Analysis Of Angela Nissel's Novel 'Mixed'

In this section, Jeannette Walls starts off, in the present time by telling the readers about her seeing her mom on the street, that she hasn’t seen in a long time. Jeannette uses emotional words like blustering and fretted to show that seeing her mom was an emotional time. Later in the section, she goes way back into her life to when she was three years old and when her family and her was living in the desert. She started off telling a story of when she was on fire. This story was intense, it was really dramatic on her parents part, her dad was screaming at her and the doctor a lot. Then she talked about when they moved to Las Vegas, her family lived in a motel room, which didn’t last long, they had to leave Vegas in a rush, because her dad was cheating in blackjack and the dealer found out. The last story in the section is where her family drove to San Francisco and stayed in another motel. One night her dad was at the bar, across the street. He left Jeannette and her three other siblings in the room. Jeannette got bored so she decided to play with fire and that let to a big disaster resulting in the whole hotel burning down.

In Kindred, by Olivia Butler a main character name Dana traveled back in time where she battled the face of inequalities. Danas journey back to the past is to help the readers understand what African-Americans had to experience and what they had to go through as a slave to be a free person. There was a lack of human rights for blacks, blacks were vulnerability with sexual assault and rape. Dana had dealt with her own experiences has being a slave with discrimination from Rufus, rape, racism, and abuse. She had self taught herself about slavery which gave her knowledge to prepare herself for what she had coming.

“He [Jeannette’s father, Rex] will not keep me out of harm’s way, he will put me in harm’s way and I have to find a way to remove myself from the situation.” (Diversity Connection). I feel like this quote, from Jeannette, came t directly from the situation where Rex took her out to the bar to help him earn money for alcohol, but yet she still doesn’t see herself as a victim. Even though Jeannette Walls was the victim of sexual abuse at a very young age, she tries to recreate the freedom from her childhood into her adult life, But in her younger years where she has no occupational activities, no nurturing, no money and no friends to turn to, it proves to be very hard to maintain.

Between Shades of Gray takes place in 1941, when fifteen-year-old Lina and her family are precipitously taken away from their home in Lithuania by the Soviet Union and transported to a Siberian labor camp. The long and horrific train ride to Siberia is pervaded with barbarity, and once the prisoners arrive, they are only faced with more cruelty. Lina, a gifted artist, records her experience in drawings kept hidden from the cruel guards, as she documents her struggles to keep faith in humanity.

In the article, “Parting at the Crossroads: The Development of Health Insurance in Canada and the United States” the author Antonia Maioni argues various points as to why Canada and the United States of America have such different approaches to targeting the healthcare system. The topics covered by Maioni included, “Health Reform in Canada: The Role of the CCF-NDP”. Here Maioni discuses in great detail, the historical background to how Canada got to where they are in the health system through the ups and downs that occurred in Parliament due to “the public demand for action on medical insurance” which was influenced by the highly successful medical insurance program that existed in Saskatchewan post-world war. It goes to show, that the passing

The short story, “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, portrays a conflict between a Chinese mother and daughter. Jing-Mei mother, Suyuan, comes to America after losing everything in China. When she came to America, this is where all her hoped lays. She believes that anything is possible and that America is the land of opportunity. Because of this, she has high hopes for Jing-Mei becoming a successful child prodigy. So, Suyuan tries everything she can to find Mei’s talent. First, she tries to make her daughter into a Chinese Shirley Temple, but doesn’t work. Then she tries intellectual tests that were from known magazines, but that doesn’t work either. Finally, Suyuan decides that Mei would be a pianist. Suyuan gathered up her money to buy Mei a piano and

While reading this book, I got most involved when the author would talk about “Alex” and all the many emotions he felt while living his new life driven on impulse.

Young people live life by the day. The process of self discovery begins as a teenager. For some, this could take years. For others, it could happen quickly. Sometimes hardship leads people towards self-discovery. In the book Ordinary People, by Judith Guest, Conrad struggles with his identity; in the past, Conrad was never able to do anything without his brother’s influence. Once his brother drowns, Conrad feels lost without him. In the beginning, middle and end of the book, Conrad goes through the stages of grief, and through this process, Conrad discovers his identity.

