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¨A Woman on the Street¨ Walls describes her mother scrounging through a Dumpster in New York City (1). She mentions, "I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a Dumpster."(1). The writer is a witness to her mother looking through a dumpster. "She had tied rags around her shoulders to keep out the spring chill and was picking through the trash." (2). Jeannette also describes her mother, by being able to recognize her mother 's body language (2). "Mom 's gestures were all familiar—the way she tilted her head and thrust out her lower lip when studying items of potential value that she 'd hoisted out of the Dumpster, the way her eyes widened with childish …show more content…
Jeanette mentions that her mom is homeless, and digs through dumpsters. On the other hand, Jeanette has Persian rugs, and a leather armchair in her apartment (6). The writer wears pearls, while her mom is searching for something to eat (6). Jeanette and her mother are extreme opposites because Jeanette 's mother enjoys being homeless, and Jeanette worries about her parents being homeless. It is difficult for the writer to enjoy her apartment, without worrying about her parents being homeless (6). Jeanette 's mother tells her not to worry about them, and to tell people the truth about her parent 's situation (26). The author mentions that her mom had grime on her neck and that she made an effort to fix herself up (9). The title, "A Woman on the Street," is an effective title for this selection because Walls does not mention who the woman is. Jeanette wants the audience to figure out who the woman on the street is. A title is a name given to a story to identify or describe it. I think the writer should have a title that describes the story better. I can offer alternative titles, including, "My Parents by a Dumpster," "My Homeless Parents," and "I 'm Ashamed of My
The Glass Castle is a memoir of the writer Jeannette Walls life. Her family consists of her father Rex Walls, her mother Rose Mary Walls, her older sister Lori Walls, her younger brother Brian Walls and her younger sister Maureen Walls. Jeannette Walls grew up with a lot of hardships with her dad being an alcoholic and they never seemed to have any money. Throughout Jeanette’s childhood, there are three things that symbolize something to Jeannette, they are fire, New York City and the Glass Castle, which shows that symbolism gives meanings to writing.
When the Walls family gets a ride from a stranger after their vehicle breaks down on the highway. Jeannette is annoyed how the stranger keeps on uses and emphasizes the word poor on the Walls family. And that Jeannette is not accepting reality about her family being poor.
This grim situation is depicted in the writings of Jeannette Walls. In the autobiography The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls accurately portrays homelessness by explaining its causes, its impact upon daily life, and its effect on victimized families. Walls’ autobiography establishes that there are several causes of homelessness. More specifically, she discusses how poverty prevents one from affording life necessities. As reported by the National Coalition for Homelessness, “Homelessness and poverty are inextricably linked”.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, is a first-person narrative written in the style of a journal. It takes place during the nineteenth century and depicts the narrator’s time in a temporary home her husband has taken her to in hopes of providing a place to rest and recover from her “nervous depression”. Throughout the story, the narrator’s “nervous condition” worsens. She begins to obsess over the yellow wallpaper in her room to the point of insanity. She imagines a woman trapped within the patterns of the paper and spends her time watching and trying to free her. Gilman uses various literary elements throughout this piece, such as irony and symbolism, to portray it’s central themes of restrictive social norms
The Women of the Wall, also known as WOW, are a religiously and socially distinctive group of women that join together once a month, on Rosh Chodesh to daven at the Western Wall, in Jerusalem, one of the Jews’ holiest sites. WOW has been doing this continually ever since the group’s establishment in December of 1989. The women who joined the union can be classified as “ Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, and self-defined Jews.” WOW is “unaffiliated with any group, religious or political, and is the only group in the Jewish religious world that brings together Jews from across the religious spectrum for the purpose of prayer.” They have battled since 1988 up until today to accomplish their purpose and their “life’s duty” to permit women to daven “freely” at the Western Wall (“Women for the Wall,” n.d.).
