Short Story

The book goes through Jeannette’s life exposing the mistakes she, her siblings, and her parents made to become the family they were. As her life grows older, Jeannette finds herself in more responsible positions in the world, with editing school newspapers, to writing columns in a small New York newspaper outlet. Her troubles have raised the issue of stereotyping, a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. Due to her status in her childhood, it was not hard for her to fit in with the other members of the poor community. “Dinitia explained that I was with her and that I was good people. The women looked at one another and shrugged.” (Walls 191) The quote talks about how members of the black community in Welch accepted Jeannette to go swimming with them in the morning hours before the white people went in the afternoon. The people who knew Dinita, Jeannette’s friend, knew that Dinita was trustworthy, and let Jeannette pass. This relates to the thesis because it shows how she was accepted amongst the people who were

She uses her vocabulary and word choice very efficiently that presents an image to the reader from the very first line. She describes the cashier as “the kind of blonde poured out of a bottle.” This immediately conjures an image of a classic teenage girl brimming with insecurity that has to judge others and dye her hair to hide her flaws. This shows an interesting contrast as the one that is being viewed as inferior in this situation is Manna - yet she is the one that is the most comfortable with who she is. A second example of concrete and selective language is the inclusion of small details that helps to draw a picture for the reader. For example when Manna is leaving the grocery store parking lot, she walks away from “the burned out ampersand on the neon supermarket sign, and the sale on sprinklers and the almost genuine Navajo ashtrays.’ By including these details, the reader is taken into the story in their mind and it helps them to empathise with her situation. It is only if you are actually in a place that you are able to identify small details; the author including them into the story really helps to paint an image in the reader’s mind. For example without the inclusion of such small details, then the reader would never be able to accurately imagine the location or Manna’s situation, something I believe the author is trying to achieve with this

it is life, Mama!” Mama: “Oh—so now its life. Money is life. Once upon a

We sse this today with the way certain celeberties such as Kanye West dress and how they seemingly are able to wear any "hat" they wish. We look at the rich to be role models simply because of their money and refuse to look at the heart of a person. She hit on the fact that those with little money do all they can to look like something they are not. She talked about the struggle of haveing womens club in the poor neighborhoods as many wouldn't leave a home adress or even attend becase everyone knew they finacial situation but they were going to differnt parts of town to those that didn't to seem like they were a person who were very well off in life. The piece hit om the fact that these chidren were often asked to stop their develepment and work to help the family and for some parenst it was an expectation that the children would care for them. LAstly she talked about war and how it preys on the untutered and poor to fight a battle they knew nothing about. One huge theme of the pieces were that we cannot keep using history and old customs to justify our shortcomings in

She stubbed her cigarette on the heel of her shoe and flicked it to the side. It was time for her break, which would have amounted to five or six minutes, and instead of going to greet Cecil she lingered on stage with her back turned in his direction. She removed her compact mirror with intentions to spot-check her makeup. What she saw did not displease her: her eyes were outlined with mascara and kohl, the dark red tint to her lips had yet to run, and her rouge still looked quite nice against her pale complexion. She wore a beige-colored dress that came a few inches above her knees, exposing her stocking-cladded stick thin legs. The dress was straight and loose and covered her boyish figure. She wore a long bead of pearls around her neck. And if one looked close enough, they could see a dust of freckles over her button nose. She was everything her parents hated about the younger generation. No wonder they had set her up with such a

She became heavy, rough, harsh, like one of the poor. Her hair untended, her skirts askew, her hands red, her voice shrill” (Maupassant 233). So far, this necklace, this tiny little necklace has cost her everything. Her indulgence took away what little money she had, what little time, happiness, and youth. This lesson shows the reader that the deceiving everyone into believing she was a wealthy woman was not at all worth it for

You wake up and find yourself passed out on your friend's floor. For a few seconds, you find yourself confused, but then you remember the wild party the night before. Well, some of the party, anyway. Your memory goes fuzzy after these hot chicks starting passing around a few special drinks.

and saw her mom and sister, in their own bikinis. Smiling, she placed a handful of sun screen on her legs and rubbed it in, she continued up to her chest, neck, and face. Offering her sister, the bottle. Taking off her bikini top, she laid face forward, so her sister could place some lotion on her back, and places where she could not reach.

“…and so, your cooperation is utmostly needed and required right now, Mr. Ralston,” Dorne said.

Flich will not stop talking with his mouthful. Walker seems use to it as his ear is literally chattered off.

She has started to see life for what she believes it really is, instead of how she saw it three days ago, and it is interesting how quickly her perspective has changed. This mainly pertains to the idea of the social elites and where she fits in with them now that she has been able to nuzzle her way into the high society with pace and describing the idea of the social elite as being a crowded selfish world of pleasure that she was excluded from because of her poverty. Even though it had only excluded her for a short time she felt the desire to gain entry back into this club of the high elities. From this point in the story, all of her desires revolved around being in the group, as if it didn't matter what she thought of the people only what she thought of their status. The next line illustrates how she didn't like the people in the group at first, but then discovers that they weren't as brutal and self engrossed

(68) shows that she thinks she was born living the wrong type of lifestyle. She is obsessed with the thoughts of the richest. She imagines her humble belongings being luxuries. Suffering from the poor dwelling she lived in, she felt tortured. She wished for people to envy her and try to get her attention.

constantly picked flies out of my milk pail and had to be careful that one wouldn’t land in my opened mouth. I once killed a fly by smashing it between my lips. I became desensitized to the tingling of their legs dashing up and down my skin. Maybe that’s how I built up an immune system that tolerated germs and made me less susceptible to getting sick. Like how a child would hold out a finger for a butterfly to land on, I would do that same with my hundreds of fly friends. The continuous buzzing sound of the flies throughout the farm almost became therapeutic to me.

The first things we talked about were power, prestige, wealth, and class position, and if any of those things played a part in her life chances. As many of us are seeing today, she believes that “money is power” but that it shouldn’t be. She says, “sometimes the people that have power take advantage of that power and they do bad things.” When she thought back about how she viewed prestige when she was younger, she thought about her teachers and other authority figures in her life that she looked up to and thought had prestige. But now, she believes that someone who does good for others, like volunteering, has prestige. She looks up to those people, rather than the people who “have the power” and she is more likely to listen to someone like that than someone who is in “power.” Wealth was not a word she heard too much, considering she grew up very poor, with no running water even. She felt a little ashamed for being poor so she never let anyone know and considered everyone better than her. She struggled coming up with a word for how she feels about wealth now, but she decided that “it’s sickening how much money some

Everything was boring. There was nothing new to see, as if the world was devoid of anything original. The women, ladies and peasants alike, weren’t anything to look at, each the same with brown hair, blue eyes, and pale skin. I went out into my kingdom and the people were all the same, selling the same things, at the same time, to the same people.