“Louisa, Please Come Home,” by Shirley Jackson, is a first-person narrative story that tells the experience of Louisa in the small town of Rockville during the 1950s. In fact, there are six characters in this story. The protagonists of this story are Louisa Tether, Mrs. Peacock, Carol Tether, Mr. Peacock, Mrs. Peacock, and Paul. Carol and Louisa are sisters, and the daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Tether. Paul is a neighbor of the Tether family, and Mrs. Peacock owns the rooming house where Louisa Tether lives. Mr. and Mrs. Tether, Mrs. Peacock, and Paul worked together to solve the problem of Louis running away from home. The main character Louisa Tether is a nineteen-year-old-girl, who is fair-haired, five feet four inches tall, and weights one hundred twenty-six pounds. Her personality could be described as intelligent, impudent, and organized. The following scenes from the book exemplify these three personality traits throughout the story. Shirley Jackson shows the life of Louisa, and ultimately the aspects of this character’s personality shine.
In the story, Louisa runs away the day before her sister’s wedding. After running away from home, Louisa takes the train to Crain. When she gets there, she buys a tan raincoat and drops off the old jacket. She then takes the train to Chandler. When she gets there, she buys a suitcase and other items, such as some stockings and a small clock. She now needs to find a place to get herself settled. She finds a place to live, at Mrs. Peacock’s house, and gets a job at the stationery store. One day, Louisa sees Paul at the train station. Paul desires Louisa to come back, and Louisa agrees. When she arrives at her house, her family can not recognize her and thinks that she is an impostor. Louisa...
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...se. After arriving at Chandler, she now needs to get herself settled in Chandler. She soon finds a place to live, at Mrs. Peacock’s house, and begins working at the stationery store. Furthermore, Louisa’s organize also further demonstrates in the novel when she chooses to go to Chandler. “I took a train to Chandler.” She has a reason for going to Chandler. She goes to Chandler since Chandler is neither not too big nor not too small. Louisa is assurance that no one could find her in Chandler. These events showed Louisa calculates during the story.
In conclusion, Shirley Jackson’s novel tells the story of Louisa. As the story progresses, Louisa’s personality begins to develop. Shirley Jackson’s characteristics have shown which included intelligent, impudent, and organized. Shirley successfully develops a character throughout the story with a distinct personality.
Summary and Response to Barbara Kingsolver’s “Called Home” In “Called Home”, the first chapter of the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year in Food Life, Barbara Kingsolver presents her concerns about America's lack of food knowledge, sustainable practices, and food culture. Kingsolver introduces her argument for the benefits of adopting a local food culture by using statistics, witty anecdotal evidence, and logic to appeal to a wide casual reading audience. Her friendly tone and trenchant criticism of America's current food practices combine to deliver a convincing argument that a food culture would improve conditions concerning health and sustainability.
“I told Lori about my escape fund, the seventy-five dollars I’d saved. From now on, I said, it would be our joint fund. We’d take on extra work after school and put everything we earned into a piggy bank. Lori would take it to New York and use it to get established, so that by the time I arrived, everything would be set.”(223) Lori and Jeannette work to earn money so they can leave. They named the piggy bank that they keep their money in Oz because New York City seems like The Emerald City to them. The two sisters went through so many struggles growing up they are determined to leave Welch and begin a new and better life. “ ‘I’ll never get out of here,’ Lori kept saying. ‘I’ll never get out of here.’ ‘You will,’ I said. ‘I swear it.’ I believed she would. Because I knew that if Lori never got out of Welch, neither would I.” (229). Lori and Jeannette have had a tough childhood and they need to escape Welch. They know that if they stay in Welch their life will always be full of challenges. New York is their escape from a life full of hardships and challenges. “I wondered if he was hoping that his favorite girl would come back, or if he was hoping that, unlike him, she would make it out for good.” (241). When Jeannette leaves her dad lost hope. He has always let his kids down and New York City is their escape. New York City represents their freedom. Their freedom from a life full of
“The Lost Children of Wilder” is a book about how the foster care system failed to give children of color the facilities that would help them lead a somewhat normal and protected life. The story of Shirley Wilder is a sad one once you find out what kind of life she had to live when she was a young girl. Having no mother and rejected by her father she has become a troubled girl.
The social, cultural and political history of America as it affects the life course of American citizens became very real to us as the Delany sisters, Sadie and Bessie, recounted their life course spanning a century of living in their book "Having Our Say." The Delany sisters’ lives covered the period of their childhood in Raleigh, North Carolina, after the "Surrender" to their adult lives in Harlem, New York City during the roaring twenties, to a quiet retirement in suburban, New York City, as self-styled "maiden ladies." At the ages of 102 and 104, these ladies have lived long enough to look back over a century of their existence and appreciate the value of a good family life and companionship, also to have the last laugh that in spite of all their struggles with racism, sexism, political and economic changes they triumphed (Having Our Say).
