Mr. California Sparknotes

The narrator is caught between his freedom and success in Paris and his past, marred by racism, which he is again about to confront. Using the flashback episode as an example of what he expects on his return, the narrator details the horrible feelings of helplessness and hatred generated by racist behavior. His family in the United States experienced prejudice firsthand and it damaged them forever. His father 's and sister 's lives were destroyed by racism, and the narrator escaped to France to avoid the same fate. Now famous, he must come to terms with his expatriate status, and find a way for his son to live without the same scars of racism.

The story is set in 1968 in Oakland, California three young girls Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern who leave their father in Brooklyn to go Oakland to meet their mother who abandoned them. Oakland at this time is a boiling pot with political and racial turmoil, with the Black Panthers at the head of a movement fighting for civil rights. In a historical context many readers at this age level have not been exposed to the many freedom fighter organizations like The Black Panthers, middle school students are usually only exposed to a limited number of figures in the civil rights movement like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

     Over the course of the year Melinda becomes more and more miserable. Heather forces her to be what she dosen’t want. Heather wants to be a part of a group of girls called The Marthas, a bunch of Martha Stewart wannabe’s who Melinda doesn’t like. Heather makes Melinda help her with ridiculous and impossible projects the Mathas assign Heather. Her parents are always on her grades. Melinda could care less about her grades. At least, after that night she could.

forced to flee Paris with her father to her uncle’s house in Saint Malo. The book is narrated in a

The case study of Angela and Adam describes a situation in which a Caucasian teenage mother, Angela, does not appear to have a bond with her 11 month old son, Adam. According to Broderick and Blewitt (2015) Angela and Adam live in the home with Angela’s mother, Sarah. Angela’s relationship with her own mother is described as a bit dysfunctional as Sarah is reported to continue to be angry with Angela for becoming pregnant in the first place. Sarah’s anger has caused her to deny Adam’s father the ability to come to the home and play an active role in Adam’s life, therefore putting more of a strain on Angela, who has already had to drop out of high school in an attempt to take care of Adam on her own. Angela has openly admitted to aggressive behavior towards Adam such as grabbing his face and handling Adam in a rough manner. In return, Adam has reacted by being avoidant of his mother and he is reported to not respond to his mother as an 11 month old child should and he is not reported to have an appropriate bond with his mother.

Source: CAPPELEN DAMM AS, Oslo 2008 – ''Access to English literature, VG3''. Anthony, Burgess, Mikkelsen & Sørhus. Chapter 1, page 23-24.

In Kate Chopin’s 1894 short story The Story of an Hour, a woman processes the announcement of her husband’s death. The story revolves around Louise Mallard, a young, pretty woman who has just received word that her husband, Brently Mallard, died in a train accident. Upon receiving the news from her sister Josephine, Louise immediately bursts into tears, an emotional display that, once spent, prompts her to retreat to her bedroom. After a time, Louise repeats her emotional outburst—this time with excitement at the idea she will be able to live her own life. However, Louise’s joy is cut short when her husband, having been nowhere near the accident, arrives home. Her disappointment is so profound she dies.

In Brooklyn the year of 1968. Three sisters, Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern are living with Big Ma and Pa. Then one day they are told they are flying to Oakland to visit someone who had left them for several years, their mother, Cecile. They fly hours to see their mother and do not expect what they expected to see for many reasons and truly have one crazy summer. They begin doing things they never thought they would and are making changes not only for the country, but for themselves as well. They join a summer program after Cecile doesn’t cook breakfast for them and then the changes begin.

When I was a child, I used to believe that the only thing I knew was what my parents told me, and that they couldn’t be wrong. However growing up I found out that not everything was true and that what they were doing was protecting me from harmful things in the world. However the older I get the more I realize that there are many things in the world that I haven’t seen yet. The same goes with Sammy from the short story A&P, when Sammy wants to know more about what's happening in the world.

“I've got to follow my own plan. Stay here. Get my own thing going.” Vianne was always on the move, creating chocolate and happiness. To continue pursuing her passion of creating chocolate and following the practices of her mother’s people, she had to move from location to location – calling neither home. “Mother and daughter were fated to wander from village to village, dispensing ancient cacao remedies, travelling with the wind.” With every shift in location, she had to leave behind the life she had built there, beginning with abandonment of her father who one morning, “awoke to discover that Chitza and the little girl Vianne had gone away.” At a young age, Mia chose to move to Los Angeles in hopes to fulfil her dreams of becoming a successful actress. However, it was later evident that the project she became successful in required her to go to Paris. Whether it be love, home or family, the authors show the different sacrifices that need to be made in order to fulfil a dream.

“There is something strange about this house”, Scarlett murmured to herself. Ten days ago, her mother bought a penthouse which costed a huge amount of money. The penthouse had luxurious amenities, high end appliances, finest furniture and luxurious flooring system, etc. By this Scarlett was exited but at the same time specifically her room was an eccentrics of the luxurious penthouse. Scarlett even knew about the previous owner who was a film producer Sam who had disappeared. Later, after two days the body was found decomposed in a nearby cemetery. This really irked Scarlett. From the following ten day she has been experiencing situations which are hard to describe. For example, feeling like someone is observing, sounds of screaming, doors creaking,

In the third chapter, the former sheriff goes to alert Momma the KKK possibly coming for Willie. “…I would be unable to say anything in his behalf”, says Marguerite. She is angry that the law enforcement officials do not do anything to stop the violent white men from killing black people.

Who is to officially declare what makes a man? Who can simply imply that one has become a man? These questions can be answered with the support of three textual symbols found in the novella by Angela Johnson. The First Part Last goes into great details of how a rural teenager must take on the responsibilities of raising a child while finding his maturity as time progresses. Many symbols are given to represent such changes, for example, Johnson inserts the use of colours to show the emotions Bobby is expressing in the scene to give feeling while spray painting on a city building. "I spray black. Then red, mixed with some blue." (Johnson, 60) The use of colours is brought up again while Bobby is wishing to paint the same emotional colours all

Marguerite and her brother, Bailey, are sent to live with their grandmother at three and four, so she had little experience with her mother, Vivian,

Short stories can share themes, motifs, symbols, consequences, and plot lines, even if there is never any intention to share a common element between the stories. The stories can be written close together or in different decades and still be linked to the one another. They can also be worlds apart with different meanings in the end, but that does not stop them from having similar ideas expressed within them. The following three stories, “Lagoon” by Joseph Conrad, “The Rocking Horse Winner” by DH Lawrence, and “The Lady in the Looking Glass” by Virginia Woolf, are three totally different stories that share common threads that make them the stories that they are.