Shells By Cynthia Rylant Essay

Michael is a sub-affected person of the war . He is affected because of Alice going overseas to become a nurse. “Alice was in one of the war zones… [and] we feared for her life.” In the process, Alice became missing for a while and in result Michael received a stroke, and starts to feels depressed about everything.

Michael was brought up in poor project housing that was consumed by drugs, alcohol, and gangs. He was pushed in and out of foster homes forcefully being separated from his mother and siblings. As the movie showed in harsh flashbacks, Michael is deeply affected by the forceful separation from his mother. This constant absence from the mother or other supportive figures leaves Michael unable to make a secure attachment to any strong base. Erikson’s stage of trust versus mistrust is displayed due to Michael’s inability to count on the kindness and compassion of others which leads him to withdraw from his surroundings (p 248). This abrupt memory in life affects Michael in his idea of family and commitment. The harsh environment also kept Michael from attending school, and the times he did there was no support for him to even try in school.

He liked his accent. He liked what seemed to be a good heart. He liked the way he didn't treat him like a kid and the way he was unafraid to make mistakes in his new language." In this quote Michael expresses why he admires the rabbi and takes such a liking to him even though the rabbi is of a different religion and has different beliefs. Michael communicates that differences in religion should not have an impact on the relationship of two people. It is human nature to treat others the way one would want to be treated regardless of the differences in beliefs two different people may have. This simple fact of life is personified in every interaction Micheal had with the rabbi since the rabbi treated Michael as an adult and with a great amount of respect and kindness, in spite of the fact that Michael is a Christian and he is a Jew. Michael reiterates the kindness and respect embodied by the rabbi back towards him regardless of the fact that he may disagree with the rabbi's

Michael suffers great depression since his dog Ked died. Most of his family and other colleagues address him to see if he is through with Ked’s death, but really he was depressed all along. “I can't tell how sad i really am about Keds versus how sad i am in general”(Cameron 223). In addition, Michael gets sad of unusual things. “I can picture her eating a banana in her tiny office. This, too, makes me sad”(226). Michael gets depressed about Mrs. Dietrich being alone. Also, Michael gets heartbroken about other little things. “I think of her learning to write beautifully as a child and then growing up to be a guidance counsellor, and this makes me unhappy”(227). Michael is not just depressed of his dogs death, but every little problems in his life.

The lack of ability of creating friendships when he was a child could explain why he always surrounded himself with children, and preferred to be in the presence of children than adults. He always stated that children were pure in the heart and less manipulative than adults. The Id of Michael struggled with the ego. The ego was never able to keep under control his desires and pleasures, allowing his Id to take over. His creation of the amusement park shows how the Id overpowered his ego. The amusement park wasn’t only for children to enjoy, but for him to enjoy and relive his childhood. Freud would analyze this gratification as becoming a core aspect of Michael’s personality.

Mostly everyone is aware of Mrs. Esther's mental condition but they're not sympathetic towards her. They labeled her as a "certified nut" because she preaches at the ocean waves on the beach. Still, Peter decides to get to know her better that he

While at home, Esther becomes into a deep depression when thinking about her experience in New York. She doesn’t want to read, write, or sleep and she stops bathing herself. Her mother sends her to see Dr. Gordon who is her first psychiatrist whom she doesn’t like and doesn’t trust. He is the man with a good looking family, and to Esther he is conceited. He doesn’t help Esther, but only hurts her more. He prescribes her with shock treatment. After this horrifying experience, she decides to kill herself. She tries to slit her wrists, but can only bring herself to slicing her calf. She tries to hang herself but can’t find a place to tie the rope, she tries to drown herself at the beach, but cannot keep herself under water, and then she crawls into a space in the basement and takes a lot of sleeping pills. “Wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.” (Plath pg. 117) This quote shows how she felt trapped in the bell jar, and her suicidal urges began. She awakes in the hospital to find that her attempt at suicide wasn’t successful. She is sent to another psychological ward where she still wants to end her life. Esther becomes very paranoid and uncooperative. She gets moves to a private hospital paid for by Philomena Guinea a famous novelist. Esther improves and gets a new

