Novel

Duddy’s obsession with land lies within his grandfather, Simcha. When Duddy was small, he spoke those unforgettable words to him, “A man without land is nobody. ” When it seemed as if nobody cared or respected him, Simcha did. Duddy did not receive the same kind of love from his father or uncle as Lennie did. When Duddy comes back from work at, he asks, “Why [Max] didn’t answer any of [his] letters? ” He replies he wasn’t “one for letters. ” “But Duddy remembered that when Lennie had worked as a camp counsellor one summer his father had written every week.

He had driven out to visit him twice. “(pp. 104 & 105) Duddy did not have the same kind of affection and devotion Lennie and Max shared. The same situation came from his uncle, Benjy. At first sight, Benjy described him as having a “thin crafty face, the quick black eyes and the restlessness… the grain so shrewd and knowing, all made a bad impression on Uncle Benjy. ” (p. 61) Benjy supported Lennie, giving him money for his education. With the exception of Simcha, he had no other parental support which is the reason why Simcha words had such a great effect on him.

Duddy gains what he had wanted in its acquisition, respect. Everyone except Simcha, Mr. MacPherson, and Uncle Benjy thought he was going to be a nobody. He wanted so much to prove them wrong and he has. We may say he has gained self assurance, restating the fact he was a somebody important. Since his days at Fletcher’s Field High School, he ran a gang based on respect, not friendship. Things do not change when he becomes an adult. Virgil is just one of the people Duddy uses to get money for his land.

He feels no grief for hurting his so called friends because he has never experienced true friendship. His purchasing of land would push him into higher step in society. What he gains is nothing compared to what he loses. Duddy has lost his innocence. No longer is he the pure and naive boy as before, but now a corrupt, immoral man. Duddy has chosen a life without conscience or goodness, beginning a life with no morals and corrupt “friends. ” He does not think twice to people he has hurt which displays the deterioration of his character.

He has traded morality for destructive materialistic values. Simcha believed in him but now looks at him in shame for he knows the respect he will gain is shallow. The strangers who respect him look at his money, not at his heart. To Simcha, money is not everything. He has lived a life based on respect but for character, not riches. Simcha’s words have impacted Duddy’s life but not in the way he wanted, never like this in his darkest nightmares. There is no more respect towards Duddy in Simcha’s eyes but in this twisted world, respect from the overall public.

Duddy knows of Simcha disapproves of his actions but at the end, he does not care, he thinks everything will be all right. This is the kind of person he has turned out to be. Someone who does not understand what is wrong from right. His conscience feels nothing, not even for the person who truly supported him from the start. If this is how his mind works for someone he loves, it frightening to think how his treats someone he hates. He loses the meaning of respect and decency and gains a numbness to corruption. Simcha’s ironic words gained Duddy land but made him a heartless criminal.

Katherine Franks novel A Voyager Out tells the life story of Mary Kingsley. She talks of her childhood, her young adult life, and her traveling life. She wanted to tell the world what this woman explorer did for Africa. Mary Kingsley had a famous family, many of whom were writers. Mary herself wrote two books. In her books however, she leaves out a lot about her life. A lot of what Katherine Frank had discovered came from Marys letters to friends while traveling. Some people who were the recipients of her letters found it odd that she put so much into her correspondences.

In one case, she wrote a ten-page letter to a friend. His response to her was that she was wasting many of her good stories that could be published on a letter. Her response was to write him a six-page letter. She loved writing. She also loved her voyages to Africa. Part of Mary Kingsleys reason for loving her travel abroad came from her childhood life. Mary was born the daughter of a high-class man and his cook. George Kingsley was a writer and came from a family of writers. He did not produce much however. He left a lot of his works unfinished, and many others unstarted.

Because he did not do much in is lifetime, it has been said that his greatest gift to the world was his daughter. Her mother, Mary Bailey, was the innkeepers daughter. Four days after her father and mother were married, Mary Kingsley was born. If her father had not married her mother, Mary would have been bastard child of a destitute domestic. Mary would have only been able to lead a life of servitude herself. Oddly enough though, most of her young life was lead in servitude. Mary lived a long life of isolation. During her adolescent years, her mother was her only female role model of what a woman is supposed to be.

Her mother was sick most of he time and therefore Mary had to take care of her and the household chores. While her father was off on one of his many voyages, Mary Bailey had the front windows of the house bricked closed. The house was kept dark and stuffy. Growing up like this made a normal childhood almost impossible for Mary Kingsley. Part of her mothers illnesses came from constant worry about George. He went on many trips overseas and partook in many heroic adventures. He would write home to his family about his adventures and this caused his mother great grief.

Because of the grief this caused Mary Bailey, George stopped writing of his eroics to her, and instead wrote of them to his daughter. Mary Kingsley had to become a self-sufficient person. With her mother being bedridden and her father being overseas, Mary grew up on her own. Being a girl, Mary was not given many opportunities at an education. The only education she had paid for her was a class in German. Most of her education came from reading her fathers books. She taught herself Latin, Physics, and Chemistry, which was an unusual curriculum for even the most erudite governess (24).

Mary and her father had similar reading interests and were therefore constantly fighting over books to ead. They were both interested in reading the same book at the same time. George had a volcanic temper (27) so he was usually the victor of the fights. There was one instance when Mary decided to leave home for a small vacation. Mary had never been away from her home so this was a new experience for her. Only a short time into her trip, her mother became ill and Mary had to return to take care of her mother. After staying at her mothers bedside for quite some time, Mary Baileys health improved so Mary decided to finish her vacation.

