Children's Literature
Leslie Barrow Paper 2 Children's Literature 4/17/04 As all of us progressed through our childhood, we encountered many different items that affected us. Often, these factors influenced our decisions and actions as children. As I look back on my childhood, I realize now, more than ever, that children's literature was one of these factors. Perhaps the author most responsible for shaping young girls' perspectives on life, and some young boys' perspectives, is Beverly Cleary. With each stroke of her pen, Cleary seemed to connect the inner soul of children, especially girls, providing us all with insight into decisions that affected us on a daily basis. This was because of her familiarity and relation to the position of ordinary- everyday children. Beverly Cleary had a normal childhood and experienced many of the same events that we experienced growing up. Her uncanny ability to relay those experiences through her writing is what allowed Beverly Cleary to connect with young readers on an intimate level. In order to understand Cleary's writing, we must first get to know the author and her life. Her own story is as interesting and irresistible as any of her novels. Currently living in Carmel, California, Cleary was born Beverly Bunn in McMinnville, Oregon on April 12, 1916. She spent the majority of her preschool years on a farm in Yamhill. This was a small town that
Pride and Prejudice: What's Love Got to Do With It
Pride and Prejudice: What's Love Got to Do With It In Pride and Prejudice life is not all fun and games. There are many pressures in life: mothers with high expectations for a good marriage and a girl's own expectation of what life and hopefully marriage will be like. Charlotte Lucas is the oldest daughter in a large family, she is not the most beautiful girl, and she is twenty-seven, well beyond the marrying age. Charlotte is Elizabeth Bennett's best friend and Mr. Collins, the man Charlotte finally marries, is Elizabeth's cousin. Charlotte Lucas will marry to solidify her life, not because she loves, for many people are unkind about her ability to marry well; thus after her marriage to Mr. Collins, she spends all of her time avoiding him. Charlotte knows that even though she wants to marry more than anything in the world, she does not expect love to come about; thus, she decides that it is probably even better if you don't know a thing at all about the person you are marrying. While Charlotte is speaking to Elizabeth about her sister, she expressed her opinion as to Jane Bennett's relationship towards a gentleman. She says it is probably better not to study a person because you would probably know as much after twelve months as if she married him the next day. Charlotte even goes as far as to say that "it is better to know as little
The women of the Joy Luck Club were selected because they all had faced tragedies in their lives. Outline these tragedies. Which woman do you find to be the most tragic character, and why?
Name: Mehmet Tuncer Type: Exam Essay Practice Date: First Draft- 30.11.2001 Question: The women of the Joy Luck Club were selected because they all had faced tragedies in their lives. Outline these tragedies. Which woman do you find to be the most tragic character, and why? Word Count: 1094 The women in the Joy Luck Club: Suyuan Woo, An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, Ying-ying St. Clair, all had faced tragedies in their lives. Before they immigrated to America, they lived in China during World War II as young women. Suyuan had started the Joy Luck Club, a weekly mahjong party with three other women in Kweilin to "raise money and to raise [their] spirits". By doing this, they refused to "sit and wait for [their] own deaths with proper somber faces". They "chose [their] own happiness". Throughout this book, we discover different tragedies that these women had to face to bring a better future for their children. Suyuan was staying with her babies in Kweilin during the Second World War. Kweilin was "packed with refugees and cultural, ethnic, and class tensions were rampant". When Japanese attack began, an officer warned Suyuan to travel to Chungking to be with her husband. Suyuan salvaged as much as she can and began to walk to Chungking with her children, a few belongings, and some food in a wheelbarrow. On the road she heard of the slaughter form people running past her. "It was
Who knew that a Spice Girl could be so fascinating and intriguing? Beneath that spangle Union Jack mini-dress beat the heart of a poet - or at least one of such a sensitive young woman!
