Memoirs Of A Geisha Essay

Over the summer I read two books, The Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden set in the early 1900s and October Sky by Homer Hickam that is set in the mid-1900s. The Memoir of a Geisha about a young girl, Chiyo later known as Sayuri, whom at the age of nine is sold into prostitution along with her sister, Satsu age fifteen. They get separated and Sayuri never hears from her sister again until the end of the book, but goes on to become a very well-known geisha throughout all of Japan. She self narrates how she survives the struggle of becoming a geisha and surviving WWII. October Sky begins with a young boy, Homer “Sonny” Hickam age fourteen, who lives in a Coalwood and soon forms a passion to create a rocketship. With trying to prove to his father that he can do it and make him proud and working and dealing with Everyday high school he meets new people and they become The Rocket Boys. Even The Rocket Boys end up having some troubles, but in the end they set off their last rocket and Everyone in town comes to watch it, Even Sonny’s father.

What stood out to me the most was how she always brought herself back up and was very persistent in her goals. She set her mind to something and she always achieves it. Sayuri, although she was a geisha was able to find and finally be with her true love, the Chairman. At the end of the book Sayuri says, “ I fell toward the Chairman just as a stone must fall toward the earth. When I cut my lip and met Mr. Tanaka, when my mother died and I was cruelly sold, it was all like a stream that falls over rocky cliffs before it can reach the ocean”(chapter 35 pg.428). She believed that fate brought her to the Chairman and she pursued him till the end, being with him until he