Crank Hopkins

Bigotry and stubbornness are perceptible attitudes of small-town communities in 1960's Western Australia. The notion that the inhabitants of the tight-knit community of Corrigan are racist, prejudiced and ignorant is explicated in Craig Silvey's coming of age novel, Jasper Jones. The bildungsroman is narrated by Charlie Bucktin, an adolescent from the small town of Corrigan. Charlie becomes unexpectedly involved with a local indigenous boy, Jasper, as they set out to discover the truth about the death of a young girl from their community. Throughout this quest, Charlie comes to many realisations about life, ultimately, that society can be very cruel. The prejudism and ignorance of the tight-knit community of Corrigan manifests in the

The short story “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid was a bittersweet warning from a mother to her daughter. The reader is experiencing the viewpoint of the protagonist through the soliloquy of her mother’s instructions that batter her like bugs smacking the

Though this book is written from a young girl’s point of view, even in the first hundred pages there are various forms of

The novel opens, twenty years later, in Starkfield with The Narrator who develops the desire to know all about Ethan Frome’s past life. His curiosity gets him bits and pieces from the locals, but Ethan Frome remained mysterious. Due to a horrendous blizzard, The Narrator is given the opportunity to live in Ethan’s past and answer all of his questions. The reader starts off with the knowledge of Ethan Frome’s younger life. He desired to become an engineer ,but while pursuing his dreams, his father passes away and his mother becomes very ill. During that winter, Ethan hires Zeena, his cousin, to take care of his mother because he realized that it was too much for him to do on his own. When his mother passes away, he suffers from isolophobia, the fear of isolation, and decides to marry Zeena. The reader is made aware that the environment is cold representing a sense of isolation from the outside world. The Narrator finally learns about the “smash-up”(Wharton 1) according to the locals, that threw away all of Ethan Frome’s chances of escaping prison, also known as life.

As the story progresses, so does Lizabeth. Having entered a difficult stage of her identity, Lizabeth is unsure of whether to be an innocent, carefree child, or to be a knowledgeable, aware adult. She begins to sense a change in the coming, and a feeling of end

In the beginning, the author explains how this young girl, Lizabeth, lived in the culturally deprived neighborhood during the depression.  Lizabeth is at the age where she is just beginning to become a young woman and is

At the age of ten, most children are reliant on their parents for everything in their lives needing a great deal of concentration and concern. However, Ellen, the main character and combatant of the novel Ellen Foster, demonstrates a significant amount of self-reliance and mature, impartial thought as a ten-year-old girl. Ellen is a bantling even though she was not deserted, she was impoverished of a normal childhood. Her life as a child was immensely hard, physically and emotionally. She never had a mother or father take care of her through her entire youth. The recent mortality of her mother sends her on a journey for the optimal family, or anywhere her father, who had shown insensitivity to both she and her frail mother, was not. Kaye Gibbons’

Elaine Potter Richardson, more famously known as Jamaica Kincaid, is recognized for her writings that suggest depictions of relationships between families, mainly between a mother and daughter, and her birth place, Antigua, an island located in the West Indies. She is also familiarized with Afrocentrism and feminist point of views. Kincaid’s work is filled heavily with visual imagery that produces a mental picture in readers that helps them connect stronger to the reading. An example of this really shines through in her short story piece, “Girl.” This short story describes the life of a lower class woman living in the West Indies, and also incorporates thick detailing between the relationship between her and her mother. Jamaica Kincaid structures the story as if her mother is speaking to her. She writes broad, but straight to the point, allowing readers to imagine to picture her experience. Kincaid uses visual imagery and repetition consistently throughout “Girl” to reveal the theme and tone of the story; conflictual affair between a mother and daughter.

The central character in which the story takes off upon is Mitchell Stephens. He is drawn into this case by his own anger. He has his own sense of suffering and confusion toward his own daughter. Stephens is torn by his urge to save her and his fear that he can't possibly do so. He recalls the flashback of his little girl as a toddler at a near death experience and him as her father while singing to her, held her life in his own hands prepared to perform an emergency tracheotomy. And in that way, Stephens' own experience bonds together with the nightmare of those pain stricken parents: the ultimate unbearable burden of caring for children where strength will be tested beyond its limits. Stephen's own daughter in whom he loves dearly has been taken away from him although she is not dead; she is practically gone out of his life. He is pissed off, "enough rage and helplessness, your love turns to steamy piss." (101). Stephen is set to find the cause, something or someone to blame for their misfortunes and to rage against whatever forces took their child, "I don't know if it was the Vietnam war…I don't know

Sandra Cisneros’, “The House on Mango Street” focuses on the narration of Esperanza, a young adolescent growing up in Chicago. Throughout the novel, Esperanza strives to develop her own sense of identity, while searching for the means out of her poverty-stricken neighborhood. With the help of her friends and family, Esperanza discovers how the world works, and what she needs to do in order to successfully better herself. The novel features several concepts of gender and sexuality studies including that of class structures, red-lining, gender, sexuality, intersectionality, and beauty. Those listed are simply a few more prominent features, as each character Esperanza introduces displays many more concepts within each scene. The concept of gender is portrayed widely throughout the novel and creates a foundation for the expectations the girls are about to face as they grow. Intersectionality interplays within the daily lives of each girl, and is seen within every page of the novel. Finally, beauty standards play an important role in the transition from adolescent to young adult each girl faces. Together, gender, intersectionality, and beauty standards, make up the novel, as it portrays the importance of each of these three core concepts of gender, women and sexuality studies.

Cisneros' Barbie-Q really stood out as a great piece of literature. Barbie-Q is a quick glimpse into the life of a poverty-stricken child and her way of life. Though my life as of yet has been rather short, my earliest childhood memories are overwhelmingly my fondest and her account really struck a chord. Sandra Cisneros' accurate reflection of a young mind and intricate writing methods expressed great emotion. Her portrayal of a child's mentality evoked my childhood recollections while her realistic tale of childhood bliss in the midst of poverty caused great empathy on my part making this my preferred work we studied.

The book Girl, Interrupted is about a teenage girl Susanna Kaysen. At the age of 18 she voluntarily sent herself to the McLean hospital. In the beginning of the book the Susanna was talking to a psychiatrist she has been seeing for awhile, she has had a couple of suicide attempts so she started seeing that doctor. The doctor had recommended Susanna to go to McLean to help her be anti-depressive and help cure her borderline personality. Susanna ended up being in the hospital for 2 years.

The book focuses mainly on a woman named Celie, who has lived a hard life already when, at the age of 14 she begins

Have you ever wished that someone had given you a guide on how live the right way? Jamaica Kincaid does just that in her short story, Girl. The narrative is presented as a set of life instructions to a girl by her mother to live properly in Antigua in the 1980’s. While the setting of the story is not expressly stated by the author in the narrative, the reader is able to understand the culture for which Girl was written.

“Girl” is a short story in which the author, Jamaica Kincaid, unofficially presents the stereotypes of girls in the mid 1900s. Kincaid includes two major characters in the story “Girl”, they are the mother and the girl. Although the daughter only asks two questions in this story, she is the major character. The mother feels like her daughter is going in the wrong direction and not making the best decisions in her life. The whole story is basically the mother telling her daughter what affects her decisions will have in the future. The mother believes that because her daughter isn’t sitting, talking, cleaning, walking or singing correctly it will lead her to a path of destruction. “Girl” is a reflection of female sexuality, the power of family, and how family can help overcome future dangers.