Individuals were terrified of Michael, for example the young ladies in the recreation center fled from the swings after saw Michael. Michael constantly expected that no one could make companions with him. Michael's football mentor at Wingate, a non-government funded school, saw football potential in Michael and got him yielded into the prestigious school. In any case, he had learning ineptitudes and still did not have an unending home. Leigh Anne Tuohy, the mother of a Wingate understudy, Collins, and wife of the proprietor of a couple Taco Bell restaurants, gets a few answers concerning Michael's issue and invites him to complete what has been begun at their home. At the point when Michael is in the Tuohy's home, a comfortable relationship was made amidst him and the

Another common aspect of both the women’s lives is that they both dated Buddy Willard. When Esther began to have a relationship with Buddy, she thought that her relationship with him could go somewhere, that he could possibly be her husband one day. When she is in his room one night, they are talking and having wine, and Esther asks Buddy if he has ever had an “affair”. She expects him to say “no”, but he says, “Well, yes I have” (70). This is shocking to Esther. She thought Buddy was innocent, but he had been pretending the whole time. She tells Buddy to tell her about it, so he doesn’t think it bothered her that he said “yes”. He tells her that while working at this hotel in Cape Cod for the summer, one of the waitresses seduced him, and that’s how he lost his virginity. Esther and Buddy eventually part, but she doesn’t break up with him because he had slept with the waitress, it was the fact that he didn’t

While having a daily check-up with Dr. Nolan Esther tells her that she hates her mother and she blames her for her sickness and her depression. Esther does not cope with the ideal thought of her trying to kill herself all those many times what pain she would be putting her mother through. She fails to realize how much of her father death affected her mother. Esther doesn’t see how Ms. Greenwood clearly loves her and helplessly worries about her. This is why her mother is trying so hard to be there for her by paying for Esther’s stay in the hospital to help her. She even brings Esther flowers on her

Esther evidently feels as if she is constantly being judged and tested, although in fact she is not. Her magnified sense of distrust is illustrated repeatedly throughout the course of the book, at once involving the reader and developing her own characteristic response to unique situations. Finally, one who views occurrences which can only be categorized as coincidental as being planned often experiences a suspicious response. When she finds out that an acquaintance from high school is at the same hospital, her first reaction is wariness: "It occurred to me that Joan, hearing where I was, had engaged the room at the asylum on pretence, simply as a joke." (Plath 207). Although the reader is incredulous of the protagonist's manner of thought, it is also possible to feel a connection to the situation. Such a

“Shells” by Cynthia Rylant is a realistic short story about a boy named Michael who is struggling with a relationship with his aunt after his parents deaths. In the beginning Michael's parents die and he moves in with his aunt esther and then they have a terrible relationship , In the middle their relationship is getting better and they are more open to each other. In the end their relationship is great and his aunt realized exactly what he was going through and he admitted that he didn’t hate her anymore. This story shows that Michael and Aunt Esther's relationship is horrible in the beginning but keeps getting better throughout the story.

The events in New York introduce us to the beginning of Esther’s psychological transformation. The story first inaugurates with the

In the beginning... Esther and Mikael's were not getting along, In paragraph 3 Aunt Esther said to Michael “you hate me, and you hate living here. Although he denied is he did hate her. Michael didn't want to hurt her feelings but he already was by always yelling back in forth because she thought that she was doing something good by taking Michael in.

Mrs. Greenwood and Esther are essentially polar opposites. Esther is often defiant of society whereas Mrs. Greenwood is the commonality of society’s standards. She often pressures and guilts Esther into wanting to succumb into what Mrs. Greenwood feels is right. Throughout the novel, Mrs. Greenwood is frequently hinting at Esther that she is not truly sick and also pressures her to stay pure for her future husband. Mrs. Greenwood truly does love Esther, but her sense of love is displayed inaccurately throughout the things she says to Esther. She spends endless amounts of money on Esther’s mental health treatments, in hopes that she will get better and receive the help she desperately needs, so much so to the point where all of the money is