Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen Mah

The author of “Still I Rise” is Maya Angelou, a well-known poet, author, and civil rights activist. This poem is about a poet who struggles to meet the social pressure and injustices of her time. Her poetry thus concentrates on two kinds of oppression – both racial oppression, and sexism. Amidst the challenges and adversities, she managed to survive and successfully claims that she will not be broken nor will she be defeated no matter how many times she is brought down by society. In this poem “Still I Rise”, I will be looking at critical works by Sandra Cookson, R. B. Stepto, and Lyman B. Hagen and stating why I agree with them.

In Robert Cormier’s novel, We All Fall Down, is a young-adult thriller that explores the evil side of humanity through a number of corrupt characters. Cormier, to a large extent, accurately depicts manipulative and dishonest behaviour whilst also showing the evil lurking within the prominent characters of Harry Flowers, Buddy Walker and Mickey Stallings who showcase the dark side of humanity. Cormier explores this through Harry Flower’s manipulative actions that result in the suffering of others. Additionally, the constant dishonest behaviour is shown predominantly through the main protagonist of Buddy Walker, who deceives the one he loves. Cormier continues to depict the evil lurking in society through the theme of appearance

In the book Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, Susanna Kaysen was only 18 years old when she agreed to enter a medium security psychiatric facility in Boston, McLean hospital in April 1967, after a failed suicide attempt. She insisted that her over dose on aspirin was not a suicide attempt, but after a 20 minute interview the doctor decided she needed to be admitted to a hospital. During her prolonged two-year stay at the hospital Kaysen describes the issues that most of the patients in her ward have to deal with and how they all differently deal with the amount of time they must stay in the hospital for. While in the hospital Kaysen experienced a case of depersonalization where she tried to pull the skin of her hands to see if there were bones underneath, after a failed escape attempt. Soon, after going to therapy and analysis she was labeled as having recovered from borderline personality disorder. After her release she realizes that McLean Hospital provided patients with more freedom than the outside world, by being free responsibility of parental pressure, free from school and job responsibilities, and being free from the “social norms” that society comes up with. Ultimately, being in captivity gave the patients more freedom then in society and created a safe environment in which patients wanted to stay in.

Just dive in. You can swim. It will clear all the burden you have ensued throughout your life. It will be a fresh start. Trust yourself. The novel Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng, examines how failure stems from the fear to fail and are caused by sexism and racism, thus placing a burden on victims of this discrimination. Unfortunately, racism and sexism are constant forms of discrimination that have been holding individuals back from reaching their full potential for centuries. Discrimination is due to the tragic reality that people are fearful of the ones that are different from them. They fear that this different race or gender may upstage them in the competition of life. The Lee family unfortunately has to bear the burden of discrimination in their everyday life due to racism and sexism. This burden carries the Lee family down like an anchor billowing to the bottom on the sea in hopes to find peace once it hits the ground.

There are an infinite amount of unique responses to the question “What is the meaning of life?”. However, the majority of people will agree that the true meaning of life is to find happiness and what is really important to one’s self. In Jon Krakauer’s, Into The Wild, Chris McCandless conveys this idealism through his life’s journey as he bravely defies all limitations. Chris McCandless isolates himself from society in his Alaskan Odyssey as a way to defy accepted expectations and to begin discovering the meanings of life without any corrupted influences.

In the story chinese cinderella the main character Adeline faces a lot of adversity throughout the book. She faces the most her adversity at home with her parents and siblings being unfairly cruel toward her. She has a lot of courage for going through with all this pain and still staying optimistic about everything.

Sanity is subjective. Every individual is insane to another; however it is the people who possess the greatest self-restraint that prosper in acting “normal”. This is achieved by thrusting the title of insanity onto others who may be unlike oneself, although in reality, are simply non-conforming, as opposed to insane. In Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, this fine line between sanity and insanity is explored to great lengths. Through the unveiling of Susanna’s past, the reasoning behind her commitment to McLean Hospital for the mentally ill, and varying definitions of the diagnosis that Susanna received, it is evident that social non-conformity is often confused with insanity.