Who knew that a Spice Girl could be so fascinating and intriguing? Beneath that spangle Union Jack mini-dress beat the heart of a poet - or at least one of such a sensitive young woman! Geri Halliwell, 27 years old when she finished her autobiography `If Only`, started writing her diary at just 16years old. She continued since then and took her diary everywhere writing about her raving days at just 17, her high days and her low ones. As Geri writes "No two people see events the same way. Everybody's truth is different. This is my truth", Geri writes how she sees what is happening, she writes how she is feeling and she writes things that people just wouldn't of expected. In the poignant autobiography (if not a little premature) of the former Spice Girl, she is informative, interesting and immensely inspiring. It tells the story of the stars various battles with her parents, dysfunctional childhood, unemployment, and the fight she's had since the age of 19 throughout the majority of her adult life against her eating disorder; Bulimia. Frank in tone, it portrays Geri's slow rise to fame as she fought frantically up the ladder of success and eventually describes how she reached the hop. Throughout Geri's book she pays special attention to her slow bust development, reports wanting to marry ex Wham! band member and now solo artist George Michael, she also says that the
The presentation of relationships between women in The Color Purple and Girl
In an essay of not more than 1500 words, discuss the presentation of relationships between women in The Color Purple and Girl Relationships between women are the main themes in both The Color Purple by Alice Walker and Girl by Jamaica Kincaid. The Color Purple, published in 1982, is a feminist novel and the story based around Celie, a black woman who successfully struggles to escape the hardships and inequality of her life. In contrast, Girl is a short story first published in 1978. It is a one-sentence, 650-word list of instructions from an older experienced woman to a younger girl giving advice on how to live her life. Girl is not a traditional story and does not have a plot and therefore there is no chance for character development. However, in this case, this is not really necessary. There is no narrator, just the voice of experience - the mother - passing on real facts of life to a younger, inexperienced girl - the daughter. The title, 'Girl' is an indication of the daughter's age; she is still young with much to learn, a view held by her mother who wants to pass on the lessons she has learned in life. This is an example of how a girl can learn to be a responsible, independent woman from an older woman's experience and advice. Kincaid shows that the mother has strong, definite views on how a woman should behave and, leaving no room for discussion, she
Emily Brontë (1818 - 1848)
Emily Brontë (1818 - 1848) Emily was born in 1818, in the desolate moor land village of Thornton, near Bradford, Yorkshire. She was one of six children, the fourth daughter, of an Irish clergyman Patrick Brontë and his wife Maria. The six children were: Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne. Emily's father was appointed vicar and at the age of 18 months Emily and her family moved to the nearby village of Haworth, where they were to spend the majority of their life. They rarely ventured beyond the surroundings of the village. All of the children became extremely close and very dependent of each other as their father was often busy working and their mother was ill with cancer and died when Emily was only three. Emily's aunt Branwell moved to Haworth to take responsibility for the family. Their relationship didn't appear to be very warm although the children respected her. According to the nurse who looked after Mrs Brontë the children were 'quiet' and 'serious'. Growing up with a father who loved books and writing, effected the children. They came to share his knowledge from a very early age through his teaching and his varied understanding of politics, international affairs, religion and art. At the age of six, Emily joined her older sisters at Cowan Bridge School where they were educated for a time. A year on Maria and Elizabeth had both died of
Comparison between the ballads of Charlotte Dymond andThe Highwayman
Comparison between the ballads of Charlotte Dymond and The Highwayman There are many similarities between the ballad of Charlotte Dymond by Charles Causley and Alfred Noyes The Highwayman. Although there are many differences between the two poems, a close analysis shows that both poems are concerned with exploring the negative effects of unrequited love. A particularly strong similarity between the two poems is seen in the thematic development of jealousy and death, resulting from unrequited love. This essay will be concerned with comparing the ways the poets explore these themes. The themes love, jealousy and death in Charlotte Dymond could be seen as rather dominant. The evidence of this is given by Matthew when he confesses he has killed Charlotte and he cries "she is as pure...the only sin upon her skin is that she loved another". Matthew evidently regrets killing Charlotte, as he realises he has killed her for something that is not her fault. Her death resulted purely from his jealousy as he decided to see her loving someone else as a 'sin'. The readers themselves know that Charlotte has committed no sin, for it is not a crime to love someone. Causley ultimately seems to be implying that jealousy that becomes an extreme, leads to tragic consequences. This is also the case in The Highwayman this is shown when the lovers meet but are seen by a man called Tim who also
The elderly lady walks uneasily on her weak foot, her walking stick buckling under the weight of her senile frame. She moves with leaden steps to the furthest and most discrete corner of the quiet, relatively empty tearoom.
