Her Family Seed
It is the dawn of summer; in a large open corn field, a tiny girl with skinny legs stands at the edge. Far from her, a giant tractor ravishes and cracks the earth. The sharp deadly blades cut deep. With each cut, a fresh color of the earth appears, much darker than the layer before. With each slash, the air fills with fresh earthy scents of dead-decayed corn plants. In another gash, another grasshopper flies into the air, away from danger.
With each catastrophic advance, the tractor makes, a seed of corn is planted. In a similar way the tiny girl’s family seed is planted within her. Within the seed’s embryo lies her family history and individuality. At this tender age, community and family values are continually deposited on her without her realizing it.
The seed is buried into a graveyard of corn plants; where she can’t see it, just as she does not feel her family seed being planted. Even worse, it was planted into a field of innocence, constantly haunted by desires to run around half-naked in the rain when the rains finally came and a ride on the tractor.
She does not realize that her family depends on these corn fields for food. At nights, she sits by the open fire roasting corn with her many brothers. The tiny girl does not know that her many brothers are actually her cousins and sons of her mother’s friends.
As there is plenty of corn, her mother provides a home for all her sons. The corn fields also provide food for her neighbors that do not have enough. Her neighbors, the Bulunga family, live in three beautiful stick and mud huts, with thatched roofs. Like a centripetal force, the corn fields pull together her sense of family. Her innocence nurtures the seed until it slowly crawls out and bursts into green. And grows. This is the story about the 'seedling hood' within her, a part of her childhood unearthed.
Right now, standing here by the old thatched hut, she looks up and sees a carpet of green. Their corn plants. Like broken pieces of glass on a side walk, the droplets of dew on the leaves reflect early morning light. She picks up her hoe. With a single hand she places it on her tiny fragile shoulders.
The influence of power, or “power hungry”, has had a huge effect on many people who feel that they must be in charge. These people often have trouble being told no or being told that they can’t be in charge. People throughout history have done it in many ways. Our own government displays this when we elect a new president every four years. These candidates often tell the public what they want to hear and how they’ll make it a better place, when, in reality, they only mean half of it and they just want to be able to have the power of the president. In the novel Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, the antagonist, Jack, shows throughout the book that he craves power and feels that he deserves it more than anybody else.
She would mostly be alone and sit by herself being buried in books or watching cartoons. In high school she attended a program for troubled adolescents and from there she received a wide range of support from helping her get braces to helping her get information to attend community college. (59) Even with this she was already too emotionally unstable due to her family issues and felt like she couldn’t go through with her dreams to travel and even go into the art of culinary. She suffers from psychological problems such as depression and worries constantly about almost every aspect in her life from work to family to her boyfriend and just hopes that her life won’t go downhill. (60) Overall Kayla’s family structure shows how different is it now from it was in the 1950’s as divorce rates have risen and while before Kayla’s type of family structure was rare now it is becoming more common. This story helps illustrate the contributions of stress that children possess growing up in difficult homes in which they can’t put their own futures first they must, in some cases, take care of their guardian’s futures first or others around them. Again, this adds into the inequality that many face when it comes to being able to climb up the ladder and become successful regardless of where one
Although, African Americans are considered minorities in the United States, not all of them live in poverty. Many African Americans live in a middle class society along with the dominant culture. However, many African Americans do not live in a middle class society, but rather live in poverty and have to suffer along with this poverty. For instance, Donald Goines’s Black Girl Lost and Tina McElroy Ansa’s Baby of the Family, two narrative novels, that illustrate the difference in two young African American girls lives and the society in which they inhabit. Not only do these young African American girls represent the two sides of poverty, they also represent how children can also qualify in the minority category. For example, Sandra lives in a run down apartment with a drunk mother who could care less about her daughter. In addition, Sandra remains all on her own and has to find ways in which to survive each day. But on the other hand, Lena lives in a nice size home with her two parents, her two brothers, and her grandmother, all who love her very much. Moreover, Lena has many family members who look after her and take extra special care for her because she is the baby of the family. Although, both Sandra and Lena lead very different lives, both are faced with challenges as a minority and as a child which questions their view on life.
By definition, a family is bound by relation, regardless of whether or not individuals are cared for and loved. However, Kingsolver rewrites this notion by the supportive and strong family that forms from unconventional roots; two single mothers, a lesbian couple, one of which is blind, a female mechanic, an illegal immigrant couple, and of course, an Indian and deeply abused toddler. Therefore, Kingsolver illustrates that a family is fostered out of love, protection, and admiration rather than bloodlines that bind people together. As a child, Taylor’s single mother instilled in her strength, courage, and fearlessness, and taught her never to succumb to the pressures that make one vulnerable. In the Doctor’s office scene, Turtle’s x-ray results expose clear contrast and heartbreak. It is evident that Turtle’s biological parents caused great harm and abuse to her fragile body, as she is littered with spiral fibular fractures and contraindications to her evolving psychomotor development (166). And, the physical scars are just scratch the surface to the fearful lens through which she sees the world at such a young age. Clearly, instead of a curious and carefree toddler, Turtle is a tragic child conscious of deep sexual and emotional abuse inflicted by her own parents. In this passage, Turtle is the bird trying to make a home for herself in the prickly “coat of yellow spines”, and
People who have power use it to manipulate the rules, which in turn may lead to their loss of power. There are times when the rules are not to their liking. They abuse their powers and not follow the rules. This can lead to consequences that are endured by those using and abusing power as shown by characters in The Lord of the Flies and “I Only Came to Use the Phone.” These works demonstrate how people change when given authority for good or evil and suggest that anyone given power can use it to their advantage. People’s use or abuse of power is not only a perfect theme for these two pieces of literature but also in our everyday lives.
