Grant Ciccarello
Summer Reading
Growing Up
Russell Baker
The first thing that I noticed when I started reading the book, “Growing up” by Russell Baker was the style in which baker used throughout this book. Growing up is told in first person as an autobiographical memoir from Russell Baker’s point of view. But something that was very unique was how Baker chose to narrate from his mother 's perspective before he was born and when he was a young boy. In addition, he talks about his mother 's relations with Oluf which he was unaware about at the time. "While I was experiencing the routine miseries of childhood, my mother was discovering the Depression." (Chap. 6, p. 75) Baker often explains his mother 's, thoughts, opinions and point of view, this allowed for me to almost be in her shoes and gave me a different perspective on Russell Baker. While reading this book a theme that was very evident was women. In both Lucy’s life as Russell 's women seemed to play a huge in role their family and society. Lucy in high school argues strongly for women 's suffrage declaring it a moral right. Also Lucy thinks that in addition to women being successful that they are also responsible for successful men. The best thing that a woman can end up doing is becoming a nurse but Lucy believes that they should be a matriarch who leads men in the right direction. This book shows that everyone has struggles in their lives but you had to learn from your mistakes and overcome what you have faced
In stage two of Karen Russell’s story “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, the epigraph informs us that the girls will be working very hard and will experience stress which will cause emotional distress and periods of unhappiness. As well as that they must “..must work hard to adjust to the new culture”. The pack of girls felt as if they weren’t in their place or where they belonged. They didn’t find their purpose yet. The girls during this stage will experience feelings of being “isolated..,depressed, or generally uncomfortable” as they begin to adjust to their new environment.
In the story “Growing Up” by Gary Soto, the message trying to be sent is to not take anything for granted. “‘Dad im not going this year’, Maria said to her father. He sat at the table with the newspaper in front of him”. Maria had the impression that she is too mature to go on their trip, so she decides to decline. The climax is at that time since her dad takes it wrong.
Maria is a teenage girl that does not want to go on vacation with her family. Maria says to her father, “Dad, I’m not going this year.” Resentment is not being thankful for or going against someone or something. In “Growing Up” Gary Soto conveys that one should not resent what one has using tone and mood, symbolism, and characterization.
The Interruption of Baker’s narration with father’s recording/transcript and his father’s recording transcript completes the narrative. Allowing the facts and archives to complete his father’s own personal memories. At this turning point, in order to balance the gaps within his parent’s memory, Baker’s own perspective is portrayed through historically backed research. From the beginning of the novel through gate 24, Baker maintains a skeptical viewpoint, “It was not the facts that were held under suspicion, but her credibility as a survivor.” He associates trauma with physical injury, an idea that coincides with the fact that personal memory is often selective, full of gaps and silences reiterating their unreliability, in which Baker must “turn to history” after he has “exhausted
As I reflected on my own life, I can see how I fit into God’s bigger story. The purpose of reading the book entitled The Sacred Romance was to draw a connection from the life Arrows the authors Brent Curtis and John Eldredge had encountered. I also was able to point out my own life Arrows and described both the process and the lesson. By recognizing my Arrows and growing from them I have been able to have successful relationships. To commence, in the beginning of chapter three we are introduced to “The Message Of The Arrows.”
Maturity is the feeling of needing to prove that one is sophisticated and old enough to do certain things. In the short story “Growing Up,” Maria’s family went on a vacation while she stayed at home, but when she heard there was a car crash that happened near where her family was staying, she gets worried and thinks it is all her fault for trying to act mature and angering her father. Society wants to prove how mature they are and they do so by trying to do things that older people do and the symbols, conflict, and metaphors in the text support this theme. First and foremost, in “Growing Up,” Gary Soto’s theme is how society acts older than they are and that they just want to prove they are mature. Maria wants to stay home instead of going
Imagine being a 17 year old African American kid always being judged just because of his skin color. Everywhere you go you feel like all eyes are on you, especially when you go to a school that only has eight black kids. That's exactly how Justyce McAllister felt in Dear Martin by Nic Stone. In the book, the main character Justyce goes through a lot of conflict involving his skin color. Even though he has a full scholarship at Braselton Preparatory Academy, and is a very smart student, he still gets judged.
