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parent child relationships in literature poetry
parent child relationships in literature poetry
parent child relationships in literature poetry
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A seed is planted to begin a new, yet sometimes on the way to becoming a bright, beautiful plant, the plant lacks minerals or sunlight or water and is misshapen, much like that of a family? the Younger family, to be exact. Few gardeners will spend their precious time to help a sickly plant, knowing it will never bloom, to grow into nothing more than it already is. Yet, there are those exceptional ones? ?Mama? is, indeed, the most tender of hearts to care for this sickly family that, I have no doubt, she knows will never fully blossom into a big, strong, and powerful family. The physical plant she cares for is a symbol for her family in every way. The mother waters the plant every chance she has, as illustrated on page 52. The ability for the mother to ignore all else and cater to this plant can be said, too, about her family. The money, which comes in from her dead husband?s insurance is to be put towards what her family needs, not what she would like to have, what she would wish to have, no, the money is put towards her family?s future. She even tries to protect their pure hearts when she mentions, ?Now don?t act silly? We ain?t never been no people to act silly ?bout no money (68).? Protecting the family from greed, the root of all evil, is the main focus for this gardener of life, just as she would protect the ravished plant from an overwhelming beam of sunlight. Placing a rod behind a plant is sometimes the best way to straighten a plant?s stem, yet the gnarled plant she cares for is still disfigured, as to is Walter. Mama tells Walter, ? [It?s dangerous] When a man goes outside his home to look for peace (73),? in order to straighten his mind out, even though it doesn?t work out all fine and dandy, the effort is made. Without this gardener?s protection, the plant would have been evaporated, long ago, by the insanity that comes with the struggles of everyday life. Checking to see that the soil still has water, Mama makes sure that the family is not in danger of losing their love for each other, their power source for striving in the retched world, as if checking the soil on page 39 and then replenishing it by saying, ?
The novel challenges the contradicting sides of the expectation and reality of family and how each one contains a symbiotic relationship. The ideal relationship within families differ throughout The Bean Trees. Kingsolver focuses on the relationship between different characters and how they rely on each other to fill the missing gaps in their lives.
Although Alexandra begins working the land to fulfill her father’s dying wish, no one in her early life ever realizes that perhaps she had other dreams and other wishes. “You feel that, properly, Alexandra’s house is the big out-of-doors, and that it is in the soil that she expresses herself best,” an...
Additionally, she experiences her fall from innocence as she grows up and sees the ugly side of the world. Each year, each chapter, it is shown of how she learns more of the darkness in the world- more about her poverty, her father’s drunkenness, and her class status. Here Francie’s mother states, “Sometimes I think it's better to suffer bitter unhappiness and to fight and to scream out, and even to suffer that terrible pain, than to just be... safe. At least she knows she's living.” (Page) Certainly, these words speak to every human being who has to work painfully to live; that life itself is despondency. Additionally, the strength of Francie is compared to the symbolization of the tree in front of their tenement. The tree that grows in Brooklyn symbolizes the hardship and perseverance of life. The tree which struggles to live almost no soil, light, or water, but it strives to live. Just as how Francie will live no matter how sick and tired she is of this world. In conclusion, Francie Nolan speaks to the readers to stay strong through the harsh circumstances.
After reading and annotating Marigolds by Eugenia W. Collier, I learned that there are some things we don’t know or realize when we are a child. When we become a woman, we have a different perspective on things. That is what Eugenia learned by the end of the story. Once she ruined all of Miss Lottie’s marigolds, she immediately felt guilty. Miss Lottie stood there with no anger on her face, just disappointment. Eugenia said that was when she saw her childhood fade and womanhood start to begin. Once she began womanhood, she learned that those flowers were precious to Miss Lottie and she was tying to make some beauty out of her shanty house. She viewed Miss Lottie as “… only a broken old woman who had dared to create beauty in the midst of ugliness
Lizabeth associates much of her childhood with the vision of “acid, sterile dust . . . the dry September . . . and grassless yards” (Collier, p. 748). The use of this specific imagery relates the effect that poverty had on Lizabeth’s mentality and the role it played in shaping her perspective. A part of that effect is her inability to understand beauty amongst ugliness. This is exemplified in Miss Lottie’s marigolds. Lizabeth describes the marigolds as “the strangest part of [Miss Lottie’s yard]” because “they did not fit in with the crumbling decay of the rest of her yard” (Collier, p. 751). Lizabeth’s preoccupation and apparent disgust with Miss Lottie’s marigolds is a reflection of her unfamiliarity with beauty. It is not until she is familiarized with the beauty present in the marigolds that she understands the fault in her perspective. As a women looking back on the events of her childhood, an older Lizabeth recognizes her fault, yet also states “one does not have to be ignorant and poor to find that life is as barren as the dusty yards of [her] town” (Collier, p.
