Mia Winchell is a 13 year old girl who lives in the countryside down South with her family and her cat, Mango. Mia has a special secret that she has been hiding for 13 years. This secret keeps her apart from her classmates, her friends (including her best friend), and even her family. The book opens during the summer between 7th and 8th grade, and the story unfolds over the next few months. As she begins her final year of middle school, Mia decides that she no longer wants to keep this important detail about herself private. She decides to tell her family and friends this unusual fact about herself - that sounds, numbers, and words have color for her. Her courageous journey towards sharing this private information, as well as the responses and reactions of those around her, comprise the rest of the story.…
In a competition between man and nature, nature more often claims victory. Pitted against tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions, nothing man made is permanent. In an excerpt taken from Ann Petry's novel, The Street, the main character Lutie Johnson is antagonized by the tumultuous winds that inhabit the town, along with the frigid cold. Using such literary elements as dark imagery, descriptive selection to detail and appalling personification, Petry successfully captures Johnson's relationship with the urban setting.…
When does a person go from a stranger to a best friend? Professor McAdams (1995) has conjured up two imperative levels to distinguish relationships. In the movie Sweet Home Alabama (2002), Melanie Smooter/Carmichael, displays these two imperative levels. Melanie lived a double life from the Civil Wars reenactment daughter to a big city fashion designer. The beautiful, insecure character has her brain all over the place. In her new life she is full of openness, but back home she’s known around town for having high levels of extroversion. The Big Five traits make up the level of dispositional traits with conscientiousness, openness, extraversion, neuroticism, and agreeableness (McAdams, 1995). Level one could be a beginner level or a stranger…
Damien Hirst’s ‘For the Love of God’ is platinum casting of a human skull that is encrusted with high quality diamonds but has a feature of human teeth. The sculpture reflects the idea of death but tries to distinguish the difference between the negative side of death and the positive. Hirst wanted his work to be very positive even though it was based around death, which is why he also used the theme of vanity to create the work. Fiona Hall’s artwork ‘Lotus’ from the collection of works Paradisus Terrestris is based around the idea of human vs. nature. The artwork is created from aluminium and a sardine tin that has been pulled back to reveal the stomach of a human body. The series also refers to the paradise of Australia and Sri Lanka, especially this artwork that features the lotus flower, also known as the temple flower. ‘There are more genetic similarities between us and the plant world than there are differences’ – Fiona Hall.…
The book I choose to read is If I Stay by Gayle Forman. If I stay is a book full of twist and turns and shocking events. The main characters are Mia Hall, Adam, and Kat. After a tragic car accident it tells the out of body experience of Mia Hall. The book If I Stay was published in 2009.…
I stood there, standing on her front porch like an idiot. And she told me to leave. And there I was. I had done everything right. I got straight A's, I was on varsity soccer, I was the newspaper editor, I had tons of friends, and I wasn't good enough. I never was good enough for anything, was I? Everything I did was because I thought my parents would like me if I did it. Who was I? It wasn't until I was standing on those front steps, the house still shaking with the vibrations of a slammed door, when I realized I was never going to be good enough.…
Have you ever had a nightmare that is so realistic it speeds up your heart rate and takes your very breath away? In Joyce Carol Oates’s 1966 “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, she tells a story of a teenager by the name of Connie. Connie has a fate of being kidnapped by a strange man that seems to know everything about her. Connie is a typical adolescent with a vivid imagination and a difficult, unstructured home. She is at a delicate time in her life of transitioning to find her “own” identity. Temptation is all around Connie and she allows herself to be consumed, somewhat obsessed with it. Connie’s history of unhealthy relationships, cravings for love, and over active imagination creates a nightmare so horrific that we can only…
“What happened to me last night” thought Katy. “Where am I? Hello? Can anyone help me I’m a little stuck here?” With a few good hard pushes Katy had risen from the dead and found herself sitting up in her casket. “Wow I must have had one crazy night if I managed to end myself buried in the ground.” Katy was a 21 year old woman who lived life to the fullest as some people may say. She played all day and parted all night. She seemed to have the perfect carefree life, her parents were loaded and life was worry free. She did whatever she wanted to do whenever she wanted to it; at least that was Katy’s outlook on life. However, little did she know her life was about to get more twisted than she could ever imagine.…
Trying to go to school the next day. Standing in the shower thinking maybe if I dont get out I wouldn't have to start my day and move on with it all. But as the water turns to a shivering cold I realize it’s all too real. Pushing through the first five periods of the day, the last three seemed as too much. Feeling as if I will never be able to be happy again. All these gloomy days crafted me into who I am today. This whole experience making me grow up just a little bit faster, and a little more mature and understanding seeming as I already live the life as an adult, but only being a…
Jane Elliott, internationally known teacher, lecturer, diversity trainer, and recipient of the National Mental Health Association Award for Excellence in Education, exposes prejudice and bigotry for what it is, an irrational class system based upon purely arbitrary factors. And if you think this does not apply to you. . . you are in for a rude awakening.…
This character analysis is based on the character, Susanna Kaysen (played by Winona Ryder), from the feature film ‘Girl Interrupted’ directed by James Mangold and distributed by Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. in 1999, Rated MA15+. The film is based on the true story of Susanna Kaysen’s time in a mental institution, set in the 1960s. Exploring Susanna Kaysen’s character through an interactional viewpoint, many psychological concepts can be applied to analyse her condition.…
In Judy Brady’s “I Want a Wife” she talks about the tasks of a desired wife. There are certain things and duties required for a housewife to do. Brady describes all the helpful things done for a husband and children without even realizing all the responsibility and what she is doing. No one ever acknowledges that things done by a wife can be done by someone who was not a wife, but instead a man. Judy realizes she supports her husband so he can go back to school. She keeps the house clean. She has to be sensitive to the needs of a man in general.…
Sitting in the freezing rain on a December afternoon wondering what I did so wrong to be thrown out of my house. I look into the puddle that was formed due to the accumulation of the rain. As I lean forward to look into it all I see is a reflection of a child that was misunderstood and used his entire life. This child was me.…
This paragraph is about the things that make my mom (and dad) my Michigan hero but first, like stated before our life isn't butterflies and rainbows but I once thought it once was but I found out what was happening when I believed my life was “perfect”. Turns out my mom works harder to support us than I thought, I also learned that we used to live on food stamps, and finally she (and my dad) had once saved me during an asthma attack when I was only 5 years old and at that age a attack like that could have killed me and then I wouldn't be sitting here right now and typing this…
Once upon a time there was a girl who was kind of an idiot but people still liked her because she was not ugly and okay at sports. She was 17. Nothing was really wrong with her, per say, but was anything really right? Probably not. Anyway, one day in this once upon a time this girl was walking along the road, minding her own business. I should probably mention now that in the world this girl lived, no one could hear. Don’t get too excited, she couldn’t either. Like I said, she wasn’t anything special. But as she was walking along this road, something interesting happened. It was in the middle of the day in a suburban neighborhood, so about as boring as a setting could get. No one, especially not this girl, could ever guess what would happen to her next.…