Bright twinkling Christmas lights are hung from every tree and building. Marvelous and extravagant red and green decorations adorn the streets, stores, and homes. Shining Christmas trees are filled with personalized family ornaments. Laura looks at families with smiling and cheerful children, who could not be any more excited for Christmas to come. Laura arrives home to reality, she glances at the empty cotton stockings attached to the wall and the vacant space in the living room where the tree is supposed to be with overflowing presents scattered around the room and children with smiling and happy faces. Holding back tears, Laura looks at her four children all under the age of seven, with hollow and dark faces, wanting so badly to understand what it is like to wake up to presents on Christmas morning. She thinks to herself, how am I supposed to provide them with a magical Christmas, if my apartment has crumbling plaster, a pool of sewage on the bathroom floor, a broken radiator valve, only cheese, bread, and peanut butter as food, and my kitchen table is covered in piles of medical papers and bills, which I cannot read? In “The Homeless and Their Children” by Jonathon Kozol, Kozol investigates the lives of the homeless in order to demonstrate the link between illiteracy and poverty. Kozol provides a story of a homeless woman, Laura, who lives in a welfare hotel, the Martinique Hotel, with her four children, all under the age of seven. The author goes into great
In the year 2008, I received my first elf for Christmas. Her name was Snowflake and she appeared with my brothers’ elves and my mom’s old childhood elf, Duende. She’s so beautiful with her velvet green dress, red and white striped tights with green velvet elf shoes with tiny bells. Every year after Thanksgiving, my elves would arrive. I have about twelve elves because I take such good care of them that Santa sends me his elves. Our family elves are extremely mischievous and do tricks every day during the Christmas Holidays. It is my favorite time of the year. Every morning as soon as I wake up, I run downstairs to see what mischievous things my elves have done. They are very smarting, witty and extremely creative. Christmas is my favorite holiday. I love Christmas carols, decorating the house with my mom, baking cookies for Santa, the smell of pine from the Christmas tree and opening presents Christmas morning.
Some of these may be very scary and some may only be mildly scary. It
Christmas is the sight of wrapping paper annihilated by kids screaming and a Christmas of things of presents.
In “The Homeless and Their Children”, author Jonathon Kozol explains how poverty and homelessness can go hand in hand, but he also shows his readers that the government in New York City during the 1980’s did not really attempt to assist those in need. The author shows us how the homeless and illiterate struggled by sharing with us an interview with a young woman called Laura who resided in a massive welfare hotel. Kozol did not find it necessary to write this piece in a persuasive tone, or a compassionate tone, or even an angry tone to get his message across. He did not need to include a multitude of statistics to convince his readers that homelessness, illiteracy, and governmental apathy were issues. As stated in the introductory
Christmas Carol How does Charles Dickens convey the character of scrooge in the early pages of a Christmas Carol? Charles Dickens, is best known for his host of distinctively cruel, repugnant characters. His father was sent to a Debtors prison taken his son Charles with him
Each ghost marks an important step in Scrooge’s journey towards being a better person. Explain
The HBO documental Homeless: The Motel Kids of Orange County shows us the cruel reality of one of the richest counties in the United States. Due to our previous economic issues that the country had suffered, families similar to the ones in the documental are not able to afford rent or own a home, putting families in situations where a family of five or more has to live in a one-bed motel, where the children suffer the most. The main reason for families living in such harsh conditions is unemployment; householders are not able to find stable jobs to support their families, and both parents have to work multiple jobs to sustain and provide a decent living to their families. In some cases families have to have more than both parents working to
A Christmas Carol In a Christmas Carol, Dickens uses some of his past childhood experiences to show us that Christmas is very important and many messages come across in this book. It is split up into five ‘staves.’ The reason that they are staves instead of chapters as staves are used in music and it is called a Christmas ‘carol.’
are poor enough.” And he said he lives in his word of fools. We can
This paper will talk about the homeless population and the homeless families. It will explore the multiple causes of family homelessness and the struggle has on homeless family life. The three main reasons for homeless families within America are the following: 1) the lack of affordable housing, 2) low income 3) Inadequate federal subsidy. This paper will also give possible solutions to family homelessness and improvement plans for the future.
Sometimes a non-fiction book can have relative applications and stories in it, but a fiction book can achieve the same purpose with adding some exaggeration to further support the meaning of the story. The Christmas Carol, written by Charles Dickens, is a fiction story, but it contains a lot of meaning to the outlook on life. The battle between the flesh and the soul adds emphasis on the morals of the human being. Developing the story is an important aspect as well, whether the development is in the conflict, within the characters or the resolution. Inside the conflict, the conflict can either be internal or external. External being the fight between two men, and internal being the conflict within yourself. The Conflict in The Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol was written by Charles Dickens in 1843. Life for the lower class during this time was extremely hard because of enormous amounts of illnesses, young children worked and no education. A Christmas Carol was set in mid 19th century, during this time people had a really bad time; most of the people was unemployed and the people who were employed were paid deficiently, others were seasonal or casual, which meant they were when work was available so most of the families lived in poverty which means that they didn’t have access to nice food and clothes and children were also used for the family income so the children had to work in work houses. In contrast the rich people had access to doctors, plenty of food and didn’t have to
“Bah, humbug!” This well-known phrase is popular thanks to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. In this literary classic, Dickens tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a “tight fisted...covetous old sinner” (12). Through a series of hauntings by various Christmas ghosts, Scrooge realizes the error of his ways and changes completely into a warm-hearted, generous man. Scrooge’s tale is a familiar one; countless movies have been filmed, plays have been produced, and references made in other stories and television shows. Each rendition of A Christmas Carol provides its own spin, but none are quite as unique as the “Epic Rap Battles of History: Donald Trump vs. Ebenezer Scrooge.” This rap battle uses key phrases, symbolism, and the assumption that the viewer is familiar with A Christmas Carol to tell Scrooge’s story with an unmistakably modern twist.
Christmas is my favorite holiday of the year. I love seeing the shinny Christmas lights that decorates my street and the sound of fresh fallen snow on the ground. Christmas reminds me of family, the laughter and loved we shared, and the gifts we gave to each other. My house on Christmas became the center of my joy.
I think Christmas has always been one of my favorite holidays. Maybe because of the special atmosphere that you can feel everywhere, in shops, restaurants , pubs and even streets, where you can hear the magical carols, or maybe it's because of its religious background, but what I can tell you for sure is that I can't think of anything more exciting than the image of the entire family preparing the Christmas Tree or fixing the Christmas dishes.