When it comes to taking a child away from their parents, there are many things that need to be taken into consideration. If a child is being neglected, it is obvious that the child needs to be taken away from the parents, right? Not always. In the article “The Separation” by Larissa MacFarquah, the concept of child neglect and abuse is discussed. If a mother is too poor and cannot afford to upkeep her home or buy food for her children, is that neglect?

Atwood writes about the narrator’s thoughts and needs for affection. There’s nobody here I can love… I can conjure them but they are mirages only, they don’t last. Can I be blamed for wanting a real body… Without it I too am disembodied…I can stroke myself… but I too am dry and white, hard, granular; it’s like running my hand over a plateful of dried rice….

This summer I read the book “Between Shades of Grey” by Ruta Sepetys. The story is about a fifteen year old girl named Lina Vilkas and her family consisting of her mother, brother and father. In the story Lina and her mother and brother were arrested by the NKVD. In the story we see the different prison camps that Lina and her family go to. This book really exposed me to the terrible things that occurred to these innocent people. In the book Lina, her brother and mother are sent to three different prison camps. While at the second prison camp one of the scariest parts in the book occurs. Lina and her mother were held at gunpoint and forced to dig holes with broken shovels in order to obtain food. While they were digging one of the Russian soldiers

Lynn Nottage’s play, “Ruined”, is an eye-opening story that takes place in the Democratic Republic of Congo during the Civil War. The play is centered around women who have been sexually abused, and are living and working in a brothel owned by the protagonist Mama Nadi. The play gives deep insight to the hardships women had to go through during that time. The play is a melodrama and a great example of a contemporary version of realism. This play also illustrates three important characteristics of storytelling we discussed in class: stories teach, stories allow us to personalize issues, and stories build compassion.

Octavia Butler displays her brilliance as a writer by creating multiple, complex characters in the novel Kindred, characters who epitomize real people with hardships, passions, and transformations that reflect the strict regulations placed upon the Southern society in the early nineteenth century. Dana faces many hardships from the moment Butler shifts her back one-hundred and sixty-one years to a time of slavery where she is stripped of her freedom. Rufus’s passion for Alice transitions into a fog, where he is unable to distinguish between love and control. On the other hand, Butler gives Tom Weylin a depth that reflects his actions and directly relates them to his experiences. Together all three characters’ ideas come to a screaming halt, when they are placed alongside each other and without a choice lives in a time of slavery.

Maria Campbell’s autobiography Halfbreed is a moving story about a young Native girl’s battle to survive, in coming to terms with the past and in discovering a way to build a brighter future in an atmosphere of social abuse and viciousness. Campbell is the oldest daughter of seven children, and was born in northern Saskatchewan. Within the book, she points out the differences between the Native people and the whites, as well as those of status Indians with non-status Native people. Both whites and full-blooded Native people rejected her due to her designation as a non-status Native, otherwise known as Metis. Filled with a strong feeling of resentment and anger, Campbell’s search for self-identity and her struggle to overcome the poverty, discrimination, and cruelty experienced by Metis individuals are described within the novel. When Campbell was twelve, her mother passed away. As a young girl, she was forced to give up school and take on the role of the mother to her younger siblings. At fifteen years old, Campbell felt obligated to marry in order to prevent her younger brothers and sisters from being taken away from her and her father. Unfortunately, her diligent work and good intentions did not keep her family together. Her spouse, a white, abusive alcoholic, reported her to the welfare authorities, and her siblings were taken away and placed in foster homes. Her husband chose to take his family to Vancouver, where he abandoned her and their newly born child.

The novel Ordinary People by Judith Guest is a work of realistic fiction which delves into the lives and emotions of Conrad and his father Calvin: two dynamic characters who have recently endured the tragic loss of Buck, their brother and son, respectively. Despite the insight Guest gives the reader into the inner thoughts of these two characters with her well-executed stream-of-consciousness writing technique, she does not fail to deliver a variety of secondary characters that add to the story immensely. One such character is Jeannine Pratt, the red-headed vocalist and love interest of Conrad. Jeannine’s role in the story evolves into far more than a meager romantic pursuit. Jeannine is an invaluable character to the novel because she causes major character progression in Conrad and leads him to his eventual recovery.