This quote demonstrates the contrast between Jeanette and her parents. Jeanette relentlessly tries to make her living situation better. She suggests changes and even begins to paint the house. However, her parents resist her ideas, saying that the family needs to accept how it is. Jeanette is caught between two of her own extremes, an impoverished one and a modernized one. The dingy grey house represents her parent’s world. They have accepted their lifestyle and don’t have a desire to try and better it. The freshly painted yellow house represents Jeanette’s idea of the life she wants. Jeanette is willing to work for this goal, however her parents are holding her back because they won’t help her. The ending of the sentence is referring to the
In conclusion, the story describes that life changes, and nothing stays the same throughout it. It is in the hands of the people to decide that how they want their life to be. They can make it as beautiful as they want to and they can also make it worse than it has ever been
...family that she grew up in was such a negative environment. It is very possible that she will grow up to be an art teacher. One might think this because she looked up to her art teacher so much and admired her; Ellen’s mind is full of creativity and ideas. When Ellen’s school found out that her dad was abusive to her they put her up at her art teacher’s house. Ellen says “I came a long way to get here but when you think about it really hard you will see that old Starletta came even farther… And all this time I thought I had the hardest row to hoe” Like Ellen did, it is important for everyone to look back into their life and see what they have learned. Doing so cannot change ones past but only add to their future. Ellen will always carry the horrors of her childhood with her but by using all of her assets that she gained throughout the book her future can be enriched.
The parents’ different views and outlooks on the world influence their daughter’s decisions and alter how she reacts to Gaston throughout the story. One difference among the parents is their financial status. While on the phone with her mother, the mother said she was, “sending the chauffeur to pick her up…” This dialogue from the mother illustrates that she is wealthy. Earlier in the story, the girl was describing her dad saying, “He was at home. She was with him in his home in Paris, if you could call it a home.” The girl’s opinion demonstrates how different her life is at home. The opinion also shows how the dad’s house is not nearly as nice as her home. These quotes portray the differences in the financial aspects of the two parents’ lives. Another demonstration of the distinction between the parents is how they react to the bug. When the dad sees the bug, he proceeds to name it and defend it. The girl says, “Everybody hollers when a bug comes out of an apple, but you don’t holler or anything.” The dad replies by saying, “Of course not. How should we like it if somebody hollered every time we came out of our house?” This conversation shows how the dad is creative and accepting things that are odd. In contrast, when the mom sees the bug she immediately rejects it. The mom says, “Somebody gets a peach with a bug in it, and throws it away, but not him. He makes up a lot of
2. It represents her desire to be what her father wants her to be and the secret satisfaction she gets by making him proud. This quote shows how her father recognizes her hard work around the farm and that she is competent enough as a strong and boyish figure for him to express his pride in her to others.
... dresses more since I know that from the very beginning when the cotton is ripe in the hot sun, little boys and girls must pick it for my dresses, while their backs grow tired and their heads ache”. This shows that the girl in this passage appreciates her clothes more because she knows that children are being forced to labor in the fields so that the cotton they pick can be used to make different items. With this, many children across the country are being deprived of a regular childhood and are not being allowed to do what they want as kids.
In the novel, the women look at their individual housing situations as a giant disappointment. To explain, even though Kyra and Delaney housing situation brings both families closer together and they each have their own separate house, there is still that need to have an even bigger and a much better living condition for their families. Although, Kyra and Delaney both agree with their significant others dissatisfaction with the current situation that they find themselves in. I also believe that yet again the significant of this goes back to the American Dream and how we as Americans strive to make better in our life.
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
From an early age, Mood is conscious of her family’s abject poverty, which drives her to take on domestic jobs to support them throughout her childhood and adolescence. Even though her employers such as Mrs. Burke can be condescending and cruel, she cannot give up this work as she is “faced with a sick mother, crying babies, an unemployed step-father…[she] knew [she] had to take that job, [she] had to help secure that plate of beans if nothing else” (Moody 1968, 121). Like Jacobs, Moody is forced to endure hardships to protect her “helpless” family. The repeated motif of food (the dismal meals that are all the family can afford) serves as reminder of the family’s degree of poverty and their struggle for sustainability. But while Jacobs and Moody have a similar desire to protect their families, Moody instead does so by taking on the role of a breadwinner, not a maternal figure. She values the practical outcomes of getting food on the table more so than the personal relationships with her family. Moody only accepts the union between Ray and her mother because he can provide housing for them, which would allow them too “have a place of their own…moving off white people’s places probably for good” (Moody 1968, 45). Moody sees living with Ray’s people not as an extension of new family, but as some degree of freedom from her family’s economic situation. She asserts that they are moving off “white people’s places,” showing a degree of independence from her white employers, demonstrating how Anne seeks fiscal independence from the system of poverty in which she lives. Her family life, in which she lives hand-to-mouth, causes her to equate freedom not with the capacity for personal relationships but with economic
In the oral history “Just a Housewife” Therese Carter tells her life experiences of being a housewife in Downer Grove Estates, West Chicago. What strikes me about this oral history is the importance that Therese places on knowing that she is just a housewife. She says that she has no special talents and is content with doing duties for her family because that is how she wishes to spend her life. The common pattern in this history is Therese’s acknowledgement that being a housewife is low on the totem pole, but she feels that the work she provides is necessary. Her feelings toward the work she provides is rewarding because she enjoy pleasing people and wishes to raise her kids right. Terkel gives voice to Therese by allowing her to not seem
In regards to the unpainted house: At the end of the book, only a corner of the house needs painting to be complete. It would have been very easy for our author to have completely finished in painting the house. However, that’s not what the premise nor the promise of the book contains. There is a big difference in completing a challenge, and being successful. Although life’s problems and challenges are never ending, the success in dealing with a challenge has more to do with the way it is done than in its completion. ‘The joy is certainly in the journey’ when reading the novel, ‘A Painted House’.
