This book, written by Kristiana Gregory, is about a thirteen year old girl from Pennsylvania, Hattie Campbell. On her birthday, she was given a diary by her mother and her Aunt June. In the first entry, she mentions her Uncle Milton’s death three days ago while fixing her family’s barn and his funeral the eve of her birthday. At the funeral, the coffin fell out of their cart and was washed into the nearby river. Her father tried to save it but was almost sucked into the paddles of a riverboat. As a sign of apology, the riverboat captain agreed to give Mr Campbell and his family free tickets on his riverboat to go anywhere they wanted. That night, he announced that the family would be heading to the untamed West, at that time occupied by the Indians who were known to be violent. Mrs Campbell was very angry and initiated a “cold war” with her husband. Two days later, she relents and agrees to head out West.…
Mary D. Salter Ainsworth lives in Glendale Ohio and was born in December of 1913. Ainsworth was very knowledgeable since her childhood. Her childhood was good for her because of her parents. She began reading by the age of three, but then her parents were helping her to read. She lived with her two younger sisters that work so hard to help Mary. Both of their parents graduated in Dickenson College. Her dad earned a masters degree in History that will help everyone that needs help. (Mary, 2002) Ainsworth’s mother taught for a while then started training to become a nurse, but was soon called home so she could take care of her own mother.…
Mary Jemison was born September 17, 1743. She and her family was captured by Shawnee Indians and French soldiers in April of 1758 in Pennsylvania when she was about 15 years old. Her family would later be killed and she would be taken to Ohio to be sold into slavery to the Senecas. Eventually to be adopted by the tribe. In this essay I will cover the way that women were treated in the tribes as well as their place in their tribes in contrast to that of the colonists treatment of women. In these points I will explain, why when given the opportunity to go back to the colonies, Mary Jamison chose to stay with her tribe.…
Tragically and suddenly, her life was altered and her writing career interrupted when she was diagnosed with lupus in 1950, the same disease which took her father’s life a few years prior. This disease limited O’Connor to the confinement of her mother’s dairy farm. Despite her growing ailment, she continued to write for two hours each day. This illness tested her faith and regardless of her affliction she never lost hope. O’Connor used her literary talent to express her strong Catholicism and discomfort with living in a “religionless age”. She honestly believed there was a crisis of faith and devoted her life to expressing the need for a conversion of values among people of her time (O’Connor 2).…
Captivity narratives are written by those captured by their enemies. They are considered enemies based on their beliefs and views to be uncivilized. The Mary Rowlandson’s Captivity narrative holds a strong importance in early American history. During this time these types of narratives are allowing us to take a look at our colonial America culture by someone who was there. There are apparent themes in this captivity narrative such as the uncertainty of life. While showing part of her life, through her Puritan beliefs and faith of God, by Rowlandson tells us her story. It expresses her point of views on the way she felt, and lived through a time in history.…
Nancy E. Turner, in her American novel inspired by her own family’s experiences These is my Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine (1998), displays the struggles of life on the frontier from a female’s point of view. Sarah Prine, Turner’s grandmother, is the main character who is traveling across Arizona with her family to find a place to settle. Along the way, Sarah runs into multiple hardships, yet her greatest one is meeting Captain Jack Elliot. From the very beginning, Sarah can tell that Jack is different from all the other men. Because Jack bargains with Sarah and her books, comforts her during her frazzled moments, and shows obvious dislike of Jimmy Reed during his and Sarah’s marriage, Turner illustrates the moral ambiguity of Jack’s character.…
There was a young women name Mary. She had a vision for her life. But what happens to her takes her on a journey. The choices we make in life can better the future or leave it with a lot of pain as Mary finds out. It seems like Mary’s life was a rollercoaster ride at six flags, so many adjustments. Moreover, going through the pain, love, and success of finally being content within herself. In addition, enjoying the happiness that is put upon her, allowing God to direct her path in life to reach success. Believing that these steps were not motivated by her but it was the force of god.…
Once Mary Rowlandson’s youngest daughter died, she was left alone with the Indians. No loved ones surrounded her; it was just herself in this unfamiliar, scary territory. She turned to God, and his word to help…
The memoir, The Color of Water, by James McBride, is a story of two charmingly similar but also enticingly different lives. One of narrations is of James himself, describing his struggles of growing up with a “very strange mother” (9), as well as attempting to find himself as he was both black and Jewish, and was never quite sure of where exactly he fit in. The other narration is of his mother, a Jewish immigrant who has her own fair share of issues in life to deal with, as she is a white person living in a black world. McBride’s goal of his writing was to compare his own life with his mothers’ by showing the similarities, but also the differences by using both people as narrators. These two narrations help to show details of both Ruth and James' life.…
Hoobler, Dorothy and Thomas. The Irish American Family Album. New York, NY. Oxford University press. 1995…
Encyclopedia of American Social History Vol. 1 Ed. By : Mary Kupiec Cayton, Elliot J. Gorn, and Peter W. Williams. Published by Charles Scribner 's Sons - 1993…
On the eve of the narrator and his family 's departure for the United States after twelve years of residence in Paris, the narrator is being chided by his wife and visiting sister about his nightmares. He is worried about his return to the racist United States after such a long absence and what effect it will have on his multiracial family and his career.…
Throughout the memoir, there are several circumstances the family undergoes; one significant disruption is the deaths of several family members. In the first chapter, McCourt introduces the situation in which his parents meet and were practically forced into marriage. Angela, Frank’s mother, was pregnant and her cousins suggested marrying was the only option so she would not be looked down upon society. McCourt lived in New York with his family, but moved back to their native land, Ireland, shortly after his baby sister, Margaret, passed away and Angela fell into a deep depression. His use of asyndeton creates a run-on list of his struggles such as “…the poverty; the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying schoolmasters; the English and the terrible things they did to us [Irish] for eight hundred long years” (11). The readers can visually construct the image of a beaten mother sitting by the fire place…
“People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early childhood, but nothing can compare with the Irish version”(11).…
James Joyce's Dubliners is a collection of short stories that offers a brief, but intimate window into the lives of a variety of characters, many of whom have nothing in common beyond the fact that they live in Dublin. Men and women of all ages, occupations and social classes are represented in this collection. The stories in Dubliners are often about the ways in which these individuals attempt to escape from the numbness and inertia that their lives yield, and the moments of painful self-realization that follow these attempts. "Araby", "The Dead" and "A Little Cloud", stories included in Dubliners best portray the idea of the endeavours one must go on to find themselves.…