English 10 : Raymond 's Run By Toni Cade Bambara

Besides the inherent self-confident issue, the outside voice from community is also affecting Pecola’s view. For example, in the “accident” when Pecola went into Junior’s house, Junior killed the cat and impute to Pecola. His mother, Geraldine, saw Pecola was holding the dead cat. Without any thought and didn’t even ask for the truth, Geraldine simply called Pecola a “nastylittle black bitch.” This event, again, reinforces Pecola’s view of what beauty means.

Experiencing further unstable environments, these children are forced to move from one foster home to another. They rarely develop meaningful relationships and constantly endure lack of care and protection by adults. Sabreen, another gifted student, was able to excel in school despite her unstable environments. She, too, became a ward of the county battling to find a stable home, constantly being placed in unstable environments, environments that do not encourage any achievement. When her situation becomes untenable, she goes AWOL, like Olivia, refusing to return to county supervision. Corwin masterfully frames the problem that wards, like Olivia and Sabreen, face when they feel that going back into the system is not an option. The additional struggles can be seen through Olivia and Sabreen accepting jobs with long hours in order to make enough to pay their bills. The responsibility on taking care of themselves financially detracts from their studies, which quickly can become a vicious, never-ending cycle.

“‘I can’t go to school no more. And I thought maybe you could help me.’ ‘Help you how? Tell me. Don’t be frightened.’ ‘My eyes.’ ‘What about your eyes?’ ‘I want them blue.’ … Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty” (174). Conversation is exchanged between Soaphead Church and Pecola about the longing of blue eyes. Soaphead Church gets angry because he can not help Pecola. The blue eyes symbolize beauty, and Pecola associates that with being loved and accepted. She believes that if she possesses blue eyes, people will disregard she is black, and the cruelty in her life will be replaced with respect and affection. This hopeless desire ultimately leads Pecola to complete madness.To summarize, beauty is a crucial piece of the racism that is displayed in the novel, and affects many different characters.

Raymond’s Run is a short story written by Toni Bambara Cade in 1960. The story is about a girl named Hazel, and her brother Raymond who is “not quite right”. Hazel loves running and she is always first in competitions. She is always looking out for Raymond and takes him with her when she is practicing, and also to the May Day race where Raymond starts running in his own unique style which changes Hazel’s view on Raymond, herself and the people around her.

From the tone of Mick’s voice, the alcohol acts a sedative to numb the pain from his past. This motive for drinking is also evident through Lisa’s brother, Jimmy, after he loses both his girlfriend, Adelaine, and his goal in becoming an Olympic swimmer. The legacy of residential school is also manifested in Trudy and Tab’s mother-daughter relationship. Tab becomes the victim of her mother’s psychological and emotional upheaval that is a result from her childhood. In the grip of alcohol, Trudy often mistreats Tab. Removed from a family environment and placed in a reformation school, individuals return not only emotionally and psychologically scarred, but also unable to reestablish their own functional family. Tab confesses to Lisa that she wishes she had a mother like hers, saying, “You’re lucky. You’re really lucky that your dad was too young to go to rez school. [...] Just Mick and my mum went and it fucked them up” (Robinson 254). Trudy’s sister Kate also notes that Trudy “thinks Mother’s dirt, while she goes out and parties and treats Tab worse than what she blames Mother for” (Robinson 285).

Fighting for Our Lives written by Deborah Tannen suggests that the culture we live in is argumentative. She begins by giving her readers her point of view, by speaking of “civility” in our society and what civility really means. She also compares an everyday conversation to an argument with a spouse. She reflects on how the argumentative culture can at times be causing more problems than it actually solves. Tannen enlightens us on several different topics, she not only presents her opinions but she also goes into depth about said topics and backs it up with evidence and examples on how to better our culture as a whole. Tannen is convinced

The days are suddenly shorter, and chirpy colors have faded to darker shades without notice. Trees begin to lose their leaves, and they helplessly detach from their branches and plummet to the cold ground. This season is not anything like the previous season, like Melinda is no longer the happy-go-lucky child she was. Similar to a leaf that has been dropped and forgotten, everyone has renounced a Melinda growing isolated and withdrawn. Anderson writes, “Her [Rachel’s] eyes meet mine for a second. ‘I hate you,’ she mouths silently. She turns her back on me and laughs with her friends” (Anderson 5). Rachel does not bother to interrogate Melinda on why she called the authorities or stick up for her, which displays how Melinda’s supposed best friend does not truly care about her. This action lays the foundation of betrayal has causes Melinda feel alone and abandoned. It is later revealed through her thoughts that this is exactly what she believes, that “all that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing feelings is a lie. Nobody really wants to hear what you have to say” (Anderson 9). This dreary kind of thinking adds onto the notion that Melinda has to deal with her troubles all on her

entrapment; he associates entrapment with the carnival episode, in which his father treated the woman as desirable but after which Hazel was made to feel guilty.

Although Lorraine is missing Self-esteem and Positive Peer Influence she is very Caring, asset number twenty-six. Caring is when a teenager or person places high value on helping other people. Another example is how she doesn't think it is right to take money from the Pigman. For instance, Lorraine says, “ ‘Because it’s wrong to take money from an old man, that’s why,’ ”(30). This shows that Lorraine feels like if they were to take the money from the Pigman that she would be taking advantage of him. This also shows that she is caring because if she takes the money it’s wrong because there is no real reason to take it if they are just going to keep it for themselves. In addition to, “I tried to explain to him how dangerous it was, particularly smoking, and even went to the trouble of finding a case history similar to his in a book by Sigmund Freud,”(8). This is very caring because she went through so much trouble to find something that would help John Conlan, who is her best friend in the

A Search For A Self Finding a self-identity is often a sign of maturing and growing up. This becomes the main issue in novel The Bluest Eyes. Pecola Breedlove, Cholly Breedlove, and Pauline Breedlove are the characters that search for their identity through others that has influenced them and by the lifestyles that they have. First, Pecola Breedlove struggles to get accepted into society dued to the beauty factor that the normal people have. Cholly Breedlove, her father, is a drunk who has problems that he takes out of Pecola sexually and Pauline physically. Pauline is Cholly’s wife that is never there for her daughters.

Conflict was displayed in two specific scenes of the movie. The first scene was when Toula?s parents are arguing about Toula going to school (Appendix A). Her father feels she should not go to school because girls don?t need to, and that she is fine doing what she is doing; working at the family restaurant. Her mother on the other hand, feels that Toula should go to school if that is what she wants. They go back and forth until Toula?s mom walks out. This argument is started because they both have different things they want. She ends the argument with a sarcastic comment, and it doesn?t get settled. Throughout their argument, neither of the two used any of the guidelines for conflict that we had learned about. Perhaps if guidelines were used the argument would not have ended on a bad note. Using such guidelines such as clarifying goals or using constructive criticism might have prevented the argument to begin with.

At an early age Vanessa’s naivety of Piquettes ethnicity prohibits her from seeing Piquettes struggle with her sense of lacking belonging. This causes the two characters to clash throughout the story in regards to Vanessa's false interpretation of Piquettes identity. Throughout the story Vanessa tends to

her life around to fit in with the crowd . She is soon exposed to drugs, sex and violence. It

The narrative shift also serves to compare how Pecola and Claudia react to the concept of blue eyes as the ultimate beauty and shows the psychological strength of each girl.

The book revolves around 16 year old Hazel Grace Lancaster, and 17 year old Augustus Waters. Hazel doesn’t lead an ordinary teenage life, she suffers of lung cancer. After a long time of struggling with her illness, her parents decide that