House Rules by Jodi Picoult is a book about an eighteen year old boy, Jacob Hunt, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder. Jacob is accused of murder when his social interaction tutor, Jess Ogilvy, goes missing and is later found dead. House Rules is told from five different views; Jacob, Emma his mother, Theo his younger brother, Rich the detective, and Oliver the lawyer. Throughout the story we see that Jacob is obsessed and fixated on forensic science, which makes him a key suspect in the murder investigation. The overall theme of House Rules is about family. Protecting your family at no matter what the cost is. By the end of the story we learn that Jess Ogilvy wasn’t murdered but died of an accident. Also that Theo was the last person to see her alive and that is why Jacob has set up a crime scene that makes it look like she was killed because he thought his little brother Jacob would attend to his composition notebooks when he was watching Crime Busters. With a person who has Asperger’s Syndrome that have poor social interaction skills. Jacob was not able to look people in the eye or have a conversation with someone that was not about something he was fixated on, for example his fixation on forensic science. With performance patterns Jacob had habits, routines, rituals and roles with person, group, and population. For example he had a routine of going to the grocery store with his mother at 11:15 and a lady who passed out samples was there at the same time every day, one day they went and she was not there in her spot so Jacob had a meltdown in the store. Context and Environments are hard for people who have Asperger’s Syndrome. Jacob did not understand how cultural things would work; he believed that everything revolved around him because that is a part of Asperger’s Syndrome. (AOTA,
Summary and Response to Barbara Kingsolver’s “Called Home” In “Called Home”, the first chapter of the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year in Food Life, Barbara Kingsolver presents her concerns about America's lack of food knowledge, sustainable practices, and food culture. Kingsolver introduces her argument for the benefits of adopting a local food culture by using statistics, witty anecdotal evidence, and logic to appeal to a wide casual reading audience. Her friendly tone and trenchant criticism of America's current food practices combine to deliver a convincing argument that a food culture would improve conditions concerning health and sustainability.
The social group of women is often focused on by Gwen Harwood within Selected Poems of Gwen Harwood through the themes of motherhood and domestic life which play an integral role in many of her poems. These themes define a stereotypical role for women representing them as subordinate in a patriarchal society through a range of her poems such as In the Park, The Violets and Prize Giving. Harwood portrays women as subservient and inferior, with the main purpose to be household mothers and wives which was based on society’s expectations during Harwood’s time however her later poems such as Father and Child develop to contain hope for societal progression through occasionally defying these stereotypes.
involved troubling situations. Look at how she grew up. The book starts off during a time of Jim
He emphasizes what he believes goes largely unnoticed, like Sissy’s unique ability to succeed in life, given her handicap. Yet, does not deny that living outside social rules is extremely difficult and
According to Brenda Allen in the chapter “Power Matters,” she mentions that there dominant ideologies of identity that “reflect perspectives and experiences of ruling groups, whose members construct and circulate beliefs that will most benefit them.” We live in a country where there are dominant ideologies of organizational hierarchy, which “arranges job positions in a stratified structure, with power flowing from the top down.” This exemplifies the ideology of domination, which is a belief system in America that the “superior should rule over the inferior” (32). This ideology is so embedded into our system that most people believe it is natural. The American society we live in values patriarchy, white supremacy, heteronormativity, and a specific culture of wealth and poverty; any identity that falls outside of these dominant ideologies is marginalized and placed in the lower strata of social power.
In Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Bechdel uses the theme of appearance versus reality to highlight her relationship with her father. Bechdel utilizes her illustrations and short sentences to reveal these things about herself and her father. Bechdel opens her memoir with a chapter entitled “Old Father, Old Artificer”. Bechdel refers to her father, Bruce Bechdel, as an artificer because she sees him as a skilled craftsman. Bechdel describes, “His greatest achievement, arguably, was his monomaniacal restoration of our old house.” (Bechdel 4). Her father restored their old house to make it look like a huge mansion. Bechdel knows that this is just the appearance of their household because it is not an accurate representation of their family life inside the house. Bruce created an appearance that was the opposite of reality to cover up the actual wealth of their family. He hides the fact that his family may not be as wealthy and perfect as they appear to be. In this case, Bruce reveals he believes that appearance is more important than the reality of a situation. Appearance is also important on the inside of the home as well. Bechdel mentions, “Sometimes, when things were going well, I
Throughout Marilynne Robinson’s works, readers are often reminded of themes that defy the status quo of popular ideas at the time. She explores transience and loneliness, amongst other ideas as a way of expressing that being individual, and going against what is deemed normal in society is acceptable. Robinson utilizes traditional literary devices in order to highlight these concepts.
