At times, the strong bond of family can shackle some people, emotionally crippling them. Isabel Allende’s And of Clay We are Created implies this concept through the painful memories of its protagonist’s significant other, which are brought into light as a result of a catastrophic event. Rolf Carle, a T.V news reporter, was first on scene to deliver live footage of the aftermath of a deadly volcanic eruption which swept a small village in 1985 Colombia. He, after discovering a thirteen-year-old girl named Azucena who is buried up to her neck in “clay, stones, and water,” quickly finds the story which he will broadcast to the world(). However, as he begins to form a connection with the young girl, memories of his past, which he had worked hard
As the second-day dawns, other reporters come to interview Azucena, taking pictures as Rolf did,“Reporters [and] … movie teams arrived with spools of cable, tapes, film, videos, precision lenses, recorders, sound cables, lights, reflecting screens, auxiliary motors, cartons of supplies, electricians, sound technicians, and cameramen”(3). Though all Rolf cares about is Azucenas well-being and comfort, “And all the while Rolf Carlé kept pleading for a pump”. The incoming reporters with their walls up are unaffected by the disaster, only wanting to do their jobs, they do not care about getting Rolf's desperate plea out to the public. All Rolf wants is for the reporters to bring down their wall as he did when he met the girl, and to help him help her. Even with Rolf’s work to try to get Azucena out of the rubble eventually, too weak to continue, she gives up. After one last conversation and hug from Rolf, Azucena sinks into the clay to join her siblings. Rolf devastated when he comes home he can think of nothing else. Rolf Carlé now spends his time in the news station re-watching and reviewing the videos of Azucenas last days. Trying desperately trying to find something that he could have done to save Azucenas innocent life, “We watch the videos of Azucena
Throughout Genesis 1-11, one of the main subjects covered is the natural world. Genesis 1 in particular provides crucial information for understanding the origin of the natural world. In the first verse of the entire Bible (Genesis 1:1), the reader is immediately told that “God created the heavens and the earth.” Additionally, the reader is informed that “there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day” (Genesis 1:31), showing that God’s work of creation took six days. Because I believe that God created the world in six literal days, the foundation of my worldview is entirely different than the foundation of an atheist’s worldview. When I look at the world around me, I do not view everything around me as the product of random chance and evolution; instead, I see everything around me as the handiwork of God.
Only three years after our country was established, on April 12th, 1777, a baby boy was born in Hanover County, Virginia to the Reverend John Clay and his wife Elizabeth. The seventh out of nine children, no one would have guessed that little Henry Clay would run for president someday. From an early age he was invested in American history; when he was three years old, his home was ransacked by British troops. Regardless, the Clays were a reasonably wealthy family, and Henry pursued his education with dreams of becoming a lawyer; in 1797, he was admitted to the Virginia bar. After that he moved to Lexington, Kentucky, where he married Lucretia Hart in 1799. She was the daughter of a wealthy businessman, which suited Clay’s sociable nature perfectly.
26. He took excessive risks as an exercise of courage, training by day to conquer the monsters that tormented him by night.” I love that quote because a lot of people, including (myself) have these internal demons that they try to suppress over and over again but eventually the demons will come out to play.
The passage that I choose to write about was Genesis chapter 1 verses 1-5. I choose this passage because I was interested in studying how God supposedly created the earth and turned darkness into a world full of life and spirit. Genesis 1 begins by saying “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”(NKJV) I think that the purpose of this verse is to summarize the things that God would do in the future. This text tells us that God existed before the heavens and the earth. We also learn that before God started to create, the earth was empty, dark, and lifeless. The text also represents the beginning of everything earthly by saying God will create life on earth and in
“A ghostly woman wanders along canals and rivers, crying for her missing children, called La Llorona, ‘the Weeping Woman.’”
