The Bastard Out Of Carolina

The death of a loved one can result in a trauma where the painful experience causes a psychological scar. Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones explores the different ways in which people process grief when they lose a loved one. When young Susie Salmon is killed on her way home from school, the remaining four members of her family all deal differently with their grief. After Susie’s death, her mother, Abigail Salmon, endures the adversity of losing her daughter, her family collapsing, and accepting the loss of the life she never had the opportunity to live. Abigail uses Freud’s defence mechanisms to repress wounds, fears, her guilty desires, and to resolve conflicts, which results in her alienation and

Only six months after Jackie was born his father deserted the family. This led to several hardships. The family lived on a sharecropper’s farm until the plantation owner used the father’s leave as an excuse to keep the whole crop the family had raised and to evict the widow and her children (54). Jackie’s mother gathered her young ones about her with bitter feelings and found work as a domestic servant.

In the novel Salvage the Bones by Karen Ward describes the life of a family of 5 living in rural Mississippi, waiting for hurricane Katrina to strike. Esch Baptiste, being the only girl in the novel, showcases her motherly like attitude by taking charge and helping the family. Esch’s lack of knowledge from not having a mother forces her to think maturely to help aid the family to prepare for the hurricane. Her relationships with her brothers and Manny reveals different sides to Esch’s personality; allowing the reader to understand Esch’s character through the different relationships. Esch’s pregnancy also shows her motherly side to the story, as it is linked to her mother’s pregnancy

“It is possible that the use of certain drugs occasionally generates what we call selflessness. Such experiences are temporary, as they depend on the psychopharmacological actions of the substances” (Dambrun & Ricard, 2011, p. 151). There is a man sleeping in the bed and she goes out onto the balcony, climbs up on the railing and prepares to jump. She changes her mind but is obviously distraught and has a mental breakdown, crying. Sometime afterwards, she goes back to Greenbow, Alabama and Forrest. They are happy for a short time; Jenny even confronting the house she was born in and lived with her father but one night Forrest asks her to marry him and she rejects him saying she is not the kind of girl he wants to marry. “Researchers found those with a history of abuse experienced greater symptomatic distress, poorer interpersonal functioning, and lower self-esteem compared with a clinical sample with no abuse history” (Price, et al., 2004, p. 379). Hurt and angry, Forrest walks away but later that night Jenny comes to him, tells him she does love him and they have sex. The instinct to flee rears its head and by the time Forrest wakes up in the morning, Jenny has left. “Individuals who experience emotionally abusive attachment relationships in childhood are at a distinct disadvantage in interpersonal contexts because they develop a distorted understanding of what loving and caring relationships

One of the most complex and elaborate characters in Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison is Bone. Throughout the story Bone has to live a life where she thinks that she is the leading mystery of the trouble being caused. She has numerous unhappy situations and is in no way self-satisfied with herself. She doesn’t appreciate who she is physically. She constantly thinks she is the most homely and dull person who causes the most inconvenience in the family. This sense of selflessness is mainly due to the physical and sexual abuse brought upon by Daddy Glen, Bone’s stepfather. Unfortunately, the assaults were stretched out over a long period of time, leaving little chance for Bone to recover as an adult if any at all. I decided to take

Throughout the course of Coming of Age in Mississippi, readers observe as Anne Moody undergoes a rigorous transformation – the period of adolescence proves to be years of growth and exposure for Moody. As a child, she is aware of the difference in treatment between whites and blacks – however, she is oblivious to the reason why. It is not until Emmett Till’s murder that Moody really becomes aware of what is happening in the world around her. Prior to August of 1955, Moody had been so consumed with school, work and family that she didn’t pay very much attention to race relations. It’s a point of awakening when she finally grasps the hatred that whites in Mississippi have for blacks – she now begins to understand why her family had lived through such inhumane conditions. As Moody begins to understand the concept of race and equality, she thus realizes which side of the spectrum black people are placed on. On the other hand, Moody’s mama Toosweet, has long endured the brutal callousness of Chattel Slavery -- as a result she holds a different perspective than Moody. Their differing viewpoints often lead to tension between the two characters; this essay will examine and compare the psychological effects of Chattel Slavery on Moody and her mother.

When a young author from New York City decides to take a trip to the southern city of Savannah, he finds himself falling in love with the town and ends up renting an apartment. He encounters many different characters, including Danny Hansford and Jim Williams, that gives the reader a good look into the aura of Savannah. The main conflict in the book occurs when a murder happens in an old mansion located in the town. The book follows the progression of the trial and the outcome following the court’s decision.

