talent. I am not going to name all of them, but I am going to name four I relate most to Kindness,Books,Honesty,and Knowledge.
It makes me feel like I had no clue how bad women had it back then. Since they could not own property or even vote like the slaves did. She showed how important social reform really is. It was seemed that they were restricted in so many ways it seems as if they were owned by men. The interchanging role of man and woman is an important trend in Fuller's argument. The way she writes is very educational in her points about what needs to be done and what the main problems are now. Overall this story brings out the forgiving side and how you realize what has happened before and how there is so much equality
Staley, Sam and Ted Balaker, The Road More Traveled, Roman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2006.