Eva’s lack of value for motherhood shaped the lives of her family as well as her own. Because of her negative feelings toward motherhood, many of the people surrounding her have similar values. Eva reflects her community’s negative perception of motherhood by being straightforward about it and passing it down through her family
Her parents meet at a social gathering in town and where married shortly thereafter. Marie’s name was chosen by her grandmother and mother, “because they loved to read the list was quite long with much debate over each name.” If she was a boy her name would have been Francis, so she is very happy to have born a girl. Marie’s great uncle was a physician and delivered her in the local hospital. Her mother, was a housewife, as was the norm in those days and her father ran his own business. Her mother was very close with her parents, two brothers, and two sisters. When her grandmother was diagnosed with asthma the family had to move. In those days a warm and dry climate was recommended, Arizona was the chosen state. Because her grandma could never quite leave home, KY, the family made many trips between the states. These trips back and forth dominated Marie’s childhood with her uncles and aunts being her childhood playmates.
Her realization that she is not alone in her oppression brings her a sense of freedom. It validates her emerging thoughts of wanting to rise up and shine a light on injustice. Her worries about not wanting to grow up because of the harsh life that awaits her is a common thought among others besides the people in her community. As she makes friends with other Indians in other communities she realizes the common bonds they share, even down to the most basic such as what they eat, which comforts her and allows her to empathize with them.
The soil is bursting forward and showing the splendour that she has been nurturing from within during the time of retreat and slumber, which was winter.
Willy Loman equates success as a human being with success in the business world. When Willy was a young man, he heard of a salesman who could "pick up his phone and call the buyers, and without ever leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, make his living." (81) This salesman is Willy's inspiration; someday to be so respected and so well known that he can still provide for his family, even at an old age. Of course, Willy is no good at being a salesman because his heart isn't in it. The only time Willy puts his heart into anything is when he works with his hands, and his son, Biff, comes to realize this. "There's more of him in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made." (138) Willy never comes to the realization that it is not being a salesman that he cares about, but rather being well known and, perhaps more importan...
Mama wants to keep her dreams alive and keep her family close to her heart. Mama’s plant that she cares for represents this dream by “looking at her plant and spraying water on it” (52) in a small way showing she will try to keep her plant and their dreams alive. She takes care of this plant as if it was one of her own children. Mama's children also have their own dreams and their own plans on how to attain those dreams. The family's competing dreams are emphasized in using a symbol to represent these dreams in this case-Mama's plant. Lorraine Hansberry describes each of the family’s dreams and how they are deferred. In the beginning of the play Lorraine Hansberry chose Langston Hughes’s poem to try describe what the play is about and how, in life, dreams can sometimes...
After locking her self in the solitude of her bedroom she begins to recognize things that one would not think of after a loved one just passed away. " She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life (paragraph 5)." This is the point at witch she begins to deal with the grieving process, but also starts to realize the beauty of life. She begins to see that ...
...e dysfunctional families we are all familiar with -- the overcrowded, meddling, abusive, alcoholic, substance controlled individuals that can make family life miserable and destroy the self esteem of the children they control. These families become encapsulated unable to function within the norm of the general population. Their children face the same trouble dealing with peers and finding their place in the world – because they haven’t been given the tools with which to work out their problems within their own family much less the rest of the world. In essence, it does take a village to raise a child – but it also helps if all of the tribe members have the child’s best interest at heart.
Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot has been said by many people to be a long book about nothing. The two main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, spend all their time sitting by a tree waiting for someone named Godot, whose identity is never revealed to the audience. It may sound pretty dull at first but by looking closely at the book, it becomes apparent that there is more than originally meets the eye. Waiting for Godot was written to be a critical allegory of religious faith, relaying that it is a natural necessity for people to have faith, but faiths such as Catholicism are misleading and corrupt.
Although Samuel Beckett's tragicomedy, Waiting for Godot, has no definite meaning or interpretation, the play acts as a statement of hopelessness regarding human existence. Debate surrounds the play because, due to its simplicity, almost any interpretation is valid. The main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, are aging men who must wait for a person, being, or object named Godot, but this entity never appears to grace the men with this presence. Both characters essentially demonstrate how one must go through life when hope is nonexistent as they pointlessly attempt to entertain themselves with glum conversation in front of a solitary tree. The Theater of the Absurd, a prevalent movement associated with Waiting for Godot, serves as the basis for the message of hopelessness in his main characters. Samuel Beckett's iconic Waiting for Godot and his perception of the characteristics and influence of the Theater of the Absurd illustrate the pointlessness and hopelessness regarding existence. In the play, boredom is mistaken for hopelessness because the men have nothing to do, as they attempt to occupy themselves as, for some reason, they need to wait for Godot. No hope is present throughout the two-act play with little for Estragon and Vladimir to occupy their time while they, as the title indicates, wait for Godot.