People make decisions every day of their lives. For example, if they either wanted to go to Disney World or Disney Orlando. In the novel, Lyddie, by Katherine Paterson a 15 year-old girl named Lyddie was hired as a servant to help pay off her family farm’s debts. Lyddie wants to reunite her family once again…. somehow. Lyddie heard about all of the money a girl could make working in the Lowell, Massachusetts Mills. She makes her way there, to find that her dream of returning home with her family may never come true. This story is important because it talks about the Industrial Revolution and how the girls were mistreated, in danger, harassed, paid unfairly, child labor and terrible hours. While there are many reasons Lyddie should sign the …show more content…
This is because she needs the money for the debt before it is too late and Uncle sells the farm. Lyddie also wants bring her family back together. One reason Lyddie should not sign the petition is because she needs money to pay off the debt before it’s too late and her Uncle sells the families farm. “ ‘We be selling it,’ he said, ‘We got to have the money- for-for Brattleboro. ’” (120) Uncle has come to visit Lyddie, to give Rachel (her younger sister) to her and to tell Lyddie he is selling the farm. This is a problem because Lyddie is trying to get the farm back. If he sells it she has no place to live, so she needs to keep working to try to pay the debt as fast as possible. “She was making far more money than she ever had at home in Vermont or was likely to. Why couldn’t people live and let live” (93) Lyddie is making a lot more money than she would had ever …show more content…
If Mr. Marsden found out who had signed the petition, then they would be blacklisted and if she wants to get her family back then she shouldn’t sign the petition. “She hadn’t realized how lonely until now-now that she was no longer alone” (140). Lyddie is realizing how lonely she had been, but now is coming to think she is no longer alone. This is a problem for Lyddie because Lyddie had missed her family and she was lonely. If Lyddie wants her family back together again she is going to have to pay off the debt as fast as possible. “It might break my heart to send the child away¨(139) & “It might break Rachel’s heart as well. She has been sent away too often in her short life”(139). Lyddie would be heartbroken is she was to send Lyddie away. Little Rachel has been in many homes already, this a problem for Lyddie because Lyddie only has Rachel has the only family right now and if Rachel leaves Lyddie might lose all of her hope, give up, and be depressed. ¨They take off July”(140). Lyddie and Rachel would take off July to visit the farm to pay off the debt. This shows Lyddie wants to get her family back together because Lyddie doesn’t want Rachel to keep moving from home to home. Lyddie wants her family together, Lyddie doesn’t want to be lonely anymore she wants to take care of
Sometimes, in life, you have to make hard decisions. The book ‘Lyddie’ by Katherine Paterson is about a girl named Lyddie that leaves her life in Vermont to go work in the mills in Lowell, to earn money to pay off the debt for her family’s farm. The working conditions at the factory are horrible and there is a petition going around by one of Lyddie’s friends, Diana Goss, demanding shorter work hours and better conditions. Lyddie is unsure whether or not to sign the petition. Although some people might say that Lyddie should not sign the petition, for she might get fired and take in no more money for the debt, but she should, because if she does sign the petition and get fired, she will have a better life and be healthier.
She enlists them not only for the sake of securing the vote for themselves, but for future generations of children, whom shall not be forced to work in factories as the children of her
Everyday, everybody makes decisions, some turn out great and others face harsh consequences. This was true for Lyddie Worthen who exists only in the mind of the author of the book Lyddie, Katherine Paterson. Lyddie is a young girl whose family is in some big debt, due to her father leaving to find riches. Her mother takes her sisters and sends Lyddie to a tavern and her brother to a mill. After a while at the tavern, she took an unauthorized vacation and got fired in the process.
Lyddie must go to Cutler’s Tavern to work in the kitchen; meanwhile Charlie must go to Barker’s mill to work. Lyddie is treated like a slave there, where she has to work
And what was she to do with Rachel?”(122) Lyddie worked hard for the money she needed to go back home. When she finds out she can’t even do that, she doesn’t know what to do. Even though she doesn’t know what to do now, she should not sign the petition! She instead should wait it out until she knows what to do.