Each person has a place that calls to them, a house, plot of land, town, a place that one can call home. It fundamentally changes a person, becoming a part of who they are. The old summer cabins, the bedroom that was always comfortable, the library that always had a good book ready. The places that inspire a sense of nostalgic happiness, a place where nothing can go wrong.
The main character, Louisa Ellis, lived a life which paralleled both of her pets' lives, her dog Caesar's and her yellow canary. The animals and Louisa are trapped by their captivity, and because they have lived like this for so long, no longer crave freedom. Both Louisa and Caesar live solemn and isolated lives. This is shown when Freeman describes Caesars house as "half hidden among the tall grasses and flowers" (258). Given the setting of where Louisa lives, she is fairly isolated as well. There is only a little road running through "the quiet and unguarded village" (265) which she lives in. Because it is quiet, one can make the conclusion that there is little interactions between the townspeople and Louisa. They fear her dog, for it has bitten once when he was a puppy, and tend to stay away. Freeman does a good job in portraying the solitude among the characters. By showing their day-to-day routine and the setting of the houses and town, it is clear that Louisa is isolated and Caesar is hidden from society.
The thought of her brothers still being in her former home environment in Maine hurt her. She tried to think of a way to get at least one of her brothers, the sickly one, to come and be with her. She knew that her extended family was financially able to take in another child, and if she showed responsibility, there would be no problem (Wilson, 40). She found a vacant store, furnished it, and turned it into a school for children (Thinkquest, 5). At the age of seventeen, her grandmother sent her a correspondence, and requested her to come back to Boston with her brother (Thinkquest, 6).
Reunion, by John Cheever, is a story told through the eyes of a young boy, Charlie, who is recalling a meeting with his father who he hasn’t seen for more than three years. It is set in New York where Charlie’s father lives. He meets up with his father during a stop over between trains.
Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott, was published in 1868 and follows the lives, loves, and troubles of the four March sisters growing up during the American Civil War.1 The novel is loosely based on childhood experiences Alcott shared with her own sisters, Anna, May, and Elizabeth, who provided the hearts of the novel’s main characters.2 The March sisters illustrate the difficulties of girls growing up in a world that holds certain expectations of the female sex; the story details the journeys the girls make as they grow to be women in that world. Figures 1 and 2 in the Appendix are of Orchard House, the basis for the March family home, where the Alcotts lived.
Shirley Jackson’s stories often had a woman as the central character who was in search of a more important life other than the conventional wife and mother. These characters however were often chastised for their refusal to conform to a woman’s traditional way of life. Much like her characters, throughout Shirley Jackson’s life, she also rejected the idea of fitting into society's perception of a woman's role.
The setting in the short story “Shiloh” by Bobbie Ann Mason works well to accentuate the theme of the story. The theme portrayed by Mason is that most people change along with their environment, with the exception of the few who are unwilling to adapt making it difficult for things such as marriage to work out successfully. These difficulties are apparent in Norma Jean and Leroy’s marriage. As Norma Jean advances herself, their marriage ultimately collapses due to Leroy’s unwillingness to adapt with her and the changing environment.
She would have a husband to take care of and perhaps children as well. Never again will she live in the comforting life of quiet and peace. However, if Louisa doesn’t marry Joe, she would risk her reputation in her community. It was the norm for a woman her age to get married and raise a family. Becoming a spinster in her society back then is a social stigma. No one is treated with more ridicule than an old maid. Louisa chooses to become a spinster instead of getting married. However, she can feel it that this upcoming marriage was making her feel uneasy about her future.
Louisa has spent a lot of her life by herself. In the beginning of the story her mother and brother have already died. “She was all alone in the world” (472). She has spent fourteen years away from her fiancé, Joe Dagget. Louisa has become accustomed her lifestyle in her
"Shirley Jackson - Biography of Shirley Jackson - English 101." Simple Writers Student Papers and Essays. 2006. Web. 28 Feb. 2011. .
Holly Janquell is a runaway. Wendelin Van Draanan creates a twelve year old character in the story, Runaway, that is stubborn and naive enough to think she can live out in the streets alone, until she is eighteen.She has been in five foster homes for the past two years. She is in foster care because her mother dies of heroin overdose. In her current foster home, she is abused, locked in the laundry room for days without food, and gets in even more trouble if she tries to fight back. Ms.Leone, her schoolteacher, could never understand her, and in Holly’s opinion, probably does not care. No one knows what she is going through, because she never opens up to any one. Ms. Leone gives Holly a journal at school one day and tells her to write poetry and express her feelings. Holly is disgusted. But one day when she is sitting in the cold laundry room, and extremely bored, she pulls out the diary, and starts to write. When Holly can take no more of her current foster home, she runs, taking the journal with her. The journal entries in her journal, are all written as if she is talking to Ms.Leone, even though she will probably never see her again. Over the course of her journey, Holly learns to face her past through writing, and discovers a love for poetry. At some point in this book, Holly stops venting to Ms. Leone and starts talking to her, almost like an imaginary friend, and finally opens up to her.