You could tell Lily was afraid of her father, seeing how she hesitated to tell him about events such as her birthday. Lily was also born and raised in rags, since her mother died when Lily was at a young age. After her mother died, Lily was stranded with a confused and angry father, and had to sew her own clothes, since it is all she had. These two stories already look the same, and both are only a fraction of the way in. Huck’s life was extremely terrible until he starting living with the Widow Douglas, which is the equivalent of when Lily went to live with the Boatwright sisters.
The Johnson family was an African American family, made up of individuals who place their own personal values on African American history. Alice Walker uses elements such as the handmade quilt crafted by the Johnson girls’ grandmother to the characters of Mrs. Johnson and her two daughters in “Everyday Use” to reflect African American culture and family heritage, which is a major theme in the work. The quilt is a very important object in “Everyday Use” and is also used to reflect the theme. “This short story, as Christian explains, first articulates the metaphor of quilting to represent the creative legacy that African Americans have inherited from their maternal ancestors” (Whitsitt 309) The significance of the quilt is that Maggie and Dee’s Grandmother handmade it. The quilt can be seen as a memory of Grandma Dee, or as a symbol for black history.
History Lena Baker was born on June 8, 1901 in Randolph County, Georgia in a former slave cabin. She was born from poor sharecroppers her mother name Queenie. Baker was a black woman growing up in the 1940’s which was in the heart of the racial era. She chopped cotton, laundry. Like all the other kids Baker had dreams of becoming better and living a better life getting out of poverty.
The short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker captures the depiction of the agreement and also the disagreements and struggle surrounding African-American culture. This short story centered on the Johnson family and their life in their rural area home. Dee the one child who is the only member of the family who has higher education comes to visit her mother and her sister Maggie, Dee brought along her male friend who seems to be her boyfriend. At this time, with the family coming together, Alice walker shows the different understandings of Africa-American culture. Walker uses symbolism to stress the differences between these understandings and eventually to support one to show that culture and heritage are part of day to day life.
In the beginning of the story, Dee comes to her mother's home with a much different appearance as an educated urban girl while her family members are as the backward sharecroppers at a remote village. The central conflict in the story is the quilt made by Maggie and Dee's mother, aunt (Big Dee), and grandmother. Dee insists on taking the quilt home to display in her home but Mrs. Johnson informs her that she promises to give the quilt to Maggie once she marries John Thomas (Walker 284). After Dee hears that the quilt has already been promised to Maggie, she is worried that if Maggie is using and touching the delicate quilt on a daily basis as a warm blanket and then
The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970) Write a brief a biographical sketch of your author: ( at least 250-500 words in paragraph format) ( do not cut and paste from a source... this should be in your own words) Alice Walker was born in rural Georgia in 1944 and was the youngest of eight children. I chose to write about Alice Walker because she is such an inspiration and her writings catch my eye. At the very young age of eight, she lost her right eye due to an accidental shooting by her brother. She became blind in this eye and immediately felt like an outcast. She was stared at and taunted because of her eye and because of that she started writing.
“Aunt Margery,” as she was known to Thurber, took the role of his mother for most of his childhood. She was such a major influence on him that he mentioned her in the preface of one of his pieces called The Thurber Carnivals (Bernstein, 14). When Thurber was only 6 years old, his brother William accidentally shot him in his left eye with an arrow during a game. Sadly, the incident left him blind in that eye (“Thurber, James (Grover),” 433). Because of Christian Science, his family did not want to go to an official doctor.
Spilled Salt: By Barbara Neely The short story “spilled salt”, by Barbara Neely is about a single mother, Myrna, who raised her son alone since he was six. The son, Kenny, convinced a crime. Because he raped a girl, he spent four years in prison and the story starts when he released from prison and came back home where his mother doesn’t want to live with him anymore. She doesn’t want to lose her sweet memories of the little and funny boy. She loves the boy who was four years ago and not the man who is now standing in front of her.
Charlie describes how much he misses Michael, and how much he misses his other friend, Susan, who constantly blows Charlie off after middle school. Charlie describes his family. His family consists of himself, his mom, dad, brother, and sister. He also mentions the outspread relatives that he only sees on holidays including his Aunt Helen. Charlie’s Aunt Helen was his “favorite person in the whole world.” However, she died after a terrible car accident.
Because of his recently lose of his sister to cancer. He has gone into a form of early midlife crisis, where he begins to full around, being his wife unfaithful. It started “with his sister’s friend, Debra Harding, when his sister was at the hospice, and that had been just ten minutes of necking at the far dark end of a parking lot.”(p.7, l.33-34). Carl is not unhappily married, but they just married too soon. They thought they knew each other well enough to get married, but as Carl says it in the text “And once we did it seemed too late” (p.8, l.66).