Labor Camps In Ruta Sepetys's Between Shades Of Gray

The book, Between the Shades of Gray, takes place during World War II. The character Lina is arrested and deported by the NKVD following the annexation of Lithuania. She was then forced to provide labor in order to survive the extreme conditions of the Stalin’s camps. Her ability to cope, her relocation, and the death of her mother contributes to her development and survival.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, a slave narrative written by Harriet Ann Jacobs is highly commended for the portrayal of women during the excruciating times of slavery. Disregarding that the slave narrative was initially written for the audience of Caucasian women, “…, as white women constituted Jacobs’s primary audience at the time she wrote her narrative” (Larson,742) the struggles of being a female slave were emphasized throughout the narrative. Harriet Ann Jacobs elaborates on slave women’s worth being diminished. In the slave narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by Harriet Ann Jacobs, the theme of the perils of slavery for women was portrayed by women being viewed

Born in Poland, Henia Weit was the youngest of nine children in her family. She lived in a town by the name of Sambor. Unfortunately, the town was bombarded by German soldiers shortly after Hitler started his reign of terror on the Jews. Henia’s family was forced to do laborious work in a ghetto until they were all deported to a concentration camp. Fortunately for Henia, she was able to escape and never went to the concentration camp herself. Instead, she had to survive for several years alone, with only her sister to turn to.

Lina Vilkas, a passionate fifteen year old girl who loves art and never lost hope throughout the book because she was determined to survive. Lina was taken away from her very own home and was compelled to dig for beets ,while trying to keep herself alive in the worst circumstances. She was courageous many times throughout the novel. Her courage showed when she yelled at a guard named Nikolai Kretzsky “I HATE YOU”. Lina expressed her opinion and confronted the man who could take her life in a matter of seconds.

One of the main characteristics of war is its ability to take away individuals’ feelings of strength. Such individuals will become unable to feel a sense of identity unless they find some source of power, no matter its form may be. The main characters in The Book Thief and Between Shades of Gray use art and literature as a means for empowering themselves within the conflict-ridden setting around them: World War II. The “testimony [of these characters is produced] to create an absolute record, to speak in a world where [their] voices have been extinguished” (Sepetys 338). Liesel, the main character in The Book Thief, and Lina, from Between Shades of Gray, create testimony of their endurances by leaving behind writing and drawings that tell their story to future generations after being forced into silence during their own lifetime.

Who knew that there were places still present today that hold innocent victims captive and treat them as they did to blacks during slavery. For example, the book Kindred takes place in the Antebellum South and is very much like Shin’s story of being in Camp 14 in the 21st century but there are also a few differences in the two places. The antebellum South and Camp 14 have similarities and differences in many ways such as food and living conditions, work, women's rights, and education. Both the 21st century camp 14 and the slaves in the book Kindred has harsh day to day life. One similarity and difference would be that food and living conditions in the Antebellum South and Camp 14 are very poor and unsanitary.

The central idea of this book is a little girl and her struggle in concentration camps the author shows this by “ tomorrow is deportation”( Leitner 3) . This happened on May 28, 1944 where she started her journey in the camps. She explains her feelings and fairs of them too and how she's not ready to leave this place called home because she was living in hungary and she ends up having to move away. Something else that is showing Isabella’s struggle is ”Every since childhood,I remember them with terror in my heart.” (Isabella Leitner 5). In this quote she is talking about the people that heard them like cattle and stuff. This was also the people that would kill them and make them do horrible things.These were the people that didn't make them feel like people. “75 to a car... no toilets... no doctors ... no medication”( Leitner 7) Isabella is talking about how they were moved place to place in these little cattle cars and how horrible the conditions normally where. Imagine being shoved in

Life is a precious thing, and it is so precious that some people will undergo severe anguish to hold on to it. During the 1930’s and 1940’s in Germany, people of the Jewish religion were diabolically oppressed and slaughtered, just for their beliefs. Some Jews went to extreme measures to evade capture by the German law enforcement, hoping to hold on to life. Krystyna Chiger was only a small child when her family, along with a group of other desperate Jews, descended into the malignant sewers to avoid the Germans. After living in the abysmal sewers for fourteen months, her group emerged, and when she became an adult, she authored a novel about her time in the sewer. When analyzing the literary elements utilized in her novel, The Girl in the Green Sweater, one can determine how tone and mood, point of view, and conflict convey the message of struggle and survival that was experienced during the Holocaust, and how they help the reader to understand and relate.

