Summary Of Natasha Preston's The Cellar

The selection “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain” by Jessica Mitford is a process analysis used to give readers a sense of disgust through the use of atrocious, explicit detail.

Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain, by Jessica Mitford, was very informative about a subject that isn’t talked about much as it may cause offense. The author’s purpose was to share many of the common practices of the funeral industry. She described in detail how the procedure works, discussed the practice of embalming, and the secrecy behind it. The author also uses a sarcastic tone throughout the article. Her tone seems to show that she finds the entire procedure of making a dead person beautiful again then letting the family view them, rather absurd. She also used some dark humor to make fun of the practice of embalming. She brings to light what happens behind the curtains to the deceased and makes it seems controversial.

The novel that I chose was Spoiled by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan. The main characters include Molly, Brooke, and Brick Berlin. This book is about a sixteen year old girl named Molly Dix, who, after the death of her mother, moves to Los Angeles, California to live with her biological father, Hollywood movie star, Brick Berlin and her half-sister Brooke. Molly isn’t used to living the life of a rich girl, so when she arrives, she is both excited and terrified; not only that, she’s meeting her dad for the very first time. Brooke welcomes Molly to high fashion and fame with an overwhelming dose of “sisterly love”. But in this town, no one is ever what they seem. I think that Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan built the story in a way that would

One of the main characters. He is from Shallow Creek where his family runs a farm and he believes to have his own ranch. Apparently he was known to be violent as noted by his mother before going to the Brick House. There is a great age difference between Vanessa and himself as he starts highschool as Vanessa is 6 years old. Believes in his own fantasies throughout the story (Duchess and Firefly, becoming and engineer, etc). A child-like mind allows easy communication with the children that run around his house but not with the others in his household, absorbing their words like he did when facing Grandfather Connor. Story always seems to mention his clothing when he returns after disappearing for a while. (When Vanessa and Chris first meet, when he comes back as a salesman, hospital clothes, etc.) Suffers from a mental breakdown after 6 months in WWII. Goes back to his delusions after being discharged. (I could not know whether the land he journeyed through was inhabited by terrors, the old monster-kings of the lake, or whether he had discovered at last a way for himself to make the necessary dream perpetual.”) Slowly detaches himself from the real world to hole up in his own little world. Vanessa picks up

Can you imagine a corrupted, twisted, and merciless dictator slaughtering your friends and neighbors all around you? This is what Corrie ten Boom and the rest of her family experienced during World War Two which she later wrote about in her book The Hiding Place.

In the story “No Snapshots in the Attic: A Granddaughter’s Search for a Cherokee Past” by Connie May Fowler is about a granddaughter who is determined to find out her heritage. She was unable to find any pictures or documentation of her family, from back then. She was searching for answers from unreliable sources. For example, her grandmother, that seemed ashamed of her culture. All she had to go on were stories that were told to her form her mother, and even that was not enough. She, then, stumbles upon her grandmother’s incomplete birth certificate, which was practically useless to her. Missing from the birth certificate were her great-grandparents’ names and her grandma’s social security number, which was a major part to her research. The

The main character, Charlie must navigate through it even while feeling motionless and scared. He tells his story to the reader from his perspective. The reader sees life from exactly the way he sees the events and understands those events through a teenage boy’s eyes. The crisis is introduced when the town outcast Jasper Jones asked Charlie, a bookish young nobody of a boy for help. The reader sees Charlie’s internal conflicts of wanting to go with Jasper, feeling terrified, excited yet so wanting to be accepted by him Charlie does in fact sneak out in the middle of the night with his new friend. Jasper takes Charlie to the scene of the crime where Jasper’s girlfriend is hanging from a tree. The manner that Silvey describes Charlie’s reaction to the hanged girls is true to human nature, “I’m screaming, but they are muffled screams. I can’t breathe in. I feel like I’m underwater. Deaf and drowning.” This description foreshadows the solution to hide the body and Jasper and Charlie throw Laura Wishart into the lake. Unknown to either is Laura Wishart’s sister, Eliza. She witnessed the suicide of her sister and wrote the word “sorry” on the stump of the tree before she leaves. Charlie and Jasper find this word, assume that the killer wrote it there, and immediately jump to the

girl who has a report she has to write about her summer. Pearl Littlefield is a young girl who just entered the fifth grade and on the very first day she is having trouble with an assignment. Pearl flashes back to the end of fourth grade recalling how she would have a wonderful summer. Yet, Pearl’s summer is not all peachy as she thought. Pearl encounters a few difficulties to get through and realizes that whenever one door closes another door opens.

