I chose “Here We Aren’t, So Quickly” by Johnathan Sofran Foer, and “Wake Up Call” by Megan McGuire. They have similar underlying themes and will be an interesting comparison. “Here We Aren’t, So Quickly” is about what seems to be a daydream about the future relationship between two lovers and how it evolves over the course of their adults lives. “Wake Up Call” is about the relationship between a girl and her parents as she grows up from adolescence in to young adulthood. . In “Here We Aren’t, So Quickly” the intended audience would be young couples who are preparing to commit themselves to one another. It is written almost as a love letter, but with deep sorrow. The author is pointing out all of small changes that took place over the course of their lives that led them to fall away from each-other. In the beginning of the relationship they were extremely close and spent enormous amounts of time with one another. He wrote “We went to Atacama. We went to Sarajevo. We Went to Tobey Pond every year until we didn’t.” But later on …show more content…
The girl in the story writes about her relationship with her father and how it was very loving, and she always got what she needed and wanted. However, when her father passed away and she had to rely on her mother everything changed. There was never any food in the fridge, the power and water was shut off, and they were forced to move many times. They had to stay in motels or with friends of her mothers, and she missed a lot of school. As a senior in high school she decides to move out in to her own apartment, works a job and studies as hard as she can. In the closing paragraph she states that she is now 21, has two jobs, goes to college and is also in the Army National Guard. She learned from her childhood that hard work and perseverance pays off, and you must take it on
It is an emotional and heart-rending chronicle about raising in the dirt-poor of the Alabama hills--and all about moving on with the life but never actually being capable to leave (Bragg, 1997, p. 183). The exceptional blessing for evocation and thoughtful insight and the dramatic voice for the account--notifying readers that author has gained a Pulitzer Award for this featured writing. It is a wrenching account of his own upbringing and family. The story moves around a war haunted, alcoholic person (Bragg's father) and a determined and loving mother who made hard efforts to safeguard her children from the harsh effects of poverty and ignorance, which has constricted her own living standard. In this account, author was talented enough to create for himself on the strength of his mother's support and strong conviction. He left house only to follow his dreams and pursue a respectable career in life, however he is strongly linked to his ancestry. In addition, the memoir shows the efforts of Bragg in which he has both compensated and took revenge from the cruelties of his early childhood. Author's approach towards his past seems quite ambivalent and
When nothing is going right in life, what do you do? Do you just quit and hope for the best or do you pick yourself up and work even harder to succeed? Iliana Roman, a single mother of three children and an owner of a hair salon, kindles the message that individuals who face adversity can still persevere in life. According to Roman’s memoir “First Job”, it is never too late to turn your life around. At seventeen years, old Roman unexpectedly became pregnant. This event led to Roman’s life changing completely causing her to drop out of high school. She was nearly to the point of no return, she simply could not hold down a proper job, and the only way to support herself and her child is working three to four odd jobs every week. Roman presents her message of persevering in life by incorporating hyperbole, repetition, and pathos.
Joyce Stewart is seventy two year old, white female that lives in the small town of Candor New York. She has spent the majority of her life taking care of other people, including her eight children; now six due to tragic circumstances. She also was a house wife trying to survive being a mother to her children while her husband was away in the Navy. She now is a widow; her second husband passed away about ten years ago. She grew up on a farm with a low socio economic status; she overcame circumstances that she was dealt by working her entire life and eventually living a more financially stable life. Joyce is not rich by any means, but is able to live comfortably. She owns her own house that she and
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
This has shaped me to be who I am today, because I greatly appreciate what I have and take advantage of the opportunities I am given because not everyone is lucky enough to have what one has family plays and will always play a big influence in our lives and in this novel, we are given a great example of how it does. Although Wes didn’t know his father for long, the two memories he had of him and the endless stories his mother would share with him, helped guide him through the right path. His mother, made one of the biggest changes in Wes’s life when she decided to send him to military, after seeing he was going down the wrong path. Perhaps, the other Wes’s mother tried her best to make sure he grew up to be a good person, but unfortunately Wes never listened.
An identity crisis is defined as a period, at which an individual struggles with one's own sense of self. I believe that everyone goes through such a crisis at one point or another; however, I do not feel it is correct to say, everyone goes through this type of crisis entering their first year of college. Now, I am not say that someone can’t have an identity crisis entering college for the first time, for is was made clear in the essay, that some people can indeed, have a sudden realization of either finding or losing one’s self in college. In turn, it is fair to say that most people do develop a sort of crisis when embarking in the college life. It's a time in your life when you experience the world in a new light—and usually on your own.
She instantly knew what she wanted to do with her life, but it was a matter of being able to make a livable financial income. She sincerely states, “I cleaned my friends’ houses till I could find a job, I rode buses, I didn’t have a car and it was really sad coming from a ‘safe haven’... to go from bouncing around to friends’ houses, sleeping at random people’s houses. It was horrible.” She was only eighteen years of age. She in a sense lost the support of most of her family and she was forced to learn quite a bit about taking responsibility for herself so early in her life.
