Comparison Katniss is a strong, unselfish, and independent young woman who is a heroine in the story. I see a lot of similarities between us two because I myself have had to grow up faster than planned. From a very young age, I was always stuck home to care for my brother while my mom went to work to support us. In the book, Katniss is a young lady who takes care of her mom, her sister and their family cat because her dad died in an underground mine explosion. I find her strong because she takes responsibility for hunting the food for supper and making sure her family has all their needs.
Every Last One is a novel about a women having to face difficult situations in life while being emotionally and financially responsible for the rest of her family. The author depicts the story from the point of view that a mother would have. She made her family seem like on the outside they were the perfect little family but as we all know, no one is perfect in this world. Mary Beth would describe her every day routine as a mother and would put in detail the description of her family and the people that was around her and her family. She now struggles with her life that is ahead and tries to keep a relationship with her only son left, Alex.
While living with her abusive father who she chooses to only call T. Ray, Lily feels that she is lacking certain femininity in her life. She battles with her hair which was “constantly going off in eleven different directions” (Kidd 3) and when she woke up with a rose-petal stain on her panties she was “so proud of that flower and didn’t have a soul to show it to except Rosaleen”(13). Rosaleen is Lily’s housekeeper and one of her only friends. Lily’s curiosities about her mother lead her to the attic where she finds some of her mother’s belongings. Lily keeps everything she finds of her mother’s in a small tin buried in the orchards outside her house.
She held the quilts securely in her arm, stroking them” (748) Dee (Wangero) can feel the love of her Grandmother through these quilts. Mama has already promised them to Maggie now, knowing that Dee had no use for them before she went away to college. Now she would like to hang them up and show off her heritage. Walker uses the quilts to also show a little personality in Mama as she is angered by the fact that Dee thinks all Maggie would do with the quilts is use them every day and not realize the history and heritage behind them. Even though Maggie is portrayed as a frail, quiet, shy child, she reveals her thoughts when Dee is told no by Mama for the quilts.
The mother doesn’t understand the daughter’s life, and this failure to understand leads to her to distrust her daughter. Dee sees her new persona as liberating, whereas the mother sees it as a rejection of her family and her origins. Dee indeed rejects her family by changing her name to “Wangero”, “she’s dead”, she responded when asked “what happen to Dee” (28). Later, Dee tried to get stuff from the house like the bench, the butter chunk, just as decorative objects but her mother sees those “objects” as a symbol, as a living proof of her family, her tradition. The mother wants her daughter to see those precious objects that way too.
Her dad took her away from the hospital without paying and soon after her mom was letting her cook again, as she called it, “Getting right back into the saddle.” At such a young age Jeannette didn’t take any anger out on her parents and soon took interest to fire. Soon after that thought the family had to pack their bags and leave again and do the “skedaddle” as their parents liked to call it. The parents were actually running away from bill collectors and guys that their dad owed money to. The father was an alcoholic and luckily wasn’t able to be one often because of the low money situation. However he was able to get a job almost anywhere, usually in small towns for side jobs, because of how convincing he could be.
Immediately after Emily developed the measles. Her mother was unable to care for her because she had to protect herself the new baby from the disease. Emily didn’t recover from the disease as expected. She became thin and withdrawn, even more than she was before. Upon recommendations, she sent Emily to a convalescent home where she could be better cared for.
Since women weren’t allowed to be as free as the men they were forced to learn how to only live inside their homes. Kamila notices that money is running out, she knows that her as the oldest one has to find a way to get money coming in the home. She can’t attend an elite university like she planned too due to the Islamic rules, so while sitting for days thinking for a way to work from inside her home, she finally has a brilliant idea. She decided to become a seamstress. Not only would she able to work from her living room but her sisters would be able to help too.
They had no supervision as their mother began to sulk in her own state of mind. Having no other chose but to fend for themselves, they rebel as they got older. Mocking their mother’s faith in her new book, they named it the “The Church of No Reason”. I believe the children felt neglected and were just craving structure, rules to obey, or perhaps just a parent in their lives. They reached out several times in varies ways, failing each and every attempt.
After she moved to the city and become an educated and sophisticated, young woman, she wrote to her mom that she would always visit, “but will never bring her friends” (Walker 3). She doesn’t want her friends to know the real conditions of living that her family have and the backward way of life they live. She grasps the African tradition and culture, yet, fails to acknowledge her own African American culture. Dee is misconstruing her heritage as material goods as opposed to her ancestor’s habits and way of life. When she informs her mother and Maggie that she has changed her name, she states, “I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me” (Walker 4).