The Women Can women who lead very different lives be similar? Susan Glaspell explores the differences and similarities of two characters in her story “Trifles.” Written in 1916, Glaspell’s fictional story uses an unforeseen event to bring Mrs. Hale, a farmer’s wife, and Mrs. Peters, a sheriff’s wife, together. Although Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters have their differences such as Mrs. Hale being outspoken, observant, and a leader, while Mrs. Peters is nervous and does not want to challenge authority, the women share some similarities such as being aware of male condescension and willing to keep information from male authorities if it means helping another woman.
At the end of the book, Sara is able to become college educated and she’s a successful teacher working at a public school. However, all of Sara’s sister are not as lucky and end up being ruined by their controlling father. The Bread Givers gives the reader a vivid insight into the inner workings of an immigrant family struggling in poverty during the 1920s, and the burden placed on the women in the story to continue to provide for the family. In the house, the opposing generations constantly clashed between Old World Ideas of misogyny and women’s proper role vs. the ideas of the New World like independence and love. In the end, The Bread Givers shows an alternate view of the booming wealth and flapper dresses constantly associated with the
” Life goes on in the Lee household, and eventually Lydia finds herself a sophomore in high school. Her parents push her to take advanced, rigorous courses, and although her parents are under the impression that Lydia is a happy girl at school with lots of friends and adequate grades, they are wrong. She is actually very lonely, and her friends only use her for homework. Her grades are severely slipping as well. Since Lydia does not share these feelings with her parents, they weigh her down.
Reading response:Extended text: fiction Lord of the flies The book is about a plane crashes causing the only survivors and a group of schoolboys without adult supervision, trapped on a desert island waiting for rescue. Initially, when I read the beginning of the story, the boys have elected Ralph to be the leader and settled some rules to maintain order in the island. At first, I thought this is a children's adventure story where the children had get along and rescued by their teamwork and it ends up happily. In fact, after reading more the middle part of the book, the positive picture of my images had been smashed up, problems getting more and more.
“We read it for months, so many times that the book became tattered and sweat stained, it lost its spine, came unearthed, sections fell apart […] but we loved it dearly” (68). Reading created joy between the girls, strengthening their friendship and their will to escape the encompassing darkness of the neighbourhood. Each moment spent reading in the courtyard was one where they could be children, creating an inseparable bond. There was no worry of the past becoming present, in fact, the book drove them to desire a better future. Little Women provided a luminosity from the injustices they suffered, like Lila’s inability to continue her education.
The novel "Little Women " portraits the difficult journey from childhood to adulthood from four teenaged sisters Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy called the March girls, and how they survive growing up in a difficult time highlighting the inferiority of women as compared to men with the ideas explored throughout the novel being women 's strive between familial duty and personal maturation, the menace of gender labeling, and the need of work. As the novel develops it is fascinating that Louisa May Alcott writes "Little Women," reflecting on her own life and many of the experience of growing up during the nineteenth century. Jo 's character is a replication of Alcott herself with her speaking directly through the protagonist. Social expectations played a important role for women with the idea in which you had to marry young and create a new family which Meg does; be submissive and devoted to one’s guardians and own family, that Beth is; focus on one’s art, pleasure, and people, as Amy does at first; and struggle to live both a dedicated family life and a significant accomplished life, as Jo does. Both Beth and Meg obey to society’s expectations of the role that women should play, Amy and Jo at first try to get away from these limitations and grow their uniqueness.
This novel is also autobiographical. Throughout history, women have been locked in a struggle to free themselves from the borderline that separates and differentiate themselves from men. In many circles, it is agreed that the battleground for this struggle and fight exists in literature. In a
Virginia Woolf is a writer who took her inspirations of her topics from her own life, just as in her novel Mrs. Dalloway. Because her father was a strict and conservative person, she was inclined to her feminist ideology more and more. She was concerned with the thought more and more that why women do not have the same rights as the men? Due to this influence, she began to use these topics more frequently. The feminism as a principle is also included into the novel Mrs. Dalloway, for the reason that Woolf is writing about the after war era when the society had experienced the horrors of the war.