Katy lay in bed with her eyes shut, trying to grasp the last wisps of her beautiful dream. She knew it was even more impossible than falling asleep at night, but still persisted since the only thing she had to return to in the world was her mother and their little house that looked like everyone else’s in the Soviet Union. Her father died in World War Two, and he was the only one who was able to bring a smile to her face. Katy slowly got up out of her soft, warm bed. Her mother was much more affected by his death than her; Katy was only ten years old when he got shot. Eight years passed, but her mother was still very dependent on Katy to help her live in the present, not in the past. Home harvested eggs sizzled on the pan and water boiled in the kettle. Katy made breakfast for herself and her mom every day now. Once the eggs were done and the tea as ready, she put them on two clean plates. Her mother was walking down the stairs slowly, as if every step took a huge effort to make. “Hey, sweetie,” her mother greeted, having a smile on her face that was obviously fake. “Good morning mama. How did you sleep?” Katy asked in fluent Russian. “Great,” her mother lied. Katy heard her talking in her sleep and her dreams didn’t sound “great” at all. They both ate their breakfast quickly and Katy got ready for school. Katy threw her coat on and rushed outside to her school. She didn’t bother locking the front door behind her. After all, who would need anything she had in her house? Everybody already had the same things as her, and nobody would steal for fun because there are huge punishments for that. She zoomed through the streets and chose to take a shortcut through the local park since all the other paths were probably snowed in. As... ... middle of paper ... ...said sounded marvelous, but they were going to turn the Soviet Union into America if everybody got persuaded. Katy, though, liked her home the way it was. “So what are you doing about it?” she whispered with dread. “I am making things. Unique things, that can make somebody different from everybody else,” he sighed. “Where are you getting the materials?” asked Katy. “I buy them,” he snapped accusingly. “Where do you get the money?” she asked. “I-“ he stuttered, “Take it from people who don’t need it,” he finished. “You steal it?” Katy gasped. “I prefer calling it borrowing for ever,” Erik corrected, “but remember that you promised-“ Erik was interrupted by a cry from the bushes. Just then, Katy and Erik noticed that the bush was very strange; it was moving, as if crying. Erik came close to it, and jerked out his hand to move away some leaves. There, he saw Sofia.
Sharon Olds’s poem, “I Go Back to May 1937,” is an emotional piece that takes the reader back to the early days as the speaker’s existence was first thought about. The speaker is a female who describes the scene when her parents first met; she does this to show her wrestling thoughts as she wishes she could prevent this first encounter. She speaks about this topic because of the horrendous future of regret and sorrow that her family would experience, and also to contemplate her own existence if her parents had never met in May of 1937. Olds uses forms of contrasting figurative language, an ironic plot, and a regretful tone to convey the conflict between the speaker and her parents while she fully comes to understanding of past actions, and how these serve as a way for her to release her feelings on the emotional subject.
No matter how bad the situations seem they all happen for a reason. Sharon Olds had to realize this through her own pain and suffering. She portrays herself as the speaker who goes back to May of 1937, and sees her parents. In “I Go Back to May 1937” she tells a story of when her parents were still just dating. They were just about to graduate and get married. Instead of feeling joyful or smiling at the sight of them she had a completely different reaction. She wanted to go up to them and stop them. Maybe they looked innocent then, but she knew that they would not remain that way for long. By telling the story of her parent’s ignorance, betrayal, and the difficult decisions that soon follow, Sharon Olds shows that the will to live helps people make life’s difficult decisions, in “I Go Back to May 1937.”
?The tenement was a long passageway of ruined houses, all exactly the same; small impoverished dwellings built of cement, each with a single door and two windows. They were painted in drab colors and their peeling walls were linked across the narrow passageway by wires hung from side to side. [She] walked deeper into the neighborhood, avoiding puddles of dirty water that overflowed from the gutters and dodging piles of garbage in which cats were digging like silent shadows. In the center of the little...
I walked into the room on New Year’s Day and felt a sudden twinge of fear. My eyes already hurt from the tears I had shed and those tears would not stop even then the last viewing before we had to leave. She lay quietly on the bed with her face as void of emotion as a sheet of paper without the writing. Slowly, I approached the cold lifeless form that was once my mother and gave her a goodbye kiss.
