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Ways in which society affects moral values
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Ways in which society affects moral values
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Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane is a short novel about a young girl and the people in her life. Despite its brevity, this book displays many significant themes that its author intertwines in the story plot. Such themes are determinism, hypocrisy, false morality, self-deception, and appearance verses reality.Maggie’s mother, Mrs. Johnson, is a symbol of hypocrisy in the story. She lost her husband, and had to raise her children by herself in poverty. She drinks to heal her pain so that she doesn’t have to face reality.
In her drunken state, she becomes intimidating and overwhelming, even to her children. She is insane and can be described as an animal, often gossiped about in the neighborhood. How can a woman who is an overweight, brutal, alcoholic be a role model for or critic of her children?It is Mrs. Johnson’s responsibility as a mother to care for her children in every way possible, and love them no matter what. However, she does not understand or live by this philosophy. She disowns her own daughter when Maggie becomes a prostitute, and throws her out of the house.
It is evident that Maggie is only trying to survive in any way possible after her boyfriend, Pete, leaves her heartbroken and discouraged. She is exposed to this awful and forbidden lifestyle after being abandoned by Pete, her lover, who is constantly surrounded by prostitutes while working as a bartender in the "classy" bars. Because Maggie doesn’t know any better, she thinks of ...
After evaluating the short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, I came to the conclusion that the narrator made the right choice of giving her daughter, Maggie, the family quilts. Dee (Wangero), her older sister was qualified for the quilts as well, but in my opinion Maggie is more deserving. Throughout the story, the differences between the narrator’s two daughters are shown in different ways. The older daughter, Dee (Wangero), is educated and outgoing, whereas Maggie is shy and a homebody. I agree with the narrator’s decision because of Maggie’s good intentions for the quilts and her innocent behavior. In my opinion Dee (Wangero) is partially superficial and always gets what she wants.
... Maggie ultimately garners respect for herself and her husband- “You're a backward lad, but you know your trade and it's an honest one,”- with her will. The challenge to overcome her father’s oppression garnered her ‘good life’ alongside the respect her father and his family business (Hobson). The search for our definition of the good life is wrought with trials and tribulation, working to overcome deep seeded trends of oppression within society and family.
When we meet our narrator, the mother of Maggie and Dee, she is waiting in the yard with Maggie for Dee to visit. The mother takes simple pleasure in such a pleasant place where, "anyone can come back and look up at the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the house." (Walker 383) This is her basic attitude, the simple everyday pleasures that have nothing to do with great ideas, cultural heritage or family or racial histories. She later reveals to us that she is even more the rough rural woman since she, "can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man." (Walker 383) Hardly a woman one would expect to have much patience with hanging historical quilts on a wall. Daughter Maggie is very much the opposite of her older sister, Dee. Maggie is portrayed as knowing "she is not bright." (Walker 384)
In the story, Maggie is the younger sister and she got burn in a fire. Mama Johnson is the mother of Maggie. Maggie also has a sister name Dee. Dee has a problem. The problem is the she don’t know what is true representation of heritage. Dee is the only good educate from her family. Maggie didn’t go to school and she is very shy. Dee takes a friend name Hakim-A-Barber. Dee and hem are the black power movement. Hakim-A-Barber is very religious and he doesn’t what is true representation of heritage.
Ismene's indecisiveness and lack of action is starkly contrasted with the actions and beliefs of Creon and Antigone, the characters who are most often thought of as the victims. For Antigone, the punishment that characterizes her as a victim is the sacrifice of her life for her personal beliefs about the honor and duty associated with family ties. Antigone's death at the end of the play illustrates the fact that she is willing to die as long as she knows that her brother has received proper burial rites. On the other side there is Creon, who can be thought of as a stubborn and terrible king, but who really is acting just like Antigone, holding onto what he believes firmly in. As Antigone blatantly ignores the laws of the city, and only acts in the direction fulfilling the requirements of holy rites, Creon acts in parallel by ignoring the laws of the divine and only following the laws which as king it is his duty to uphold and preserve. Antigone clearly gives her opinion of the situation, and outlines her values that are so important to her while speaking to her sister.
routinely get their tap water, are less than perfect, this fact does not make bottled water
When Maggie finally smiles ‘a real smile’ at the end of the story as she and her mother watch Dee’s car disappear in a cloud of dust, it is because she knows her ‘mother holy recognition of the scarred daughter’s sacred status as quilter is the best gift if a hard-pressed womankind to the fragmented goddess of the present.’ (Piedmont-Marton)
A reason that bottled water has been valued over tap water would be that it is more portable. It is more convenient to just go and pick up a bottle of water than have to fill something up and take it with you. If you are in a time crunch you would
...’ family is in deep alcoholism, depriving children the benefits of a proper upbringing. The Johnsons are also chaotic and tyrannical. Jimmie and his ilk of brawling youths epitomize the violence that rocked the society. In the middle of this violence is pursuit of vanity. Children are fighting viciously to establish the superior one. Adults are watching on indifferently. Maggie gets into prostitution because of pursuing an elegant life. She lacks appreciation of her beauty and persona. In the end, the question to ponder is whether human beings have the capacity to make personal choices in midst of immense social circumstances. Regrettably, Johnsons share the blame for the kind of person that their children turned out. The society too has remained passive in the midst of great social trepidation. Maggie and Jimmie share the blame for pursuit of vainglorious vanity.
