A) Write a minimum three-sentence reading reaction for each assigned story, concentrating on how character development affected your interpretation. Be sure to include detailed reasoning for your reactions using specific details from each story.
B) How would you analyze each story in terms of static vs. dynamic characters? How does each character 's status affect you as a reader? (Are you hoping for one character to change/not change? Are you disappointed by a change or lack of change?) Again, be sure to include specific details and references--this should be a given for any questions I pose in the future.
“Never Marry a Mexican”
This story was my favorite this week. The main character is a very round character, well-developed, and I enjoyed
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The whole story is really about how we do things that we don’t want to do because we are “supposed” to do them according to society. During the story, the little boy tries his best to do what he is supposed to do “I remembered it was your day” he says (133) like a big kid, though he is just in Kindergarten. When Cody is told he can go against the norm,”Ellie could see that Cody had not considered that an option before...never completely understood he had an option...,” (143) he experiences an awakening. He realizes that he has choices. We are watching him become something new, and the author’s choice to make him such a dynamic character is what makes the story so …show more content…
The main character says he is “so much a child in my bed. Nothing but a big boy who who needs to be held” (116). The way she talks to him is like a mother figure, but twisted at the same time, “Come to mamita. My stupid little bird” (118). He is frail, gentle, trusting, young, and she is the opposite of innocent, “I’m vindictive and cruel, and I’m capable of anything,” she says (109). Because he is so sweet and frail, she looks like even more of a monster next to him. It makes her character pop out at
2. Explain how a character in the book changed or is starting to change in the part you are reading?
3. The novel represents the world and its inhabitants on a miniscule level, by conveying the differences between the characters and how they act towards one another.
“I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter”, by Erika L. Sanchez is a novel of shattering stereotype, Mexican teenager coming-of-age. Introducing Julia Reyes, fifteen-year-old teenager who desperately wants to go to college She’s a very outspoken sarcastic feminist with big dreams and a real hunger for art. The daughter of undocumented Mexican immigrants Ama and Apa, living in a apartment infested with roaches. She’s filled with anger almost all the time and perpetually bitter because she is poor. Suffering from the loss of her prude older sister, Olga, who died by being run over by a semi-truck. Julia battless with the death of her sister Olga, her parents are having a challenging time with Julia not wanting to be a perfect Mexican daughter. However, for Julia her life needs more than being your traditional Mexican daughter have a good office job, marrying a Mexican, raising children, and preparing tortilla until the day she dies. In which, Ama struggles with daily, on why Julia just can’t be perfect like her dead sister Olga. Even though families are based on culture and
In a well written paragraph, analyze which genre, historical fiction or informational text, better develops their ‘characters’. Choose one character to focus on and provide text evidence. Make sure you include evidence from both works to support your reasoning.
There is three things necessary to make a convincing or developing character; “first It must be consistent with the individual’s characterization as dramatized in the story, second It must be sufficiently motivated by the circumstances in which the character is placed, and finally the story must offer sufficient time for the change to take place to be believable.” [page 172]
The first type of text is the aforementioned classic novel. For this unit, two texts in particular will be utilized. One is J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher In the Rye. This novel focuses on the experiences of a cyn...
9. Choose at least one theme that recurs throughout the story and two specific examples of this
Every culture has its own unique values, beliefs and norms. Culture defines the identity and interests of a society. Understanding other’s culture is crucial in preparing ourselves for the global experience in the twenty-first century. As the world is becoming more connected to each other, interaction between cultures is unavoidable. I consider myself lucky to live in one of the most diverse cities in the world where I get chance to interact with people of different cultures. In this paper, I will discuss my findings about Family Structure in a Mexican culture, and Dating and Marriage in an African / Gabonese culture. Having a chance to understand various cultures, I realized that beliefs and practices tend to vary from culture to culture.
In conclusion, it is hard to grasp the true meaning of the story unless the story is read a second time because of the author's style of writing.
Sandra Cisneros’s short story “Never Marry a Mexican” deals heavily with the concept of myth in literature, more specifically the myth La Malinche, which focuses on women, and how their lives are spun in the shadows on men (Fitts). Myths help power some of the beliefs of entire cultures or civilizations. She gives the reader the mind of a Mexican-American woman who seems traitorous to her friends, family and people she is close to. This causes destruction in her path in the form of love, power, heartbreak, hatred, and an intent to do harm to another, which are themes of myth in literature. The unreliable narrator of this story was created in this story with the purpose to show her confusion and what coming from two completely different cultures can do to a person, and what kind of confusion it can bring.
Discuss this statement and show how your critical understanding of the text has been strengthened by at least two different readings.
Kirszner, Laurie G., and Stephen R. Mandell. Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010. Print.
Kirszner, Laurie G., and Stephen R. Mandell. Literature: Reading & Reacting & Writing. 4th ed. Boston: Earl McPeek, 2000. 388-423.
Determine all of the story's conflicts. Determine the major conflict and state this in terms of protagonist versus antagonist.
Describe how tension is built-in the novel. Discuss how this building tension affects you as a reader.