No Here Nor There By Honore De Balzac

This world is filled with many troubles including racism. Society often depicts whites as superior to blacks. However, this is not precise, because every race has both good and bad within it. The world is trying to break away from racism to become a better place for everyone around the world. Racism is not only about the color of one’s skin, it can impact individuals around the world due to their race or religion. The title of this novel is “Black and White” by Paul Volponi. In this coming of age story, two friends, Marcus Brown and Eddie Russo, who are black and white (respectively), are senior basketball stars at their high school. Marcus lives in community housing which is fraught with crime with a single mother. On the other hand, Eddie lives in a private house nearby where Marcus lives. Both Marcus and Eddie are in financial hardships and need to find easy money to cover their school and basketball fees. The two agree to start pulling robberies when they unintentionally shoot a black man. They are left in anxiety trying to avoid getting caught while trying to lead a normal life after the incident. They both end up going through the justice system, and Marcus must serve jail time while Eddie gets to go free. While all of this transpires, Marcus and Eddie manage to keep their friendship strong and overcome any barriers together. Any true friendship can overcome racial stereotypes put in place by society including the racial barrier between Blacks and Whites. The novel

The misrepresentation of social groups in texts creates negative impacts. Therefore, it is evident that the marginalization of women through social classes is demonstrated throughout The Awakening. In Kate Chopin’s poignant novel, the misrepresentation of women in society will be discussed through an analysis of aspects in the text that exclude women. This will be proven through the exploration of the differences between the social classes among men and women which is evident with Leonce’s superiority compared to Edna’s inferiority. Likewise, the way women are represented in relationships as seen through Leonce having more authority.

In the chapter, the gray zone, the author Primo Levi describes the human relationships inside the Lager. In describing the gray zone, Levi discusses the different roles of prisoners assigned by the Nazi. The prisoners that did the work were seen as being more privileged which at the end of the day helped them get more food and live better. Therefore, the concept of the gray zone is analyzing the difference between the privileged and the non-privileged in the Lager. The difference can be seen by the tasks that the prisoners carried out, for example, one of the groups were seen as, “Low ranking functionaries... sweepers, kettle washers, night watchmen, bed smoothers... checkers of lice and scabies,

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Die Sijie contains many prominent themes, such as the effect and influence of literature on the characters, friendship and loyalty, coming of age, and the power of knowledge. However, one significant, underlying theme appearing throughout the novel is feminism. Feminism is defined as the acnowledgement that women and men are equal socially as well as in intellegence, and that both deserve to have equal rights to freedom and be treated as such in society. Sijie uses this theme to track the Little Seamstress’ development throughout the novel, showing how at first she believes in society's definition of what it means to be civilized, but as she reads literature and begins to think about for

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) said this famous quote at his first inaugural address, when he took one of the most important jobs in the world, becoming the president of the United States. He then went on to do what no other president had done before―be elected for more than two terms. The people elected Franklin for four consecutive terms during one of the nation’s hardest times, and he and his wife helped pull the nation to its feet. This period of World War II is captured in the biography No Ordinary Time: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin. The author uses countless interviews to piece together the perspective of the home front from

God challenges people in times of hardships, however, it depends on the person if they can take upon the challenge and keep faith in God. Eliezer Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and author of the memoir Night, is one of these people who have to take this test. Elie demonstrates faith is tested in times of trouble through the use of character relation, change in setting and the conflicts that he witnesses.

From two different perspectives of the war, the author of this book showed that, depending on location and timing, everyone can be affected differently by warfare. It followed the story of two children who grew up on opposite sides of World War II. When their paths crossed, they developed feelings for one another, disregarding the fact that their historical circumstances placed them on opposing sides of the war. In the book All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr depicted how internal principles were able to overpower external pressures.

How does Ernest Hemingway develop the theme of self-governance in the short story A Way You’ll Never Be?

In the book entitled, There Are No Children written by Alex Kotlowitz, he writes a story about two boys that are of coming of age in Chicago in the housing projects called Henry Horner Homes over a two year time period. In their housing projects, the family faces many hardships and struggles to survive in life due to the influence of gangs, violence, death and poverty that consumes their housing projects. Living in such a bad neighborhood like Henry Horner homes proves the fact that “there are no children here” in the housing projects because the children have seen so much crime, violence and death occur that they have lost their youth and innocence as children and have been forced to become adults. An example of one character that changed dramatically due to the horrible conditions of in the projects was Lafeyette Rivers, one of the two main characters in the novel. The three most important events that impact Lafeyette’s life for the worst were the death of his best friend Craig, when his mother told him that he would be forced to become a young adult, and finally being convicted of a crime he did not commit in the first place. These three major events in his life greatly impact Lafeyette over the two year time period it causes Lafeyette to lose all hope in life and as well to live in constant fear of death and of his housing projects.

