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Margaret Peterson's 'Uprising': Character Analysis

Decent Essays

In the novel Uprising, by Margaret Peterson Haddix one of the main characters, Bella, chants “‘We will not be stupid girls. We will not be powerless girls. We will not be useless girls’” (330).Throughout the novel, the three girls: Bella, Jane, and Yetta, discover that being a woman in America during the 1900’s was not all what it was made out to be. All three girls face many challenges, yet Bella was very good at building herself back up after the hard times. After Bella loses her family and Pietro she changed in many ways, such as she became more independent, it forced her to get out of her comfort zone, and it causes her to fight for what she believes in. Due to the death of Bella’s family and Pietro leaving her life she found herself …show more content…

When Bella receives the letter that reveals her family's death, she has to find Yetta, who is able to translate the letter for her. After finding Yetta and receiving the bad news, Jane took Bella home because she was hysterical. By leaving her comfort zone Bella changes because it causes her to find two girls that she trusted to read her family's death letter to her. Leaving her comfort zone and meeting Jane and Yetta also changed Bella because it led to her having people that she knew she could trust and count on through hard times. This changed Bella because if she would not have found these girls Bella would not have seen the brighter sides of things; for example Bella says to Yetta “spring” after Yetta makes the statement “what’s there to hope for now?” (Haddix 263). This quote explains that instead of giving up on everything Bella is going to keep thinking positive and not give in just yet. After Bella left her comfort zone she became emotionally stronger. Bella became emotionally stronger due to these girls because when she first came to America she always thought she could count on Pietro; however, when she found out that was false it was important that she found some trustworthy people she could count on. After escaping her comfort zone finding trustworthy people became much

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