In Running with Scissors: a memoir, Augusten Burroughs writes about his life from age 9 to 17 years old. In the beginning of the book Augusten describes the admiration of his mother, glorifying her to an unsettling extent. He explains that his enjoyment of opera music and formal wear can be credited to his mother. He expands on his enjoyment by including his fascination of shiny things by polishing. He gives insight of his parents, his mother being a poet who is adamant that she will someday be famous because of her poems and his father, a severe alcoholic.
Inspired by a true story in 1991, Tupac Shakur, the famous American rapper, author, actor and poet, wrote and released a song named “Branda’s got a baby” which became his album’s top track within the next month or so and it became one of his greatest hits of all time. The song narrates the challenging life of a 12 year-old African-American girl who was born to poverty and became impregnated by her older cousin and after the unnamed boyfriend abandoned her. Moreover her poor family rejected helping her and she gave birth to the baby in misery and threw it into the trash bin, shortly after she regretted what she did after hearing her baby’s cries, she decided to begin a new life by seeking an employment, but ended up involving in child prostitution as her only path to survive which of course, sorrowfully led to her murder. This song raised too many eyebrows and captured people’s attention.
Both Assata Shakur and Socrates received tremendous love and hatred from their community. With This essay I will give information about each individual, compare and contrast those two individuals, and choose which path I would have taken. Putting myself in the
Steven Williams Ms. Kline English II 10/3/17 Dystopian Family “Take a look in the mirror and what do you see? Do you see it clearer or are you deceived in what you believe. ”- “Human” by Rag’n Bone.
Maya Angelou recalls the first seventeen years of her life, discussing her unsettling childhood in her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Maya and Bailey were sent from California to the segregated South to live with their grandmother, Momma. At the age of eight, Maya went to stay with her mother in St. Louis, where she was sexually abused and raped by her mother’s boyfriend, Mr. Freeman. Maya confronts these traumatic events of her childhood and explores the evolution of her own strong identity. Her individual and cultural feelings of displacement, caused by these incidents of sexual abuse, are mediated through her love for literature.
To try to forget and move on from being raped, she needed to avoid looking at herself and seeing the person she has become. Ever since Melinda was raped, she has been frustrated with herself and has not been able to face her reflection. This shows that she could not face her feelings. Melinda’s coping strategy was to avoid others and avoid herself. The mirror is a symbol for her emotional struggles and that she cannot deal with them.
In the memoir The Glass Castle, the protagonist, Jeannette Walls, tries to achieve freedom, but doesn’t fully obtain it. Jeannette Walls seeks both freedom from financial struggles, and freedom from her family, but only attains one type of freedom. As she grows up, Jeannette and her family are in and out of poverty. Jeannette realizes that living in poverty is not the way she wants to live, so she tries to free herself from it.
The short story, The Yellow Wallpaper was written by a lady named Charlotte Perkins Gilman. “Charlotte was a young lady born in the 1860s right into poverty. Her upbringing was in poverty and didnt have it very easy at a young age. She was born in England and at the age of 22 she married a man by the name Charles Walter Stetson. They eventually had a child and almost immediately right after the birth of the child Charlotte fell into a deep depression.
Tupac was an outstanding writer. He was able to deliver deep messages through his work. One of his most famous poems, “The Rose That Grew From Concrete,” is an excellent example of his capabilities. “The Rose That Grew From Concrete” is not really about a rose that grew from concrete, but about a man and the struggles that he went through to succeed
The song Dear Mama by Tupac Shakur relates to the ongoing struggle and hardships that numerous lower class single mothers endure, where Shakur describes how he learned to appreciate his mother and the sacrifices that she made for him as he became older. By formatting the lyrics with verses around a repeating chorus, Shakur was able to emphasize his personal narrative within the verses and allow for a recollection period between each verse to allow listeners to reflect on and comprehend what they just experienced. The form of Dear Mama is consistently strophic, where at the end of each verse Shakur repeats the emblematic phrase, “There's no way I can pay you back, but the plan is to show you that I understand, you are appreciated.” Appealingly,
She examines her reflection in the rearview mirror, instantly recoiling at the hideous sight. Ponds of darkness trapped beneath her eyes, ghost-white pallor, flaxen blonde edges dull and ruffled breezily. She has the urge to sleep, to reach a place where her life isn’t bound to reality and she can breathe without being under the oppressive burden of exhaustion. Secrets, horrendous secrets threaten to spill, crumble themselves from her cherry chapped lips.
She felt “light and good in the warm sun” (L8). To her young and inexperienced mind, “nothing existed for her but her song,” (L8) which just goes to show how oblivious and careless she is to her surroundings and worlds greater than her own. On the contrary, as she made her way a “mile or more from home,” (L23) she began to hit a turning point. The comfortable world at which she knew is now cracked open and unguarded.
In Tupac and My Non- Thug Life Jenée Desmond writes a vividly narrated story about a well-known rapper Tupac Shukar and how she relates her image and identity connection with the former rapper. Raised in the white suburb town and the only black high school cheerleader Tupac 's music and lyrics helped her get through her interracial blend as an African American teen. Jenée expresses her emotions toward her former icon as a teen girl. In the contribution to his death, Jenée Recalls vivid descriptions of her obsession with her image through her teen-hood, when his passing accrued Jenée recollects her past and explains her vivid descriptions when he passed away. She described the moment of his death a tragic moment.
For my primary research I would be interviewing activist part of the movement BlackLivesMatter and I will be interviewing a professor on social studies to see who would they have chosen and why. So within my secondary I had found two websites one I had found published on archive.org which is an internet library containing things such as journals, books and audios. In this website I was able to find the top ten famous speeches made by Malcolm X these speeches would give me an insight to my question to see his views on handling racism too violent, I would looking for even more speeches he had done to get more information.
Usually, when people express their beliefs on what the most important desideratum or possession in life is, they state whatever it is that they are lacking at the time. Whether it is health, love, beauty, shelter, family - when individuals think about what is essential, it is typically unavailable to them at that moment; that is why the most important necessity in life is self dependence. During these circumstances where we feel something is missing, we try to make others improve the issue and we often overlook that we have the power to make the change. However, being able to rely on oneself to solve problems no matter how minor or major will lead to a sense of triumph and true happiness. The song The Man In The Mirror by Michael Jackson