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
"I find out what the world needs. Then I go ahead and try to invent it."
Chloe was walking by herself, and all of a sudden her jacket was blown by the wind. Chloe’s jacket ended up in the woods. She walked the woods to find her jacket. She found her jacket and was trying to get out but got lost.
She ran down the stairs to put her bags in the car. She looked around for her mother but she was no where in sight. Poor, naive little girl doesn’t she know the real monster her mother is? She greeted her best friend and got in the car.
The year is 1942. Nearly the entire Eastern Hemisphere is fighting the worst war in history: World War II. However, something far more atrocious is happening behind the battle lines. Millions of Jews are being captured, tortured, and slaughtered in concentration camps throughout Germany. During what will later become known as the Holocaust, nearly eleven million people will be murdered in the hands of the Nazis (Blumberg). Many of those who survived this atrocity experienced symptoms of PTSD and other mental disorders resulting from the Holocaust. In Cynthia Ozick’s short story, “The Shawl,” she tells a story of a mother and daughter who were placed in a concentration camp. Rosa, the mother, described the memory of their time in the concentration camp. The memory, however, seems to be distorted. Through the details, symbolism, conflict of the story, it is clear that Rosa is suffering from PTSD.
The night before, I didn’t practice my English so I knew what to say. By now, I knew most of the words, so I would just let my heart guide me. Besides, my cramped old house, which is actually just a junky garage in an abandoned alley, is too small to let out my feelings. Once I got to school after a cold walk in the snow, I placed myself by her locker and waited. Fourteen minutes had gone by, and still no sign of Lily. I only had a minute to get to class now, so I hurriedly collected myself and ran to my locker. I was disappointed, knowing that without Lily here, it would be the hardest day of school. I opened my locker and to my surprise a note fell to the floor. I quickly picked it up and gazed at the neat handwriting that clearly spelled my name.
Nancy was only four years old when her grandmother died. Her grandmother had a big lump on the lower right hand side of her back. The doctors removed it, but it was too late. The tumor had already spread throughout her body. Instead of having a lump on her back, she had a long stitched up incision there. She couldn’t move around; Nancy’s parents had to help her go to the bathroom and do all the simple things that she use to do all by herself. Nancy would ask her grandmother to get up to take her younger sister, Linh, and herself outside so they could play. She never got up. A couple of months later, an ambulance came by their house and took their grandmother away. That was the last time Nancy ever saw her alive. She was in the hospital for about a week and a half. Nancy’s parents never took them to see her. One day, Nancy saw her parents crying and she have never seen them cry before. They dropped Linh and her off at one of their friend’s house. Nancy got mad because she thought they were going shopping and didn’t take her with them.
She grew up alone, as her brothers ran away, living each day tormented by her thoughts and her family’s past. Her family’s past haunted her
The house smells like roasted beef and oven baked bread. Walking into the dining room she sat where her mother directed her. Wanting to go back upstairs and look at the rocking horse she quickly ate her food and excused
It was a cold October afternoon in 1996, and I raced down the stairs and out the front door, in an attempt to avoid my mother's questions of where I was going, with whom, and when I'd be back. I saw my friend Kolin pull up in his rusted, broken-down gray van, and the side door opened as Mark jumped out and motioned for me to come. I was just about to get in when my mother called from the front doorway. She wanted to talk to me, but I didn't want to talk to her, so I hopped in pretending I hadn't heard her and told Kolin to drive off.
The film A Separation is a typical example of the new Iranian cinema because it presents the life-like conflicts and struggles as one of the main formal characteristics of the new Iranian cinema. This film contains a lot of issues which cannot simply be judged as right or wrong; rather, the struggles are caused by the different point of view and ideologies about religion, truth, and humanity. The title of the film, A Separation, can be unpacked into three-fold ideas: the divorce between Nader and Simin, the judgment between two households, and the conflict between whether to follow the truth, as obeying the religion, or to act based on humanity.