This is one of the first situations in the book that exemplifies going through a hard time. In this case the concentration camps, can change who you are as a person even after you have already developed your own

The Jewish family soon gets taken to the other side of the wall, a slum area, the ghetto. Misha still follows his pattern, goes back and forth between the wall and the outside world by just a very small hole on the wall, only he can go through. Uri slowly leaves Misha behind by doing his own whereabouts since Misha is doing fine on his own. Slowly questioning the main character, he only focuses on what he’s doing. After spending months with mostly the Jewish family, he starts to realize the reality around him. He didn’t fit in with the Milgrom's,. In fact, his story didn’t suited him. He leaves his fabricated life to start over. “My identity as a Gypsy vanished. Gone were the seven wagons, seven brothers, five sisters, Greta the speckled mare. Deep down I guess I had always known my Gypsy history was merely Uri’s story, not reality. I didn’t miss it.. When you own nothing, it’s easy to let things go.” pg.104) He slowly thought less and less about the orphans and more to the Milgrom’s. Later the tables get turned. Janina who is more of a sister than a best friend, follows Misha everywhere he goes. She copies him, sets him up for failure, and seems more “needy” than she first seemed to be. From how Misha treated Uri by wandering off, causing trouble, creating more responsibility, is now being inflicted back to him from Janina. From a new character change, Janina is now

A property, is the right word for a woman who lived in the early 19th century, a property is what you were and who you were in the book Kindred, by Octavia E. Butler, talks about the issues and the oppression that many enslaved men and women faced in the early 19th century. In this story, Dana, the protagonist, travels back to the Antebellum South because she is connected with her ancestor, Rufus Welyin. Every time Rufus tends to get hurt, she traveled to the early 19th Century to help him. Dana experiences; first-hand how enslaved men and women were treated and how they were stripped of their basic human rights. Although enslaved men and women faced adversity: They were treated like animals, taken away from families, and whipped, but enslaved women endured more brutalized acts. For instance, Alice Greenwood, a freed slave in the book was bought, raped repeatedly, and had her kids taken away.

The narrator is given a sense of oppression from the beginning of the story by keeping a hidden diary from her husband as “a relief to her mind.” Throughout the story her true thoughts are hidden from the readers and her husband, which gives the story a symbolic perspective.

On January 1st, 1863 an order was given by President Abraham Lincoln. This order was the so called Emancipation Proclamation, it proclaimed that all slaves in rebellious confederate states were now free-men. The purpose of the Civil War had now taken a turn, and changed entirely. The fight to preserve the Union, had now changed to the fight to end slavery. Lot's of slaves did not hear about the proclamation for several months, and therefore still considered themselves as slaves. When the slaves heard about the, many, of the now former slaves, streamed to the federal army to enlist, hoping and praying for fighting the confederate states, because they treated them so badly in years.

The spine chilling experiences Jewish individuals faced during the holocaust are conveyed well in the short story “The Shawl” as the author, Cynthia Ozick illustrates the horrific battle of motherhood and strife for survival they faced. Rosa, Ozick’s main character experiences an internal battle of nurturing her infant Magda and following her motherly instincts or fighting for her own survival. Magda another crucial character grips onto the ropes of life through the threads of the shawl but when she loses her shawl she loses her life showing the harsh realities of the concentration camps. Through the use of symbolism and carefully orchestrated imagery Ozick brings to life the unspeakable struggles the Jewish faced to survive in the midst

The daily life of a slave in North Carolina was incredibly difficult. Hard workers, especially those in the field, played from sunrise until sundown. Even small kids and the elderly were not exempt from these long work hours. Slaves were generally granted a day off on Sunday, and on infrequent holidays such as Christmas or the Fourth of July.