Louise Erdrich’s novel Tracks, published in 1988, recounts the story of an Anishinaabe family on an Indian reservation. The plot revolves around the life history of the protagonist, Fleur Pillager. Erdrich uses the multiple narrator technique by telling the story from the perspectives of Nanapush, an affable tribal elder, and Pauline Puyat, a mixed-blood girl. The novel recounts the incidents that took place between the years 1912 to 1924 in the life of Fleur Pillager. Erdrich divides the narrative into two distinct sections. The Nanapush chapters recount the conversation between Lulu, the daughter of Fleur, and Nanapush. In these chapters, Nanapush in an “authoritative and confiding tone” (Walker, 37) narrates the events that compelled Fleur…
Her father, Bernard Weil was a physician and her mother, Selma Weil, came from a rich Jewish business family.3 As a child Selma wanted to become a doctor, but her father did not support her decision, and so she fought for the best possible education for her children, especially Weil.3 Having grown up with a strong female influence, it is understandable that she would not have a strong inclination towards feminism, as she saw no problems for women growing up. Weil felt strongly about food and gave up sugar at an age of six, as it wasn’t provided to French soldiers in the war. She maintained this attitude throughout her life, starving herself for causes she believed in. This contributed to the fact her suffering from sinusitis, severe headaches and poor physical health, and, owing to malnutrition, she suffered from what she called “mystical experiences” making her, unlike Beauvoir, a big believer in mysticism and the world beyond most’s definition of reality.3 Religion also had great influence on her, having converted to catholicism later in her life. Like Beauvoir, shes lived during the Russian Revolution and the fall of old political orders such as the the Hapsburg and Austro-Hungarian Empires. It was also the time of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Even though Europe was not as badly affected as the US, hunger was still prevalent and work conditions were often bad. Weil was also briefly involved in the Spanish Civil war – a precursor to WWII, when Forces of the Republic splintered between the Anarchists, the Marxists, and the Nationalists. Fascists, with the help of the German Nazi government, acquired a taste for murdering civilians.3 During the Spanish Civil war deliberately dropping bombs on civilians from planes was still deeply shocking, especially for Weil due to her temperament and upbringing.3 That said, what Weil did not experience is as important as what she did. She and her family…
The Lais of Marie de France are a collection of short stories that depict situations where love arises. The author presents love as a complex emotion and demonizes it and praises it in certain instances. She is not always in favor of love as is described by the outcomes by some of the lovers in the story, such as when they either end up dead in the end or banished because of their love. The author presents this notion of love because she believes it is not always justified to love someone. In the book, two distinct types of love are shown. There is selfless love and selfish love which are compared throughout the multiple stories in The Lais of Marie de France. By comparing the two distinct types of love, a universal truth about love can be derived to explain when love is and is not justified.…
Marie Laure exhibited bravery often in the book. At the beginning of the book, when she first became blind, her father tried to teach her to get around in the city. He built a model of the city to help her understand the city and find her way. Then he took her to the middle of the city and told her to find her way home. At first she was scared and said she couldn’t do it, but she asked her father to take…
Imagine waking up in the morning, opening your eyes and being greeted not with the familiarity of your bedroom ceiling, but with darkness. Naturally you’d be startled, but once you got past the initial shock, you’d be able conjure up an image of your bedroom from your imagination, clumsily bump your way through the room, and generally navigate through the house, right? Of course you would. The blind are not helpless, and can sometimes “see” more than we can. But wait- if you can’t see, how did you know where your bed was? Where the wall was? Or the door? Anthony Doerr, the author of All the Light We Cannot See, uses Marie-Laure, a young blind girl, to help illustrate one of the main themes in his book -that light and substance only truly exists in your head- with an extensive use of metaphors and descriptions.…
Unlike Nanapush and Fleur, Louise Erdrich uses the character of Pauline to demonstrate the rejection of Ojibwa religion and culture. Throughout the novel, Pauline is known as a liar and troublemaker who tries her best and hardest to single handedly destroy Ojibwa life, religion, and culture. For example, in the novel, Pauline had “bothered [her] father into sending [her] south, to the white town. [She] had decided to learn the lace-making trade from the nuns” (Erdrich, 14). Pauline is asking her dad to send her south away from the other Native Americans, and more importantly, away from the Ojibwa religion. In this part of the novel, Erdrich best conveys Pauline’s rejection of Ojibwa religion by showing how the efforts she would go through in order to separate herself from the Ojibwa way of life. Pauline has rejected this lifestyle to such great amounts that she is willing to move…
