Charlestown: A Short Story

Life is very complex and often hard to define. However, this challenge does not stop people from trying to sum up the meaning of life in one word. In Paper Towns by John Green, the three metaphors the strings, the grass, and the vessel are used throughout the book to chronicle the protagonist’s, Quentin, experiences. The novel revolves around Quentin Jacobsen, a high school senior. When his former best friend and long time crush, Margo Roth Spiegelman, comes back into his life and then suddenly disappears, Q attempts to piece together the clues he believes Margo left behind for him. Each of these three metaphors represent what Q is feeling and allow him to view life from different perspectives. As

“I was just told that the crazy Ewell folks be comin’ at my kids. Thank the Lord my children are okay.” Calpurnia gave me a big hug and a kiss. But when she let go, I saw that a trace of tears had filled her eyes. I sat down at the kitchen table and watched Cal make breakfast like she had done for me every day of my life as long as I can remember. I heard Jem wake up, I ran to his room.

My annual trip home has taken an incredible turn, perhaps it’s for the best but I will never look at my father the same way again after today’s events. First I spoke to Atticus and the things that came out of his mouth were incomprehensible. After our talk I was ready to leave Maycomb right away. “I grew up right here in [his] house and I never knew what was in [his] mind”(247), I never would have seen him as a racist or a segregationist, all things that the talk I had with him confirmed that he is. I was more than heartbroken, “ he [did] not just leave [me] merely wary when he [failed] me he [left me] with nothing”(179). I saw my father as a hero; “I looked up to [him], like I never looked up to anyone in my life and never will again”(250).

No matter what goes through my mind in life that little speech Mrs. Luella gave me would never fade out of any thought Mrs.Luella stated, “You ought be my son least I can teach you right from wrong.” With her saying that to me really influenced me not to steal anything from anybody and to just work for the things I need. It’s first thing Saturday morning the weather is cool outside and there’s a little fog out the breeze is blowing and my hand feel as if they have frost bites so I tuck my hands into my bell bottom jeans. I am on my way to my Uncle Jerry's house to see what good news he said he have for me. As I walk on the bumpy paved road on the poor part of NYC,my feet are hurting because of the weared down shoes I have on my feet and i'm starting to get goosebumps down my arms. As I get closer to my Uncle Jerry’s apartment I can see his brown beetle car in the parking lot.I walked up the stairway to the apartments and knocked on Uncles Jerry door within two knocks he answered,when he opened the door he said “It's good to know your still shining nephew!” We are from NYC and that's just a

The book assigned to all incoming freshmen of the College of Charleston to read over the summer was a poignant look into the prejudice-scarred past of the American south. Named for those few months in 1964 that redefined freedom and equality in America, it included many noble and inspirational characters, and choosing one to write about was no easy task. However, reading Freedom Summer, I found myself drawn to one character in particular: Chris Williams. The youngest of those who ventured into the heart of bloody Mississippi that summer, this 18-year old boy grew into a man by the time that summer was through with him. I cheered him on as he left his comfortable home, his high school diploma, and even his hippie hairstyle in Massachusetts. I was in awe of

Small towns can lead to many bad rumors that aren't true, trust me, I would know. After Tom Robinson's trial, about a black man raping a white woman, some trouble stirred up here in Maycomb County. Bob Ewell, a very racist man, spit in Atticus's face for defending a black man, it's a good thing that Atticus, Tom Robinson’s lawyer, kept his cool, who knows what he would've done. This town has been having so many troubles lately, with the snowy winter and then Tom being convicted then killed. Everyone thought that I was scary and a complete myth, but it was almost time for them all to know the truth. I had been watching out for the kids, they'd been getting into a lot of trouble lately, but I was there to watch out for anything that happened.

But, mom, I wasn’t planning on going alone, I have a bunch of people to go with me. We really want to march the streets, to help in making our country free. No, baby, I am not going to let you go, because I am scared that guns will be fired. But I will let you go to the church to sing in the children’s choir instead. The child has combed and brushed her black hair, and bathed until she was clean enough to smell like a rose. She put white gloves on her little brown skinned hands, and bright white shoes on her feet. The mother was happy to know that her child was going to such a sacred place like a church. But that was the last smile her face would ever see.

