To anyone ready to make a difference,
In my British Literature class, I had to read “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens. This story discusses the plights of French peasantry before and during the French Revolution. These plights included things like starvation, disease, and exile. Almost all of this relates directly back to poverty, which is exactly what I’m here to discuss. This issue is a common theme throughout the novel, most accurately portrayed by three specific quotes. The first quote is easily the most famous quote in the entire novel: the first sentence of the book, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” (pg. 7). The second quote is talking about a homeless man on the streets, “The hungry man gnawed one of his fingers as he looked at the other three,...
Lifestyle
In my American Lit class, I read the Novel I Know Why the Caged Birds Sings. Racism was a huge problem and it was really noticeable. I personally would hate having to grow up in an environment like that. The vibes everyone had weren’t always positive but most of the time they were. While reading this, I realized that the whole book was basically about growing up in a prejudice environment and the outcome of everything, growing up without parents and the tragic life of being a black girl in a white womens world.
The racism and racial profiling that happens in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is similar to what is happening in our community today. Trayvon Martin was killed because he looked suspicious and was profiled. Police killed at least 102 blacks. In the book the police looking...
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Open Letter
I read the book Great Expectations for my English class at Oak Park High School. It wasn’t fun at all, in fact it was very frustrating, but I did learn from it. It was about a boy named Pip trying to find himself. He went through different times in life wanting to do things that didn’t really seemed like himself. It felt like he was doing them for someone else rather than doing it for his own benefits. Eventually he figures out who he truly is and accepts that, and ends up being happier than he was before.
In chapters 8-10, Pip meets Mrs. Havisham and her daughter Estella and he immediately develops a crush for her. Pip is told that Mrs. Havisham plans on raising him to be a wealthy man and high in the social class so he can be with Estella. These rumors along with his...
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Dear Parents,
In my American Literature class, our teacher assigned us books to read. Out of luck, I got stuck with the book “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote. I almost died at first because the book did not start off very well, but after I realized that this book is still relevant. For those who have not read the book yet, the story is about the 1959 murders of the Clutter family, a four-member family in Holcomb, Kansas. The book brings you into the investigation, the murderer’s actions during the time, and also background knowledge either on the family or the murderers.
As I read, the only characters that really caught my attention were Nancy and Perry and how the two grew up. For those who read the book: you would all agree that Nancy was a pretty good kid and she lived a good life...
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To People With Conflict
In my Honors Composition and Literature class I had to read a book and then write this letter about it. The book I read was Henry V by Shakespeare and it was not a fun book to read because it was very complex and hard to comprehend. The book was mainly about King Henry wanting to take over France because he wanted more land and King Charles of France wasn’t having it. This book was about war and conflict mainly and King Henry wanting to be greedy and take someone else’s land.
In Act 2 there are 3 traitors that try and kill King Henry before he leaves port. King Henry was considering having mercy on them but one if the men wanted them to be put to death by hanging. In Act 3 King Henry and his troops go to Hartfleur and wreak havoc on them but they didn’t want to...
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In my British literature class, I had to read pride and prejudice. The book was very boring and slow to me. While I was reading it I found out that feminism is shown in this book with the character Elizabeth bennet. And it made me think how people see feminism as a man hating group of girls who “don’t need no man”, and don’t shave their legs and yea… that’s definitely not that. Feminism is the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes. And the book pride and prejudice definitely shows that with the head strong Elizabeth character who is ahead of her time.
In the first chapters of the book Mr and Mrs. Bennet show how desperate they are to marry their five daughters. They hear of a rich guy moving into the town and well basically they pay visits to him and take...
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I am going to show you why that is not right.
If you have ever read the book Gulliver’s travels, you know all about the crazy adventures Lemuel Gulliver went on. On each adventure, Gulliver had an issue going on with the people/creatures on that Island. On the first Island Gulliver went to, he ended up in the Kingdom of Lilliput. The people there were much smaller than Gulliver and at first were afraid of him. Eventually, Gulliver gained their trust and the Lilliputians wanted Gulliver to fight the people of Belfescu, who declared war on them. Since Gulliver is so big and mighty compared to them, it would be easy for him to defeat them, but Gulliver did not do it because he didn’t want to hurt them. The Lilliputians turned against Gulliver after that and he knew that would probably...
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Victor Frankenstein was a smart man who focused on his studies in the science field, and because of his mother’s death he came up with the idea of putting human corpses together to create a human. Starting around the 5th chapter Frankenstein figured out how to create another form of life, but afterwards he realizes that it’s not similar to how he pictured it. Regretting what he created Victor became incredibly ill. Returning back to his normal health he realizes that in chapter 16 William Frankenstein is dead, and after speculation Victor realizes that the culprit is his “monster.” Trying to get the monster to stop murdering Victor agrees to create a second monster for the original to create a life with, but after considering the potential consequences with building another monster Victor...
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My name is Shaianne I am a Junior and I was given the task by my British Lit teacher to read a book called “Watership Down,” I was surprised and confused to find out it was a book about bunnies, then started getting nervous looking at the length, then freaking out looking at when I saw when I had to finish it by. It was a rough class period, but my teacher was great and calmed me down saying if I set myself goals and stayed on top of them then it would be fine. After my internal break down and getting into the book I learned that it is a pretty neat book. And I ended up finding a deeper meaning in it, though this book has more than one. I’ll explain one that I’ve gotten out of the book. But first let me give you a brief summary of the book;
The story “Watership Down” is a...
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Recently, for my British Literature class, I had to read the book Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. While I appreciate the influence and legacy its had on literature, I personally didn’t enjoy it that much. I had a lot of trouble understanding it, to tell the truth, but there is one glaringly obvious topic that I did see a lot of in the book – poverty. Oliver Twist is probably one of the most well-known stories about poverty out there, if not the most well-known. It’d be pretty hard to read through it and not get anything from it about poverty. Oliver was born into a life of hardship and had to stay that way for a big chunk of his childhood. It made me wonder, if poverty was something people addressed back in the 1800s, why does it seem to get brought up less often now?
“Child as he was...
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