The Sky Is Gray Analysis

Imagine having a brother who is incapable of doing anything for himself. James Hurst’s short story tells the tale of a young boy in this position and the way his mindset is. In the short story “The Scarlet Ibis,” James Hurst uses imagery, setting, and motif to convey Brother’s feelings of guilt. By using these literary elements, Hurst allows the readers to take a deeper look into Brother’s perception towards Doodle at the time.

As the child continues to accomplish a variety of different accomplishments in the mainstream society, the people already familiar with the child from the county will perceive him entirely different than others who lack knowledge of him. The child’s “uncle will still call [him] Roy Boy” and the “corn may grow so high if you stood in the field you’d disappear, the fact aiming your eyes down the road”. This demonstrates the difficulty of altering the perception of certain people who are already familiarized with the child. These people are unable to abandon their initial perception of the boy due to their strong, ineradicable association with him; rather, they will find it more awkward and uncomfortable seeing a completely different suave gentleman due to his significant change. Regardless of how many achievements the child has accomplished, he will never be able to erase his past as a little boy in the county. Even if the boy never comes back to visit his county again, the past will linger with him for the rest of his life due to his inability to change his innate characteristics that shape him as a person today. It is because of the boy’s past that he is able to adapt and continuously achieving numerous different

Arranged marriage is found in various cultures and countries around the world, including Afghanistan and other parts of the Middle East; having an arranged marriage is thought of as an Afghani tradition and has been a part of life for many families. The practice of arranged marriage has advantages and disadvantages; it can create more family power and give more financial security. Sadly being forced into a marriage can disrupt the independence of the engaged, most women stop their education when they become engaged resulting in many women being illiterate. This makes it impossible for them to be successful without depending on their husbands. Arranged marriage is found in many cultures throughout the modern world, though in a lot of cases it results in a happy family it can also be very limiting on women and often girls are married before they can give consent.

James life, causes him to struggle with his self-actualization because he does not know who he is or his true identity. However, because he knows so little about his own life, he is led to ask questions and find out answers. “Yet I myself had no idea who I was. I loved my mother yet I looked nothing like her. Neither did I look like the role-models in my life” (91). The only way he figures out who he is, is by asking questions and finding bits and pieces of information. He struggles greatly with himself, and the only way for him to know himself is to know his mother. This gets back to the idea that the parallelism between him and his mother, or chapters 9 and 10, helps him in his

Establish that your character had a poor relationship with his or her parents (provide text details!)

“It was characteristic of Boy throughout his life that he was always the quintessence of something that somebody else had recognized and defined” (Davies 113). He believes that he is in control of every situation, but inside he cannot control his guilt that is still buried deep inside himself. Contrary to Dunstan who feels responsible for problems, Boy runs away from his problems by keeping himself busy. The death of Leola, his wife, clearly shows Boy’s fear of facing problems, for his does not show up for her funeral, “Boy was in England, arranging something or other connected with his Ministry, and duty and the difficulty of transatlantic flights in wartime kept him there”(Davies 194). Boy still yearns for fulfillment even though he achieves greatness in terms of his financial success and his outward appearance. He says, “I feel rotten. I’ve done just about everything I’ve ever planned to do and everybody thinks I’m a success… But sometimes I wish I could get into a car and drive away from the whole damned thing.” (Davies). Boy knows that deep inside he is very unsuccessful. As he gets older, he is supposed to be wiser, but his commitment to achieving the external greatness has stopped him from being fully satisfied. There is an immense difference in the lives of Boy and Dunstan. Boy’s focus on his external being causes him live an unfulfilled life, like a ‘boy’ who cannot see that there is

Joey R. Poole presents an intriguing story in “The Hand-Me-Downs.” Simon is a straight shooting kid that follows rules and does not ask many questions. But later in the story, the reader can tell that the violence surrounding Simon erodes his attitude. He begins to stand up to his brother and he begins to understand that he has free will. At the beginning of the story, the reader can tell that Simon is a typical innocent young kid but by the end of the story, the reader is convinced otherwise. Simon changes as the story progresses representing a dynamic character rather than a static character.

