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How To Write An Essay On The White Umbrella

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This book is the White Umbrella, by Gish Jen. This story is a realistic fiction book about a girl who is Chinese American, and whose mom started working. The narrator tried to keep it private, but her sister didn’t care. They went to a piano lesson, and afterwards the sisters sat outside in the rain, and waited for mom. The sister came inside, but the narrator wouldn't, so the piano teacher gave her a white umbrella. Then, on the car ride home she hid it in her clothes, but her sister felt it and asked the narrator what was in her skirt. This distracted her mother and they then hit the car behind them at a crosswalk. The narrator thought her mom had died, and this caused her to sob, but thankfully, her mom didn't die. After the narrator got …show more content…

One of them is being overly worried. First, on page 7, she shows she’d rather stay in the rain than reveal her mom was working. She was worried people would feel bad for them or judge their family for it. Another trait she has is jealousy. On the 4th page, she wishes she had what she thought was Eugenie’s umbrella, and that she was like the other girls at her school. The narrator wanted the umbrella so much that when Eugenie left the umbrella behind, she considered asking to bring it home and giving it back to Eugenie just so she could have it for one day. This shows that rather than being thankful for what she had, she wanted more. Finally, the main character cares a lot about how others think about her. On page 2, she said she had a convertible, and on page 5 she said her mom was a concert pianist, neither of which are true. Also on page 5, she thinks “I looked at the keyboard, wishing I had still a third, even more difficult piece to play for her. I wanted to tell her that I was the school spelling bee champion, that I wasn't ticklish, that I could do karate.” This tells me she wants people to think she had more than she did, and lied just so people would think more of her. I think all of these traits describe the main character of this

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