Saving Sourdi Essay Example for Free

Saving Sourdi Essay Part I In â€Å"Saving Sourdi† by May-Lee Chai, the author creates Sourdi and Nea’s characters using description, narration, dialog, and commentary. Description â€Å"Sourdi looked like a statue that had been rescued from the sea. She was smooth where I had angles and soft where I was bone. Sourdi’s face was round, her nose low and wide, her eyes crescent-shaped like the quarter moon, her hair sleek as seaweed. Her skin was a burnished cinnamon color.† (Chai 131) This description portrays Sourdi as an innocent and gentle young lady. Narration â€Å"Sourdi emerged from the kitchen, dressed in a bright pink sweatsuit emblazoned with the head of Minnie Mouse, pink slippers over her feet, the baby on her hip. She had a bruise across her cheekbone and the purple remains of a black eye. Sourdi didn’t say anything for a few seconds as she stared at me, blinking, her mouth falling open. â€Å"Where’s Ma?† (Chai 139) This narration shows that after her arranged marriage, Sourdi is not the girl she used to be because she now has to live with a man whom she doesn’t really love and care for a baby at a young age. Dialog â€Å"Nea, what’s wrong with you?† â€Å"What’s wrong with me? Don’t you get it? I was trying to help you!† Sourdi sighed as the baby spat a spoonful of the glop onto the table. â€Å"I’m a married woman. I’m not just some girl anymore. I have my own family. You understand that?† â€Å"You were crying.† I squinted at my sister. â€Å"I heard you.† â€Å"I’m gonna have another baby, you know. That’s a big step. That’s a big thing.† She said this as though it explained everything. â€Å"You sound like an old lady. You’re only twenty, for Chrissake. You don’t have to live like this. Ma is wrong. You can be anything, Sourdi.† (Chai 140) This narration shows that Sourdi respects her mother’s wishes, even though she doesn’t necessarily agree with them. Commentary â€Å"I ran into the kitchen. I had this idea to get the cook and the cleaver, but the first thing that caught my eye was this little paring knife on the counter next to a bowl of oranges. I grabbed the knife and ran back out to Sourdi.† (Chai 129) This commentary shows that Nea is very protective of her sister and will do anything to help her. Part II â€Å"Saving Sourdi† is told from Nea’s point of view. If Sourdi or the mother was telling the story, it would be told completely different. If the story had been written from Sourdi’s point of view, we would know her feelings about the arranged marriage.We would also know her view of the relationship with her sister. If the story had been written from the mother’s point of view, we would know her reasons for wanting Sourdi to marry Mr. Chhay. We would also know more about her relationship with her daughters. Part III In â€Å"Saving Sourdi†, Nea’s culture affects the story because her family is Asian, and they are trying to adjust to life in America. This is important to take into consideration to understand why certain events are happening in the story. The fantasy of the American Dream is relevant to the story to show why they moved to America. The story states, â€Å"When we moved to South Dakota, I thought we’d find the real America, the one where we were supposed to be†¦Ã¢â‚¬ 

Social Stratification Essays -- Papers

Inequalities exist in all types of human society. Even in the simplest cultures where variations in wealth or property are non-existent, there are inequalities between individuals, men and women, the young and the old. A person may have a higher status than others because of a particular prowness at hunting, for instance, or because he or she is believed to have special access to the ancestral spirits. To describe inequalities, sociologists speak of Social Stratification. Social Stratification lies at the core of society and of the discipline of sociology. Social inequality is a fundamental aspect of virtually all-social processes and a person's position in the stratification system is the most consistent predictor of his/her behaviour, attitudes, and life chances. "Social Stratification is a characteristic of society, not simply a reflection of individual differences." Social Stratification persists over generations. Social Stratification is universal but not variable. It involve s not only inequality but also beliefs. 'It is useful to think of stratification as rather like the geological layering of rock in the earth's surface,' Societies can be seen as consisting of 'strata' in a hierarchy, with the more favoured at the top and the less privileged at the bottom." If we look back at the year 1912, when the Titanic sank, we can make a connection with social inequality for the way people lived back then. When we watched the blockbuster hit in 1997, we were shown how much of an impact that social inequality had on the lower class passengers. Women and children had the highest survival rate. Those who held a first class ticket, more than 60% of those survived because their cabins were on the upper decks. Only 1/3 of the third cla... ...ibility, and however imperfectly measured in the existing social classification. Of course, we recognise that in contemporary society, people are less likely spontaneously to describe their own experiences in the language of class. They search for more direct and specific determinants of their life chances to put alongside their recognition of class, and they recognise the independent part played by age, gender, and ethnicity. We do not, then, live in a 'classless' society, though we do live in a society whose members no longer spontaneously and unambiguously use the language of class as the obvious, taken-for-granted way of describing social inequalities. Class is not dead, but perhaps the monolithic social imagery of class has, indeed, had its day. It is this, which makes our society a functional one, and what will help shape it to be a stronger one in the future.