To belong is an inanimate desire to be respected and to respect those whom you want to be with through association of similar values. To feel a sense of belonging is to feel loved for our entirety or to be loved due to and aspect of your person that is common with those you who belong as one. An individual has the capacity to belong to people, physical places or ideas. Baz Buhrmann’s film “Strictly Ballroom” explores the concept of belonging, to the subculture of Ballroom dancing, through the non-conformist antagonist Scott Hastings and his inexperienced partner, the daughter of a Spanish migrant family. The Picture Book “The Rabbits” by John Marsden and Shaun Tan, confronts belonging through clashing cultures, disrespect of different beliefs and loss of identity.
For example, our text describes two symptoms of ASD; 1. social communications and interactions 2. and limited patterns of repetitive behavior, interests, and or activities. This was all evident in the “Neurotypical” documentary. For example, Nicholas was unable to interact with girls or form relationships he believes he has nothing in common with them. Wolf suggested that autistic children are good at mimicking others and that nonverbal cues are important to watch out for. Violet, on the other hand, has a habit of repeating behaviors; she will repeat anything her parents say. In the text it also says severity of language problems vary child to child. In Violets case she does not fall under the mute category but instead she is able to speak in a few words, cry, and even laugh. Our text introduces the term for repetitive speech, echolalia. Violet tends to repeat a word or words her parents say either right away when she hears it or later
Another powerful video, Including Samuel, ignited my insight in this week’s class. As I heard in the video, “inclusion is an easy thing to do poorly.” The movie chronicles the life of a young boy, Samuel, and his family. With the shock of learning about their son’s disability, it caused his parents, Dan and Betsy, to experience the unexpected. Nevertheless, they did everything to include their son and help him live a normal life focused on his capabilities, rather than his incapabilities. I even admired how his friends knew so much about him, his likes and dislikes, his strengths and his weaknesses.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time exhibits real life situations experienced by an autistic, 15-year-old boy, from his own panorama. Christopher’s use of first person perspective ensures that his view on events are explained with accurate, detailed description, enhancing the responders understanding of how the mind of one with Asperger’s syndrome functions. This concept is elaborated on in Christopher’s struggle to become independent as the responder is able to grasp Christopher’s defensive mechanisms to dealing with stressful situations. Christopher narration “so I groaned to make the time pass quicker and not think” during a fit where his tendency to shut down and curl himself into a ball is essentially revealed substantiates his struggle to become independent as his
"A Woman’s Place", the name of the commencement speech given by Naomi Wolf at the Scripps College graduation in 1992; contrasts the independent and the dependent woman. In today’s society, there are two different types of women: the woman who has a good head on her shoulders and knows where she is going in the world, and the woman who seeks dependence within the masculine world. Just as they were thirty years ago, women are still not considered to be equal to men. They are more or less looked at as being second to men.
Today, women are not typically seen in higher levels of position in the work force than men. In Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All”, she uses her own experience to convey why it is not possible for a woman to work in a higher position, due to women being more emotional than men. People still believe it’s a women’s place to stay at home to cook, clean and take care of the children, while the men go to work to pay the bills. And it’s considered odd if the man is a stay at home father and the woman is working 24/7 and is never home. Even though it is rewarding to be able to always be there to see your child’s milestones in their life. It is always nice to get away from that life for even a moment. I don’t mean going out with the girls or guys, while you hire a babysitter, but helping your husband or wife pay the bills, so you have two rather than one income coming in at the end of the month. In Richard Dorment’s article, “Why Men Still Can’t Have It All” he states that both men and women can’t have it all. I agree with both Slaughter and Dorment, but not entirely. I believe if you want to be a good
Weintraub, Stanley. ""Doll's House" Metaphor Foreshadowed in Victorian Fiction." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 13: 67-69. Web. 6 Jan. 2011.
In today’s society, the notion and belief of growing old, getting married, having kids, and a maintaining of a happy family, seems to be a common value among most people. In Kevin Brockmeier’s short story, “The Ceiling,” Brockmeier implies that marriage is not necessary in our society. In fact, Brockmeier criticizes the belief of marriage in his literary work. Brockmeier reveals that marriage usually leads to or ends in disaster, specifically, all marriages are doomed to fail from the start. Throughout the story, the male protagonist, the husband, becomes more and more separated from his wife. As the tension increases between the protagonist and his wife, Brockmeier symbolizes a failing marriage between the husband and wife as he depicts the ceiling in the sky closing upon the town in which they live, and eventually crushing the town entirely as a whole.