In the beginning, the author explains how this young girl, Lizabeth, lived in the culturally deprived neighborhood during the depression. Lizabeth is at the age where she is just beginning to become a young woman and is almost ready to give up her childish ways. Through this time period she was confused and could not quite understand what was happening to her. In the end she rips Miss Lottie’s marigolds among the ugly place in which she lived. The marigolds were the only things that make the place a bit beautiful to the eye. In this scene the marigolds represent the only hope the people had for themselves in this time of depression. This could reveal how the author has experienced a loss of hope in times of need. In her explanation of how Lizabeth had torn up the flowers and destroyed all hope in that time of depression, might explain that she has also destroyed hope in a time of pain and grief. Later she writes, “And I too have planted marigolds.” This could mean she has learned from her experiences and that she has finally found hope and always tries to seek the good within the bad and the ugly. On another note, it could mean she just wants to act out on something, but she can’t, so she writes about her...
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
For example, “And seeing the garden in this forgotten condition reminded me of something I once read in a fortune cookie: When a husband stops paying attention to the garden, he is thinking of pulling up roots”(Tan 194). The forgotten garden is being compared to Roses marriage and the letter that was sent to her by Ted with a pen, check, and a divorce document to sign. Also Roses observation of her dying garden that her husband once tended to, is a sign of her dying marriage with Ted, which is similar to her mother's observation of the plant her father got her and it dying even after she had faithfully watered it. However the title of the third part is "American Translation", resembling the reflection of what the daughters face in their American like life, compared to what the mother's, face in their heavily followed Asian
The garden is the vehicle in which the narrator reveals her reluctance to leave behind the imaginary world of childhood and see the realities of the adult world. The evidence supporting this interpretation is the imagery of hiding. The narrator uses the garden to hide from reality and the changes of growing up. When she no longer can hide from reality, she tries to hide from herself, which leaves her feeling disillusioned and unsure of who she is.
...cultivating the garden lets the group of characters keep away from the unfair world in which pessimism is present, while cause and effect are easily measurable in the garden.
“In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens” touches mainly upon family heritage and the way her heritage was created. In Atwan’s Ten on Ten, you will find the essay on the Mothers’ Gardens. On page 83 it states, “For they were going nowhere immediate, and the future was not yet within their grasp.” This quote signifies how mothers and grandmothers would always be set serving the men in their lives; for their entire lives, however, there was a different future, a plan that they didn’t see yet. This plan was for them to identify their artistic ability, whether if it was through singing, writing or making quilts.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” This is a phrase that has been uttered numerous times to children by their parents. This aphorism has been used to not only apply to books but also people. In The Black Walnut Tree by Mary Oliver, the speaker faces a conflict between the literal and figurative meaning of a tree in her yard. In the beginning of the poem, the mother and daughter “debate” selling the tree to “pay off their mortgage.” But with a shift from literal language to figurative language comes a symbolic representation of the tree, one that represents family heritage and their ancestors’ hard work.
Ruth, whose dreams are the same as Mama’s, get deferred when the family are forced into there small apartment and there lack of money. Since she has no money she can not help her family as much as she would like to.
Although imagery and symbolism does little to help prepare an expected ending in “The Flowers” by Alice Walker, setting is the singular element that clearly reasons out an ending that correlates with the predominant theme of how innocence disappears as a result of facing a grim realism from the cruel world. Despite the joyous atmosphere of an apparently beautiful world of abundant corn and cotton, death and hatred lies on in the woods just beyond the sharecropper cabin. Myop’s flowers are laid down as she blooms into maturity in the face of her fallen kinsman, and the life of summer dies along with her innocence. Grim realism has never been so cruel to the innocent children.
...that suspends the boundaries of man and nature, the way in which she structures the last image to be one of hostility indicates the unsustainable nature of the garden.