In Annie Dillard’s book, An American Child; chapter two describes the fear she had as a child, of the night shadows that would appear on her walls. Dillard was five years old and shared a bedroom with her little sister Amy, who was two at the time. When Dillard describes her little sister sleeping, I can picture her clearly in my mind. Dillard writes; “even at two she composed herself attractively with her sheet folded tidily, under her outstretched arm, her head laid lightly on an unwrinkled pillow, her thick curls spread evenly.” (21) Another wonderful example of her descriptive writing is when she is telling of the “thing” that she is so afraid of at night…
What would you do if you were the third child having to hide your whole entire life? Well in the book “Among the Hidden” by Margaret Peterson Haddix. This book is very suspenseful. In their town that they live in they are only allowed to have two children, but one family decides to have three. Luke, as the third child is not allowed to step outside, he has to stay hidden, because they are too scared the population police will come and get him. Therefore this book is a mystery, because it leaves you with a cliffhangers. The book is told in first person point of view, the genre of “Among the Hidden” is a mystery. “Among the Hidden” is rather short at 153 pages.…
Nazi Germany took everything from Gerda; except her life. In the book All But My Life by Gerda Weissmann Klein we learn about the holocaust from a woman’s perspective. Our story begins on September 3,1939. Gerda and the Weissmann family live in Bielitz, Poland.…
In the poem, Tabrizi uses the expression “A Thousand Splendid Suns” to illustrate the beauty of Afghanistan by personifying as a beautiful woman. It is therefore it is ironic that a novel that depicts the destruction of Afghanistan’s culture and the power structure, as in how much they value men to women. In the poem, it says, “May Allah protect such beauty from the evil eye of man!” This along with the concept of female endurance and survival from her own country shows just how corrupt the Afghanistan culture has become from then to now. The title highlights the tragedy of what happen to Afghanistan by making us remember precedent of what happens in the novel. Like the visit to the giant Buddha statues before their…
Ann Petry’s short fiction “In Darkness and Confusion” is set in 1940s Harlem, New York. The United States is involved in World War II, which was the first war to initiate the Draft in the US. Although New York is in the Northern part of the country, racism is just as alive at is in the South, just not as brutal. Riots break erupt throughout the city as the result of racial incidents. Ann Petry incorporates historic events of this time into her fictional story “In Darkness and Confusion”.…
The novel All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr, is an intricately written story about two young adults during World War II. The two main characters Werner and Marie-Laure come from extremely different lives. Marie-Laure is a blind 16 year old girl who lives in a nice house in France with her dad. Werner is an orphan who lives with Jutta, his sister, who is the only person in his family he knows of. This book tells the story of how these characters that come from seemingly unrelated worlds cross paths in the most unexpected way. These characters are brought together by an item that plays a crucial role in this story; the radio. The radio is an item that plays a major role in Werners life. Although it may seem like just another piece…
Life is full of searches; searches that heal the soul, and searches that tear it apart. In the book, All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, Werner, a young, German boy of the age 13, lives in a Children’s House with his sister and other children who’s parents have deceased due to working in the mines. Werner is very smart for his age. His passion is radios. He goes house to house, working on radios of all kinds for people of all classes. Because of his education and knowledge, he has been accepted into an academy for Hitler Youth called the National Political Institute of Education #6. Marie-Laure LeBlanc is 12 when her and her father, a locksmith at the Paris Museum of Natural History, sojourn to Saint-Malo to get away from the bombings taking place in Paris. Marie-Laure went blind when she was six years old. At the time she lost her vision, her father had created a miniature of their neighborhood to guide her as she ventures around town. Within the pages of this book, I feel as though a locksmith searches for the key to protection and future for his blind daughter, Marie-Laure searches for meaning and understanding of the world around her, and Werner searches for a way to please his sister and himself as he Heils Hitler.…
