Kathryn Seifhert's Synopsis: Response

Waking up one morning thinking you are going to die can be very life changing, but not for Leah Levitawitz, a woman who is so miserable with her life that the sign of death does not faze her. By Leah being stuck in her old ways makes her bitter towards the world. Leah once thought of the world as a dark place, being unhappy, bitter, and resenting the people who had helped her; but had a change of heart once the warehouse was moved and the window was fixed. In the story, “Windows,” written by Bernice Morgan, Morgan demonstrates how being stuck in the past can have a negative effect in the present.

Each character in this story is experiencing an emotional battle which they try to find healing but for some it will be too late. The narrator in the story is Sheppard. Sheppard is a widow, his wife died in less than a year before the story began. Sheppard experiences emotional distress by trying hard to change a troubled teen, Rufus, into an honorable young man while teaching his son, Norton, to be selfless. Instead

In the book Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls she describes the many hardships that she faced as a young child. Jeanette struggled with things like an alcoholic father, a mentally ill mother, poverty, and sexual abuse. Throughout the memoir, Walls is describing her life as she remembers it. Their family was always doing the “skedaddle” when things were not going as planned. The book started with Jeanette's first memory when she was burned very badly at a young age. The book progresses throughout Jeanette’s life and she realizes just how wrong her family treats her. From her Not-So-Parent parents to her sexually abusive uncle, she faced many hardships growing up. Her father was an alcoholic who could never hold a job. He always promised Jeanette

Life has its ups and downs. In life people have their trials and they must overcome them to grow as human beings. Mistakes become lessons and through these mistakes you are able to grow up and be able to make a difference in the world. Jeannette Walls had many trials in her life. She was able to overcome them and use them to learn life lessons that most will not learn until they are much older. Growing up poor is hard and for a while Jeannette Walls was ashamed of her past for a while. Finally she found the courage to tell her story and that memoir became The Glass Castle. The memoir shows us how growing up impoverished does not mean that you will be stuck impoverished if you do something about it. Jeannette learned many lessons in life that helped her grow up fast and ultimately were able to aid her in making it out of poverty and to follow her dreams in New York. Jeannette was able to demonstrate that no matter where you come from, you can still do great things.

In Jean Rhys’ novel “Good Morning Midnight” the reader is introduced to Sasha Jansen. Sasha is a run of the mill alcoholic who has seemingly been handed the most dreadful hand in life. Her husband deserted her, her child died, she is poor, and mostly—she is isolated and alone. Her viewpoints on the world, and herself, are very cynical and pessimistic. Sasha’s story details her downfall in a stream of consciousness narrative that takes the reader from one thing to the next and back again. It tells of the things she has sensed which leads to the inevitable end of hopelessness which causes her to suffer severe disconnection from the world around her. The problem is, absolute hopelessness is the best thing that Sasha could find for herself.

How she was struggling just to survive day by day, living life with no adult guidance and no direction. Things such as this happen on a daily basis and people

She felt abandoned about her husband’s death. This story in the beginning expresses how she was feeling. “When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.” (The Story of An Hour 3) She couldn’t believe that this had happened to her. Though this story begins to bring a twist throughout the end. One part of the story states how she was so happy and relieved that her husband has died. “And yet she had loved him-- sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!” “Free! Body and soul free!” (The Story of An Hour 13) This part is where the reader questions about why she started to feel that way. But once you start to really understand the story and go through the details carefully. I believe she says that because maybe the relationship was not a good healthy relationship. She was probably treated in such a negative way and was relieved that she won’t be able to deal with it anymore. This story compares to American culture a lot because back then women weren’t treated as good as men. Women were picked on a lot because they weren’t as tough or as good as men. So she reminded herself that she will not be able to deal with how her husband use to

Life is filled with tragedies, whether they be subtle or monumental. In society we are constantly surrounded by hardships and situations that test our own individual character, forcing us to react in order to move forward. The main characters in “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates each react differently to the various tragedies they encounter, revealing their true identities that lie behind the (facade?)/version of themselves they present to the world. These tragedies that factor into all three works are both presented and interpreted differently in each story: In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, Mrs. Mallard rejoices

The narrator is a living manifestation of the age old proverb “the grass is always greener on the other side”. Her past once seemed sad compared to

Summary: Mrs. Karen Ehman talked about her book in the beginning. Her mom always cared for others and listened to them first. She was the one who taught love to a speaker. She thought of other people first before she took care of herself. She was a thoughtful person. When a speaker had a sad, depressed moment in her school life, her mom told her to think others who were worse than her. Everyone can experience some bad moments in their life and if we think in a positive way, this bad moment is nothing in our life. This will go away someday and we will feel better and stronger. There is another story of her life. The speaker had a friend who was not feeling well one day and they met each other in a coffee shop. The speaker could read her feeling

Marcus Tullius Cicero stated, “What then is freedom? The power to live as one wishes.” Freedom is a gift many people crave, but often something that many people don’t receive. It is difficult to obtain full independence, and that is often a roadblock to the things one wants to achieve. This is demonstrated in Kate Chopin’s realistic fictional story, “The Story of an Hour.” This story introduces us to Louise Mallard, a dynamic character afflicted with heart trouble. One day, over the course of an hour, she is told that her husband has been killed in a railroad accident. Shocked and distressed, Louise falls into a state of grieving and depression as she stares through her bedroom window by herself. She begins to attempt to picture her life alone, without her husband, but it pains her to think about living in her lonesome. Her mood quickly takes a turn as she sits and thinks, realizing then that she would be living for herself- distanced from her troubled marriage and able to be free for the first time. She becomes thrilled to live her life independently and envisions her life finally belonging to herself. Her vision is quickly ripped from her when her husband walks through the front door of their house, completely alive, despite what Louise had been told. Louise dies instantly at the sight of her husband, her freedom- and her life- ripped away from her.

The story describes the narrator’s experience when she had what is now known as postpartum depression.

(p. 9) Throughout the memoir, she tends to back up this theme by writing about specific moments in her life and what she has learned from them. By reflecting on certain moments in her life she learns from other people and is influenced by their actions. Another theme of reflection appears on page 94: “…The torment of having the loved go, the guilt of being the loved one gone—comes into my fiction as it did and does into my life.” By reflecting on her father’s death, she incorporates that same feeling into her novels.

In the story, The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin, there was a lady named Louise Mallard. Mr. Richard and Louise’s sister, Josephine, got the news that Louise’s husband was in a terrible railroad accident. Josephine and Mr. Richard had to break the news to Louise gently, I figured because of her heart condition. After she cried, Louise locked herself in a room where she then stopped feeling sad. She then started to feel free and exited. She feels this way because she looks forward to all of those years of freedom that lie ahead of her. She realizes that she will grieve the husband that she loved only sometimes but I believe she is also looking forward to all the years of freedom she has to herself. Josephine thinks Louise is going to make herself

Kate Chopin is the author of many short-stories and novels. Her short story, “The Story of an Hour,” is about a woman named Mrs. Louise Mallard with a fragile heart that suddenly and unexpectedly loses her husband in a train accident. Throughout the story, Mrs. Mallard learns to embrace the accident because for her it meant she finally obtained freedom from her demanding life that she has been wanting to break away from. Freedom and independence is one of the themes of “The Story of an Hour” and appears in the story when Mrs. Mallard learns that her husband is in a train accident, when she secludes herself from everyone in her room, and when she learns that her husband is actually alive.