Summary: Genie's Room '

Right after Simon reaches the shelter, he squats down and looks at the clearing; where he realizes that “nothing moved but a pair of gaudy butterflies that danced round each other” (58). The quiet ambience is further reinforced with the words “nothing moved”, as it connotes a level of silence and calmness. Even the diction of the word “butterflies” adds a positive connotation to the image as One can also see visual imagery in this part of the passage. The reader can visually imagine the beauty of the butterflies fluttering and “dancing” in the scenery while nothing else moves. This imagery, along with the diction helps the reader picture a very peaceful and placid place. Later in the passage, as the Sun starts to set and darkness begins to pour out in the sky, the “candle-buds opened their wide white flowers glimmering under the light that pricked down from the first stars” (59). Positive diction is also used here. The word “white” further represents this sense of peace and also purity of the

Thinking is the only way for her to find comfort when she believes all else has failed for her. Her thoughts are not concrete items that she knows happened, but instead her thoughts are the way she lives her life peacefully. It is the way she deals with isolation mentally and

He is terrified of being alone in the chamber he is in when the poem takes place. The "sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain thrilled me-filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before"

I read the play Marvin’s Room by Scott McPherson. I chose this play from three plays Burnett offered because the cover was blue and blue is my favorite color. The play is essentially the story of a woman named Bessie who finds out that she has leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant. Through this tragedy her family which was separated comes together again. The theme of this play is that family will always be family. Many people in this play have issues. Hank is in a mental asylum, Marvin is bedridden and dying, and Ruth has back problems. Despite their problems all of these people still care about each other because they are family after all.

At the beginning of the story, the setting takes place in Prince George’s Hospital that Brian was airlifted to after surviving a car crash on his way home from swim practice. It was July 6, 2004. Brian spent many days in Room 19 at the hospital. He describes Room 19 as “the floor is made of shiny pinkish tiles with random specks of blue, purple, and brown colors and a wooden chair with an aqua-green cushion” (Boyle 14). Finally when Brian started making progress, he was transported to Kernan Rehabilitation Center for five days and then went home. Later Brian attended St. Mary’s College and on November 11, 2005 he walked out with the rest of the St. Mary’s Seahawks swim team. St. Mary’s college is a beautiful campus that sits on St. Mary’s

The narrator wanted nothing more than to be with her Abuelita who tells her of “the moths that lay within the soul and slowly eat the spirit up.” Viramontes “The Moths” symbolizes the struggles that weight on us the things that oppress us and consume the human spirit due to lack of conformity. We see these things circling about the narrator as the moths “circling the single dull light bulb of the

emphasis, per say contrary to how she portrayed her manic thought. In addition her focus was much

I froze. I could not move. I could not think.” What, what was going on”?

It is evident that this literary work has an expressive approach. The author shares a personal experience of rescuing a kitten from “beneath her house.” In her reflection, she reveals what the basement symbolizes to her, which is both comfort and death: comfort, because she finally rescues this “tiny creature”; death, because she is in need of a rescue herself. No one else is aware that she is beneath the house, and she is so far beneath, in a small space; she feels as if she may be stuck and die there. She compares her feelings to what she thinks a fetus may feel right before delivery, and states that,“what the body remembers of birth it anticipates as death.” Erdrich expresses her emotional reactions throughout, and she carefully selects words that cause an aesthetic effect. She says the kitten has a “piteous cry” that she can hardly stand to hear. Then, she gets so close to the kitten and brushes its fur, but the kitten “scrambles away,” and she feels a “slight warmth” come over her, which is a “mad calm.” This “mad calm” pushes her to complete this rescue mission. She continues to try and catch the kitten, and she continues to fail. Her desperation is apparent, but she prevails and “takes a deep breath, and remains patient,” and finally she catches the kitten.

He said to himself that she was too light and childish, too uncultivated and unreasoning, too provincial, to have reflected upon the ostracism or even to have perceived it. Then at other moments he believed that she carried about in her elegant and irresponsible organism a defiant, passionate, perfectly observant consciousness of the impression she produced. (43)

A second indication was her battle with herself and the idea of being anything. To achieve success at the highest level for which she is capable gave her the feeling of striving for perfection. “Sometimes the prodigy in me became impatient.” “If you don’t hurry up and get me out of here, I’m disappearing for good,” it warned. “And then you’ll always be nothing” (130). The narrator’s thought of being nothing based on how her mother was raising her projected the idea of being a disappointment, due to her mother pushing for a prodigy to emerge from within her and becoming a person worth wanting to be. The idea of no achievement made it harder for her as she grew up, due to the extensive test her mother would give her during dinner. “One night I had to look at the Bible for three minutes and then report everything I could remember. “Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundance and…that’s all I remember, Ma.” I said. “And after seeing, once again, my mother’s disappointed face, something inside me began to die” (130). Having the thought of failing in the eyes of her mother made it harder for her to look at herself.

She was emotionally disconnected from the topic of conversation because her intellectual ability to gain and then process the information she was seeking was all that mattered to

Oliver explains how she found herself thinking of summer fields and felt like lounging on the sand before the owl’s dark wings opened over her. This symbolizes that before death, one is in temporary bliss until their time has come to an end. Oliver pictures herself free and content, staring into the cities of roses before death comes knocking on her door. This shows that death is an “immobilizing happiness” before it rips you from the world for good.

The second stanza of the poem can be interpreted in many ways. The narrator mentions his fear and how at one point he broke down in tears. To me, this could mean that he is so headstrong about his hatred towards his enemy that it scares him. He couldn’t possibly be scared of his enemy because it was never mentioned that his enemy threatened him. The narrator then starts crying because he never expected to grow so quickly and instead of yelling about his anger, he develops these tears. Just as the unwanted emotions surface, the good emotions come up just as quickly. The narrator smiling could mean that he wants to mask everything with a smile to show his enemy that he’s doing fine. It could also mean that he’s enjoying how everything is unfolding.

Genie, the second case of wild child was found in a room tied to a potty chair. Genie was kept in a room locked away because her father thought she was retarded at birth until the age of 13, when she was rescued by a social worker. She was locked away from normal civilization and any type of socialization, and she was beaten for making noises. Genie was an infant trapped in a 13 year old body, because she could only make infant like sounds and no words or sentences. Genie's brain waves were adnormal, but doctors believed that she could learn. They began teaching and trying to develop her brain through forming relationships. Genie begin to speak and say words; but they were difficult to understand. Genie progress gave doctors hope that she