Faith and Forgiveness “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly father will forgive you” (Matthew 6:14). In the book Unbroken written by Laura Hillenbrand, Louie Zamperini is a troubled kid, who discovers his love for running. After becoming an Olympic champion, Louie finds himself fighting for his life in World War II. He is a changed man when he returns home.
In The Spirit Catches You and You Fall down, Anne Fadiman reflected on ways in which cultural dissonance can have detrimental consequences for those who are caught in the midst of two cultures. In this influential story, the cultural and language barriers between Lia Lee’s family and her doctors caused Lia’s life to be negatively impacted due to improper diagnosis and treatment. The Lees preferred traditional and spiritual treatment that clearly differed from the doctors’ Westernized treatment. Through a constant battle between proper treatment and the Lee parent’s compliance, this caused Lia to live in a persistent vegetative state for the majority of her life. The language barrier that the Lee’s faced at Merced hospital was discouraging,
Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson is an Indigenous mythology-based story that follows sixteen-year-old Jared as he struggles with his powers, relationships and overall life. The theme of family, specifically the decisions and roles of Jared's family, significantly affects his personal growth. More particularly from the actions of Maggie Moody, Phil Martin and Nana Sophia. Maggie Moody, Jared's mother, affects Jared's morals and how he feels about violence, Phil Martin, Jared's father, affects Jared’s emotional maturity, and Nana Sophia embodies the feelings resulting from the abandonment of a family member. Maggie's violent approach to life has desensitized Jared to violence, making him less emotionally vulnerable since violence requires a lack of empathy.
Have you ever thought about how difficult it might be to go into a different country knowing absolutely nothing, not even language, and something horrific happened to you or anyone in your family? Don’t you think you would feel so powerless, so helpless, so clueless? This happens commonly and it has never had any attention brought to it, at least not until 1998. Anne Fadiman wrote a book entitled, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. This demonstrated a collision of two complete opposite cultures, but they both have the same goal to help the child get better.
Decisions do not change your chance. In Night, a Memior written by Ellie Wiesel in 1958, a young boy by the name Ellie Wiesel suffers through the Holocaust with his father Shlomo Wiesel. Ellie Wiesel first experiences the Nazi party after being evacuated from his house and put in a ghetto. At this time Jewish people did not know the motive of the Nazi party. After being in the ghetto for a few months Ellie, his father, his mother, and sister where forcefully taken from their home and put in concentration camps.
Jesse James The infamous folk hero outlaw, Jesse James. James was born in Stamping Ground Kentucky on September, 5, 1847. Jesse’s parents were Robert Sallee James and Zerelda Elizabeth Cole. He did have 3 siblings and their names were Frank James, Susan James, and Robert James.
Although often used interchangeably, disease and illness differ fundamentally in their meanings and implications. Disease is the commonly thought of concept in which a person suffers due to a physiological or psychological ailment, while illness refers to a culmination of physical, emotional and social suffering of a person. Disease is perceived as the phenomena that affects an organism, while illness affects not only the patient but also their loved ones and community. This distinction is vividly apparent in The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, in which Anne Fadiman relays the approaches to a Hmong child named Lia’s epilepsy by her family and her doctors as well as the tumultuous interaction between these caregivers. It is interesting to understand how Hmong culture and a doctor’s
Extended out to most children is the hand of a parent offering a warm hug along with warnings of danger to their children. This is what any fit parent would do. However this is not always the case with all parents. For example in the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Rose Mary and Rex Walls are not fit to be parents because they don’t give their children what they need and have an unstable relationship. Jeannette and her siblings live off of what their parents can afford when they have sufficient money but they don’t use it to give them what they need.
Dreams, contrary to popular belief, are terrible. The best thing to do, is to stop chasing dreams because all dreams do is distract people from more important responsibilities. People spend their time chasing their dreams, but they don’t perform their day to day tasks they need to survive on their own. In the memoir, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Jeannette’s mother, Rose Mary, has a dream of becoming an artist. Instead of getting a job to provide for her poverty stricken family, she decides to stay home and paint all day.
The term “melting pot” has been used since the early 1900s, and it means a place where people, ideas, theories, cultures, etc. are mixed together. Although this may seem like a harmless thing, the idea that one must give up part of their culture to obtain parts of a new one undermines the importance of cultures in one’s life. In chapter 14 “The Melting Pot” of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman shows the challenges and hardships that Hmong immigrants faced when immigrating to America to show the power that an environment has on a person’s connection to their culture, and the impact that people have on the culture of the society they are entering Fadamin provides examples of the action of Americans towards to Hmong people
The narrator, like Rudolph Reed in The Ballad of Rudolph Reed, fairy tale or American dream is a cruel, harsh of reality as the prince isn’t chivalrous as a prince should be and is a cruel man that doesn’t see her self-worth. The metaphors help creates and change the harshness of when readers recognize names in fairy tales or fantasy, and that’s what they all are, fantasies. The Dark Villain isn’t an evil person, a male typically, but a fourteen-year-old black boy, Emmet Till. Emmet Till, like
Jordan Pryor American Lit & Comp Finkelstein 04/7/2024 Kindred and the American Dream My first impression of Kindred by Octavia Butler made me think about, what is worse than slavery and whether it is even possible for there to be something more gruesome. While slavery and segregation are long over, the racism towards African Americans is not. The book Kindred, by Octavia Butler, shows just how badly African Americans have been historically treated, by showing us how they were beaten, tortured, and much more during the 1800s. But with Dana being successful, we also see how many African Americans have overcome adversity to gain a better life and achieve the American Dream.
It revolves around the flight of the princess to escape the awful marriage to his father (Perrault, 1977). Charles Perrault uses the princess’ character to reveal the major themes of overcoming evil, child abuse and incest in the story. Perrault also brings out the moral that it is better to encounter awful challenges in life than to fail in one’s duty. He shows that although the virtue may seem unrealistic, it can always triumph. The author uses various literary devices to reveal the various morals of the story.
Atwood began the story as the female lead being beautiful, but changed her to being average looking, and changes the stereotypical evil stepmother to an evil stepfather. On the contrary, Perrault follows the basic generic conventions of fairy tales by having the prince marry the beautiful princess and writes the main antagonists as two older women. Perrault uses his story to frame the prince as the hero who saves the sleeping princess and her kingdom, and later saves his family from his evil cannibalistic mother. Perrault’s story has more of a magical aspect than Atwood’s since he includes fairies and curses in his story. Perrault’s story offers an escape from the trials and
For many farmers, the social conflict that occurred in Peru changes their lives. In the short story autobiography of the novel “My Dark Life” the author, Sami Kallpa described with emotion and fear through her first person all the dramatic events that changed her future during the social conflict of the 1980s decade. The story has all the characteristics of a narrative writing, sequence, tone, and word choice. The author begins with a description of each character mentioned: her father as a huge, tan, and muscular man, and her mom as a very fragile and skinny woman who always talked about spring.
