This book shows Amari’s physical and emotional journey. Amari’s physical journey starts when white people kidnap her and 23 others from her village. They were forced into shackles around their necks and ankles, which connected them to one another. After walking day after day like this they made it to Cape Coast where they were separated and pushed into a crowded, unsanitary, dark room. She was later sold, branded and boarded a ship.
However, the experiences each character encounters along the way leads them down a different path that is not at all what Nathan Price as a husband and father instills in them to believe. Over time in the Belgian Congo, the girls and their mother are able to see that there are divergent options for their lives other than what their dictator, Nathan is preaching to them. Leah begins the book as a little girl who follows in her father’s footsteps, she craves his approval.
In the short story "Love in L.A" Dagoberto Gilb sketches the portrait of Jake, a lower-middle-class person, who is fantasizing of a luxurious life. The omniscient narrator presents his third person point of view starting by describing Jake's vehicle. Jake is daydreaming of a new, luxurious car, and "exotic colognes" and "plush, dark nightclubs" (406). Not paying attention to the traffic, he ends up hitting the car in front of him, a Toyota, whose owner is, luckily for him, a beautiful, exotic, female. Gilb shapes Jake using a touch of irony and lies, turning him into a stereotypical character.
When Leah desires to be like the natives but Nathan condemns her from hunting, Leah defies her father and goes “out with the men and that’s final” (340). In a turn of events, Leah no longer fears disappointing her father and ignores his rules, showing how she has grown from experiencing the Congo. Furthermore, she finally realizes that she does not need Nathan to order her what to do and think. As she matures in the African society, Leah develops a new sense of independence and an understanding of authority over herself. As Leah reminisces over her time in the Congo, she wishes she could go back and “give Father… the simple human relief of knowing you’ve done wrong, and living through it” (525).
The book shows us how she gets over that grief and finds joy in
The novel is a complex look at love
Depending on the opportunities granted in life, people believe that once they are successful it is someone else’s fault that they did not also choose to be successful. In Katherine Boo’s book, Behind The Beautiful Forevers, it is proven how in a big city like Mumbai not everyone is granted the same opportunities to reach a level of success. The main question that needs to be answered is who’s fault is it that the poor were not granted the same opportunities; but throughout many examples throughout the book, it is showed that the people in power in Mumbai prevented the poor from leveling up in society, even though the poor people had the ambition to be successful. In search for jobs from the Mumbai International Airport to repair a runway, people from Tamil Nadu were placed in a slum called Annawadi.
Ludacris, a famous male singer released a song featuring Mary J. Blige in 2007 called “Runaway Love.” This song speaks for itself and Ludacris does an excellent job of portraying his message about various struggles that some people are faced with in life. Runaway Love reperents the struggle of life through hip-hop and rap music. The song portrays a story of little girls who are for instance “stuck up in a world of their own.” The people around them strictly don’t care about them, which leads them having to own up and care for themselves.
Heartbreak and vengeance make the perfect cocktail for any juicy story, but so does the concept of a twisted illusion of reality. Stories of passion such as, Evona Darling written by Silas House and My Ex-Husband written by Gabriel Spera, are both examples of stories that give the reader the equation of love and hate entwined together with the tainted sense of reality. House descriptively writes a story about the passion of a mother’s love whose heart has been taken away by her child’s father, who through suspicious friends got Evona’s custody stripped away from her. On the other hand, Spera creates her poem in her perspective of being married to a man that betrayed her and played his cards of deceit. Both stories were passionately written after love had partaken, but the fairy tale ends had come upon them.
How to Live According to Irving Singer Throughout Irving Singer acclaimed trilogy, The Nature of Love, the viewer can observe how he unveils rich insight into fundamental aspects of human relationships through literature, the complexities of our being, and the history of ideas. In his sequel, The Pursuit of Love, Singer approaches love from a distinct standpoint; he reveals his collection of extended essays where he presents psychological and philosophical theories of his own. The audience can examine how he displays love as he systematically maps the facets of religion, sexual desire, love from a parent, family member, child or friend. Irving explores the distinction between wanting to be loved and wanting to love another, which ultimately originates from the moment an individual is born.
During the era in which this short story was written, southern authors had a major influence on the way the culture was going to grow with racism, and also the way people loved each other. Kate Chopin, a traditional author who believed in southern ways, exemplifies how race and the characteristics of conditional love played a role in her story. In “Desiree’s Baby,” the author, Kate Chopin, provides an illustration of conditional love exemplified by the character, Armand, towards his wife and child; furthermore, Chopin provides instances of irony, elements of surprise, foreshadowing, and symbolism to prove that Armand’s love for both of them was not the unconditional love typically felt and portrayed by women, such as Desiree, during this era. Throughout the story, the readers notice different times where Chopin uses elements of surprise. One major surprise is when Armand opens the letter from his mother and finds out that he has African American in his bloodline.
There’s rape, death, and many other aspects covered in the book. In this first page, readers are immediately met with a rape scene. While this is shocking to many, Celie recovers and gets through it. She was born with all odds against her, but she is a strong and selfless woman. Celie becomes prosperous and content, and the book executes a joyful end that is satisfying.
The short story “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love” by Raymond Carver is about four friends- Laura, Mel, Nick, and Terri, gathering on a table and having a conversation. As they start to drink, the subject abruptly comes to “love.” Then, the main topic of their conversation becomes to find the definition of love, in other word to define what exactly love means. However, at the end, they cannot find out the definition of love even though they talk on the subject for a day long. Raymond Carver in “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love” illustrates the difficulty of defining love by using symbols such as heart, gin, and the sunlight.
Do we really love what we do? In the article “In the Name of Love,” Miya Tokumitsu covers the issue that doing what you love (DWYL) gives false hope to the working class. Tokumitsu reviews how those who are given jobs ultimately cannot truly love what they do because of the employers who make jobs possible. These same employers keep their employees overlooked.
The Significance of Female Figures in Love in a Fallen City " In 1918, Lu Xun asserted that whenever the country seemed on the verge of collapse, Chinese men would thrust their women forward as sacrificial victims to obscure their own cowardice and helplessness in the face of the onslaught of aggressors and rebels" (Louie 15). Eileen Chang critiques the social status of females during the transitional period before the modern era in China throughout her novella Love in a Fallen City. Eileen Chang was influenced by the New Culture Movement in China, which promoted gender equality and education. Also, Eileen Chang 's mother who was a "self-possessed, westward-learning" (Zhang xi) female, enormously impacted her philosophy thoughts.
