The Tragedy of Leila in Bone
How much responsibility should any child have over their family? In "Bone," by Fae Myenne Ng, a character named Leila is born the daughter of a loving mother, Mah, and a run-out-on-the-family father whom cursed Leila with a last name Fu. As Leila said herself, "Fu in our dialect sounds like the word for bitter" (18). She became the oldest with two other sisters, Ona and Nina, whom both came from Mah's second husband, Leon. Leon loves his biological daughters like a true father should; meanwhile, Leon also loves Leila, his daughter only by marriage to Mah. Leon expresses how much he loves his daughters by saying "Five sons don't make one good daughter" (3), causing a scene in front of people who think that he is unlucky for not being blessed with a single son.
At a very young age Leila was forced to be the sister-in-charge and make decisions that a young girl twice her age would not normally be expected to produce. Mah began working as a seamstress before the girls would wake up, and continue working until after they would fall asle...
out of the movie. He did this to shorten the movie and also to make it
In the young life of Essie Mae, she had a rough childhood. She went through beatings from her cousin, George Lee, and was blamed for burning down her house. Finally Essie Mae got the nerve to stand up for herself and her baby sister, Adline as her parents were coming in from their work. Her dad put a stop to the mistreatment by having her and her sister watched by their Uncle Ed. One day while Essie Mae's parents were having an argument, she noticed that her mothers belly was getting bigger and bigger and her mom kept crying more and more. Then her mother had a baby, Junior, while the kids were out with their Uncle Ed. Her uncle took her to meet her other two uncles and she was stunned to learn that they were white. She was confused by this but when she asked her mom, Toosweet, about it her mom would not give her an answer one way or the other. Once her mom had the baby, her father started staying out late more often. Toosweet found out that her dad was seeing a woman named Florence. Not long after this, her mother was left to support her and her siblings when her father left. Her mother ended up having to move in with family until she could obtain a better paying job in the city. As her childhood went on she started school and was very good at her studies. When she was in the fourth grade, her mom started seeing a soldier named Raymond. Not too long after this, her mother got pregnant and had James. Her mother and Raymond had a rocky relationship. When James was born, Raymond's mother came and took the baby to raise because she said that raising four children was too much of a burden for a single parent to handle. Raymond went back to the service for a while but then when he came back he and Toosweet had another baby. Raymond's brothers helped him build a new house for them to live in and they brought James back to live with them. During this time Essie Mae was working for the Claiborne family and she was starting to see a different point of view on a lot of things in life. The Claiborne's treated her almost as an equal and encouraged her to better herself.
Lena Younger, Walter and Beneatha's mother, was a widow in her early sixties who devoted her life to her children after her husband's death. Retired from working for the Holiday's family, she was waiting for her husband's insurance money to arrive. With the ten tho...
...otsteps from her female mentors from the red tent, becoming a mother and wife, but most importantly, someone to keep the memories and tales alive.
First, after a couple of weeks since their mother left, the girls become lazy. They don’t have much motivation to do their work. But, during these weeks, one of the girls, Beth, goes to the Hummels everyday to help take care of their baby, while the baby’s mother is at work. Though, the baby is very sick with scarlet fever and soon dies in Beth’s arms. After the baby dies of scarlet fever, everyone is scared that Beth might have come down with it. Beth becomes very sick and has her sisters, nurse, and doctor watch over her. The sisters don’t tell their mother that Beth is sick because they don’t want to worry her, while she is visiting their father, since he is ill.
Lori was the first one to leave for New York City after graduation, later, Jeanette followed her and moved into her habitat with her. Jeanette promptly found a job as a reporter, the two sisters were both living their dream life away from their miserable parents. It wasn’t difficult for them since they cultured to be independent and tough. Everything was turning out great for them and decided to tell their younger siblings to move in with them, and they did. Jeanette was finally happy for once, enjoying the freedom she had and not having to be moved every two weeks. She then found a guy whom she married and accustomed her lifestyle. Furthermore, her parents still couldn’t have the funds for a household or to stay in stable occupation, so they decided to move in with Jeanette and her siblings. Jeanette at that moment felt like she was never going to have an ordinary life because her parents were going to shadow her.
