There are people in our lives who have helped us grow. In the summer before freshman year in high school Melinda Sordino was raped at a party. After calling the police she was left without friends or dignity. She isolates herself not knowing what to do. In Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda grows in many ways throughout the book.
Perfect Partners Do you think that you could be partners with someone who you did not know? During the book The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, a character named Sam Westing dies, leaving only a game and 16 heirs to figure it out. The prize? $1 million! All 16 heirs are partnered up with people they did not expect.
In the short story “The Threshold” by Amy Frazier, the narrator address an abusive relation between Ricardo and Vanessa. Alcohol converted the high school sweethearts into enemies. Unfortunately, domestic violence is a common problem in Hispanic families. There are three types of abuse that predominate in this story, physical, verbal, and psychological. Despite the fact that Ricardo shot her in the middle of the story which is a clear example of physical violence.
Eric Bartels analyzes the difficulties of modern-day marriage in his article, “My Problem with Her Anger,” by examining his own marital experiences. By optimistic confrontation and resolution of his family’s problems, Bartels believes that not only will he save his marriage, but he will also be rewarded for his sacrifices (63). The author claims he realized the separation between men and women during his late night chores (57). To illuminate this separation, Bartels acknowledges that his wife contributes more to childcare than he does, but asserts that he tries to reduce as much of this pressure as he can through cooking, cleaning, and shopping (58). Despite the author’s attempts, he contends that his endeavors to decrease his wife’s stress
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is about a girl named Melinda who goes through traumatic events throughout her freshman year of high school. The novel also examines her relationships and attempts to communicate with other characters, as well as how she finds the courage to speak up for herself. Trees and seeds play a major symbolic role in the novel because they represent Melinda’s growth throughout the story. Throughout the novel, trees and seeds are mentioned numerous times.
In the search for happiness, both Ginny Graves and Ruth Whippman present their own ideas and beliefs. I believe that Whippman is more persuasive compared to Ginny Graves through her use of arguments and evidence. This can be attributed to Whippman’s arguments being reinforced with evidence and her expertise on the matter. Firstly, the use of real-life examples and statistics by Whippman provides context for her arguments, thus strengthening them.
In the novel Love, Inc., the authors, Yvonne Collins and Sandy Rideout, use perspective to show how everyone deals with cheating in different ways. As Zhara, Syd, and Kali find out that Eric/Rick/Rico has been triple cheating on them, they all handle the pressure in different ways as they try to move on. Zahra handled this bad news by being in denial about Rico’s love for her. As Zahra stated, “I'm still trying to digest the news. The Rico I know would never do something like this.
In the short story “Both Sides of the Fence,” by Teresa Bateman, the main character, Alberto, conveys the theme that you must look on both sides of a fence in order to making decisions through his thoughts, actions, and speech. In this story, Alberto attempts to prevent people in his pueblo from benefiting from his tree that was left for him by his family. As the story progresses, he suspects his neighbor from purloining his apples, but then realizes his wrongdoings and his foolishness. Through his character transitions, Alberto helps reveal the them that he has to consider both sides of the argument in order to put up a proper argument.
In the John 8:7, when referring to the adulterous woman, Jesus said to the people, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” Inherently sinful, individuals cannot go a day without lying. However, lying cannot justify good intentions, various definitions or exaggerations because at the end of the day, a lie remains a lie. Author Stephanie Ericsson argues in “The Ways We Lie,” that various types of lies do exist and often times goes unnoticed by the public. She never outright states that lying is wrong; rather, by the use of definitions and personal experiences, she proves the point that all individuals do lie.
. In Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things To Me, she identifies the struggle that takes place in an work environment, bedroom, classroom and newspapers where women are constantly underrepresented and silenced. Because of this symbolic violence, women that grew up to have a voice are binded to “the rights of the voiceless”(Solnit 25). Woolf and Solnit would agree with one another to the extent that men are seen to be higher in ranking while women see themselves to have “self-limitation” that only “exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence” (Solnit 27).
A toolbox filled with many different tools that have many different purposes can be used to put broken things back together, or take whole things apart. This all depends on the person with the tools and their intentions. One could also substitute the toolbox for the act of lying and all of the tools inside of the box for the different types of lies that there are. In the essay written by Stephanie Ericsson, “The Ways We Lie” she examines and explains from her personal experience the different types of lies that there are. One might say that lying is immoral, and a terrible thing to do, but this just depends on how you lie and what your intentions are with the lies that you tell.
The short story “Everyday Use,” by Alice Walker, was hard to understand through the first read. As I read it multiple times I understood the main concept of the story, sibling rivalry between two sisters over who will get to keep their grandmother’s quilt. This is also a story of African Americans, and the value of passing on heritage to generations to come. The quilt was a representation of their past, and the importance of knowing where they come from; the quilt has clothing from their great grandmother and grandfather. They also have a chute with a dasher that has been passed down to them that still has fingerprints engraved in the wood.
The essay, “What I’ve Learned from Men”, by Barbara Ehrenreich is an impressive piece of writing focusing on a significant theme which is still present and is witnessed to this day. The theme that the author discusses is the on-going gender issues shedding light on the differences between men and women. Throughout the essay, Ehrenreich argues about the one thing women need to learn from men: how to be tough. She support this argument by providing a personal experience, taking her back to the time when she didn’t acknowledge the quality of being tough and falling victim to sexual harassment. She then explains this act as “behaving like a lady” and continues to support her claim by stating facts describing how women tend to act nice or “as a lady” by being the ones responsible to keep the conversation with a man going and constantly smiling even when unneeded and even when expressing anger and displeasure.
The setting of this book is set in the Sydney, Australia and it mostly revolves around Cecilia’s home and neighborhood. Throughout the book, we can picture a bright and sunny typical neighborhood, with friendly neighbors but towards the end of the book, it starts to get dark and gloomy because of the plot twist and I think the ending imagery gives a more deeper and powerful understanding of the
In this song, the speaker is portrayed as a man who is hurting from his past relationship and so he tries to figure out what made things change and where they went wrong. Throughout the song the speaker reflects on how he was feeling while they were still together and now that they are apart. The song was written as a message to the antagonist, the woman that the speaker loved, and now, is no longer with; he wants answers and he wants her to know how he feels and just how much she hurt him. The speaker lets us know that the pain he is feeling from this broken love of theirs is internal by stating, “To hear that tears me up inside and to see you cuts me like a knife” (Poison).
