Helena Maria Viramontes Under The Feet Of Jesus

In A Place Where the Sea Remembers, Sandra Benitez invites us into a mesmerizing world filled with love, anger, tragedy and hope. This rich and bewitching story is a bittersweet portrait of the people in Santiago, a Mexican village by the sea. Each character faces a conflict that affects the course of his or her life. The characters in this conflict are Remedios, la curandera of the small town who listens to people’s stories and gives them advice, Marta, a 16 year old teenage girl, who was raped and became pregnant. Chayo is Marta’s big sister and Calendario is Chayo’s husband. Justo Flores, his conflict is person vs. self. One of the most important conflicts in this story is person vs. person, then person vs. supernatural followed by

My boy grew into a man, my girl long and slender like the blossoming mimosa at the end of the drive. Pedrito took on a certain gravity, became an important man around here. And I, Patria Mercedes? Like every woman of her house, I disappeared into what I loved, coming up now and then for air. I mean, an overnight trip by myself to a girlfriend’s, a special set to my hair, and maybe a yellow dress.

The author creates a mood of being irritating by her “…awful grandmother…” and brothers “…Alfredito and Enrique…” who are occupied playing outside as “… a B-Fifty-two bomber…” [paragraph 5] and her grandmother with a “… long, long list of relatives … names of the dead and the living into one long prayer…” [paragraph 10]. Including, the imagery provided in the short story described the character’s actions by watching her grandmother pray while she counts her grandmother’s mustache hairs. Later, an unknown lady and man start talking to her brother asking if she could take a picture, than judging by their looks, they assume they do not speak English but only

In the book, How the García girls lost their accent, by Julia Alvarez, who utilizes rhetorical devices in the passage chosen to develop the conflict that Yolanda is facing in the story by using imagery, simile, and anaphora in order to evince how Yolanda’s conflict with her husband John plays a role in her horrible breakdown and her journey to revive the love she had for her native language and culture.

She is being raised in a world where women are expected to suffer silently and to be at the mercy of their men. However, men were not expected to return this slave-like behavior for the women. This setting of the novel allows the reader to see exactly how treacherous life can be. This suffering is so present in Estrella’s family’s lives, yet she somehow is able to bring the family along no matter how difficult the situation may be. She is still trapped in between two very different worlds: "She tried to remember which side she was on and which side of the wire mesh she was safe in" (59). Her mother may be taken over by a world of suffering, but she is not so beaten that she cannot pass some of her fighting

The development of characters transpire as a result of significant events in their lives. Events such as learning a new skill have the ability to transform a character’s life. Estrella in Helena Maria Viramontes’ novel Under the Feet of Jesus flourishes into an individual who once got upset over skills she did not have and was upset at the process of learning, but now understands how vital education is. Estrella was infuriated by her lack of understanding about the Perfecto’s tools and the letters on the chalkboard. She was especially agitated when the educators would not give her the answer right away The selection of detail shows the connection between two things she overcame. The tone and figurative language shows more detail about Estrella’s transformation.

By selecting which details to include Viramontes is able to depict Estrella’s change from being a perplexed child who does not read to someone who reads and understands the need to learn. At the beginning of the excerpt asks the question, “So what is this?” (line 1) Then, she continues by explaining the red tool chest and Estrella's disorientation. In the passage she states, “Estrella hated when things were kept from her” (line 12) and the toolbox was an example of something that was kept from her, a secret.The toolbox held secrets and “funny shaped objects” (lines 6-7). All of which Estrella was unaware and uninformed about. Furthermore, in school Estrella is unable to learn essential skills, such as reading and writing, due to the fact that teachers

She uses the literary element, theme, to describe this. The theme of the story is the feeling of disaffection. Also, the story discusses how Cleofilas’ husband Juan abuses her and it first she thinks nothing of it, because she feels that “to suffer for love is good”. But the more she thinks about it she gets to a point where she gets fed up with it and plans a way to leave her husband and go back to Mexico with her father. Cleofilas talks Juan into taking her to her doctor appointment. When in the doctors’ office, her doctor knows exactly what happened and helps her escape. She takes a bus back to Mexico to her

