Dark Places Response

She lost another love by the name of Oluf, could not find much work, and lost hard-earned money through a bad business investment. After all this peril she took Russell and Doris and moved to Baltimore. Another move equaled more stress, less money, and more struggling to get by. With what seemed to be the world against her, she made it. She remarried, bought a house, and became the success she demanded of herself. Every step of the way Russell was exposed to all the ups and downs. His mother’s life during those times shaped and influenced his own.

Different circumstances shape people into who they will become. This is relevant in both books, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle. Both the Joad and Walls families faced adversities but made it through them stronger. The two families move from place to place and greatly struggled financially. The value of family and lessons that can be learned from them is prevalent in both novels. The attributes that enabled both the Joad and Walls families to endure in the face of adversities are perseverance, faith, and their devotion to each other.

“Family like branches on a tree, we all grow in different directions yet our roots remain as one.” Maria Bastida was basically saying that family is always going to be there for each other. In this short story a young girl named Cecilia learns how important her family is. Cecilia really wanted to go on her first class trip, but instead she has to go watch her grandmother because she just got out of surgery. In Carol Shaw Graham’s short story “To Sleep Under the Stars,” the family relationship is the most vital kind of intimate relationship across all of humanity.

Often times, when a family decides to have children, those children are usually a priority. In order for a child to lead a healthy, functional life, a family needs to be strong. When a family becomes dysfunctional, the most effected are the children. However, sometimes as the child grows up. They see past the dysfunction and forgive the parents for the problems they had caused in their children’s lives. In the novel, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls she describes a unique dysfunctional family story. The Walls family have lived through constant struggles, and ran into new situations every day. Rex and Rose Mary Walls, the parents of their children Jeannette, Brian, Lori and Maureen, chose to live in poverty bringing their children along

Meg Jay talks about a client named Emma that is struggling with her identity and feels alone because she does not have a family. Families matter because they provide a sense of security and belonging, without a family people feel lost and unimportant. Not being part of a family can have negative implications on a person’s health such as depression. Having a family to go to can reduce the stress we face in relationships, school, and work. Families are important because they provide an unconditional love that is not found in other relationships.

It is important that a person doesn’t take things the wrong way. I try my best to believe that everything happens for a reason. Something's have happened to me that have made me question commitments and promises I have made, but I have become a stronger individual because of it. I believe that one should not become discouraged due to something ending the wrong way, but to take as much out of it as possible and cherish everything that it was. I think that just because something ends awkwardly or unexpectedly that it is important to use it a positive learning experience going forward.

Her father,Rex, was a horrible person. He slept around, abused his wife and kids, was an alcoholic, and had his family on the run. He made excuses for everything he did and made his family and everyone else believe him. He was a manipulative person. One good thing I can say about her father is that he was a smart man. He taught his daughter calculus at a young age. And he was good at using his resources. As for the mother, she was a lazy human being. She stayed home and didn’t have a job even though her family was broke. She knew the father was an alcoholic and abusive but still stayed with him. The parents was horrible to put their own children in

The first basic theme of family I found in this novel was family can cause people to do things they never would have considered before. (Emmett went to space on a trip out of our own solar system for the chance to help his Mom survive) Some evidence to support this claim would be found on page 18. This is where Emmet goes on a journey out of the solar system to try and get money for his mother who has cancer. My thinking on this is that Emmett's family is poor, and bable can control him through his desire to win and get his mother medical care. This leads me to think about a possible theme that would be connected to the larger idea of family, control and using one’s family to control them. Emmett's family seems very supportive of him even though he has had a rocky past and the family has fallen upon hard times and his father leaves him with the message, bend the rules, break them if you must, Just be true to who you are. That

The novel, Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, portrays a dark and somber theme throughout the entirety of the book. Even in the end, the darkness is still there. But even so, the end is difficult to understand. The ending is very vague on certain perspectives. Conrad intentionally does this, not to detract from the rest of the novel, but to sum the entirety of his main point up.

There is a big connection between our family and our identity. Family shapes us into the person we become and takes a big part in developing our identity. No matter if their influence is life changeable or not, their presence in our lives is enough to create changes. In the book, Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez described his life as a Mexican-American trying to adapt to the new ways of life and how this has cause him to become distant with his family. On the other hand, in the essay, “The Love of My Life”, the author Cheryl Strayed discussed the affects her mother’s death had on her and her outlook in life. Both authors can relate in terms of the importance of how family helps in shaping one into the person they become. Although identities can be self-built, our families are important in the process because they provide the support needed to build and find identity.

They treated her very bad, Cindy had to do all the chores in the house in order to keep it clean. They ordered her around and gave her dirty clothes to wear. They would keep her locked in the basement so that no one would know that she was there. Cindy's life was made difficult, she often sits by the cinders and cry, and wish her parents had took her with them. But in the pass times, she would sing, which is something she loved

A parental love growing up really affects you once you’re grown. Her character doesn’t quite know what love feels like because her, “Parents never really knew what was going on…” Her family is uninvolved in what is going on with her which creates a great emotional distance. She holds them in contempt for “... their naivete about who she is and what she does.” So she no longer cares what they have to say because now what they say is too late for her to accept, she becomes disinterested in

Racism had tainted her life from the very beginning. During her childhood she attended a one-room school for blacks only. She was only allowed to attend school for a short time due to the ailing health of

“True love is hard to find.” “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”. These words have been told to and heard from family, friends, co-workers and even words in a poem. (A.C. Bradley). These words are said to someone to comfort and express sympathy and understanding to one that is having a relationship issues. Only a lucky few have found true love the very first time love has entered the into their space, some have managed to remain married over forty years or more. Life’s dilemmas interfere with true love from entering the lives of the people that love has touched. Parents protecting their children, worrying about what other think, love not being reciprocated, fell in love too young, self-esteem too low, looking for

Lastly, her family betrayed her by not listening to her side of the story after her sister told lies about her, and they betrayed her when they acted as if they did not care if she moved out of the house. In all of these actions, the family itself and certain members of the family are portrayed as uncaring, unsupportive, disrespectful, conniving, deceitful, and hateful to Sister. Through every action of the family, Sister is treated harshly, and she tries to not let this bother her. Yet, anger and bitterness build up inside of her until she cannot take it anymore. Consequently, it built up so much inside of her that it severely affected Sister so profoundly that she moved away from her home to get away from her family.