Strong, self-contained, Independent, mild-mannered, and courageous are all words that come to my mind when I think about my grandmothers. These are also words that I think of when I look at other black women throughout history. Over the duration of this course I have learned about the tenacity and strength of African American Women. There are many hardships that come along with being an African American female. The trails that African American women have faced molded us into the strong people that we are today.
Flannery O’Connor was an American writer born in Savannah, Georgia on March 25, 1925. O’Connor was born to her parents, Regina Cline and Edward F. O’Connor. In 1938 O’Connor and her family moved to Milledgeville where she attended school at Peabody Laboratory School (Merriam-Webster 824). At the young age of fifteen her father Edward passed away of a disease called systematic lupus erythematosus. Although the death of her father hit O’Connor hard she pushed on and began to write.
The fourth Chapter of Estella Blackburn’s non fiction novel Broken lives “A Fathers Influence”, exposes readers to Eric Edgar Cooke and John Button’s time of adolescence. The chapter juxtaposes the two main characters too provide the reader with character analyses so later they may make judgment on the verdict. The chapter includes accounts of the crimes and punishments that Cooke contended with from 1948 to 1958. Cooke’s psychiatric assessment that he received during one of his first convictions and his life after conviction, marring Sally Lavin. It also exposes John Button’s crime of truancy, and his move from the UK to Australia.
Before taking this course, I always looked at films and read books just as the average person does; interesting plot and how long will it hold my interest, but this course gave me an entire different perspective when watching films and reading books. Now that I have taken this course and have watched the required films, the most important thing when watching other movies and reading books, is the meaning behind each scene and how they relate and affect our world. For this paper, I will discuss a book that I read a long time ago, which is She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb and how this book relates to this course.
The fundamental characteristic of magical realism is its duality, which enables the reader to experience both the character’s past and the present. In the novel, Monkey Beach, Eden Robinson uses this literary device to address the the trauma and mistreatment of the Haisla community in Canada by unveiling the intimate memories of the protagonist, Lisamarie, and the resulting consequences of this oppression. Monkey Beach illustrates how abuse in the past leads to another form of self-medication in the future - a neverending, vicious cycle for the members of the Haisla community. Many characters in Monkey Beach are scarred from childhood sexual abuse and family neglect, and resort to drug and alcohol abuse as a coping mechanism. These appalling memories are an account of the impact of colonization on the Haisla territory which continues to haunt the Aboriginal community throughout generations.
This frustration acted as a vehicle for her to gain a desire to be more
Characters: Maddie is the main character. Maddie came into the story first and then met Q. Q and her are like brother and sister, they are very close and they help each other when they need some confidence or they need to be convinced that everything is going to be ok. She is very poor and she is homeless, she has a great personality which is very kind and caring. She starts out not super confident in herself but she always stays positive about herself when she is homeless. When she meets Q she becomes very confident in herself because Q shows her how she can get perfect food from the dumpster at the restaurant and she makes a plan for her life. Then she realizes that life may not turn out to be so bad. Her and Q are very nice to each other. They protect and comfort each other when they are not feeling good about something. When they meet Dylan, a young boy who is also homeless but has no parents so Maddie and Q are stuck with him, they think that Dylan is a very kind boy and he feels bad that Maddie has to take care of him. “‘I’m sorry, he said.’”(71) Dylan said this because he feels bad that Maddie has to watch and take care of him.
Flannery O’Connor was born on March 25, 1925, in Savannah, Georgia. She was an American writer. O’Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories in her life time. She was a southern writer who wrote in Southern Gothic style. In the Article, Female Gothic Fiction Carolyn E. Megan asks Dorothy Allison what Southern Gothic is to her and she responded with, “It’s a lyrical tradition. Language. Iconoclastic, outrageous as hell, leveled with humor. Yankees do it, but Southerners do it more. It’s the grotesque.”(Bailey 1) Later she was asked who one of her role models was and she stated that Flannery O’Connor was one she could relate to. One of O’Connor’s stronger works was “Good Country People” which was published in 1955.
Winifred "Winnie" Foster from Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt is a sheltered but curious pre-teen who wants to explore the world outside the gates of her home, but is never allowed to because of her helicopter parents. At the beginning, all she wants to do is run away and make a difference in the world and have an adventure of sorts. But what Winnie doesn't know is that particular summer will be one she will never forget. That summer will change her from a sheltered, shy, and obedient little girl in to a selfless, witty, and fearless hero. She will also have to make one of the hardest decisions of her life; whether or not she will join the Tuck's everlasting lives by drinking from the spring. Specifically, her crucial decisions throughout the novel are what make her character so gallant. Although it appears that Winnie Foster is a shy introvert who only wants to be left alone, she is actually an adventurous character who's personality transforms in to a heroic protagonist at the end of the narrative.
