Analysis Of The Book ' Flavio 's Home '

Understanding that there is a big separation between rich and poor, Gordon Parks was in for a rude awakening in ‘Flavios Home’ when he came face to face with a family doing all they can to survive. Parks comes across a young fellow named Flavio da Silva who was struggling to carry water in a tin over his head and is immediately intrigued to learn more about him. Having an assignment over poverty, Parks took the chance to get better insight by following Flavio home. Recreating the environment and interactions he had creates an awareness that is able to give those not in nor around those in poverty to make a change. Parks goes beyond just going through the events by using descriptive words that allows readers to accompany him.

Our Life is a matter of choices. Live well and have faith and it will never go wrong. Our lives can be full of crazy ups and downs that shape our views on how life should be lived. With a similar ideology, author Flannery O’Connor’s depicts her own life struggles using different aspects and details throughout her novels and short stories. O’Connor lived by the basis that life must go on no matter the hardships. In her novels she represented various characters who made wrong choices and due to those choices suffered extreme negative consequences. Despite her struggles, O’Connor made the choice to continue on in her life yet many of her novels contradicted that same idea by having characters in her novels and short stories suffer consequences for making the wrong choices. Because the

Flavio lived in a place full of poverty, the home was located on the outsides of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; the shack had its walls beaten down, holes in them, and patched up. Flavio's family had to retrieve the water that they would use to clean the rice, then they would reuse it to wash the sisters feet, later they would put soap in the water and bathed the children. The siblings did not get along; they would constantly fight, but it would be when one child got a taste of food before anyone else. Flavio’s parents had to work a lot in order to have enough money for all of the children; therefore, they did not have enough

According to Marian Erickson, “Most of life is choices, and the rest is pure dumb luck.” Real people’s lives depend on this quote everyday, which leads to the outcome of each problem individuals face. In the passages, characterization of the main personas helps one understand the theme. Conflict and symbolism also help lead to the overall idea that life is not always guaranteed to be full of success. The book The Other Wes Moore, the poem “If,” and the informational text “The Art of Resilience” all share a common theme of how choices and luck contribute to the success of life.

Throughout “Flavio's Home,” Parks effectively informs the reader that the issue of poverty is ignored by those who have the power and resources to make a change. By appealing to the reader's emotions, Parks uses ethos to encourage the reader to want to stop such tragedies from occurring. He is also credible, by being a well-known photographic essayist who has grown up knowing the struggle of poverty

Parks talks about Flavio and his family, describing the everyday struggles of Flavio as he tries to grow up in Catacumba. Flavio’s siblings are viewed as rowdy and unable to get along. Parks also shows how impoverished the da Silva family is when he finds out Jose da Silva, the father, earns seventy-five cents regularly. Parks also describes how hostile the favelas are during the night, and how they are no place for a child to be nurtured in. Later in the passage Parks describes another side of Brazil when he goes to the hotel he stays in, which is much more fortunate than the favelas. To conclude, the reader finds out Flavio will not live long when he is taken to the doctor, where the doctor proceeds to tell Parks and the da Silva family the news. Parks then ends the article by telling Flavio everything will be okay, upon which Flavio replies with saying he’s more concerned for his sibling than his own well-being Leaving the reader feeling compassionate towards Flavio and his family.

Parks’ portrayal of poverty begins as soon as he meets Flavio, a young boy who lives in the favela of Catacumba. When he first meets him, the author describes his appearance to be miserably thin and lacking pieces of clothing but a “filthy denim shorts”. Parks also recounts that his “legs resembled sticks covered with skin and screwed into his feet” pointing out the horribly mal-nutrient body of the poor boy. Furthermore, the author says it tragically that “Death was all over him, in his sunken eyes, cheeks and jaundiced coloring”(par.3) reminding again of Flavio’s deteriorating physique. The sickly boy was also known to carry “a tin of water on his head”(par.3), adding unto the physical burden he already had with his body. Parks captures poverty through Flavio in that the readers can see the brutal physical

Poverty is a transmittable disease; it begins with parents and spreads to children and the people around them. It could obliterate a flawless society and affect everyone and everything around it. It is akin to a genetic code that is pre-written and out of human control. Everywhere people look, children can be seen with bones protruding out of their flesh, yet these children are the most hard-working beings alive. Poverty is a global issue that every member of humanity has dealt with at some point in time, and it is more likely that someone will help another in need after being helped themselves.

