When God Was a Rabbit

People often think of family as positive, loving, and with no flaws. However, there is almost a stereotype that all families love each other and there aren’t problems or challenges in a family. Sometimes families put people through challenges and some families aren’t “perfect”. In the book Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff, Jolly has two kids and goes through challenges with her family. Most careful readers can see how Jolly has these challenges with her kids and how she is far off from the “perfect” family. She goes through many of these challenges in life and finds a way to overcome them. Jollys family shapes her identity because the challenges she faces ends up making her stronger. Jeremy and Jilly challenging her, LaVaughn helping her out, and her past family all shape her identity.

“Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman are two stories that reveal the consequences of individual suffering. These consequences include estranging relationships, bitter behavior, and even illness, addiction, or death. Throughout each of these stories, Sonny and John’s wife, known as the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper”, continue to suffer due to John’s and Sonny’s brother’s, known as the narrator of “Sonny’s Blues”, failure to meet obligations and familial compassion. Neither the narrator in “Sonny’s Blues” nor the husband, John, in “The Yellow Wallpaper” serve as the villains of the stories, however, I believe we are able to see how both their inabilities to effectively

In today’s society, family is often attempted to be organized within a social structure. Within this structure family typically is consisted of mom, dad, daughter, and son. However, many families do not fit into this configuration. These families may include same sex couples, separated or divorced families, extended families, or even blended families. Even though these families may be happy and healthy, to many they are not considered real families. Going along with the topic of imperfect families, both Barbara Kingsolver and Richard Rodriguez try to break down the traditional family structure through their writing. While Kingsolver’s “Stone Soup” and Rodriguez’s “Family Values” explore the ideas of different family structures and traditional American values, “Stone Soup” breaks down what an actual family is like while “Family Values” expresses the value of family in different cultures.

    “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” one of O’Connor’s best works, describes a family on a trip to Florida and their encounter with an escaped prisoner, The Misfit. Although “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is an early work in O’Connor’s career, it contains many of the elements which are used in the majority of her short stories. The grandmother, a selfish and deceitful woman, is a recipient of a moment of grace, despite her many flaws and sins. A moment of grace is a revelation of truth. When the grandmother calls The Misfit her child and reaches out to touch him, the grandmother has a moment of grace that enabled her to see The Misfit as a suffering human being who she is obligated to love. The grandmother realizes that nothing will stop The Misfit from killing her but she reaches out to him despite this. The Misfit rejects her love and kills her anyway. This moment of grace is very important

Women are taught from a young age that marriage is the end all be all in happiness, in the short story “The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin and the drama “Poof!” by Lynn Nottage, we learn that it is not always the case. Mrs. Mallard from “The Story of an Hour” and Loureen from “Poof!” are different characteristically, story-wise, and time-wise, but share a similar plight. Two women tied down to men whom they no longer love and a life they no longer feel is theirs. Unlike widows in happy marriages Loureen and Mrs., Mallard discover newfound freedom in their respective husband’s deaths. Both stories explore stereotypical housewives who serve their husbands with un-stereotypical reactions to their husband’s deaths.

What is a family? As a young child, Kingsolver played in her room with a toy set called “The Family of Dolls”, which served as the perfect example of what a “real” family is: “four in number, who came with the factory-assigned names of Dad, Mom, Sis, and Junior.” She always ended up comparing her family to this perfect idea of a family that she played with. As a grown-up Kingsolver went through divorce herself, creating a “broken” home for her child. Kingsolver experienced the abnormalness and society’s ideals pushed through her head. But although her family was

In order to understand Janie’s journey to discover love and herself, one must first define love from her perspective and analyze its origins. Janie’s adult concept of love is influenced by many things, including her grandmother and her childhood concept of love. Janie thinks there is a standard for love because her grandmother had standards for who she loved. Nanny’s concept of love, which shapes Janie’s, is heavily influenced by her slave background. Nanny was impregnated by her master, then witnessed her daughter, Janie’s mother, get raped by a school teacher (16-20). Because of the trauma both she and her daughter faced, Nanny ardently begs Janie to marry a man who will keep her safe from harm. Not only does Nanny want a protector for Janie, but she also wants a provider for her. If Janie is to have a husband who is well-off, she will not want the way her mother and grandmother did. Thus, Janie figured that she could marry a person for the security they

