Snowflower And The Secret Fan Essay

In the fall of 2006, a lonely girl by the name of Jessica Jiang sits in the corner of a noisy classroom in Shanghai, China with a unique journey that dates all the way back in a hospital at Edmonton, Canada in the blizzard winter storm of 1999. The faces of the childhood friends flows through my mind, as well as the curiosity of the new things coming into my life. This all started from when I came to China from the United States at a age of 7 years old.

Once Lily accepts what she has done and learns that her mother's death did not make her a bad person, her conflict can finally be resolved. As a result of resolving her conflict, she is able to mature because of the struggle, just like other people are able to grow and evolve from their own mistakes. This is evident when she admits "Before coming here, my whole life had been nothing but a hole where my mother should have been, and this hole had made me different, left me always aching for something, but never once did I think what he'd lost or how it might've changed him" (Kidd 293). Lily finally realizes that her mother's death has not only affected her, but also her father, T. Ray, and the calendar sisters. Through the course of Lily's struggle, Lily learns a lot about life and matures into a wiser

Since her mother died she has had to put up with her abusive father who doesn't really care about Lily. Having to not only deal with this but the fact that she doesn't have any friends in school doesn't really help. “People who think dying is the worst thing don’t know a thing about life.” Lily says this in the beginning of the novel. This is an important quote showing Lily’s bravery because Lily’s life has been profoundly affected by her mother’s death. This statement suggests that living with someone else’s death can be more painful than dying. She grew up without a mother and the taunting guiltiness that she killed her own mother. In some ways I share this quality with Lily. At times I can be a brave person but like everybody else I'm not always so brave. One time when I was brave was when I was first coming into the high school. I was always so nervous at just the thought of high school so when the big day came I was very anxious. I was brave enough to get through it all and now I'm more comfortable in the

Overall, it seems Lily spends her life in a constant state of regret, indecisiveness, contradictions, and conflict. All of this considered, one could interpret that Lily is paving her own path to destruction; however, the beginning of this path was entirely chance. Surely the death of her parents was a completely unrelated tragic accident, and as a human character she had no control over the other characters’ reactions to her. However, one can argue that her behavior

The whole novel is written in first person point of view. How does this perspective help the reader to better understand the novel as a whole? If this novel was written in third person point of view, what are some differences that may appear?

She even had to take charge of problematic situations. She performed like a mother towards her younger siblings, while her mother, by contrast, refused to do the chores, for she named herself a "lady". Not only Lily´s childhood wasn´t easy, but also her future life was full of tough occurrences. She found her purpose of life in teaching. For her first job offer, she had to ride 500 miles with her horse Patches.

Lily had to believe she was a person worthy of love and a family. It was this character trait of Lily’s that got her through this

She went out of her way to help Rosaleen escape from the hospital and help her be happy unlike others that would have seen Rosaleen as just a house maid and wouldn’t really care for her as much as Lily did. After this particular event happened in the story, a different impression on Lily came to my mind. I now see her as an overall strong person. I see her this way because despite her dealing with her Mom dying and having a rough life living with Dad, she still managed to push that away and helped others when she felt like they needed

"Swallow the Air" by Tara June Winch is a prose fiction text about an aboriginal girl called May who goes on a journey for a search of fresh and intensely meaningful discoveries

     Lady Audley’s Secret, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, is a novel of many elements. It has been placed in many different style or genre categories since its publication. I feel that it best fits under the melodrama or sensational genre, and under the subgenre of mystery. It contains significant elements of both types of writing, so I feel it is best to recognize both, keeping in mind that melodrama is its main device and mystery is a type of Victorian melodrama. In order to understand how the story fits into these categories, it is necessary to explore the Victorian characteristics of each, and apply them to the text. In addition to establishing the

Friendships are beautiful things. Deep, meaningful friendships are rare to come across. They are forged in the unlikeliest of places, with the unlikeliest of people, like an unwanted weed growing in the niche of a rock. A deep bond spans decades, never fading away. In Lisa See’s historical fiction novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, two young girls in 19th century China meet and forge a beautiful friendship that lasts a lifetime. Together, they endure painful foot binding, loveless arranged marriages, motherhood, and throughout the years, communicate in secret through letters and a special fan, the symbol of their love and friendship. Important symbols, such as the lattice window, bound feet, embroidery thread, nu shu, and the fan, recur

Lily Firestone portrays her determination through her defiance in Girl in Reverse. At the beginning of the book, Lily is not very rebellious. Instead, she is very intimidated by the prejudice she faces in society. However, as the book proceeds, she becomes more defiant as she attempts to find her mother. One quote that shows Lily’s defiance is, “I wake up Wednesday with the Sisters of Mercy Children’s Home so real in my mind that I feel like I’ve slept there. The school nurse thinks I am staying home with cramps. Mother thinks I am at school, but actually I am about to do something impossible” (91). This quote shows Lily’s defiance because it shows how Lily is going to break the rules by not going to school. Instead, she is going to visit Sister Evangeline and inquire about her collection of artifacts. Another quote that shows Lily’s defiance is, “ ‘This is an adoption…Your adoption. I know someone who needs you… I feel illegal, but I can live with it” (184). In this quote, Lily is in the midst of kidnapping Joy. This shows how Lily is willing to take an action even though she knows it is not right

In the movie, Snowpiercer, the world has ended in the result of an environmental catastrophe with the intentions to “reconstruct” the world and it planet was left covered in snow. The only people who are alive are aboard the Wilford Train that circles the earth once each year. Children play a large role in the movie with an effort to expose two different perspectives children are viewed as. For instance, the first type of child was privileged and educated on the history of the Wilford Trains because they were birthed by parents who lived in the front end of the train and were considered as the upper-class citizen. These children were responsible for being educated every day on the history of the Wilford Train. These children were brainwashed

Lily and Snow Flower’s relationship has ultimately grown so much from when they first met. They have been there for each other through every trouble they had

The story of “Snow White” depicts what a beautiful girl has to endure from her evil stepmother, whose vanity and cruelty know no boundaries, is there more to the story though? The Brothers Grimm give us clues here and there, about how they both have similarities. Little by little, Snow White’s character can be seen changing from the pure character at the beginning of the story, to someone that if you look close resembles the evil Queen by the end of the story. Snow White’s and the evil stepmother both share some common traits such as vanity, envy, and at times no remorse among others; in which Snow White can be compared to the Queen.