Ashes Susan Beth Pfeffer Analysis

Ashleigh knows stealing is wrong and that she shouldn’t do it but the rules might change when it comes to her dad. The short story “Ashes” by Susan Beth Pfeffer is a story about a set of divorced parents and their child Ashleigh. Ashleighs parents seem to come from two entirely different worlds, her father a dreamer her mother very practical. However being a dreamer may seem like a good thing it just might have swept her dad off his feet. When her father runs out of money from gambling Ashleigh must choose to either steal money from her mother or let her father be without any money. Ashleigh stole the money from her mother because she hears her father’s voice in the back of her mind reminding her she is one in a million, her dad has led her to believe that he will return all of the money she took from her mother by the end of the week and that her mother won’t even notice, and the dark grey ashes color sky at the end of the story symbolizes that she is going to steal the

Losing a parent is presumably an unthinkable concept for those lucky to have them alive, but sometimes the title of “parent” dies long before a body is placed in the ground. Toi Derricotte author of “Beginning Dialogues” unfortunately had to experience both the death of her mother’s title of “parent”, as well as her literal death. Derricotte’s parents had divorced when she was eighteen, and her father did not seem to play much of a role in her life; she was left to be raised by her mentally abusive mother. Her mother also had a tough road to walk growing up, having to face and deal with brutal issues like racism and bulling. Persevering through those tough times may be the underlining reason behind Derricotte’s mother’s negativity and abuse towards her daughter. Perhaps she just grew a thick skin at a very young age and had never learned how to feel, accept, or administer love. Derricotte’s had said: “She told me all my life she loved me, as if she completely forgot the hundred slights, humiliations, threats, and insinuations. Of course she loved me;

In the short story called, “Ashes” by Susan Beth Pfeffer, the protagonist is dealing with the complicated relationship between her divorced parents. Ashleigh, the main character, is questioned by her dad if she can borrow her mom's money for his own problems. Ashes, short for Ashleigh, like the compliments that she keeps receiving from her dad. Ashes complex relationship with her parents makes her choose between her mom or her dad. One lesson this story suggests is that no matter how much you love someone, you have to let them handle things on their own.

The daughter is bored with her mother's dreams and lets her pride take over. She often questions her self-worth, and she decides that she respects herself as nothing more than the normal girl that she is and always will be. Her mother is trying to mold her into something that she can never be, she believes, and only by her futile attempts to rebel can she hold on to the respect that she has for herself. The daughter is motivated only to fail so that she may continue on her quest to be normal. Her only motivation for success derives from her own vanity; although she cannot admit it to herself or her mother, she wants the audience to see her as that something that she is not, that same something that her mother hopes she could be.

    Humans have come to a conclusion that all lives are different, but all go through many hardships and tragedies. The impact from a slight difference can vary to be very vast to very small, such a slight difference, however, can change a person’s life as a whole. In the book, The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore there is a difference that can be identified between the author’s life and that of the other Wes. This difference, though can be very critical and is ultimately able to lead to a path of triumph or failure for an individual. The lack of involvement a mother has for their child can fundamentally deprive them from succeeding, and parent involvement has the opportunity to

The other reading of the story might be based on the maturing of a young woman. As it is probably the most important period in every adolescent's life, when they keep searching for their own identity, it should by strongly influenced by their parents. If it is not, a teenager starts looking for directions outside their home, and sometimes has difficulties with distinguishing what is good and evil. They are very often affected by

Few relationships are as deep as those between child and parent. While circumstance and biology can shape the exact nature of the bond, a child’s caretaker is the first to introduce them to the world. And as they grow and begin to branch out, children look to their parents as a model for how to interact with the various new situations. Through allusion, potent imagery, and nostalgic diction, Natasha Trethewey constructs an idolized image of a father guiding their child through life’s challenges only to convey the speaker’s despair when they are faced with their father’s mortality in “Mythmaker.”

50% of children experience the divorce of their parents according to www.marriage-success-secrets.com. In Ashes, by Susan Beth Pfeffer, Ashleigh’s parents have been divorced for the last two years. She loves both of them but has a special soft spot for her dad. Ashleigh’s mom is a practical person and her dad is described as a dreamer. After a dinner with her father, Ashleigh receives a request. He wants her to to take her mom’s emergency money to pay off a deal he made. Ashleigh makes the decision to not give her dad the money because she questions the process and outcome, her father has a history of making irresponsible decisions, and the clouds symbolize her feelings towards her dad’s plan.

