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Summary Of Just Be Yourself By Stephanie Pellegrin

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The short story "Just Be Yourself" by Stephanie Pellegrin tells the story of a girl named Lily who faces the pressure to fit in with her new high school friends. She likes being unique and independent, but when she starts high school, everyone seems the same. Her best friend even starts to change her looks and personality to fit in. Lily is confused and feels like she has to decide between fitting in or being true to herself.

Throughout the story, the author uses Lily's character development to show that it's important to stay true to yourself, even if it's not popular. The author also uses emotional words to make the reader understand how Lily feels. When Lily's best friend changes, the author makes Lily feel confused and sad, which makes
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Lily's creativity, activated by religious observance, allows her to be more creative. Later on in the passage, when Lily describes her outward expression, she notes that “[She] wanted to cry, but in the next instant, [she] wanted to laugh” (Kidd 71). Through the use of juxtaposition, Kidd carries out an image of Lily about to sob until she suddenly starts chuckling. By using the diction of “cry” and “laugh,” two words that completely differ in emotion, Kidd shows that the religious statue made her recall events of her past, truly making her analyze the type of person she was. Religion allowed her to have the trait of being self-aware allowing her to forgive herself for her past and move on because she knew that the religious statue could see good in her.

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Lily’s idolization of her mother is shown in how she describes Deborah’s belongings. A photo, which she see’s her mother's beautiful, gloves that Lily holds as if it were actually hers, and a photo of the black Mary which she keeps close. Right before Lily finds out T. Ray was right in saying Deborah left them Lily says she never believed him and she wants to prove him wrong. Characters with flaws are a lot more sympathetic and likeable to the reader instead of the perfect flawless unrealistic ones. Kidd got the reader to understand these flaws with how August tried to explain the situation to Lily, “All she did was cry for a week.

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Lily’s mother was stripped of her limits by Lily’s father and her sense of independence was gone. As Lily’s mother said, the more she accepted her husband's apologies, the more her tolerance for the abuse went up, which ultimately resulted in Lily’s mother being somewhat of a villain while her father was alive. Lastly, Lily’s dad plays the role of an antagonist perfectly as he shows the reader what a negative force looks like. Lily continuously shows the reader of the book the violent temper and the mental and physical abuse that they had to encounter with Lily's father.

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Lily is lost in her head, she doesn't know how to stick up for herself. She takes in all the abuse, both mentally and physically from T.Ray and she blames everything on herself. Throughout the novel Lily gains her confidence, bravery and strength by standing up to the challenges she faces throughout experiencing new cultures and way of knowledge. As the Novel went on Lily started to feel a connection with her mother.

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Throughout Lily’s life, she had encountered a lot of harsh punishments, feeling unloved and not appreciated. Finally, after years of torment and pain, she finally found a lady named August who knew Lily’s mother very well. August actually helped Deborah many different times in life. Lily even opened up her eyes to things that she wouldn’t of before. She realized that people of different race are equal to the whites, even though her whole life she was taught different.

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Three characters who have changed really stand out, Lily is one. Lily has changed a lot from the beginning to end; she had some prejudice buried inside her in the first few chapters. She said, “August is so intelligent, so cultured, and I was surprised by this. That’s when I knew I had some prejudice inside me” (Kidd 78). Throughout the story Lily was able to cope with the loss of her mother.

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In the end, Lily realizes that she has a family and she does not need her

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Lily feels that these words were directed to her and felt like a bad person for the mistake of killing her mother. In a newspaper written by The Newcastle Herald, a statement stands out to the resemblance of this book and what the author is trying to show. As it states, “Lily finds solace in the guidance of the senior sister August, who holds the key to her past and slowly the rhythm of a new life with its funniness and sweetness is born…” THis helps to support my statement that Lily’s happiness and funniness grows when meeting and spending time with these girls. This was just the thing the young girl needed because at the time, Lily was feeling deep guilt for her actions.

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Although Lily is young, she feels that she has the right to make this statement because she has already experienced so much in her life. With that being said, people may judge Lily because of what she says or does but that is because not everyone knows about

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Continuing, another theme that led us through Lily’s adventure of growing up was her discovering how important storytelling was. She was going through gruesome horrid things, and when she read things like Shakespeare she realized how important it was because it helped her escape to a fantasy world for a little bit of time. Lastly, Lily learns the power of the female community. Lily grew up without a mother, so for a large chunk of her life she didn’t know the real power the female community held.

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She learns that people are not always perfect and that love can be shaped by bonds rather than blood. Lily is more self-sufficient as the book progresses. Since Lily has accepted the truth, she has matured and become content with herself and her life. Lily changes and grows in different ways throughout the course of the novel, she changes emotionally and grows physically. Emotionally Lily is able to love and forgive, she is able to respond to her emotions.

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(Moddelmog 353). Lily tries to create a prominent, satisfying place for herself in society through commodification such as masking a social performance. She conflicted between feelings of “consumerist elation” and a desire to break free from the restraints of her society.

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When Lily lost her mother and has T. Ray taking care of her, she starts questioning her mother of why she left them. “Your sorry mother ran off and left you. The day she died, she’d come back to get her things, that’s all,” (Kidd, 40). When Lily heard T. Ray say this to her, she was shocked with depression and thinking that T. Ray might of lied to her about what he said about her mother. The lesson is that Lily is depressed and questioning herself on why her mother decided to leave her.

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