“It was December—a bright frozen day in the early morning. Far out in the country there was an old Negro woman with her head tied red rag, coming along a path through the pinewoods.” The action takes place in Christmas time, around the 1940s, on the trail from southwestern Mississippi to the city of Natchez. A Negron woman names Phoenix is on her way to the Natchez town, her grandson swallowed Lye, as a result, she needs to find medicine for him. The story is about the selfless love.

It was a sweaty hot day in South Carolina. Everyone on the plantation was desperate for something to drink. Ava Anderson was working on the Plantation with her mother Ebony Anderson and her older brother Jason. Ava worked all day and her back was always aching when she retired for the night. When she was finished she liked to imagine the world outside the plantation. What it was like to explore and be free ,but sadly she can't do any of them . She always wondered what it felt like to be free. Going to school and learn like all the other kids, but instead she was working on a plantation with her mom and brother.

The grandmother would like the children to see plantations that she saw when she was young in the town of Toombsboro. As they set out on the road in search of plantations, the family meets the misfit.

Packing a picnic basket, **we would clamber into the old pea-soup green Dodge and rattle off from our more urban town of Dudley (near Goldsboro) down “Tobacco Road” to a smaller community. The purpose of the day was to redeem some poor sinner who ***“wat’n doin’ right.” After arguing with Mother, who never accompanied us and averred that surely we shouldn’t go, Daddy would drive tight-lipped into the next county. Like Wayne County, Sampson County was mostly tobacco farms with some cotton and a few “modern” young farmers who were planting soybeans. And you had a sprinkling of professional men like Daddy, the doctor, the storeowner, the owner of the local saw mill, and the pharmacist. We would meet with other men of the community, a few of whom also brought their particularly well-behaved and *docilely obedient children, and drive down some long, bumpy dirt road and all park in front of someone’s house. I had never known the people we went to call on, only that our message was important for the people to learn to “to

Everyone undergoes unpleasant experiences, but did you know that these experiences help you grow as a person? The historical drama novel Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor, portrays the Logan family, and the hardships they must experience as a black family in the segregated South. There are four children in the Logan family: Little Man, Christopher-John, Cassie, and Stacey. One of Stacey’s friends is T.J. Avery, but T.J. later goes on to be “friends” with two older white boys, R.W. and Melvin Simms. R.W. and Melvin Simms also have a younger sister, Lillian Jean, a prideful and persnickety girl. One theme in this book is coming of age through pain and experience. The characters mature at school, the market, and when T.J. is caught

During the summer month of June 1830 it was very hot and sunny. The hot heat was beaming down on my head as I was working in grandma’s garden picking some peas for dinners. Every summer I always end-up at grandma’s house. She always wanted me to help her with choirs around the house during the whole summer. Well, I realize this was getting very bored to me. I wanted to have fun like my other friends, have during the summer. So I decided to ask my parents can I go to my auntie betty who live in Mississippi. I haven’t never been there before, I felt now it’s time to go there.

The family makes its way into the park. They stroll through, taking in the smell of cream cheese drizzled, cinnamon covered, melt-in-your-mouth breakfast pastries that are strategically sold right at the very entrance and exit of the park so that you cannot leave the park without getting a whiff of the sweet aroma. After taking two steps into the park, Mama’s extra sensitive sunburn radar starts to sound its alarm. It’s as if should they take one more step without sunscreen’s protective shield, they will surely shrivel up into sun-dried prunes. They immediately stop outside of a store that sells old-fashioned salt water taffy. Standing on the back porch of the store by three finely crafted rocking chairs, Mama lines her kids up and positions them with their arms straight out to the sides as if they are about to get patted down or undergo a police search. She sprays them down one-by-one with her weapon of choice leaving no spot unsprayed. The boys mumble under their breaths with looks of disgust on their faces as Mama drones on and on about how lucky they are to have such a good mama who cares so much about the health of their skin. They congregate with the other park guests in the main “town square” where they wait for the rest of the park to open. A parade band marches down the street signifying that it will be another special day in the park. While everyone’s attention is on the

Patty had been the one to suggest going out wandering. Jones had remembered the abandoned field a couple of miles out from his house. He said he kept a ball there for kick-around and that they could play with it until it got dark. Bobby had been hesitant, wary of his mother’s warning to be home before six. But Jones was so excited and then he roped Patty into it as well, and Patty always seemed to know what he was doing. His parents didn’t impose curfews on him, and Bobby envied this of him. His mother, on the other hand, was constantly worrying him, telling him come straight home from school, to not talk to strangers, and to not go anywhere he hadn’t been before with her.