The use of color in Stephan Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is crucial when looking at the setting of the story; the repeated use of red is significant when describing Maggie’s mother Mary and the importance of color in describing the social system through the story. It is seen prominently when Maggie and Pete go to the theater, parts of the play paralleled the lives of the common people: "The latter spent most of his time out at soak in pale-green snow storms, busy with a nickel-plated revolver, re...
Maggie lives with a poor and dysfunctional family and a hopeless future with only the small possibility of change. The environment and setting she grows up in do not support anything more than a dull, dreary and pathetic future for her. An old woman asks Maggie's brother Jimmy: "Eh, Gawd, child, what is it this time? Is yer fader beatin yer mudder, or yer mudder beatin yer fader? (Maggie, 10)" while he runs to Maggie's apartment one night. The lack of love and support of her family hinders Maggie's ability to live a happy and fulfilling life. Without knowing that someone loves her no matter what she does or how she acts Maggie may feel desperate enough to change her situation by any means she can, and without any useful guidance. Even without any positive influences Maggie grows up different from the low-life's living with and around her. Crane explains Maggie's uniqueness in the passage "None of the dirt of Rum Alley seemed to be in her veins. The philosophers up-stairs, down-stairs and on the same floor, puzzled over it" (Maggie 16). Maggie's uniqueness gives her the chance to improve her life, but only a slim chance. Even though Maggie differs from the people around her they remain sleazy, making it harder for her to change her life because she must go outside of her community for help.
Holly Janquell is a runaway. Wendelin Van Draanan creates a twelve year old character in the story, Runaway, that is stubborn and naive enough to think she can live out in the streets alone, until she is eighteen.She has been in five foster homes for the past two years. She is in foster care because her mother dies of heroin overdose. In her current foster home, she is abused, locked in the laundry room for days without food, and gets in even more trouble if she tries to fight back. Ms.Leone, her schoolteacher, could never understand her, and in Holly’s opinion, probably does not care. No one knows what she is going through, because she never opens up to any one. Ms. Leone gives Holly a journal at school one day and tells her to write poetry and express her feelings. Holly is disgusted. But one day when she is sitting in the cold laundry room, and extremely bored, she pulls out the diary, and starts to write. When Holly can take no more of her current foster home, she runs, taking the journal with her. The journal entries in her journal, are all written as if she is talking to Ms.Leone, even though she will probably never see her again. Over the course of her journey, Holly learns to face her past through writing, and discovers a love for poetry. At some point in this book, Holly stops venting to Ms. Leone and starts talking to her, almost like an imaginary friend, and finally opens up to her.
Jeanette’s parents were very free spirited and carefree about many things, least of all their children. Her mother’s ambitions were mainly to become a famous artist and her father’s mainly included drinking as much alcohol as he could get his hands on, and in the meantime becoming a successful entrepreneur. Her father was not exactly very concerned with feeding his family properly, and he often took all the money her mother would make teaching. “I’ve got a houseful of kids and a husband who soaks up booze like a sponge… making ends meet is harder than you think (Walls 197). They often went hungry and because of her parents being so neglectful she, along with her siblings, became their own parents. Her self-governance was astounding at such a young age and this was a key to her success later on in life. She had always been very aware of her surrounding and growing up her family was always on the move, always on the run. They eventually settled in Welch, West Virginia and this is where her independence ...
Author Alice Walker, displays the importance of personal identity and the significance of one’s heritage. These subjects are being addressed through the characterization of each character. In the story “Everyday Use”, the mother shows how their daughters are in completely two different worlds. One of her daughter, Maggie, is shy and jealous of her sister Dee and thought her sister had it easy with her life. She is the type that would stay around with her mother and be excluded from the outside world. Dee on the other hand, grew to be more outgoing and exposed to the real, modern world. The story shows how the two girls from different views of life co-exist and have a relationship with each other in the family. Maggie had always felt that Mama, her mother, showed more love and care to Dee over her. It is until the end of the story where we find out Mama cares more about Maggie through the quilt her mother gave to her. Showing that even though Dee is successful and have a more modern life, Maggie herself is just as successful in her own way through her love for her traditions and old w...
regulated. It's hard for bottled water to be contaminated with chemicals such as BPA, which