It was just another ordinary Thursday for my mother in the small town of Oratorio de Concepcion in rural El Salvador. Just like any other eight year old in 1980, she got up, brushed her teeth, quickly pulled her knotted hair into a high ponytail, and left for school. The short distance she walked was filled with the sounds of worn out shoes hitting the dirt road as children ran by excited to start a new day at the town’s only elementary school. After hours of sitting in a classroom surrounded by grey concrete bricks, once the last bell rang, she would wait at the entrance gate for her younger brother and cousin. They walked back down the dirt road together while kicking a deflated soccer ball to their home where their grandmother would be waiting for them with a little snack. My mother, her older
The author Isabel Allende spreads little details about her life throughout the stories she writes. Dropping even the smallest hint from family history or her culture. Allende uses her storytelling ability to help her survive a succession of hardships, and she eventually makes her living as a writer. The transformative power of words and stories is one of the major themes of the
The text, “And of Clay We Are Created” by Isabel Allende and “Girl, Trapped in Water For 55 Hours, Dies Despite Rescue Attempts” by Julia Preston. Both portray a somber situation but undergo different experiences and even emotional growth. Azucena in “And of Clay We Are Created” unlike Omaria of “Girl, Trapped in Water for 55 hours…” had emotional reassurance from Rolf Carle a reporter. Rolf was with Azucena to the very end. Omaria, however had to wait alone barely clinging to life as the freezing flood waters tried to rapidly and harshly claim her life.
It was a warm and sunny afternoon, just as any other could've been in Haiti. I stayed after school that Tuesday, as I usually did for art lessons and It was soon time to leave.I got my sister from the school’s library and we rushed to the school's gate. There, I saw my father, a rather short man in his mid forties, who was balding already. Sweat dripped down his forehead as a day's exhaustion weighed down on him.
A time when the country was in political havoc and crime was widespread. This was in fact the last place anyone would have wanted to born. Pedro was the seventh of the thirteen children born to a Colombian prostitute. Pedro’s father was the member of the Colombian conservative party and was killed in during La Violencia in 1948. In 1957, when Pedro was eight, his mother caught him having sexual relationship with his younger sister and Pedro’s worst nightmare came into reality. Pedro’s mother kicked him out of the house, forcing him to find his own food, and lives on streets. Soon, Lopez became a beggar on bloodthirsty Colombian streets and lost the hope of living a life as he could have before having an intimate relationship with his younger sister. However, things began to look up for Pedro when an old man picks him off the streets and offered him food and place to stay. Pedro being child at a time couldn’t possibly think of anything great besides having food and place. He accepted the offer and left with an old man. But, things were too good for a Colombian violent streets and for Pedro. Pedro being a child accepted the offer and went with an old man. Instead for Pedro going to a comfortable home with an old man, old man took him to an abandoned building and repeatedly sodomized him and returned to the
Omar N. Bradley, a senior officer of the United States Army once stated, “Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living.” In other words, our world understands warfare more than harmony. Having ethical responsibility can contribute a major part in increasing peace around us. In the short story, “And of Clay Are We Created” the author, Isabelle Allende described the way Rolf Carle’s act of ethical responsibility effected a little girl's death in a way that she could die in peace instead of frustration and fear, knowing that an effort was made to live again, but it was in her fate to move on. Ethical responsibility, according to “www.smallbusiness.chron.com”, can be defined as “the duty to follow a morally correct path. In your personal life, you might feel the greatest sense of ethical responsibility to your family and close friends.
Childhood is a creative non-fiction story by Nieves Sanchez describing the journey of a young girl living in Mexico. The story has a connects with the author because she also lives through similar experiences while she was a young woman in Mexico. The story takes place in a variety of locations and without a specific date. The author described the journey as memories of the young girl when she was around seven to nine years old. Although, the young girl gives one fuzzy memory of her parents.
The author watched on television as a reporter comforted the dying girl” (And of Clay Are We Created 1). The name of the girl during the avalanche in Armero, Colombia was Omayra Sanchez who got trapped under the debris from her house “Omayra Sanchez was a young victim of the 1985 earthquake in Colombia who Allende used as the character in her story” (Stone
Both of these stories are about a young girl being stuck. “And Of Clay Are We Created” a short story written by Isabel Allende. “Girl trapped in water for 55 hours dies despite rescue attempts” is a news article written by Julia Preston.