Against School Essay

In his essay â€Å"Against School† John Gatto argues that public education cripples America’s kids in many different aspects of their lives. Gatto claims that compulsory schooling is what is wrong with our nation’s educational system. He states that schools are really laboratories of experimentation on young minds and drill centers for the habits and attitudes that society demands. â€Å"I had more than enough reason to think of our schools—with their long-term, cell-block-style, forced confinement of both students and teachers-as virtual factories of childishness (Gatto, Against School). † The only real purpose of schools, Gatto believes, is to turn the children into servants. Throughout their twelve years of schooling students are forced to conform to society’s expectations, and along the way the students and teachers lose the value of a true education. Do we really need school? Does school have to be in this exact design, â€Å"Six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years (Gatto, Against School)? † Does it mean attending a cold lifeless classroom, surrounded by fellow students that are bored with their studies and a teacher who seems to have little to no motivation left? Gatto specifies a significant number of successful Americans that were not put through the schooling system but still turned out to be productive such as, George Washington. Gatto says, â€Å" We have been taught (that is, schooled) in this country to think of â€Å"success† as synonymous with, or at least dependent upon, â€Å"schooling,† but historically that isn’t true in either an intellectual or financial sense. † Gatto believes the main reason for the existence of schooling is to train uniform citizens and reduce originality, therefore, making every individual the same. Also, he says the school system is made for certain profits to the economy because it encourages obedience to authority and promotes manipulation in children’s attitudes, including the determination of their social roles. The schooling system’s main focus is to integrate the social, economic and political economy into the children’s studies. Ultimately, Gatto concludes that school drills children to be employees and consumers. A child’s capacity for imagination and maturity is limited rather than encouraged by compulsory schooling, which should have never been the case. There still may be a glimpse of hope at the end of this darkened tunnel. Gatto claims that if teachers and parents put enough effort in, they could help kids â€Å"take† an education rather than receive it. When children â€Å"take† an education they are active participants in their future, which becomes the key to their success. However, when students passively receive an education they may have the knowledge on hand but do not know how to put it to use. He supposes he can bring out the best qualities in children by giving them the chance to make decisions and take risks from time to time, rather than confining them to schooling. By encouraging the best qualities of youthfulness, introducing kids to competent adults, allowing children to take personal risks and being more flexible about time, texts, and tests Gatto believes the whole outlook on our schooling system could be changed. Throughout his essay, â€Å"Against School† Gatto warns of the dangers of our public schooling systems yet, his cynicism is balanced with positive suggestions for those who want change. He illustrates how school is a prison where children are forced to grow up at a rapid pace and are denied the right to make their own decisions. On the other hand, he suggests that if you know the logic behind school systems, their traps can easily be avoided and therein lies his answer: â€Å"School trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers. School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently (Gatto, Against School). † Gatto gives various examples about how teachers can take action to make the school system better but when they don’t reach beyond the norm the responsibility for ensuring a truly educated and mature child may depend upon the parents.