It is easy to blame a child’s upbringing when something goes wrong in their teenage and adult life. However, both Wes Moore’s had a similar childhood yet still ended up with different fates. For example, both of them had absent fathers and were raised by a single parent One of them describes their situation perfectly by telling the other. “Your father wasn’t there because he couldn’t be, my father wasn’t there because he chose not to be “ (Moore 3). A situation where the father is absent is commonly blamed for a misguided life but it is later evident that although there was no father, one of the Wes Moore’s was able to thrive in a positive manner. Since there was a lack of fatherhood, both of them lacked role models, specifically ones that would lead to live positive lives. One Wes Moore chose to retaliate by almost stabbing a neighborhood kid because “it was a pride issue”(Moore 32) and

Jeannette listened to her parents, of course, as a child you feel dependent on them. They would often only spend months at one tons only to move to the next when the family’s father, Rex Wells, lost his job. Little Jeannette was left alone with her brother, who was only a year younger than her, they would go looking for trouble as young kids would. Their parents would allow them to do what they felt they wanted as long as they were home by the time the street lights came on. Her parents taught their children to not be dependent on them for everything, to learn harder schooling, and learn to be strong when the world seems to stop. All of these are great things to teach but the way the children

Firstly, Every hardship and obstacles she endured throughout her childhood helped Jeannette to become a successful adult.Jeannette’s parent were very unpredictable, her mother was self absorbed in her hobbies, and her father was an interminable alcoholic. Even though her parent neglected and gave less attention to Jeannette,

Not only did pride seize my mentality, it controlled my mother’s. When I was younger, I witnessed my own mother stress my brother over his grades. My older sisters were unusually brilliant in school and my mother didn’t want the streak to be ruined. Almost every evening, she’d sit down with him and they’d have extra practice on assignments and projects. In “The Scarlet Ibis”, Brother forced Doodle to walk. “When Doodle was five years old, I was embarrassed at having a brother of that age who couldn’t walk, so I set out to teach him.” (Hurst 597). “‘I just can't do it. Let’s make honeysuckle wreaths.’ ‘Oh yes you can, Doodle,’ I

In the novel, Mercy Among the Children, David Adams Richards paints a intricate picture of Lyle’s struggles with his father’s past mistakes and closes the passage with Lyle finally standing up for himself after witnessing his family being heavily discriminated against in the prior pages. These pages are plush with detailed diction, vast rhetorical devices and sentence structure.

Every person reaches a point in their lives when they must define themselves in relation to their parents. We all come through this experience differently, depending on our parents and the situation that we are in. For some people the experience comes very early in their lives, and can be a significant life changing experience. In William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” Colonel Sartoris Snopes must decide either to stand with his father and compromise his integrity, or embrace honesty and morality and condemn his family. This is a difficult decision to make, especially for a ten year old boy that has nothing outside of what his father provides. Sarty’s decision to ultimately betray his father is dependent on his observation of Abner’s character

James, the narrator in Ernest Gaines' "The Sky is Gray" is an eight-year-old African American male who is still a child but being the oldest male in the household he faces more responsibility than a normal young boy would. His father is deployed to fight in World War II, so his mother; Octavia is forced to take care of the household. She in turn must teach him how to be a gentleman, which he becomes at the end of the story. Influenced by the women in his life, James, the protagonist in Ernest Gaines' short story "The Sky is Gray" makes a transition from boyhood to manhood.

These two boys, Alexie and Douglass, grew up in very similar yet contrasting worlds. Due to their ethnic backgrounds these boys were expected to fail in life; they weren’t supposed to get an education due to the norms during their times. Douglass states in his text that “…education and slavery were incompatible with each other” (119), and that is what he grew up knowing. Others viewed a smart Indian or African American as dangerous because they could stand up for themselves instead of staying quiet like they were expected to. Alexie and Douglass were both stuck in a position where their futures were in jeopardy. Alexie was not expected to make a name for himself and Douglass was doomed to be a slave for