In the story the author portrays the protagonist differently from the other characters because she talks about the physical appearance of other characters and when it comes to the narrator we have no idea what she looks like but she is developed partially through her relationship with other characters, although we the readers do come the find out that the narrator is around the age of 15-17 years old and we can assume that she has a bad relationship with her parents because first of all she talks about them maybe once or twice in the whole story and second of all we know that they sent her to boarding school so that alone proves that her relationship with them is lacking. As readers we also know that she has trouble opening up in the story she say “To open your heart. You open your legs but can’t, or don’t dare anyone, to open your heart” (237). This is a prime example of how author characterizes the protagonist as broken and emotionally damaged. And as the story progress the author becomes more honest with us the readers and herself, she starts the reveal the pain she is in and how lonely she feels. The narrator gives us an example of how she feels after sex by saying “After sex, you curl up like a shrimp, something deep inside you ruined, slammed in a place that sickness at

A boy and his family struggle to survive in a harsh unfair world. A classic story of struggle but through his excellent use of memoir and narrative writing Frank McCourt turns his own story into a gripping masterpiece. In his memoir Angela’s Ashes Frank McCourt reveals his childhood for all that it was. Through his words the reader is able to feel what he experienced as a child. The narrative techniques that Frank McCourt uses set a tone for the whole story and provide an interesting perspective into his early life. McCourts use of setting, characterization and perspective allow a deeper understanding of his feelings as well as those who influenced him in his journey through childhood.

One of the most significant lines in Angela’s Ashes is the introduction, written from the adult perspective of McCourt: “It was, of course, a miserable childhood… and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood… the poverty; the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying schoolmasters...” It is his bitter attitude conveyed with the usage of words with negative connotations as well as alliteration of “mother moaning” and “pompous priests” to emphasise the suffering he had experienced during his childhood which greatly contrasts with the latter part of the autobiography which uses a good-natured attitude to balance the bleakness of his life. This shows his change of outlook towards his past despite the pain he has felt. In both Angela’s Ashes and The Story of My Life, their inner thoughts resonated within the readers through their usage of emotive language to convey their experiences. Keller’s writing style consists of mainly emotional paragraphs where her inner thoughts greatly reveal how she felt at the time and in turn touches the hearts of the audience further than any novel could. “We would sit together of an evening and listen to the inner melodies of the spirit… But in college there is no time to commune with one's thoughts… When one enters the portals of learning, one leaves the dearest pleasures... I am improvident enough to prefer present joy to hoarding riches against a rainy day.” Again, the use of words with positive and negative connotations are evident throughout the text allowing us to grasp her feelings as she compares her free past life to the restriction of education. The revelation of the inner thoughts of the author establishes a relationship where the readers

In 1998, Elizabeth Cohen’s father had come down with a sever case of Alzheimer’s. Her mother would call and conference with her and her sister, telling them of his rapid degeneration. The way she describes her parents’ love story was almost fairytale-like. They ate together, laughed together, and so on. Everything was perfect except for one thing; her mother hated kids. Elizabeth had, what she describes to be, a vexing and confusing childhood. Her mother kept her at bay from her father, and mother seemed to merely put up with her kids rather than take motherly care of them. Elizabeth’s dad or “Daddy” had been

When people are young children, most see their parents as incredible figures. They seem infallible. That is, in good circumstances. As mothers and fathers are all human, they have their faults just like everyone else on planet Earth; and a crucial part of growing up is understanding that parents make mistakes, they do bad things, and may create irreconcilable differences in relationships with their children. The next critical step is to come to terms with these facts. While this may not necessarily mean fixing the bond between parent and child—forgiving and forgetting are two very different things—the child learns how to handle or cope with the reality of their situation. Even if things end on a bad note, closure can be the starting place of moving on, a theme addressed in the father-son relationships in American Beauty and Smoke Signals.

In Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, both novels are supportive of the concept that parents notably affect their children’s lives and the decisions they make throughout their lives. The father’s of both main characters, Amir and Oskar, negatively and positively impacted them. Throughout both novel’s, the effects of not only the father’s but the mothers become extremely apparent. Amir has an extraordinary unique relationship with his father and no ties with his mother as a result of her dying at his birth.

Grow up, fall in love, get married, have children; the ideal sequence of family, but what happens when families are brought together and created out of order? In the adolescent novel The First Part Last, by Angela Johnson, she tells an inspiring story of a 16-year-old boy who enters fatherhood too early. Bobby is an African American who sacrifices his own youth to assume the responsibility of raising his daughter, Feather, after his girlfriend and mother of their daughter becomes unresponsive. Challenging decisions are made regarding friends, family, and Feather’s well-being, as well as selfish adolescent desires. Throughout the novel, the readers move with Bobby, encouraging him, while silently reprimanding him for his selfish actions.