Flavio’s Home is a short essay written by Gordon Parks about a twelve year old boy and his family, who live in severe poverty. Parks uses Flavio’s Home to show the devastating effects from poverty and how action needs to be taken to help those in need. Parks shows how he feels about poverty in the opening sentence of the essay by stating, “I’ve never lost my fierce grudge against poverty. It is the most savage of all human afflictions, claiming victims who cant mobilize their efforts against it, who often lack strength to digest what little food they can scrounge up to survive”(Parks147). Parks is right, poverty claims so many lives daily, many of those are children. There are so many people who do not have enough food, inadequate access to clean drinking water and health

Adversity can be seen in many different ways. Some people look at adversity as a learning experience, while others view adversity as a situation marked with misfortune. When a person is faced with adversity, rather than viewing it as something to hate, they should see it as a opportunity to grow. In the stories by Doris Lessing, W.D Wetherell and Alice Walker, they all show different types of challenges each character had to over come and their journey to do so. These stories all shared similar outcomes, they demonstrate how each character used an obstacle they were faced with, and turned it into a beneficial experience and how it shaped them into the person they are today.

“It’s 5:45 now,” said Carrol. She bent down and gave a small piece of chicken to their cat, Lucky.

Often times we mistake tragedies as major setbacks in our lives, but in reality it can empower us to become successful individuals. I have witnessed these tragedies faced by both my family and friends; however, I identify the unseen benefit for series of unfortunate events. Within our lifetime, we will endure hardships or tragedies that will measure our strength and capabilities. We can ultimately make the decision whether it will dictate our lives forever or will we overcome and conquer it for the benefit of ourselves. In The Canterbury Tales, the Monk underlines that all tragedies revolve on having a devastating effect to the mentioned characters that he narrates.

Life is filled with millions of obstacles. There are situations when one day we are having the fun of our life and the next we are suffering. Many of us believe that these hardships are bound to happen. It is true that all humans suffer; however, certain works of world literature demonstrates that the question “Are we destined to go through certain obstacles?” is not easily answered.

The author deems that each individual had tragedies particularly the common man who dealt with it in his lifetime. He contends that tragedy possibly will also depict ordinary people in domestic surroundings. Miller had a new view of tragedy in which he saw tragic experience as impartial of widespread ethical matters. But, in all honesty, I would argue against Miller’s view of believing that tragedy is impossible in a world of moral relativity. Many views of tragedy have been portrayed over time; nonetheless the author shows a side which not many people seem to relate tragedy with although it is most likely one of the most common. In his paper, he describes a view of tragedy that is very different to how it has been illustrated in the past. This in turn connects the readers with two works that seemingly contradict with the ideas of Miller and can be seen as tragedies, they include Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart and William Butler Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming.”

“It keeps growing... spreading like cancer… human excrement clogged the open sewers…a large hole in the far corner served as a toilet…The children ate with their fingers… desperate criminals hid out there...long lines waited at the sole water spigot...others waited at the only toilet in the entire mountainside...throughout the place came wailing of hunger and hurt…” poverty is everything but a laughing matter (Parks). Photograph and writer, Gordon Parks, in his essay, “Flavio’s Home” reveals the struggles of families in poverty in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, highlighting a social-political concern faces in many countries around the world. Parks’ essay, originally published in Voices in the Mirror during the 1990’s, adopts an evocative tone in order to appeal to the incognizant rich to persuade them to take action against the destitution of the citizens of Catacumba. Parks’ purpose is to convey the idea that those in penury are dying from disease and other harsh conditions, both of which are preventable with awareness and funding.