His daughter continued her father’s legacy by majoring in chemistry. Many years later, she started a Queens College scholarship fund in his honor to assist minority students majoring in chemistry or physics. She studied at Columbia university she majored in Chemistry, after that she earned her Ph.D., When Marie graduated she did nothing but studied the human body. I was proud of her because she was the first woman to go to college most women weren’t allowed at a lot of colleges. What got her in science was influenced by her father, who had attended Cornell University with intentions of becoming a chemist, but had been unable to complete his education due to a lack of funds. His daughter continued her father’s legacy by majoring in chemistry. Many years later, she started a Queens College scholarship fund in his honor to assist minority students majoring in chemistry or physics. But she had some problems trying to get in school but she solved that problem by keep trying to accomplish her dream. She started teaching at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, she continued research on arteries and the effects of cigarette smoke on the lungs in April, 1947. That was good because she affected the world because she inspires other women to get their degrees. It also inspired me…
To say that Dorothea Lange led a full life is an understatement. She led and extraordinary life and it is a fascinating tale. As you will see, she was an amazing person, charming and likeable, but also a person with just as many hardships as the subjects of her work.…
In an article from LA Times called “Holocaust Survivor Provides a Lesson in Perseverance”, the reporter recaps the speech a Holocaust survivor named Sam Silberberg gives to fourth and fifth graders about his experience. While in the concentration camps, Silberberg’s entire family had been killed by Nazis except his mother. With some creativity, persistence, and withstanding the camps, Silberberg reunites with his mother. “This was just the break Silberberg needed as he eventually reunited with his mother. The rest of his immediate family, including his father, died at the hands of the Nazis.” If Sam had given up and thought that he may never see his mother again, he never would have seen her. But, because of his perseverance, Silberberg and his mother were reunited. Mother and son are reunited because of their love and belief in each other. Like Elie, other Holocaust survivors have written memoirs. Many are known well today. One of these survivors is Mariam Blumenthal Lazan who is known for writing the memoir Four Perfect Pebbles. An article from The Mirror TITLE OF ARTICLE website states “ Lazan testified to the power of hope and human beings ability to persevere and overcome adversity”. Perseverance and their persistence to live on carried these people through the worst years of their…
main character overcome the daily obstacles she was forced to deal with. While writing this…
Both “The Case for Reparations” and The Marrow of Tradition, examine the issue of reparations in return for the egregious injustices committed in the form of slavery by our predecessors. The cornerstone of this problem is that after years of generational oppression and discrimination, what form will this reparation end up taking? A reparation that is based on doling out mere financial support for those that endured the brutality of slavery is unreasonable. It is an insult to the blacks that were subjugated in the slave economy of the past under the guise of racial superiority. Simply treating this issue in a one-dimensional viewpoint that can be solved through a monetary basis will not suffice and is stripping from it the aspect of humanity.…
She talks about how being a young child with misfortunes that occur are routine. But once your mature they exist and we learn to accept them, live life fully, experience pain along with joy.…
Teresa Schopp English 266 Women Writers October 11, 2010 Now That I Am Forever With Child I would first like to quote from an author who is in our text. But we have not read her yet. Her name is Dilys…
Kevin Conroy once said, “Everyone is handed adversity in life. No one’s journey is easy. It’s how they handle it that makes people unique.” Dictionary.com defines adversity as “adversity n. adverse or unfavorable fortune or fate; a condition marked by misfortune, calamity, or distress.” Adversity is something that everyone will experience at some point in his life; however, some people face greater adversities than others. Morrie Schwartz and Elie Wiesel are two men that faced two of the greatest adversities that this world knows. Elie is a survivor of Adolf Hitler’s destruction of the Holocaust, and Morrie Schwartz was a simple man who lost a battle to Lou Gehrig’s disease, or ALS. Both of these men’s lives have been captured in best-selling…
The New Woman was conveyed through the artists illustrations beginning in the 1880’s and continuing through the years, ending in the 1920’s. These images such as the works titled, “What Are We Coming To”, “In a Twentieth Century Club”, “Picturesque America”, and “Women Bachelors In New York”, all conveyed this idea of a “New Woman”. The qualities that a New Woman must have included a woman who pursued the highest education and made effort to move up in the professional world. “She (the New Woman) also demonstrated new patterns of private life, from shopping in the new urban department stores, to riding bicycles, and playing golf.” (pg. 374) The artists attempted to create this perfect all around woman who’s lives closely resembled what the men of that time were doing. Such as in figure 6.8 titled “In a Twentieth Century Club” which shows women dressed in clothing which closely resembled that of a mans attire for that era, at leisure, socializing with other woman. This “club” looked very similar to a men’s drinking and eating club. “ Although role reversal still provides the humor, the women waitresses and patrons are physically attractive, while the women’s unladylike posture and clothing would have been viewed as shocking equally significant is the cross dressing entertainer.” (pg. 374) Not only did artists attempt to convey a way that the New Woman should act, but they also created this popular physical image of what one should look like such as the Gibson Girls pictured in image 6.9. Most all of the illustrations showed a white woman of the leisure class, however African American women still envisioned and strived to become a New African American Woman.…