Despite the violence and grim that Summer is put through, she never gives up hope of being found. For seven months she is kept in Clover’s cellar, yet she never gives up hope. She is constantly looking for any glimpse of escape. She repeatedly tells the other girls that her family will find them saying “Lewis will find me. He will never give up” (143). Through her character, Preston is able to demonstrate how people can stay strong despite the situations they are put in. Summer shows how hope can get you through any obstacle despite the severity of the situation.

Usually being able to see is a “spiritual act” and it “symbolizes understanding” (Cirlot 99). Therefore, when you take away the ability of sight, whether it be purposeful or accidental, you take away understanding and acceptance. Both the man from The Road and Natasha Trethewey struggle with accepting their reality for what it is. Their deliberate limited vision-- the choices they make to overlooks their respective bleak realities--, allow them to cope with their world.

Masculine-focused groups like fraternities or all-male schools are built off the idea of brotherly love. These groups exhibit certain qualities of personalities of their members that differ from the norm of social interactions and love. A possible way of explaining the differences between the love people are generally accustomed to and a love between males in the context of brotherhood groups is science. Barbara Fredrickson, author of Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do and Become, describes love as a “positivity resonance”, using science to explain how it can be thought of as a connection between individuals through small, positive interactions. Susan Faludi, author of The Naked Citadel, illustrates a

Throughout The Cellar, Lewis, his family, and Summer’s family, have been out and about searching for Summer, in Long Thorpe, they have also expanded their searching and have began searching the boundary lines of Long Thorpe. Lewis and Summer’s older brother Henry, have now decided to search the one part of their town where all of the runaways have gone. While they are searching that part of their town, they ask some of the people there and none of them have seen Summer. In the book every now and then the chapter would be about Clover, and it will talk/show his past. While in Clover’s past it talks about him going to a shopping mall and buying the clothes and necessities for the four girls in his cellar. And him building and repairing the cellar so that it looks very clean and tidy and smells of lemons.

There is a massive difference between wanting to keep a tradition alive and being so avid about living in sameness that it becomes dangerous. Fluidity and being open to revision is necessary in order to survive in an ever changing environment. In The Naked Citadel, Susan Faludi recounts the events that occurred during the period that Shannon Faulkner fought for acceptance to the Citadel, the military college of South Carolina. Throughout this time, the school community experienced utter chaos as a result of mixed emotions about letting a female gain the honor of becoming a cadet. In The Minds Eye, Oliver Sacks shows the necessity of change in order to survive by describing the changes that blind people made in their lives in order to become as successful as they are today. When an individual is forced to change, they are more likely to tackle the situation with an open mind as a method to make the best of that situation. In contrast, when change is not necessary, it can be much more difficult to adapt due to the presence of fear and insecurities.

I think Lewis will find Summer because Clover helped with the searches to seem more innocent. “ ‘Do you have any thoughts on where Summer is?’ I asked him. I didn’t like using that name Summer was dead. He looked up and stared. I stood straight, my heart pounding. Why was he looking at me like that? (Preston, 228) “In this quote Clover the kidnapper is helping Lewis with the search. As they are on the search Lewis picks up on Clovers odd behavior. I also think that Lewis will find Clover because of the way he behaves. - “ ‘I’ll have four of each of those.’ ‘Four of each?’ ‘Yes, please.’ She frowned and flicked through the rail. ‘What size?’ ‘A ten please.’ Ten was a healthy size, not like the six young girls aspire to be these days. (Preston, 91-92)” In this quote Clover is purchasing clothes for the four girls in the cellar. The woman in this scene is very confused by how much he is purchasing and if people pick up on this strange behavior it will give Lewis more clues to find Summer. From the evidence in the book I predict that Lewis will find Summer because of Clovers odd

prison that shackles all the basic impulses with which, he believes, men are endowed "Man is by instinct a lover, a hunter, a fighter" (Williams). In the warehouse, Tom does not find any satisfaction at all "I’d rather somebody picked up a crowbar and battered out my brains than go back mornings!" (Williams) let alone amiable, intimate friendship or companionship.