Best of the Worst Parenting is never perfect. Every parents questions whether they are raising their child correctly, and no parent ever feels like they are doing the right thing. With no clear distinction between good and bad parenting, it is usually left to personal preferences and judgements to decide which parents have adequately raised their children and which have failed. When a parent so call “fails,” often it is the children with their strong will and determination to survive that collectively raise themselves. In Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing, Leonie, one of the narrators and the mother of another narrator, Jojo, is not the most caring, hands-on mother, but is loving of her children nevertheless.
Although Dee can sometimes come off as rude throughout the story when she tries to share her opinion, she comes from a good
These differences cause tension to wear on family relationships, ultimately causing Dee to leave in anger. Walker uses characterization, contrast, and imagery to portray Dee and Mama’s relationship, and that mother-daughter relations are not always as the parties wish them to be. Mama and Dee are characterized by their appearances, thoughts, and actions. Mama describes herself as stout, broad boned, and man-handed. Mama is described as somewhat inferior to her daughter, whose “humor…erupted like bubbles
The Dee’s mother who is known as, “Mama”, in the story attempts to understand and accept Dee for the path she has chosen, but doesn’t know how. Mama is poorly educated and doesn’t know much about anything outside of the south. Furthermore, Mama meets her Dee’s partner who is a muslim, however Mama doesn’t know what a muslim is. When he greeted Mama by saying the universal greeting by most muslims, “assalamualaikum”, she thought is was his name. Dee and Mama do not see eye to eye and have multiple differences between each other making a direct conflict.
Based on the context clues Dee looks as if the house meant nothing to her, and as her mother stated Dee hated the home. The
Dee was a selfish mean greedy girl, what she all cares about is herself and how she looks. At the age of sixteen
Dee, as the only female character in the group, often mistreated by the group. The gang describes her as “a giant, big feet bird” She was being ignored all of the time. The gang took her apartment and her car for granted and often left her with a hell of mass. In season 9, episode 1, “The Gang Broke Dee”, Dee was finally got tired of being argued and mistreated all the time. She decided to not care about anything.
First of all, one of the many things that reveal Dee to the audience, is the characterization of her. Dee is disobedient. “She’s dead.” Wangero said. “I couldn’t bear it any longer being named after the people who oppress me.”
With her newfound intelligence came an air of superiority. She views her family as relics of the past who exist only to be catalogued. Walker shows this with the first action Dee takes upon arrival at her mother's home. She immediately takes a picture of the house with her family in the photo, but does not bother to ask her partner to take the photo for her to be in frame with her family; distancing them as mere
She is a thin and awkward girl. Her mother said "good looks passed her by”. Therefore, she carries herself like someone with low self-esteem, "chin on chest, eyes on ground" but when it comes to Dee. Her mother describes as an attractive woman “Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure.” She also takes pride of her appearance when Dee arrived for her visit her mother said as she came out of the car.
Dee had always been the pretty one in the family, as so described in the story, nothing else really concerned her. Dee’s family remains an embarrassment for her, despite her also having to experience the hardships they all lived through before she left. During their house burning, Dee stood and watched rather than show any type of concern for her sister Maggie who was victim. Dee puts herself before anyone, or anything else. She had the opportunity to save her sister from such severe burns, but her remaining perfectly intact was the only preoccupation she had.
She seems to be brutal in her assessment of her daughters, but one gets the feeling that it is out of love. For example, she says that Dee has become ungrateful and uppity since she got her new life. She however daydreams of the day they will meet on a talk show, and her daughter will thank her. She muses, "I am
“Story of a Girl” is the debut novel by Sara Zarr, Salt Lake City resident and author of five young adult novels. It is a 2007 National Award Finalist in Young People’s Fiction and a Utah Book Award Finalist. This story along with her subsequent novels portray angst, coming of age, disappointment, and ultimately love and forgiveness. It is young adult contemporary realism at its finest. “Story of a Girl” is about Deanna Lambert.
Dee tells her mother “I couldn't have it any longer, been named after the people who oppress me. You know as well as me you was named after your aunt dicie.” displaying Dee’s unwillingness to be associated with her family and past. Not being able to accept these two circumstances reveals her betrayal towards her own heritage.
No matter how people learn lessons, they will stay with the person forever, and help them through life. In the short stories “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara and “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, there is lesson that a character will learn about life. Although, in “The Lesson”, the teaching was more profound and had a deeper meaning behind it, while “Girl” was a parent forcing instructions on a child in order for the child to learn how a woman is to live. This being said, the teaching is more profound in “The Lesson” than the one given in “Girl.” “Girl” is a short story that teaches that there are many lessons we learn throughout life from parents, or in this case, a single parent.
