Set in August 1986, Eleanor and Park, by Rainbow Rowell, is not your typical high-
school love story. Eleanor is the new girl with the crazy, big, and red hair, the strange clothes,
and the problematic, monstrous, and alcoholic stepfather. While on the other hand, Park is the
quiet, half- Korean “Stupid, perfect Asian kid”(41) who tries his best to direct attention away
from himself in school, yet tries his hardest to please his father. Although they are like the
opposite sides of a magnet, the two finds a common interest in good music and entertaining
comic books and eventually finds “attraction” and love in each other, despite many problems and
oppositions against them. Through this truthful and captivating double-perspective
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“He’d stopped trying to bring her back.” (1) Right from page one, the readers discover
that “he”, as we can assume is Park, loses Eleanor. The August of 1986 consequently begins and
starts with Park’s bus ride to school where he first sees Eleanor and instinctively offers her to sit
next to him, knowing that the popular kids on the bus will bully her. As the days went on and the
two still silently and awkwardly sat on the bus (with six inches between them), Rowell reveals
the truths and struggles about each character’s lives and how their lives are so different from
each other. Eleanor just came back from being kicked out by his violent stepfather, Richie, and
although finally coming back would seem like a good thing, to Eleanor, it is just as hard as her
life before. Living in poverty, she does not have money to buy batteries for her Walkman or even
Delos Reyes 2
a toothbrush. Moreover, she sleeps in a cramped room, along with her four younger siblings and
lives in fear of her stepfather who frequently abuses her mother. On the other hand, Park comes
from a happy and stable family. However, he constantly seeks acceptance from his father.
The conflict that the individual faces will force them to reinforce and strengthen their identity in order to survive. In “The Cellist of Sarajevo” all the characters experience a brutal war that makes each of them struggle albeit in different ways. Each of them have their own anxieties and rage that eventually makes them grow as characters at the end of the book. When looking at what makes a person who they are it becomes obvious that the struggles they have faced has influenced them dramatically. The individual will find that this development is the pure essence of what it truly means to be
he sees his father as strict, but not overly demanding. He seems to begin to
Nanny's biggest mistake is that she never consults with Janie about what she wants in life. Janie's second husband, Joe Starks, is a repeat of Janie's unhappiness in marriage. At first, Janie looked at Joe as a man who would offer her an escape from her loveless marriage with Mr.
In the first section of the book it starts off with a little girl named Tasha. Tasha is in the Fifth grade, and doesn’t really have many friends. It describes her dilemma with trying to fit in with all the other girls, and being “popular”, and trying to deal with a “Kid Snatcher”. The summer before school started she practiced at all the games the kid’s play, so she could be good, and be able to get them to like her. The girls at school are not very nice to her at all. Her struggle with being popular meets her up with Jashante, a held back Fifth ...
...e on her part. Throughout the story, the Mother is portrayed as the dominant figure, which resembled the amount of say that the father and children had on matters. Together, the Father, James, and David strived to maintain equality by helping with the chickens and taking care of Scott; however, despite the effort that they had put in, the Mother refused to be persuaded that Scott was of any value and therefore she felt that selling him would be most beneficial. The Mother’s persona is unsympathetic as she lacks respect and a heart towards her family members. Since the Mother never showed equality, her character had unraveled into the creation of a negative atmosphere in which her family is now cemented in. For the Father, David and James, it is only now the memories of Scott that will hold their bond together.
Eleanor and Park is a young adult’s novel. The story follows Eleanor and park two teenagers living in Omaha, Nebraska in 1986. Eleanor and Park developed a connection through comic books and mix tapes which leads to their young love. However there are very strong themes of Domestic and child abuse, Bullying and Body image.
Discuss the importance of the themes to the story, especially dualism and reputation, but also some others.
We never get to "meet" Eleanor, who died in a car accident the year before the events described in the book. We know that she and her sister Violet were super close—so close they ran a popular web magazine together.
Marie, who is a product of an abusive family, is influenced by her past, as she perceives the relationship between Callie and her son, Bo. Saunders writes, describing Marie’s childhood experiences, “At least she’d [Marie] never locked on of them [her children] in a closet while entertaining a literal gravedigger in the parlor” (174). Marie’s mother did not embody the traditional traits of a maternal fig...
show Diff’rent Strokes.Which also shows a strong example of an unlikely alliance because they are a different gender and race. They were also brought up in different sides of the world. Willis comes from Harlem, where as Kimberly comes from Park Avenue in New York. Two of the circumstances that makes this an unlikely alliance is that for one, Willis’s mom was the Drummonds housekeeper and that these kids come from two different places, but this wouldn’t have happened if Willis’s mom never requested for Willis and his little brother Arnold to stay with the
the food her family has and her clothes. This, however, all changes when she goes on
up to me.” (Forman 88) Mia wants to live to see her friends and the other members of her
different layers of reality, the dreams become more complex and the characters have a hard time
In this novel, I think that the main themes are the struggle for independence, lies and deceits, and isolation.
The story begins when two twins, Hallie and Annie, are separated at birth and coincidentally attend the very same summer camp eleven and a