Cassie Bernall Themes

A mother and a child. A love that transcends no bounds. To give up a child leaves a hole that nothing can fill. An empty abyss. In the heat of the moment, the mother is convinced that she is doing right by the child. Giving that child a life that they themselves will not be able to give. It hurts to leave, but they know deep down, that the sacrificing of their happiness for the child’s well-being is what is best. In the photograph Mother and child by Jerome Liebling, the mother stands, child in arms, before the steps. Before the steps of giving up the one piece of joy she has in her life. Holding a blank expression on her face, trying not to show any emotion as it would only make what she is about to do harder. She is tired, worn down by the weight of the world. Contemplating what she is about to do, although she knows it will not help.

Bharati Mukherjee’s “The Management of Grief,” and Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies” both illustrate female character’s who struggle when they face the tragic loss of their children. In their short stories, Mukherjee and Lahiri both incorporate the journey of grief a mother faces, however both texts offer a vast difference surrounding each woman’s attitudes toward losing children. While Mukherjee’s “The Management of Grief” and Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies” both highlight the overwhelming grief that surrounds the loss of children, Mukherjee’s story allows the interpretation of a protagonist holding onto hope, and finding the strength to accept her tragic loss and move forward. In Lahiri’s story, by contrast, no real acceptance

    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

In this novel Taylor is a dynamic character, we see her transform from a young girl who didn’t want to get married or have kids to an independent single mother. In the beginning we get to know her as a self-owned, determined and a stubborn girl who is focused, ambitious and thinks outside the box; because she knows firsthand what is like to see her mother struggle as a single parent. She learned to value every day because pregnancy was like a disease. An example of her considerate outlook is “believe me in those days the girls were dropping by the wayside like seeds off a poppy seed bun and you learned to look at every day as a prize” (3). This small but

the children, including the baby who suffers from paralysis? Each chapter bring heartache and triumph

The Columbine Massacre that occurred on April 20th, 1999 is one of the biggest shocks to hit the United States at that time. It was centered around two lonely and depressed high school boys, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who had a highly-detailed plan on attending school with explosives and firearms. The perpetrators murdered 12 students and a teacher during the attack along with injuring 21 additional people. The first victim who had their life taken was 17-year-old Rachel Scott who took shots in the head and in the torso when the two gunmen entered the school. “Scott was an energetic, sociable girl, who displayed concern for the well-being of others (About).” Eric and Dylan ended the attack by committing suicide.

Some of the people they killed, were killed because of their skin color, their status amoung the high school, or because of their religious beliefs. One student named Cassie Bernall, a 17-year-old junior was killed because she believed in God. Cassie's martyrdom was even more remarkable when you consider that just a few years ago she had dabbled in the occult, including witchcraft. She had embraced the same darkness and nihilism that drove her killers to such despicable acts. But two years ago, Cassie dedicated her life to Christ, and turned her life around. Another student, Isaiah Shoels, 18, senior, was the only black student shot. Suffered health problems as a child and had heart surgery twice. Wanted to attend an arts college and become a music executive. Small in stature, but lifted weights and played football and wrestled. Bench-pressed twice his weight.

A myth that started in Littleton quickly spread nationwide. It was assumed for too long that CAssie Bernall had been a martyr in the Columbine library. Cassie never died for her religion. She died when Dylan said, “peekaboo” then shot her. Valeen Schnurr had not died so she could not have been glorified as a martyr but she professed her Christian beliefs

"You think because I am her mother I have a key, or that in some way you could use me as a key? She has lived for nineteen years. Over and over, we are told of the limitations on choice--"it was the only way"; "They persuaded me" and verbs of necessity recur for descriptions of both the mother's and Emily's behavior. " In such statements as "my wisdom ! came too late," the story verges on becoming an analysis of parental guilt. With the narrator, we construct an image of the mother's own development: her difficulties as a young mother alone with her daughter and barely surviving during the early years of the depression; her painful months of enforced separation from her daughter; her gradual and partial relaxation in response to a new husband and a new family as more children follow; her increasingly complex anxieties about her first child; and finally her sense of family balance which surrounds but does not quite include the early memories of herself and Emily in the grips of survival needs. In doing so she has neither trivialized nor romanticized the experience of motherhood; she has indicated the wealth of experience yet to be explored in the story’s possibilities of experiences, like motherhood, which have rarely been granted serious literary consideration. Rather she is searching for

Born on November, 16, 1951, Paula Anne Vogel spent most of her early life living In Washinton DC until she went to graduate school at Cornell University in Ithaca New York but she ended up leaving with a A.B.D. She then went on as a lecturer in Woman’s Studies and Theater Arts at the same university however she ended up being fired due to political reasons and moved into the director of the graduate playwriting at a University in Rhode Island. It wasn’t until making How I learned to Drive that helped her gain financial independence to leave.

The mother of the boy in the novel had given up all faith of God saving her; she ends her life with suicide. Before she does she states:” I don’t dream at all…I am done with my own whorish heart and I have for a long time….As for me my only is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart”(57). The mothers’ views on God is not understood, but this extract clearly shows at one time she had hope in her

After the death of her husband, Mother struggles to keep her family together by providing the support and guidance they need, and encouraging them to use good judgment and think of the family as a whole before making their decisions. As the family faces various obstacles, each seemingly more severe than the last, Mother begins

The first time I read the novel “The Shack,” I immediately empathized with the main character. The story is about a little girl who was abducted from a camping site and found murdered. Its main story line follows the emotional roller coaster of her father, Mack. Not to give the entire story away, I will not discuss exactly what Mack experienced. However, losing his daughter filled him with so much pain and anger. Mack could not understand how this could happen, why this would happen to his daughter. Ultimately he struggles with God, wanting to know why God would let his daughter be taken away in such a brutal murder. I have faced struggles and sadness in my life that made me cry out to God asking,

Judith Wright’s poem “Mother to Child” is about a woman’s emotions during the different stages of motherhood. It tells the audience that the bond between a mother and her child is very powerful and that it changes as the child grows. Wright shows us this through her use of imagery, symbolism and the structure of her poem. The use of those three elements of literature help communicate the love the woman has for her child and how their connection grows stronger as time goes on.

Life throws countless curveballs and when they hit hard enough, all you can do is follow blindly behind those who lead you. When being an unborn child, you do not yet know the challenges of life, and in the poem “Prayer Before Birth”, written by Louis MacNeice, the unborn child is praying that those challenges are to be resolved using their own judgement and not others. The child is found wishing for all the malicious things in the world to spare him and leave him to live a life of peace. Louis MacNeice’s poem demonstrates the cruelty embedded in the world and how the act of war only enhances that.