Mrs Mounter The elderly lady walks uneasily on her weak foot, her walking stick buckling under the weight of her senile frame. She moves with leaden steps to the furthest and most discrete corner of the quiet, relatively empty tearoom. The walls are painted with dull red and orange pigments, and the oak doorframe and sideboard stained almost black. About the large dimly lit room there are some scattered groups, other old couples creating a hubbub of idle senile chatter. But Mrs Mounter, with her grim pale face, is alone, at a table set for two. She reaches out with her weak trembling hands toward the inky black teapot and pours the steaming, semitransparent liquid into two odd matching cups upon the circular table. She is fully clad, from head to toe, in a dull array of colours. Her formal, rust brown coat covers every part of her wrinkled skin, and a red shawl wrapped tightly around her fragile head. She wears a broach upon her breast, white and circular with no special features about it except from the story that it tells. A story that dates back a long way, to the youth of Mrs Mounter. Right after the death of her father, and right before the start of the war. The air was still, and the night was clear and bright. The silence was suddenly disturbed by a steadily growing groan that floated across the sky as gently as a butterfly. But it didn't stay gentle for long, within
The Psychological Basis Placed Upon Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk.
The Psychological Basis Placed Upon Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk is a novel that delves into the deepest corners of the human psyche and performs an intricate three sixty to emerge once more at its point of origin. On a wheel of cynicism the novel unfurls. With various satirical sideshows of the faux pas of society itself, along the way, Invisible Monsters allows the reader a thorough look of the book's characters' entrenched and twisted psychological thoughts and emotions, leaving the reader with a more profound understanding of it through its sardonic nature of people's minds and the world which molds them. Though the novel doesn't emit much intellectualism through its text, the author's style and ideology of society and its inhabitants shine brightly through the words and allows the reader to gain a new outlook through the character's eyes and become captivated by the character's philosophies on life. Through the characters' progression in the novel, the emergence of their societal downward spiral becomes more apparent, especially in the situation of the protagonist, who remains unnamed through most of the novel but who at the end of the novel finally introduces herself as Shannon McFarland. As the novel begins, the protagonist has everything that any person looking in could possibly desire: beauty, a well paying modeling
Compare and contrast the presentation of women's lives in 'An old woman' by Arun Kolatar and 'Charlotte O'Neil's song' by Fiona Farrell.
Compare and contrast the presentation of women's lives in 'An old woman' by Arun Kolatar and 'Charlotte O'Neil's song' by Fiona Farrell. Fiona Farrell wrote Charlotte O'Neil's song in the 20th C, however it is set in the 19th C. Farrell was born and spent the majority of her life in New Zealand. The poem is about a servant called charlotte who is currently on a ship heading for New Zealand and for her a new life. In the poem she is talking about her "past" life as a servant, she is saying what she had to do while she worked for her master and mistress; she also gives them commands about what they will have to do now she's gone. An old woman was written in the 20th century, by Arun Kolatker. He was visting an ancient Hindu temple in a town called Jejuri. This is when he meets the old woman. Charlotte O'Neil's song begins with Charlotte with her looking back at the tasks she had to do for her master and mistress. She is making statements. 'I scraped out your grate And washed your plate' Here we get the feeling that charlotte is quite bitter. By the end of the poem although she is still angry she is no longer making statements, she is making commands. 'And you can open your own front door.' She is finally free from them and can do what she pleases. 'But your on your own my dear. I won't be there anymore.' She is no longer looking at the past she is looking