Sometimes in literature authors display underlying themes or messages. This is shown in Night by ellie wiesel and his appalling experience. In this essay we will idetntify and elaborate on these instances exhibited throughout novel. One theme displayed by wiesel is hope. This is shown by Ellie himself,ellie always had hope that he might get saved, which contibuted to his survival.…
The people who live in third world countries have much harder lives than how we live everyday. In “Radiance of Tomorrow” by Ishmael Beah it shows how difficult their lives are. Even though they are going through tough times, they still remain very hopeful. The theme of this book is to always stay hopeful, and that’s what the people of Imperi do. Bockaire's family should stay in Freetown so they can get nice jobs, a new beginning, and it is more realistic over all to stay there.…
Maya Angelou once said, “Freedom is never free.” This is true because a person always has to pay some sort of price in order to be free, whether in a literal sense or not. In the book Among the Hidden, by Margaret Peterson Haddix, Luke Garner is an illegal third child in a place where overpopulation forces the government to make unfair laws. Each family is allowed to have two children, so Luke envies his older brothers and cannot live his life the way he wants to. This is similar to in “Two Sisters, Two Americas,” by Brooke Ross, which tells the reader about an illegal immigrant named Veronica Saravia. Veronica came to the United States with her parents illegally when she was 4 years old. Her sister, Diana, was born in the United States. Diana…
In the novel, All the Light We Cannot See, there are flashback scenes that display the times prior to the character’s involvement into the war. These always seem to hold emotional value to the characters, as well as readers. For example, “The girl climbs into the swing and pendulums back and forth, pumping her legs, and watching her opens some valves in Werner’s soul. This is life, he thinks, this is why we live, to play like this on a day when winter is finally releasing its grip” (Doerr 366). This passage, although not a flashback, acts like one in a way. To put this in other words, the girl shows similar traits and/or actions of Jutta, Werner’s younger sister, which, for Werner, takes him back to his own childhood where a carefree lifestyle…
When the world of light is plunged into darkness, when what you know has vanished before your eyes, how could you not scream from the top of your lungs? Normal people often scream as a way to relieve the heightened distress accumulated over time or when they are simply scared. The fear of change, or Metathesiophobia, grows and develops with us as we, humans, revolutionize and evolve into what we are today. Change is fearsome even foreboding for those who like routine and regime in their everyday lives. Losing control of the methodical system, that you are so accustomed to, can cause intense insecurity, uncertainty, and in a way a freedom you can’t control. It petrifies me how Dillard illustrates the total eclipse as a living death, “There was…
Perfect By Ellen Hopkins The book Perfect is an extremely accurate and realistic interpretation of the struggles many young people face during their unpleasant years as teenagers. Centered around the lives of four very different high school seniors; they all have one thing in common: hardships. Some more severe than others, but all in all, they are hardships. Cara Sykes is dealing with not only her parents awful idea of what is right and what is wrong, but also the fact that her brother Conner attempted suicide.…
Laurence uses simile to illustrate the dynamic brilliance of the Northern Lights. When she describes wintertime in her hometown, Laurence writes, “[...] the Northern Lights flaring across the sky like the scrawled signature of God.” (Laurence 24). The use of “flaring” indicates brief and bright motion, since it is often used to describe fireworks and flares. A firework is a striking image of moving colour against a night sky, and creates a similar spectacle to that of the Northern Lights, especially since both are seen after dark.…
The text is a short story by Zora Neale Hurston describing a little girl filled with joy and is constantly doing things that she wants without letting the color of her skin hold her back from living her childhood days to the fullest. The short story was first published December of 1924 in an issue of Opportunity. The reader would most likely be someone who reads issues published from Opportunity or someone who was looking for articles, poems, and short stories related to African-American studies and literary pieces related to the Harlem Renaissance. The author is a prizewinner for her short story Drenched in Light. Hurston made her debut in the Harlem Renaissance with that same prize winning short story. Hurston was raised in Eatonville, which…