William Faulkner s A Rose For Emily - 1143 Words

William Faulkner is one of the most famous American Prose writher. He came from a wealthy family. Faulkner grew up in Oxford, Mississippi. He temporarily worked for a book store in New York. He is famous for his novels set in the American South. He writes a lot of novels about reality and social issues that most American writers left in the dark. Faulkner has been awarded many Nobel Prizes, but in 1949 Faulkner was awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature. The committee consider him one of the most important writers of American letters (Bio.com). â€Å"A Rose for Emily† is one of him major works. The setting in â€Å"A Rose for Emily† has three main effects on the plot: traditions in the south, gothic aspects of death, and Emily’s refusal to adapt to change, leaving her an unsatisfied and lonely life. In the South their tradition was to socialize with people of high social class. If they were in a lower class they was look down upon and if they was seen associating wi th someone of lower class they was beneath them. Emily is a representation of the old south. She was raised in a background of southern gentility by her father who devoted himself on being a true southern gentleman. In the south marriage was known for white woman. Woman was expected to marry within their social status. Miss Emily would love to have been married, but her father driven all her male friends away. Her father wanted her to marry a man of high status in society. Also, in the south whites had African AmericanShow MoreRelatedWilliam Faulkner s A Rose For Emily951 Words   |  4 Pagesliterary Response to â€Å"A Rose for Emily† â€Å"A Rose for Emily† by William Faulkner was published in 1930. This short story is set in an old southern town. I believe that this and several other combinations of events are what made the main character Miss Emily go insane. Miss Emily was an old school southern woman trapped in a modernizing society. She tried desperately to keep to her old ways, but the changes that happened around her were inevitable. This made me feel like something was going to goRead MoreWilliam Faulkner s A Rose For Emily1316 Words   |  6 Pagesminuscule detail in the writing. In order to fully enjoy William Faulkner’s â€Å"A Rose for Emily† readers must do the latter. Faulkner is a witty writer; some symbols are less obvious than others in his writing. To fully appreciate and obtain full meaning of the text readers must pay attention to his symbols and how they contribute to the greater theme. William Faulkner uses symbolization in â€Å"A Rose for Emily† to develop a theme of personal struggle. Emily faces many personal struggles: her relationship withRead MoreWilliam Faulkner s A Rose For Emily1181 Words   |  5 Pages Is William Faulkner s A Rose for Emily iconic American literature? Faulkner uses setting, theme and plot to show the ways â€Å"A Rose for Emily† is an iconic American literature. Faulkner saw the Forum magazine with his short story he wrote, â€Å"A Rose for Emily† and found out that was his first national publication. The Mississippi Writers Page says, â€Å"The man himself never stood taller than five feet, six inches tall, but in the realm of American literature, William Faulkner is a giant† (MWP). Read MoreWilliam Faulkner s A Rose For Emily1528 Words   |  7 Pagespoint of view is A Rose for Emily told? Why? In William Faulkner s short story A Rose for Emily the reader is given the account of an old woman who is rejected by society. The reader is acquainted with Miss Emily Grierson by a spectator, somebody who is not Miss Emily, but rather part of the town that rejects her. The storyteller has a somewhat omniscient perspective, knowing more than the normal town s individual, however not all that matters there is to think about Miss Emily. The storytellerRead MoreWilliam Faulkner s A Rose For Emily1801 Words   |  8 Pages William Faulkner is known for his many short stories, however, many has wondered what has influenced him in writing these stories. Like his well known, most famous short story â€Å"A Rose for Emily†, which has always been compared to â€Å"Barn Burning†, one of Faulkner’s other short story. It only make sense to compare them two together because these two stories has may similarities , whether it may be in setting , characters or style they favor each other . Nevertheless they also have many differencesRead MoreWilliam Faulkner s A Rose For Emily957 Words   |  4 PagesBereavement While a â€Å"Rose for Emily† by William Faulkner and â€Å"A Good Man is Hard to Find† by Flannery O’Connor share the common themes of unexpected death and the old south, the murders found in each story are vastly different. Both stories tell of strong female protagonists who don’t cope well with change and both foreshadow death right from the beginning, but the murderers themselves come from completely different worlds. Emily Grierson of â€Å"A Rose for Emily and the grandmother in â€Å"ARead MoreWilliam Faulkner s A Rose For Emily879 Words   |  4 Pagesare both similar due to how these emotions cause a human to act irrationally. The lone woman in A Rose for Emily and the cashier, Sammy, in A P both portrayed a greater sense of hate which overcame their love. We as humans, capable of powerful emotion typically act too quickly to even understand the consequences of our actions. One prime example is portrayed in William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, Emily loved Homer tremendously, however he did not feel the same way †he liked men, and it was knownRead MoreWilliam Faulkner s A Rose For Emily1682 Words   |  7 PagesLyons Professor Amy Green Writing about Literature COM1102 Oct. 06, 2015 William Faulkner s A Rose for Emily is a short story that has also been adapted into a short film; both have been largely debated. Faulkner’s lack of a normal chronology and situation-triggered memories generates a story that has many understandings among its readers, but surprises everyone at the end. When asked about the title of his story, Faulkner said, [The title] was an allegorical title; the meaning was, here was aRead MoreWilliam Faulkner s A Rose For Emily854 Words   |  4 Pages Literary Response to â€Å"A Rose for Emily† â€Å"A Rose for Emily† by William Faulkner was published in 1930. This short story is set in an old southern town. I believe that this and several other combinations of events are what made the main character Miss Emily go insane. Miss Emily was a old school southern woman trapped in a modernizing society. She tried desperately to try and keep to her old ways, but the changes were inevitable. This made me feel like something was going to go wrong very early inRead MoreWilliam Faulkner s A Rose For Emily1810 Words   |  8 Pages William Faulkner is one amazing writing ,who is known for his many short stories .However, many has wondered what has influenced him in writing these stories . Like his well known, most famous short story â€Å"A Rose for Emily†, which has always been compared to â€Å"Barn Burning†, one of Faulkner’s other short story. It only make sense to compare them two together because these two stories has may similarities , whether it may be in setting , characters or style they favor each other . Nevertheless