Taylor Greer has lived in Kentucky all her life. Yet, the life available to her in Kentucky is not what she always dreamed of: "none of these sights had so far inspired me to get hogtied to a future as a tobacco farmer's wife" (3). Living with her mother, Taylor becomes more independent and striven to find a better life. Taylor's father disappeared before she could even remember

This story is not a typical one when it comes to the topic of child abuse. Most people would think that they would hear about starvation, or beatings, or sexual molestation. But child abuse is harming a child whether it be mentally or physically and forcing a child to live with something like this can be severely mentally damaging. (Hopper)

Proud Shoes is a story told by Pauli Murray about her experiences being raised by maternal grandparents - Robert and Cornelia Fitzgerald - in Durham, North Carolina. Jim Crow laws and prejudice are presented in the Old South as an integral part of the biographical telling of the author’s family history. Murray recounts memories of her childhood as well as that of her close relatives to tell a narrative of mixed racial heritage, miscegenation, and the old bonds of slavery. The book’s emphasis on interpersonal relationships and individual struggle influence provide biographical evidence for how we understand the broader social and political context of the times.

Her mother chooses to ignore the abuse because she knows she will have to decide between her husband and daughter. Anney’s distance causes Bone to endure this evil on her own. Initially, Bone cannot share her experience because Anney was dealing with enough of her own problems with the miscarriage. As time passed, she lost further faith with her mother’s trust of Daddy Glen’s distorted versions of the truth, she has no one to reaffirm how special she is, so she starts thinking things like “I was evil” (Allison 110).

Throughout Kidd’s exquisitely written story, Handful struggles, sometimes with quiet dissidence, sometimes with open rebellion, to cultivate a belief in the invincibility of her spirit and in the sacred truth that one does not need actual wings in order to rise. Barely a stone’s throw from the slave quarters where Handful and her mother share a room behind the grand Grimké house, another young woman fights a different battle with the constraints of her society. Sarah Grimké is the middle daughter of a wealthy and prominent family at the pinnacle of Charleston’s social hierarchy, the daughter her mother calls difficult and her father calls remarkable. From the time of her first violent childhood confrontation with slavery, Sarah is unable to abide the oppression and brutality of the slave system that surrounds her. Ambitious and keenly intelligent, she harbors an intense longing to have a voice in the world and to follow her father and brothers’ footsteps to a profession in the law. Crushed by the strictures that her family and society impose on women, Sarah forges a tortuous, yet brave path toward

Valerie Martin’s Novel Property is an engrossing story of the wife of a slave owner and a slave, whom a mistress of the slave owner, during the late 18th century in New Orleans. Martin guides you through both, Manon Guadet and her servant Sarah’s lives, as Ms. Gaudet unhappily lives married on a plantation and Sarah unhappily lives on the plantation. Ms. Gaudet’s misserableness is derived from the misfortune of being married to a man that she despises and does not love. Sarah, the slave, is solely unhappy due to the fact that she is a slave, and has unwillingly conceived to children by Ms. Gaudiest husband, which rightfully makes Sarah a mistress. Throughout the book, Martin captivates the reader and enables you to place yourself in the

The irony of the story is that it is under the directions of the Grandmother that leads the family into a run in with The Misfit, which is what she told her son she would never do. Throughout the trip we are given examples of the racism that was present during this period. The Grandmother makes multiple racist innuendos such as her observation of the “cute little pickaninny,” and her statement that “little niggers in the country don’t have things like we do” (O’Conner 2). During the ride, The Grandmother convinces Bailey to take a detour down an old, dirt road which supposedly leads to an old southern plantation home she once visited. The road leads them deep into the woods where an accident is caused by The Grandmothers cat, which leaves the car upturned and the family stranded. It is then the family encounters The Misfit, whom discovers them stranded as he was passing by. He approaches the family with two young men and shortly after The Grandmother lets out a scream as she realizes him. During their encounter, the readers are given a small glimpse into the deranged mind of The Misfit. It is apparent that he has an upturned moral compass. He gains pleasure from committing crimes and the meanness that goes along with it. During his conversation with the Grandmother, he slowly has his men take members of the family out

Shielded from the atrocities of slavery during her childhood, Jacobs depicts family life among slaves as one that remains intact in a “comfortable home” (29) through the example of her own family. Each member held limited rights along with the ability to work and the privilege to use their earnings as they pleased. It is not until the death of her mistress where she finally begins to feel the effects of slavery in the sudden separation of her family who are “all distributed among her [mistress’s] relatives” (Jacobs 33). The separation of family is one of the most integral subjects of her narrative since “motherhood [plays a great role] in her life” (Wolfe 518). Jacobs appeals to the emotions of her female audiences by contrasting a slave mother’s agonies in her separation from her children with the “happy free women” (40) whose children remain with her since “no hand” (40) has the right to take them away. The separation of families in Douglass’s narrative does call for some pity but the event is not as tragic in comparison to