Within Valenzuela’s “The Censors,” the satirical theme of this story mocks Juan, his thoughtless actions and his letter are symbols for innocence and secrecy. Juan’s actions symbolize the innocence of childhood and those who haven’t experienced hardship, of those who are impressionable and naïve. Juan’s actions when he receives Mariana’s address and immediately “without thinking twice, he [… writes] her a letter” and sends it show his lack of

Often in literature, authors create plot by writing about characters maturing throughout the story. One work that explores childhood to adulthood is The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. In this novella, Esperanza Cordero is a young girl who lives in a poverty stricken area in Chicago. During the story, Esperanza grows up from being an adolescent to a young adult. In the novella, the theme is that losing innocence brings about maturity. Cisneros expresses Esperanza growing up by juxtaposing vignettes. Tone is also used to enhance the change in Esperanza’s thoughts while maturing. Both the juxtaposition of vignettes and tone support the theme that the loss of innocence and the gaining of

By selecting which details to include Viramontes is able to depict Estrella’s change from being a perplexed child who does not read to someone who reads and understands the need to learn. Key idea worth developing--how does she arrive at this insight? Viramontes begins the excerpt with the question “So what is this?” (line 1) Then, she explains the red tool chest and Estrella's disorientation. She states, “Estrella hated when things were kept from her” (line 12) and the toolbox was an example of something that was kept from her, a secret.The toolbox held secrets and “funny shaped objects” (lines 6-7). All of which Estrella was unaware and uninformed about. Furthermore, in school Estrella is unable to learn essential skills, such as reading and writing, due to the fact that teachers will not answer her questions. Additionally, some teachers care more about Estrella’s hygiene rather than her education, this lack of interest in her

Collectively, these literary images go to describe a young ethnic man, probably of Latin descent, who lives with his mother in a poverty stricken area. The careful recitation of instruction given to the younger man seems to demonstrate an intricate knowledge the narrators has accrued from both predecessors and experience. Singularly, this part of the story is very powerful in that it shows a young man having to hide who he is and where he comes from in an effort to seem appealing to women, and speaks volumes about the deception that both genders go through all in name of the chase.

Two thousand years ago, the birth of Jesus, arguably the most influential man the world has ever seen, altered history forever. Christians know him as the Messiah, the son of God who came to save all of mankind, and for others, he may just be a great teacher and person of history. It is the latter that Reza Aslan attempts to shed an unbiased light on by comparing the Jesus that modern Christians believe in to the Jesus that Aslan believes would have fit into first-century Palestine: a violet revolutionary, dedicated to the eradication of the Roman government in Israel and the deposition of the rich priestly class. Aslan paints a portrayal of Jesus using knowledge of the time period, Scripture that has been taken out of context and misinterpreted, and most of all, the author’s imagination and powerful rhetoric to cover up his faulty argumentation. In his book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, Reza Aslan recreates an interesting but purely speculative image of the historical Jesus through exploring the political and social history of first-century Palestine, the life and teachings of Jesus, and the development of early Christianity.

Ms. Mackin has a plethora of personalities, but she reminds me of the beach she goes to with her son. When I was sitting in her class she had so much energy that she made learning fun and she does funny gestures in order for us to learn the words. The joy in her teaching makes students want to learn more about Spanish and make good grades. When Ms. Mackin is in this mode she reminds me of the calm side of the beach. However, lazy students in her class know that her serenity turns to anger, when they don’t do their work. Therefore, when the waves are raging and rough against the turf it evokes the memory of when Ms. Mackin is angry. When

In June of 1981, six children claimed to see Mary the Mother of God standing on a hillside of Medjugorje, a small town in south-east Yugoslavia. These children, four girls and two boys, claim to continue to have Marian apparitions every day, to this day. Thousands of pilgrims travel to Medjugorje each year to witness the visionaries’ apparitions. Currently, these apparitions are not approved by the Catholic Church. These apparitions are real and there is Biblical and physical proof for it. Many come to Medjugorje and claim to witness miracles, such as healings and other miraculous events. Some claim that these “miracles” are actually satanic and lead people father farther away from Jesus. These claims are absolutely false, as hundreds are converted to Christianity, healed, and brought closer to God by this one place.