In His Poem, “Aunt Ida Pieces A Quilt,” Melvin Dixon Presents

Here the tone shifted from prideful to authoritative. Dee demanded to own the two quilts. Mama said the quilts had been made by her ancestors and she “hung up on them on the quilt frames on the front porch and made them (762).” The quilt frames symbolize the object which helps organize and keep the family's generations alive, and the front porch symbolizes the connection of the family with the world. Mama knew the quilts were what kept the generations together, regardless of what the people around thought or did.The quilts needed to be used in order to keep the family traditions alive. Soon after, the protagonist came up with an excuse and said the “lavender [pieces], [came] from old clothes” which had been “handed down (762).” The lavender symbolizes love and devotion. The old clothes symbolize the legacy of the family's heritage. Although Dee only wanted to the quilts, Mama felt her past family's love and devotion through the quilts. Dee wanted the quilts because to preserve them, not because of an emotional connection to them. In addition, the young woman continued to offend her mother to the point where Mama told her the quilts were for Maggie, the youngest sister, and Dee exclaimed how her sister could never “appreciate the quilts.” She continued and said “She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use (762).” Everyday use represents the “everyday use” of customs and true purpose of the quilts. Although Dee thinks her sister will destroy the blankets through sex and daily use, Mama wanted her to understand how everything she wanted had a special purpose in their

Family. A word that has about as many meanings as there are stars in the sky. Can family truly be defined, or is it merely interpretive? According to Seccombe, family is a relationship by blood, marriage, or affection, in which members may cooperate economically, may care for children, and may consider their identity to be intimately connected to the larger group (Seccombe 4). Although I do agree with the above explanation of family, I believe that it is inadequate in that it only supplies a framework of family rather than the duties and purpose. To me, family is a unit of individuals, related or not, that symbolize and exude comfort, solace, and support through all the trials and triumphs life throws our way.

For such a small word, “Family,” can mean so much. In a dictionary one may read family as people with common ancestors, but a true family is people who stick together and support one another at any cost. Both books, Night by Elie Wiesel, and, Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand display the theme of family relationships throughout the story.

With this organization, she manages to make a change to the world around her. Like Melvin Dixon’s poem “Aunt Ida Pieces A Quilt,” where he tells the story of an old lady creating a quilt for a boy who died of AIDS. Dixon refers to the boy when he writes, “Something to bring him back” as Aunt Ida makes the quilt (Dixon 42). Not exactly as Aunt Ida, Gayathri's daughter inspired her to overcome her depression. In a video trailer for her book she says, “The first time I was confined in the seclusion room, I was shattered. I had absolutely no hope to live, except my little girl and the unborn child. I

Everyone's experiences with it are different, some are favourable, and some are fallacious. Everyone has it, but no one’s family is synonymous. Family is strong and sacrosanct, but strange. The understanding of family varies between people and their personal experiences. In the play Only Drunks and Children Tell The Truth(ODACTTT) by Drew Hayden Taylor, one sees family defined in several legitimate but different ways.

“Undressing Aunt Frieda,” is a poem about the narrator’s remembrance of his Aunts life while visiting her on a death bed. The narrative is in first person, and takes place as the narrator and his daughter are about to leave the relative. The first half of the poem explores Frieda and her past. The second half is about how the narrator and daughter have grown and learned from the aunt. While undressing her aunt, the narrator feels emotions and remembers his past with Frieda. The poem describes these emotions and memories in a metaphor explaining unique characteristics of how Aunt Frieda undressed, and how she impacted the relatives.

As the women walk through the house, they begin to get a feel for what Mrs. Wright’s life is like. They notice things like the limited kitchen space, the broken stove, and the broken jars of fruit and begin to realize the day-to-day struggles that Mrs. Wright endured. The entire house has a solemn, depressing atmosphere. Mrs. Hale regretfully comments that, for this reason and the fact that Mr. Wright is a difficult man to be around, she never came to visit her old friend, Mrs. Wright.

Lastly, Mrs., Wright’s quilt is directly symbolic of the empathetic relationship that all three of the women, Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Peters, and Mrs. Wright, share throughout the work.In many ways, the

The poem “Aunt Ida Pieces a Quilt” by Melvin Dixon and the essay “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid are both from the book Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing edited by Gary Colombo, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle. In “Aunt Ida Pieces a Quilt” by Melvin Dixon, the author describes a story of Aunt Ida and expresses her deep grief and memory of her niece through their former experience of making a quilt. The author wants to let readers understand that numerous people die because of AIDS, and all of them will be remembered in another way. The author tries to spark the readers to sense the sadness and frustration in Ida. In the reading “Girl,” Jamaica Kincaid uses a narrative mode to describe the heavy and tedious work a girl should do in her daily life. This poem-like essay contains a list of instructions given by a mother to her daughter. It seems that she cannot bear these rules anymore and begin shouting in the following article. She demonstrates her strong attitude of her annoyance and discontentment. The author argues the injustice between men and women and shows her willingness to live like men in the freedom. Both the poem and the essay use a lot of strategies in common to present their perspective towards gender such as they both use a narrative mode and they both can give us a feeling that we are at a rapid pace, what’s more, both authors are good at using comparison method in their work. Despite their similarities, each of them has some

Jack was left out of his father’s nuclear family and he even goes on to say, “It was like we were strangers living a quarter mile from one another” (53). Many could argue that these circumstances are undesirable and frankly quite sad. In the poem “Aunt Ida Pieces a Quilt” by Dixon we do not see any evidence that there is any abandonment by parents and the poem demonstrates stronger family ties and support than those of “An Indian Story.”

In the story, a family heirloom becomes a conflict because while Dee wants to take the quilt to decorate her home, Maggie would make better use of the quilts by using them instead of framing them. This quilt that has been passed down from generation to generation, is symbolic of the love that both the older generations and the present generation has for each other. The quilt also symbolizes the strength of the family and the stitching is symbolic of the bonds that hold a family together. Mama ultimately decides that the quilt will go to Maggie because Dee does not understand the practicality of the quilt which is that they were from pieces of clothes that were lived in, which represented their past. Alice Walker was also emphasizing that it is the woman in the family that have held and currently hold families together by depicting closeness of the female relationships.

In this short story of "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" by Katherine Anne Porter, there is a powerful symbolic meaning through out the entire narrative. Although the symbols are not obvious in some paragraphs, they are in hidden text in others, which has to be, examined thoroughly by the reader. Granny is an eighty-year-old woman on her deathbed. She is in a state of confusion drifting in and out of consciences; she is reminiscing and blurring the past with the present. Although she comes to her senses every now and then, she is still perplexing some important details of her life. Through this story, all the symbols help define Granny's character, provide greater understanding of her life, and reinforces the important parts of

In Marilyn Nelson Waniek’s poem, “The Century Quilt,” the poet illustrates a story of a family’s heritage and a quilt that stitches them all together. Waniek is able to develop a complex meaning of family within the poem by incorporating a chronological structure, vivid imagery, and a sentimental and dreamy tone. A crucial part of developing a complex meaning within a poem is the structure. Waniek’s poem is structured in chronological order; it goes from past, to present, to future.

A family is seen as a group of people who are biologically or psychologically related. They connect on historical, emotional

A family can be defined in many ways, but the common denominator in all is the love and fulfillment one gets by being surrounded by family members. Families can sometimes be at odds with each other, but the strain of this type of relationship usually creates an upsetting feeling to the people involved. People want others to rely on, talk to, do things with, share, love, embrace, and be part of. No matter what the family dynamic is the qualities the word family has will remain the same, as time goes by, and life evolves once again for every person living their