All the light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr, chronicles the lives and relationship between Marie and Werner, two children who grew up in France and Germany. The society around them forces discriminatory ideals that cloud their perception of the world, but they find its meaning through their own self-definition. In this, they are both guided by a single radio and the message and legacy that it contains. Throughout the book, the author isolated the two characters, but also created subtle connections between the two. The most important of which would be the radio. It created a bond between the two where they learned from each other’s experiences and struggles. All the Light We Cannot See recreates a new picture of the world by contrasting the two separate journeys taken by Marie- Laure LeBlanc and Werner Pfennig to gain that image, which is guided by the power of a radio and the message it contains, ultimately leading to the meeting of the two characters that officially forms an image of the world where one’s actions are valued more than one’s physical features.

“What is equality?” one might ask. We all have different views on specific topics and can describe what something truly means to one’s self like in the 3 text, “I have a dream,” by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr (published; 8/28/1963, genre; narrative and argumentative), “If we must die,” by Claude Mckay (published; 1919, genre; narrative and lyric), & “Harrison Bergeron,” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (published; October 1961, genre; satirical & dystopian science-fiction short story). In all 3 texts the authors are giving their touch on equality. Equality can convey being treated the same when a colored and a white man/woman are next to each other as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr says. You can also see equality as Mckay who thinks it’s being on the same level of strength and worth as a white man being in the shoes of a colored man. Or equality can be being exactly the same in every way as anyone around you in every exact way in Vonnegut’s eyes. All these 3 authors have a particular view on how to answer “What is equality?” and we can compare their ideas.

I feel like the book Night lets off a very sad a depressing mood. The setting of this book is a various amount of concentration camps that Elie and his dad go to. The main central idea of Night is to explain the experiences in the Holocaust. I personally think that this book is a good book for young adults and not kids because it uses some language and it’s very descriptive.

Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick provides insight into the lives of North Korean defectors while in North Korea. Their accounts give inside information about the North Korean regime which makes it possible to analyze to what extent society was an egalitarian utopia. The interview reveals that people were discriminated by social class as evident by those who were richer, and thus in a higher social strata, having more opportunities for success. There was also economic inequity which was apparent by people having different degrees of struggle. However, the problems North Koreans faced was similar, which showed there was some equality from their struggles. Overall, the interviewees give accounts which contradict the idea that the North Korean regime was promoting egalitarianism through their accounts which give counterexamples regarding social class and economic status, so their claim of egalitarianism is mostly false.

“In a Dark time” by Theodore Roethke gives a retrospect into the inner turmoil’s of finding oneself through a haze of doubts in till reaching a moment of clarity. Each section of the poem describes a different emotion, or inner thought that spirals from fear of death, to emotions of desire. The use of imagery between nature and uncertainties of the narrator give a glimpse into Roethke’s own mind during the time he wrote this poem. Without hundreds of pages Roethke created a poem that connects readers to their own self-doubts and struggles of finding ones way again.

The play No Exit, by Jean-Paul Sartre, is about three people that die and go to hell. Joseph Garcin, a journalist executed by a firing squad for trying to desert during a war; Inez Serrano, a post-office clerk murdered by her lover which left a gas stove on while she slept; and Estelle Rigault, a woman who married an older rich man and died due to pneumonia. They all expected physical torture in hell. However, all they found was a plain room with some furniture that always had the light on, no windows, no beds, and nothing that would reflect or work as a mirror. The three of them were trapped inside the room. After discussing among themselves, they confessed their crimes and deduced that the torture was psychological. They also realized that they had been placed together so that each of them was to become the torturer of the other two. Each character began to ask things from the others to fulfill a need they all had, which only led them to more despair. Due to this, Garcin concluded that “hell is other people” (pag26). A. Petrusso argues in his article “No Exit” that the three main characters of the play have in common a display of cowardice. Certainly, all of them seem to be cowards at some moment and one character exhibits it more than the others. He also argues that certain actions and behaviors are merely the cowardice of the character when in fact, it rather seems more like fear. The examples and arguments used by Petrusso seem to simply catalog the main characters as