A person may believe they are free, while others recognize they are not. In the novel Lyddie, by Katherine Paterson, the main character Lyddie Worthen is not free because of the long work hours. Lyddie is a 13-year-old girl who needs to pay her father's debt. She works at the mill where it is dangerous because the air is polluted and the machine can hear the workers. They work six days a week 12 hours each day, and get one day off that they have to go to church.
As people make their way through life, they often find themselves for the first time at a moment where they must make a choice. They must choose between whether to stay, or to go. It is the first independent choice between what is familiar and the possibility of something greater. It is at this precise moment in time where Sammy finds himself while working in an A & P grocery store. It is only when Sammy is unexpectedly forced to contemplate his current predicament, does he decides to make his first life altering decision.
In the essay “The life of A Lili” Lili decides to pay no mind to her mother's wishes and journey home through a blizzard in order to prove a point to her mother. Lanham writes, “ I reached the road instead of going to the bus stop like my mother had told me to do, I turned going in the direction of my home. … “ Finally, after what had seemed like an hour, I was home. I walked into my
When examining the status of lower class women, those that had to take the role of workers and producers, there is an interesting primary source one might encounter. That is the ‘Mary Paul Letters’. Those consist of a series of letters, written from 1845 to 1862, by a woman named Mary Paul to her father. Mary Paul was the third of four children, who left her home in Vermont in order to work. In 1845, she writes a letter to her father, asking for his consent for her to go to Lowell, and look for work.
In Rebecca Harding Davis’s novella, Life in the Iron Mills, select days of an iron mill worker are examined. The novella carries a prominent theme of want and desire. This theme is developed through Davis’s use of imagery and characterization and is best represented by two of the main characters, Deborah and Hugh. Deborah is the character who is characterized to have a hunched back and supports Hugh day to day.
By choosing to include such a strong sense of pathos, she was able to promote an effective argument that was appropriate for her intended audience; the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The use of pathos, as seen in lines 18-19, “Tonight while we sleep, several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills, all the night through” constructs a sense of guilt, she
In the memoir, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Jeannette manages to overcome her obstacles by realizing her independence. She is impacted by her parents’ incapabilities because she realizes that she has to do things differently than other children. Her father was a stubborn alcoholic who believed that: “[they] were all getting too soft, too dependent on creature comforts, and that [they] were losing touch with the natural order of the world”(Walls 106). He believes that every human should be independent and fend for themselves. By using the term “creature comforts”, her father is trying to separate himself from what he calls the civilians.
By focusing on Lydia’s parents - James and Marilyn Lee’s past, it allows the reader to understand their history and motives. This is overviewed in the quote, “How had it begun? Like everything: with mothers and fathers. Because more than anything, her mother had wanted to stand out; because more than anything, her father had wanted to blend in. Because those things had been impossible.”
As summarized by www.publishersweekly.com , “In this plainly written, powerful memoir, MacDonald, now 32, details not only his own story of growing up in Southie, Boston's Irish Catholic enclave, but examines the myriad ways in which the media and law enforcement agencies exploit marginalized working-class communities. MacDonald was one of nine children born (of several fathers) to his mother, Helen MacDonald, a colorful woman who played the accordion in local Irish pubs to supplement her welfare checks. Having grown up in the Old Colony housing project, he describes his neighbors' indigence and pride of place, as well as their blatant racism (in 1975 the anti-busing riots in Southie made national headlines) and their deep denial of the organized
Lydia's parents are adamant that she will accomplish the goals and dreams that they weren't able to follow. In James case her father, he wants Lydia to be popular at school,the person the center of attention at every party and event, and the girl with a hectic social life. In her mother's case,Marilyn positions that Lydia instead of becoming homemaker that she goes off to college to become a doctor. Once Lydia is found in the lake near by, her being the balance that keeps the family somewhat stable is demolished, scrambling the Lee Family into utterchaos. The father, eaten by guilt, begins to seek out an reckless path that could potentially destroy him and his marriage.