What Janie’s grandma experienced was not warm, caring love. Getting love was the worst thing to ever happen to Nanny. The child conceived by the horrific effects of the rape, Leafy, was also sexually assaulted at a young age. One day Nanny explains to Janie, “But one day she didn’t come home at de usual time and Ah waited and waited, but she never come home all dat night… De next mornin’ she came crawlin’ in her hands and knees… Dat school teacher had done hid her in the woods all night long, and he had donerped muhbaby and run on off just before day” (Hurston 18). This shows that someone as sensitive as your first love and virginity can be the worst thing to ever happen to a little girl. Leafy gave birth to Janie and left the newborn with her mother, Nanny, to live the rest of her life drinking away the pain. When Nanny explains how Janie’s mother left it further highlights the idea of love being the worst tragedy in one’s life. The rape left Janie’s mother absolutely broken, to the point she could not raise the child. Janie never met her mother and never got the love she wanted from her maternal mom. The love and sexual interest the Crawford women hoped to get wasn’t what they

There is a big connection between our family and our identity. Family shapes us into the person we become and takes a big part in developing our identity. No matter if their influence is life changeable or not, their presence in our lives is enough to create changes. In the book, Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez described his life as a Mexican-American trying to adapt to the new ways of life and how this has cause him to become distant with his family. On the other hand, in the essay, “The Love of My Life”, the author Cheryl Strayed discussed the affects her mother’s death had on her and her outlook in life. Both authors can relate in terms of the importance of how family helps in shaping one into the person they become. Although identities can be self-built, our families are important in the process because they provide the support needed to build and find identity.

An example of how her family values each other is her description of the conventions and norms of her family. They are thoroughly supportive of one another, attending every graduation, baby shower, birthday, and house warming party. Her father and siblings have burial plots together so that they are never separated. Life is lived with everyone being connected and concerned for not only each person’s well-being, but happiness as well. She says her “relatives form an alliance that represents a genuine and enduring love of family…”

Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “Good Country People”, reflects the long term effects of childhood trauma on both the child and the parent. The main character of “Good Country People” , Hulga, struggles with the adverse psychological effects of childhood trauma, including depression, spiritual instability, and a defiant nature. Hulga’s loss of limb during her childhood has obviously affected her physical state, but it has also completely altered her emotional development. These physical and emotional effects also contribute greatly to her lack of knowledge in romantic situations, leading her to a run in with the man who steals her leg. O’Connor has herself been assumed to suffer from apotemnophilia, a neurological disorder in which one longs to amputate a limb along with a desire for a range of many other disabilities, which are reflected in O’Connor’s characterization of Hulga. Hulga is a thirty-two year old woman who lost her leg when she was ten and has struggled to adjust in the social aspects of her life, and as a result gets swindled out of her love and her prosthetic leg by a man pretending to be a bible salesman. Hulga’s mother exhibits behaviors characteristic of a parent who has been unable to come to terms with her child’s disability, therefore she finds herself lacking in the ability to connect with Hulga.

Most families are complicated but supportive. For example, a family could argue a lot, but still love one another. In Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” mama still supports her daughters even though, they’re not around much. Their issues are not unique because my family has its issues, too. The family in “Everyday Use” and my family both have similarities and differences regarding siblings, bonds, and mothers.

       As the tale begins we immediately can sympathize with the repressive plight of the protagonist.  Her romantic imagination is obvious as she describes the "hereditary estate" (Gilman, Wallpaper 170) or the "haunted house" (170) as she would like it to be.  She tells us of her husband, John, who "scoffs" (170) at her romantic sentiments and is "practical to the extreme" (170).  However, in a time

In every home, there is a different definition of family and how family should treat each other. Two short stories were read by an author named Flannery O’Connor. “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. It was about a dysfunctional family who encounters a criminal named “The Misfit”. The grandmother which is the main character is very judgmental towards others and sometimes her own family at times. This story starts off with a disagreement on where to go for a family trip, but they decide on going to Florida for the family trip after a while of arguing. On this trip, it showed what type of family they are. They talk about everything with one another as well as bicker and fight but at the end of the day, they are still family and love each other. They come together the most in panicking situations such as the accident and waiting for a car to help them. The point of this paper is the theme of family. Specifically, family is a theme in this short story because it depicts a dysfunctional family; the family you see on a crazy television show and can’t get enough of because they’re funny but also they have serious moments. There 's the two troublesome and annoying kids, the hot-headed dad who tries to maintain control of a situation and fails, the wife busy attending to the baby, and the grandmother, who 's a case all to herself (and also the main character). Though the story starts out seeming like a comedy, it takes a serious turn when the family encounters a criminal, who kills them

The bond between a mother and child is often spoken of as being unlike any other. Yet there are always exceptions to the rule where this connection isn 't as impenetrable as one might assume. This book is an example of this bond gradually becoming weaker over time. It shows how it affects the child, Bone, and leaves her vulnerable to the abuse of her step-father. Bone’s mother, Anney, had fallen in love with a man who abused her which at first, she’s unaware but eventually comes to realize but still chooses to stay with him. Throughout the book there are instances of Anney’s negligence in recognizing her daughter’s abuse and being of aid to her but wasn 't. In having to deal with her