Shadow Patterns

This characterization also shows how much of an impact her mother had on her life, as well as how much of an impact Ethel had on her life. She is determined to be better than Ethel for her children, and even though

She was not happy in the state that she was in and not feeling safe where she was living. She sought out her family an friends to help her get through this. Wes quotes in the book ,” And finally, I want to show them that I wasn’t alone as I thought I was, and that maybe they are not alone either”(Moore 4).Over time she met a great husband and had loving children. Her kids got opportunities she always hoped they would. Without her hope that time would fix almost all problems, not of this would have

In this novel Taylor is a dynamic character, we see her transform from a young girl who didn’t want to get married or have kids to an independent single mother. In the beginning we get to know her as a self-owned, determined and a stubborn girl who is focused, ambitious and thinks outside the box; because she knows firsthand what is like to see her mother struggle as a single parent. She learned to value every day because pregnancy was like a disease. An example of her considerate outlook is “believe me in those days the girls were dropping by the wayside like seeds off a poppy seed bun and you learned to look at every day as a prize” (3). This small but

Bragg’s grandfather learned to find out the young man ways “he lived long enough to see the true nature of his son-in-law’s character emerge, saw the cruelty, and his first inclination was to hunt him down and kill him” (35). Bragg’s mother felt that her husband would change for the better the more chances she gave him. Every time Bragg’s father would come back for his wife he would leave her in the end without any money and to expect another child on the way (66). Bragg’s mother and the children knew that the father could become dangerous at any time “he would strike out at whoever was near, but again it always seemed that she was between him and us, absorbing his cruelty, accepting it” (66). Bragg knew that his mother was not trying to bring the family in harm, only his mother wanted the family life and for her boys to grow up with a father.

Finally, she had people who understood her and were willing to listen to her. She had people who believed in her, stood by her when she had her baby. The girls were not perfect, she had some not so good moments with them but even in their imperfections, they were people she could relate with. Being able to read her story to them, and hear their story, gave her a sense of belonging. When Ms Rain asked her how she feels participating in class she said “I feel here”. This is an indication of a sense of belonging.

Life can come to a stop sometimes when a person is weighed down by burdens. For some people it may be too difficult to live in the present while constantly thinking about the past and because of this are unable to move on. These can be burdens that they have been carrying for a long time or even recently. In the short story, “The Things They Carried,”Tim O’Brien uses symbolism, ambiguity, and a non-linear narrative structure to illustrate emotional burdens.

"You think because I am her mother I have a key, or that in some way you could use me as a key? She has lived for nineteen years. Over and over, we are told of the limitations on choice--"it was the only way"; "They persuaded me" and verbs of necessity recur for descriptions of both the mother's and Emily's behavior. " In such statements as "my wisdom ! came too late," the story verges on becoming an analysis of parental guilt. With the narrator, we construct an image of the mother's own development: her difficulties as a young mother alone with her daughter and barely surviving during the early years of the depression; her painful months of enforced separation from her daughter; her gradual and partial relaxation in response to a new husband and a new family as more children follow; her increasingly complex anxieties about her first child; and finally her sense of family balance which surrounds but does not quite include the early memories of herself and Emily in the grips of survival needs. In doing so she has neither trivialized nor romanticized the experience of motherhood; she has indicated the wealth of experience yet to be explored in the story’s possibilities of experiences, like motherhood, which have rarely been granted serious literary consideration. Rather she is searching for

He said to himself that she was too light and childish, too uncultivated and unreasoning, too provincial, to have reflected upon the ostracism or even to have perceived it. Then at other moments he believed that she carried about in her elegant and irresponsible organism a defiant, passionate, perfectly observant consciousness of the impression she produced. (43)

The reader cannot help but feel the burden the daughter will be sharing with the mother. And while the plight of the mother is real, the reader cannot ignore how the isolation and loneliness of this type of community, or lack there of, has effected Tome's judgment in mothering.

Their father does this in order to protect them, but it still leaves a lasting and brutal scar across their minds. Children look up to their fathers for support, no matter what it may be. And when the father lies to his children, betrayal, anger, and sadness take hold of their

She says that the "child" had been by her side until "snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true" (line 3). Basically she is saying a trusted person “snatched” her work from her without permission to take them to England to be printed. Had it not been for her brother-in-law taking her work back to England and getting them printed they may have never been known. The intimacy and feeling she shares with her work is like that of a mother and child and that bond was infringed upon when her work was "exposed to public view" (line 4). The intrusion of her brother-in-law getting her work printed is the cause of feeling that follow. Ironically the next thing she talks is the shame she has been thrust upon her by not being able to perfect the work before it was published. This is illustrated in line five where she writes, “Made thee in rags,” as to say her work is like a child dressed in rags.

The theme in this poem shows this mother in many ways, is mourning the loss of children aborted for whatever the reasoning. This is known by the statement made in line 22 “Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate”. She also mourns the loss of things that will not reach their potential, such as the sound of a babies’ cry, and voice or even the loss of tears. Another conflict that emerges in the poem is the desire of the mother to do what is best for her children and the finality of her decisions.

The daughter is bored with her mother's dreams and lets her pride take over. She often questions her self-worth, and she decides that she respects herself as nothing more than the normal girl that she is and always will be. Her mother is trying to mold her into something that she can never be, she believes, and only by her futile attempts to rebel can she hold on to the respect that she has for herself. The daughter is motivated only to fail so that she may continue on her quest to be normal. Her only motivation for success derives from her own vanity; although she cannot admit it to herself or her mother, she wants the audience to see her as that something that she is not, that same something that her mother hopes she could be.

From the piece “The Eye” the narrator as the daughter feels like she exists separately from her mother’s expectations of her. The relationship between the mother and daughter in the story has significant tension because her mother believes it's her duty to tell her daughter about how she should feel, almost like controlling her. It's almost like the daughter feels trapped like the "Alice and Wonderland" movie quote she had made.

The resentment within the young girl’s family is essential to the novel because one can understand the young girl better as she makes her decision.