The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 occurred during the midst of World War I, and it would claim more lives than the war itself. The disease erupted suddenly without a forewarning and spread rapidly across the globe. It seemed as though all of humanity had fallen under the mercy of this deadly illness. Influenza had very clear symptoms as described by William Collier in his letter to The Lancet. After a patient seizes their temperature can run up to 105° or more while their pulse averages at about 90 beats per minute. The high temperature and low pulse are frequently combined with epistaxis (nosebleed) and cyanosis (blueness of the skin). The epistaxis is caused by the high temperature and the cyanosis is caused by a lack of oxygen due to the decreased pulse (Kent 34). The author of Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919, Susan Kinglsey Kent, provides a brief history of the pandemic and documents from the time period. Many of the included documents show how unprepared and unorganized governments attempted to contain and control a disease they had never experienced, and how the expectations of the governments changed as a result of their successes and failures.
Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s
The love one has for their family causes one to do anything to keep them out of harm, including taking the role of mother/father. Henry Lawson creates an image in his readers’ mind of the protagonist and all that she does for her
Rose Mary is a selfish woman and decides not to go to school some mornings because she does not feel up to it. Jeannette takes the initiative in making sure that her mother is prepared for school each morning because she knows how much her family needs money. Even though Rose Mary starts to go to school every day, she does not do her job properly and thus the family suffers financially again. When Maureen’s birthday approaches, Jeannette takes it upon herself to find a gift for her because she does not think their parents will be able to provide her with one. Jeannette says, “at times I felt like I was failing Maureen, like I wasn’t keeping my promise that I’d protect her - the promise I’d made to her when I held her on the way home from the hospital after she’d been born. I couldn’t get her what she needed most- hot
“The Site of Origin of The 1918 Influenza Pandemic and Its Public Health Implications.” Barry, John. US national Library of Health Medicine, January 20, 2004. Retrieved from:
The story follows three girls- Jeanette, the oldest in the pack, Claudette, the narrator and middle child, and the youngest, Mirabella- as they go through the various stages of becoming civilized people. Each girl is an example of the different reactions to being placed in an unfamiliar environment and retrained. Jeanette adapts quickly, becoming the first in the pack to assimilate to the new way of life. She accepts her education and rejects her previous life with few relapses. Claudette understands the education being presented to her but resists adapting fully, her hatred turning into apathy as she quietly accepts her fate. Mirabella either does not comprehend her education, or fully ignores it, as she continually breaks the rules and boundaries set around her, eventually resulting in her removal from the school.
At the time, the Influenza of 1918 was called the Spanish Flu. Spain was not involved in the expanding great war (i.e., World War I) and therefore was not censoring it's press. However, Germany, Britain, and America were censoring their newspapers for anything that would lower morale. Therefore, Spain was the first country to publish accounts of the pandemic (Barry 171 and Furman 326), even though the pandemic most likely started in either France or the United States. It was also unique in it's deadliness; it “killed more people in a year than the Black Death of the Middle Ages killed in a century” (Barry 5). In the United States, the experience during the pandemic varied from location to location. Some areas were better off whereas some were hit horribly by the disease, such as Philadelphia. It also came as a shock to many, though some predicted it's coming; few thought it would strike with the speed and lethality that it did. Though the inherent qualities of the flu enabled its devastation of the country, the response to the flu was in part responsible as well. The response to the pandemic was reasonable, given the dire situation, but not sufficient enough to prevent unnecessary death and hardship, especially in Philadelphia.
The second person point of view helps the reader to connect with the girl in this story. It shows the reader a better understanding of this character and how she is being raised to be a respectable woman. This point of view also gives us an insight on the life of women and shows us how they fit into their society. Through this point of view, the reader can also identify the important aspects of the social class and culture. The daughter tries to assert a sense of selfhood by replying to the mother but it is visible that the mother is being over whelming and constraining her daughter to prepare her for
The book starts off painting the image an Howard's mother Mariquita. She is depicted as somewhat a diamond in the rough, beautiful and one of a kind, even pointing out that she worked as a stenographer, an uncommon position to be held by women in this time period. The book goes on describing her daily life including spending much time with her friends, competing amongst each other in the latest fashions and watching the movies.