The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls. It not only describes the story about her strange and crazy childhood but also recounts memories of her father and mother in instances where they understood and loved each other. Throughout the novel, Jeannette Walls explains the hardships of her poverty filled childhood and the endless risk of not being able to find food. Raised by an alcoholic father and crazy mother, Walls describes her unique homeless life all through her childhood. When Jeannette's Dad wasn't drinking, he taught them many different subjects and how to live life without a fear in the world. But when he was drinking, he was untruthful and abusive. "When we tried to help him he cursed and lurched at us, swinging his fist," (Walls 289). Jeannette's Mom was a non-conformist who was against the idea of staying at home and didn't want the commitment that came with raising children. "Mom didn't like
The narrator suffers from mental illness, but she told to be passive of her troubles. Authoritative insight from her husband and family tell her to live a life of domesticity in order to feel better, but the narrator speculates “that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do [her] good” (Gilman). These clashing mindsets showcase the standards of both genders during this time period believing that men are the superior gender and know better than women. As the narrator spends her days being confined in the house, her focus shifts to the wallpaper. In the wallpaper, she observes a woman “trying to climb through,” but ultimately failing to get beyond the pattern (Gilman). This refers to all of the women who were trapped within society and felt that there was no way out of their domestic lives. The narrator is eventually able to free herself from her mind, exemplified when she writes, “there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did?” (Gilman). She is finally liberated and can see the whole situation once she is freed. Many women in society were trapped, whether it was due to mental illness or due to being women. In fact, Gilman wrote an article in the October
When looking at two nineteenth century works of change for two females in an American society, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Stephen Crane come to mind. A feminist socialist and a realist novelist capture moments that make their readers rethink life and the world surrounding. Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” was first published in 1892, about a white middle-class woman who was confined to an upstairs room by her husband and doctor, the room’s wallpaper imprisons her and as well as liberates herself when she tears the wallpaper off at the end of the story. On the other hand, Crane’s 1893 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is the realist account of a New York girl and her trials of growing up with an alcoholic mother and slum life world. The imagery in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Stephen Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets uses color in unconventional ways by embedding color in their narratives to symbolize the opposite of their common meanings, allowing these colors to represent unique associations; to support their thematic concerns of emotional, mental and societal challenges throughout their stories; offering their reader's the opportunity to question the conventionality of both gender and social systems.
Wall’s also writes using informal diction and simple sentence structure, to make her story more personable and relatable. By using this simple and casual style of writing, the reader is able to draw a connection to her experiences. “Since she never used curse words, she was calling Dad names like ‘blankety-blank’ and worthless drunk so-and-so.” This sentence exemplifies Wall’s casual and personable voice. By telling her story in a straightforward way she is able to convey her challenging life to the reader effortlessly. It is also interesting to see her writing develop and progress, and she matures as a character. She does this by expanding her vocabulary and knowledge on certain things, (alcoholism).
Others could interpret the women allegorically by seeing the woman as the same woman behind the wallpaper. She is trapped under her duties and culture roles as a woman in the late 1800s, which is submissive and obedient to her husband’s authority with very light questioning of that authority. Charlotte wrote this after her ordeal of leaving her first marriage and doctor while being treated for depression. The correlation of being stuck and not knowing what to do while only having the option to react because you have been placed in a mental corner, is how I see the story and mental journey for Charlotte, as I see her as both the women in this story. This story could be interpreted as Charlotte showing her independence as a women being oppressed in the situation she has found herself in with her first marriage and recently becoming a mother who may have felt bound to a motherly roll the rest of her life. Charlotte seems, to me, to be a writer and working first, and wife and mother
As Jeannette gets older she realizes that her parents differences are not something to be proud of. She comes to this conclusion at first when she is in the hospital after getting severe burns from her mother letting her cook hot dogs at the age of three. She realizes that it is not right for a parent to let their three year old to be cooking. Another example of when she realized that is when she had to eat food from a garbage can at school while all the others had brought food from home. She decided to hide her shame by eating the food from the garbage can inside the girls washroom. As Jeannette gets older she changes a little bit more by her perspective of things when she meets Billy. Billy is a juvenile delinquent that also has a father for a drunk. When Billy laughs at his own father when he was sleeping from drinking so much the night before, Jeannette argues with him saying that no one should make fun of their own father. Billy
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
...ndurance of poverty, as we witness how Walls has turned her life around and told her inspiring story with the use of pathos, imagery, and narrative coherence to inspire others around her (that if she can do it, so can others). Jeannette made a huge impact to her life once she took matters into her own hands and left her parents to find out what life has in store for her and to prove to herself that she is a better individual and that anything is possible. Despite the harsh words and wrongful actions of Walls’ appalling parents who engage her through arduous experiences, she remained optimistic and made it through the most roughest and traumatic obstacles of her life at the age of three. Walls had always kept her head held high and survived the hardships God put upon her to get to where she is today; an author with a best selling novel to tell her bittersweet story.
She also used a comparison, “Like a little girl, she smooths back her dirty hair and proudly puts it on” (5). She used the comparison to make the reader realize that although she is homeless, she is not any different than anyone
Its fine leather and beautiful texture was a diversion from my mom’s health problems- just like the baby dolls, littlest pet shops, and iPod touch were in previous years. I recognized my parents always told me the truth, but always told it slant. I was brainwashed into thinking my mom only got pulled muscles and headaches, not fatal infections. The gifts kept me entertained and happy. I had never been fearful for my mom’s life because I never knew it was in danger. But, once I knew the purpose of the purse, I knew materialistic items could no longer fill the void of my mom’s severe health