A character's personality is often times determined by their tone of voice. If the voice or tone of a character is misinterpreted the meaning is misinterpreted as well. In The Color of Water by James McBride, he remarkably switches between his voice to his mothers and back. Using this technique, the...

Maria after the death of Gino and the birth of her baby Gino, sitting outside on the veranda of her parents house nursing her baby Gino. (Quiet Voice) Oh why Gino? Why did they have to kill my baby brother? He never did anything wrong!! I just don't understand!! All because of his name, Gino...

In the last few days, I've had to tell a lot of people that my mother passed away, but every single time I've said it, it sounded like I was talking through a cup. The low muffled sound of my voice could only say a few brief words of sorrow. The words "my mother" did not even come close to descri...

Riding the Bus with My Sister: Informal Response In the novel Riding the Bus with My Sister by Rachael Simon I found that the many issues and ideas developed in the book are very important in today's society and apply to most people in some way or another. Probably the issue dealt with the...

The Joy Of Sorrow As I awoke one Autumn November morning, from my ever so peaceful slumber, I was awoken by a waking sense of uneasiness. As I slowly crawled out of bed, I had a unpleasing intuition that something has went devastatingly astray. A large well developed lump began to develop in my p...

THE SILENCE OF MARY'S HUSBAND AND HOW IT WILL INEVITABILITY EFFECT THEIR MARRIAGE "The Unwanted Child", by Mary Clearman Blew, is a look into the life of this author when she was 18-year-old and facing several unexpected, important decisions. These decisions were regarding the p...

Divorce is a word that all people have heard about and some people have experienced. Since I had moved around the first ten years of my life I never had the single thought of my parents being separated. On one side of my family I typically saw divorce and I told myself that I am glad that my pare...

Proposal: Abortion: Should women have to get the fathers approval before going through with the procedure? In a recent survey of 2624 women, 43% say that they should be allowed to go through with the procedure even if the father objects. Abortion, for over 15 years, has been a heated debate of mor...

One of the transitions that I have experienced in the past is coming to America, early in the morning of August 1991, I left my mother and the house where I'd grown up. My mother helped me carried heavy suitcases to the bus station. "Have you gotten everything what you need?', my moth...

The novel The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, is a compilation of several rich and fascinating stories. These stories compliment each other perfectly to construct an even richer and broader story. As Sandra Cisneros wrote, "to tell one big story, each story contributing to the whole-li...

Poems, although they can be appreciated individually, are better understood if the reader sees them in the context of the poet's other works. One such poem that benefits from being approached in this way is "Mother Who Gave Me Life". "Mother..." is one of several poems Harwo...

Isa Kremer: The People's Diva For this assignment I chose to attend one of the many woman's films movies that is played at the cline library on Thursday nights. The night that I chose to attend, a film about a folk singer named Isa Kremer was scheduled to play. At first I thought,...

The Best Surprise As a child a habit that involved sticking my little nose in closets and under beds in search of possible gifts sometimes got me into trouble. Always knowing what kind of presents I would receive before I got them was fun when I found them. This habit caused me not to be surprise...

Family Emergency. My brother and I were standing in a white room where people were franticly running around. I looked at this man being wheeled by lying on a blood soaked bed. His eyes were swelled shut and he was moaning in excruciating pain. I took a closer look and realized his skull was e...

Go Tell It on the Mountain was James Baldwin's first novel. This book was published by Dell Publishing, in 1952. This novel relies heavily on autobiography as its structure. Like the central character, John Grimes, Baldwin grew up in Harlem under the supervision of a religious stepfather. David Bal...

According to the interactional view relationships within a family system within are interconnected and very resistant to change. When just one person in a family acts out of ordinary everyone else is affected. Paul Watzlawick , the leading scholar in the interactional studies field, believe...

The opening scene for both movies told me straight away what each film was about. Clueless opened with a party and the main character (Cher) explaining her life and telling me what her life was about; parties, clothes, friends, relationships etc . And with the music, it told me that this movie was a...

Emotional triangles are one example of the interpersonal dynamics that develop within ordinary, everyday families. The implications of the triangle dynamic in the family are in a normal functioning family good genographic coping mechanisms that create healthy interpersonal communication and yet as w...

Mom was in the kitchen cooking a Christmas Eve breakfast when I woke up. Through the aroma's I could make out the smell of fried bacon, buttermilk biscuits, and Moravian sugar cake. As I drifted into the kitchen, still half asleep, Mom turned and smiled as I did the same. "Good mornin...

In the course of the novel ¡§Their Eyes Were Watching God¡, Janie the main character a child whose hopes and dreams were taken away and the people and things around her failed her. Through her transformation and progression Janie¡s voice became stronger through her relationship with Logan, ...

My mom always told me if you are doing something wrong it comes and bite you right back. That Saturday morning it went in one ear and out of the other after she go through lecturing me after finding out my cousin was pulled over by the cops with out la license or insurance. A smirk came across my ...

Approaching Grandma's, our family anticipates the grand holiday about to be rekindled once again. With our family and friends about to be reunited with each other, each family member is trying not to notice how long the mile is taking. The trees along the road seem to crawl by slower as dad pushes...

In "Say You Love Me," the complex family dynamic, especially between the narrator and the sister, demonstrates how one can both love and hate a family member. Having to deal with an abusive, alcoholic father brings exceptional challenges. How do you find the strength and courage to endure something...

A day I'll never forget At the young age of 51, my best friend Mary A. Tolbert, my grandmother was taken away from me by a sudden "massive heart attack." Living in Sacramento I had just left my grandmother's house. Earlier that Monday evening in September my grandmother ha...

Some people say that with the birth of a new life someone must go with god to take it's place and in the past few years I've had my fair share births and deaths. In the past few years I have also learned a lot of things about myself and the type of family I come from to better appreciate t...