Mother Tongue is a story that describes how Amy Tan’s mother was treated unfairly because of her “broken English”. As the second generation of Chinese immigrants, Tan faces more problems than her peers do. Her mom, who speaks “limited” English, needs Tan to be her “translator” in order to communicate with the native English speakers. Tan has felt ashamed of her mother “broken” language at first. She then contemplates her background affected her life and her study. However, she changes her thought at the end since she realizes things behind language might be more valuable than language itself sometimes. Through the various different literary devices and rhetorical strategies such as the ethos, pathos, and logos appeals, as well as a

Jamie Fader’s book Falling Back which was published in 2013, is based on ethnographic research over three years, from 2004 to 2007, of black and latino males on the edge of adulthood and that were incarcerated at the Mountain Ridge Academy reform school located in a rural area: “within a dense forest in western Pennsylvania, is Mountian Ridge Academy … ninety-acre campus contains eight dormitories, each of which houses thirty-two young men between ages 14 to 18” (p.1). The criminal thinking approach was intended to help young people identify the patterns that had led them to delinquency and replace it with corrective and prosocial thoughts. These young boys had been involved in drug offenses and violence within their suburban communities and were now in the process of behavioral change in order to help them reflect and be able to make better decisions which would lead them to a better life.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman, is the story of two very different cultures lacking understanding for one another leading to a tragedy due to cultural incompetence. Today in America there are very many different cultures. Health care providers need to be aware of cultural diversity and sensitivity when caring for patients. If a health care provider is not sensitive towards a patient’s culture it can cause a relationship of mistrust to form, lead to barriers in the plan of care, and increase health care cost. The current guidelines to promote cultural competence in the clinical setting include completing a cultural diversity self-assessment, identify the need of the population served, evaluate barriers in the community and practice, educate staff to cultural diversities, schedule longer appointments, clarify limitations, and identify alternatives offered (Cash & Glass, 2014).

Through my understanding of the book, Homeward Bound by Elaine Tyler May explores two traditional depictions of the 1950s, namely suburban domesticity and anticommunism. She intertwines both historical events into a captivating argument. Throughout the book, May aims to discover why “Post-war Americans accepted parenting as well as marriage with so much zeal” unlike their own parents and children. Her findings are that the “cold war ideology and domestic revival” were somewhat linked together. She saw “domestic containment” as an outgrowth of frights and desires that bloomed after the war. However, psychotherapeutic services were as much a boom then as now, and helped offer “private and personal solutions to social problems.” May reflects her views on the origin of domestic containment, and how it affected the lives of people who tried to live by it.

Holding Onto the Air an autobiography by Suzanne Farrell takes the reader backstage in the dramatic life of the world-renowned Balanchine ballerina. From her childhood in Cincinnati to her retirement from ballet in 1989, Farrell's story is truly a remarkable one. The book describes at length her time with the New York City Ballet as well as her complex relationship with the legendary Balanchine. Although Mrs. Farrell goes a bit too far into the ballet descriptions, her beautiful imagery allows reader to experience the joy of performing on stage.

‘All The Bright Places’ is a story about love and depression, where a boy, Finch, helps Violet find the will to live, while he has trouble keeping his head above water. My family has gone through the stress, anger and sadness of depression, too: my cousin, Mitch, committed suicide by hanging himself. Although it has been two years, the pain has still not completely gone away.

In the autobiography Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah, the narrator was influenced in many ways by the people around her. One character which influences the narrator’s life to a vast amount was her step-mother Niang. Her Aunt Baba also played a very big part on how Yen Mah turned out in her later and earlier years as well as everywhere in between. Her grandfather Ye-Ye was a constant support to Adeline Yen Mah.

The Peony Pavilion told the love story of Bridal Du and Liu Mengmei. Liu Mengmei is a young scholar, half month ago he had a dream. In his dream, he met a beautiful lady who told him that they will meet for love in future. After this dream, Liu changed his personal name to Mengmei which means” Dream of Apricot". Bridal Du is the daughter of Prefect Du Bao, she read some poetry about love and looking forward to falling in love with somebody. One day, Bridal and her maid Fragrance visited the garden and saw lots of beautiful views for spring that she didn’t know before because her family always asked her to stay in the room. After Bridal went back to her room, she thought back to those love poetry and beautiful views then fell asleep. Bridal met Liu in her dream. She didn’t know Liu before, but Liu said he loved Bridal and carried her to a hidden place. After Bridal waked up she couldn’t find Liu and she became very disappointed. She painted a self-portrayal and wrote a poetry on it. She got sick and died of pining on mid-autumn.