It’s like when she refuses to go to school and instead chooses to “HomeSchool” her self in this she is refusing accept the fact that one day, she’ll lose either Sofie or Adrienne. Instead of facing the reality of things, she chooses to “ [Flip] on the tv” instead of “Writing a poem” for school, hinting that she no longer wants to think about the school. Unknowingly, however, she makes connections to her real life situation, like when she when watches “THE MOST DANGEROUS AND AWFUL MOMENTS EVER”, which seems like a very violent show but she chooses to watch it anyway. Her choice of show, seems replicate her situation,which is riddled with violence, denial and cover ups. The next show that pops up is the Reena Virk case, here she feels mad. This show seems to hit to close to home. “[There] are group of girls, just like [her], Jackie, Adrienne and Amber. Who are not waving but drowning.” which makes a connection to the poem. This statement seems quite odd, in here she states “Who are not waving but drowning” almost as if all of them are struggling like her. All of them who choose to cover it up by laughing and giggling. Just like when they attacked Sofie at the beach and after they all laugh “First Amber laughs, then Jackie and all around the circle”. Bradie seems to hint that they laugh to cover up the horrendous thing
“There must always come times of hardship.” There are times of hardship, but there must be a decision: accept the change, or cry for help? This was a quote by Kamala Markandaya. She wrote the novel the Nectar in the Sieve. In the novel, Rukmani and Nathan married very young. They had seven kids: Ira, Arjun, Thambi, Murugan, Raja, Selvam, and Kuti. A white man, Kenny, helps her get pregnant with her first child. He comes back every so often with the idea of buildings. those are the important characters of the novel. This is about a woman, Rukmani, who is the main character and narrates her life of hope, fear, and change. It is also about loss of loved ones. Markandaya agrees that it’s better to accept what cannot be changed.
The narrator shows that Julian is a scholar who is partially dependent on his mother and plans to be “a successful writer” (Winn 193). Showing Julian’s thoughts towards his mother, the narrator reveals this in the example: “Julian thought he could have stood his lot better if she had been selfish, if she had been an old hag who drank and screamed at him” (O’Connor 449). Julian is aware of his mother’s delusions of her ancestral home that she clings to and he tries to ignore it. According to Bryan Wyatt, the home represents the “lost for Julian’s sake, the whatever legacy there was to his mother from its sale went to augment the funds . . . to better her son’s welfare” (Wyatt 69). “The house, Julian habitually dreams about, serves as more than a symbol of economic collapse; it is a reminder of the family’s participation in plantation culture and the ownership of slaves” (Williamson 752). Accordingly, the narrator tells of Julian’s view of the African Americans on the bus and he decides to ask one of them for a match. This is to annoy his mother and “teach her a lesson” (O’Connor 453) that they were not living in the past. Despite the fact he still loves his mother, “he severed himself emotionally from his mother and does not return the “blinding” love she has for him” (Wyatt 70). Thus, causing Julian to reject his mother and make him feel that she is a
“She cannot quite fit herself into the patterns that she sees as available to her. In looking at the future that her society seems to have planned for her she realizes that if she embraces it she will be growing up grotesquely.”
In the opening verse of the song, the speaker discusses the need to see her childhood home at least once more before moving on with her life. She shares with the current homeowner some of her experiences while growing up in the house. For instance, she says, “I know they say you can’t go home again, but I just had to come back one last time.” This shows that the speaker realizes that returning “home” is going to be a different experience than it was when she lived there, but she cannot resist the temptation of a final visit to the “house”. The speaker says that “Up those stairs in that little back bedroom, is where I did my homework and learned to play guitar. And I bet you didn’t know, under that live oak, my favorite dog is buried in the yard.” This indicates some of the significant memories the speaker has of her time in the house, such as honing her...