One of the books I both learned from and enjoyed was The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. I enjoyed this book because of Thomas’s fearlessness in addressing common occurrences of racism in the United States today, including police brutality against minorities. In fact, Thomas wrote this novel because of cases such as Michael Brown. Despite the focus on police brutality, this book was not anti-police, which Thomas portrays through the fact that Starr Carter, the protagonist, has an uncle--whom she is closer to than her own father--that is a police officer, which is an important part of the characters’ lives. Moreover, The Hate U Give also covers minute instances of racism in daily life, including instances where one does not realize that he
Straying away from life as a whole only to be alone, some may say is the strong way to heal themselves when dealing with extreme grief or a major crisis . In the book Wild, twenty-two year old Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost it all. Dealing with the loss of her mother, her family torn to pieces, and her very own marriage was being destroyed right before her very eyes. Living life with nothing more to lose, lifeless, she made the most life changing decision of her life. Strayed never seems remorseful on her decisions to up and leave everything behind while deciding to flee from it all. This being her way of dealing with life, it shows her as being strong; a woman of great strength and character. She shows personal strength, which is more than just a physical word. It is a word of very high value and can only be defined by searching deep within your very own soul.
Sanity is subjective. Every individual is insane to another; however it is the people who possess the greatest self-restraint that prosper in acting “normal”. This is achieved by thrusting the title of insanity onto others who may be unlike oneself, although in reality, are simply non-conforming, as opposed to insane. In Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, this fine line between sanity and insanity is explored to great lengths. Through the unveiling of Susanna’s past, the reasoning behind her commitment to McLean Hospital for the mentally ill, and varying definitions of the diagnosis that Susanna received, it is evident that social non-conformity is often confused with insanity.
In Black and Blue, Fran Benedetto tells a spellbinding story: how at nineteen she fell in love with Bobby Benedetto, how their passionate marriage became a nightmare, why she stayed, and what happened on the night she finally decided to run away with her ten-year-old son and start a new life under a new name. Living in fear in Florida--yet with increasing confidence, freedom, and hope--Fran unravels the complex threads of family, identity, and desire that shape a woman's life, even as she begins to create a new one. As Fran starts to heal from the pain of the past, she almost believes she has escaped it--that Bobby Benedetto will not find her and again provoke the complex combustion between them of attraction and destruction, lust and love. Black and Blue is a beautifully written, heart-stopping story in which Anna Quindlen writes with power, wisdom, and humor about the real lives of men and women, the varieties of people and love, the bonds between mother and child, the solace of family and friendship, the inexplicable feelings between people who are passionately connected in ways they don't understand. It is a remarkable work of fiction by the writer whom Alice Hoffman has called "a national treasure." With this stunning novel about a woman and a marriage that begins in passion and becomes violent, Anna Quindlen moves to a new dimension as a writer of superb fiction. Black and Blue is a beautifully written, heart-stopping story in which Anna Quindlen writes with power, wisdom, and humor about the real lives of men and women, the varieties of people and love, the bonds between mother and child, the solace of family and friendship, the inexplicable feelings between people who are passionately connected in ways they don't understa...
For as long as man has walked the earth, so has evil. There may be conflicting moral beliefs in this world, but one thing is universally considered wrong: serial killers. Although some people may try to use insanity as an explanation for these wicked people, they cannot explain away the heartlessness that resides in them. As shown in The Stranger Beside Me, infamous serial killer Ted Bundy is no exception to this. Even though books about true crimes may be considered insensitive to those involved, the commonly positively reviewed book The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule handles the somber issue of Ted Bundy’s emotionally destructive early life and the brutal crimes he committed that made people more fearful and aware of the evil that can exist in seemingly normal people well.
The novel, High Fidelity by Nick Hornby describes the life of a man who lives through his music and his childish ways. Rob Fleming is a man who struggles with commitment when it comes to what he needs, yet commits to what he wants. This lack of commitment leaves Rob struggling with the relationships with the people in his daily life. Living his life in a careless and childish manner Rob Fleming burns the bridges with those who are close to him, and as a result realizes how much he truly cares for them when it’s too late.