Connie was born into a very poor family. She described herself as living in poverty for the first eighteen years of her life. She often went without food, shelter or financial support. Connie’s mother worked extremely hard to support the household; she worked shampooing hair for only $50 a week. Connie’s father did not work at all, he was in charge and demanding yet put no effort into any aspect of the family. Connie was the first in her family to graduate from high school. It was more common for women to become pregnant, and marry young than finish high school. College was not even an option for Connie because of a lack of means. Subsequently, she followed in her mother’s footsteps; and the cycle of poverty and worked low paying, unfulfilling jobs for many years. "All Americans do not have an equal opportunity to succeed, and class mobility in the United States is lower than that of the rest of the industrialized world " (Mantsios 200). It is very difficult to get out of the cycle of oppression, when the system is created to keep the poor in the same socioeconomic status. Connie stayed very poor until she was about eighteen years old.
One of her earliest memories came from when she was three years old. Jeannette had to go to the hospital because she burned herself cooking hot dogs. Her parents didn’t like hospitals, so for that reason after a few weeks they came and took her away. Jeannette and her family were constantly moving from place to place, sometimes staying no more than one night somewhere. Her father always lied to them saying that they had to keep moving because he was wanted by the FBI. Jeannette’s mother never took much interest in Jeannette or her siblings, because the mother didn’t want them and thought that they were bothersome and in the way.
Ever since she was a young girl. Jeannette had set high goals for herself. Since she was so advanced in school and genuinely enjoyed learning, it made sense that she would want to do big things with her life. Whether it was being a veterinarian or a geologist, her dreams extended far beyond her homes in little desert towns or Welch, West Virginia. However, because of her poverty-stricken home life, many people believed it didn’t seem likely that she would be so successful. One day, while living in Welch, Jeannette goes to the bar to drag her drunk father back home. A neighborhood man offers them a ride back to their house, and on the ride up he and Jeannette start a conversation about school. When Jeannette tells the man that she works so hard in school because of her dream careers, the man laughs saying, “for the daughter of the town drunk, you sure got big plans” (Walls 183). Immediately, Jeannette tells the man to stop the car and gets out, taking her father with her. This seems to be a defining moment in which Jeannette is first exposed to the idea that she is inferior to others. Although this man said what he did not mean to offend her, Jeannette is clearly very hurt by his comment. To the reader, it seems as if she had never thought that her family’s situation made her subordinate to those
Life in the middle school and high school was not easy for me. I had become an introvert, I still didn’t know how to be social, and I had very few friends. I was teased for being very quiet, and some people insinuated that I’m scared of fellow people. On the other hand life at home was difficult. My mother had become so bitter and pleased her was next to impossible. She became very harsh with my brother and me, and we were always scolded for even the smallest mistakes. Once in a while, my father would come for us and take us to the city he lived. I would look out of the windows as we drove out of town and would imagine how life in another city would feel like. I looked at the skies, and all I saw were promises of a better future. All my life I had lived in San
For my book I chose to read The Body by Stephen King. This novel is about four young boys taking a journey to find a body somewhere in the woods that is at the county line. This story is about more than just four boys going on an adventure its about them becoming closer to each other and learning real life lessons along the way. The four boys are all going into their first year of middle school so this is a time in their life when they learn things that will help them in life.
A woman who had lived an unsteady life throughout her childhood was negatively affected as an adult by the things that she had went through in her earlier years. In an article entitled “One Family 's Story Shows How The Cycle Of Poverty Is Hard To Break,” Pam Fessler stated that “Like many before her, she carried her poverty into adulthood, doing odd jobs with periods of homelessness and hunger.” The woman had realized that her children were being negatively affected by the unsteady lifestyle that they were living. The mother had said that her six year old daughter had emotional issues, which led to her making herself throw up after eating, running away, and talking about killing herself (Fessler). The little girl had been emotionally affected by poverty, which caused her to do things that most six year olds would not think about doing. The people who live in poverty as a child are more likely to struggle in adulthood. Poverty has many negative effects on children and tends to affect the way they grow and live the rest of their life as an
There once was a girl who lived a happy life until the age of thirteen. Everything changed that day because that 's when her mother started emotionally, mentally, and verbally abusing her. The girl wanted nothing more than to be loved by her mother but that was not the case. Her mother thought that she was nothing than a worthless piece of garbage on the street. Every day the girl 's mom had something negative to say to the girl whether it was that she was stupid, worthless, or even someone who nobody wanted around. Every day the girl wished to be accepted by her mother, but she knew deep down that would never happen. The girl battled anxiety and depression disorder caused by her mother 's years of torture and abusive ways. The girl was on
While in school, Mom didn’t have it easy. Not only did she raise a daughter and take care of a husband, she had to deal with numerous setbacks. These included such things as my father suffering a heart attack and going on to have a triple by-pass, she herself went through an emergency surgery, which sat her a semester behind, and her father also suffered a heart attack. Mom not only dealt with these setbacks, but she had the everyday task of things like cooking dinner, cleaning the house and raising a family. I don’t know how she managed it all, but somehow she did.