While gone this second time, Mary Bailey had a stroke and Mary stayed ome with her mother from then on. Mary was never able to leave the home for a long period of time without her mothers condition worsening. Her father became ill and was bedridden for a while as well so Mary was taking care of both of them. George did eventually recover and so Mary was back to only having to take care of her mother. One night that George was feeling particularly well, he went to bed never to awaken. A month and a half later, Mary Bailey died as well. Mary felt her mother died because she no longer had anything to hold on to.

The death of her parents was somewhat a relief to Mary. She was finally free to be on her own. For the rest of Marys life, she dressed in black from head to toe. Part of this was out of mourning. After a while, however, the black clothes became accustomed to her. The hardest part of her parents death was having to sort through their personal things. She had to go through their old letters and personal papers and decide which things to keep and which things to throw away. While sorting through her parents belongings, she found her parents marriage license and her birth certificate.

This is when Mary realized just how close to being a bastard child she was. She already felt like an outsider in her family, and this only added to that feeling in her heart. Mary knew she had to get away. She wanted to travel to some of the places that she read about. A family friend suggested that she travel to the Canary Islands. The idea thrilled her. Unfortunately, Mary still had to look after her brother Charley. She felt that it was her womanly duty to look after her brother. She did not mind it actually. The only thing that bothered her was that her travel plans centered around his travel plans.

Every time Mary was ready to leave and thought that Charley was oo, his plans would somehow change or get put off. This gave Mary plenty of time to get ready for her voyage to Africa. She was told many times by many people of all the diseases that were awaiting her. This did not deter Mary though. She felt that she was ready for anything. She did, however, realize the risk that was involved, and therefore wrote a will before she left for her travels. On her journey, Mary brought with her two diaries, one for scientific information, and the other for her own personal thoughts and psychological findings.

She did not have a lot of money so she traveled light. Most white eople who traveled to Africa brought with them an entire entourage and hired African porters to carry their luggage. Mary did not want to set herself that far apart from the Africans. She traveled by trading goods and this helped her immensely while traveling. She felt that the Africans related better to her as a trader than they would have if she had come in empty handed. When the Africans saw that she had something they wanted, they would welcome her into their home. She lived off of food that the villages provided for her.

Marys mode of transportation for this first voyage was the ship The Lagos. While aboard The Lagos the issue of death came up many times. Many of the people aboard had stories of many white people who died making similar trips. The diseases that caused many of the deaths affected the white people so greatly because of the fact that the whites immune systems just were not able to handle the new climate and bacteria that the Africans had grown accustomed to. While aboard the ship some of the passengers died. At each new place that The Lagos stopped more and more deaths occurred. Still, Mary was not discouraged.

While on this first voyage Mary discovered the sickening prejudice of miscegenation. Mary was a strong defender of polygamy as well. Another unusual thing that Mary did was noting in her two books the physical beauty of the African. Because the African wore little or no clothing, it was probably the first time Mary had seen a naked body other than her own. She was probably the first white person many of these Africans had seen so it was a trade off of firsts. Mary had to deal with a lot of new issues in Africa that she had not even dreamt of while she was back in England, but she used this to learn and grow.

When Mary did finally return to England, she found it dull and lifeless. She was bored in England and missed Africa. To help ease her homesickness Mary redecorated her flat. She hung many African paintings and other artwork that she brought home with her. To add to the pseudo-Africa, she kept the temperature in her flat turned up so that the heat was like that of Africa. While in England helping her brother, she decided to write. It was through her writing that her imagination was able to return to Africa. She wrote of the people she met while in Africa and the various tribes she came across.

Most of her writings were about the scientific aspect of the tribe. There was also a personal touch that she put in her writings. Mary did not like being back in England and was excited to be able to return again two years later. She spent the remainder of her time in England preparing for her next voyage. For this next voyage, she had more money available to her because her publisher really wanted her to write about these people. Even though she had the extra money, she decided not to travel any more luxuriously than she had the first time.

She felt that traveling as a trader really helped her to connect with the people. She did not want to set herself above the people she was there o get to know. Even though she could afford it, she did not bring tinned food and other travel aids. She thusly decided to travel light. When others heard that she was traveling light they asked her to bring things to their loved ones for them. Mary, the nice woman that she is, could not say no. She ended up having a lot of luggage because of the many care packages she was bringing to various parts of Africa.

While in Christianborg Mary discovered just how bad the white mans death toll was. She was being given a tour of the Christianborg cemetery and she noted two wooden hoods covering empty graves. When she asked what these were for, she was told that they always had two graves dug ready for the white man to die. She was rather shocked at this revelation, and did not at first believe the necessity for these graves. The tour guide told her that just a few days past two men died before noon and then two more died later on in the evening. Mary wrote about this in her books. She wrote a lot about death in her books.

As a matter of fact, most of everything Mary wrote about had a motif of death or beauty. Part of Marys interest in death had to do with the fact that he was largely responsible for taking care of the ill that she came across. She never went anywhere without her medical bag. In one case she volunteered to take the night shift of sitting up with an ill man. She was used to sitting up at night with her mother so it was no big deal to her. She made sure though that no matter what time she was up to, she took an eight-mile walk. Sometimes she even took the walks while the person was asleep.

She took the walk in order to keep in shape as well as to discover new parts of the land. Helping to cure others was her skill in life. She worked so hard to make the diseases she was told bout before her first journey into something that the people could overcome. She never put her health into her mind. She was always more concerned with the wellbeing of others. She loved doing the good deeds that she did, even when they were not the best condition. Marys finally voyage was to South Africa. When she arrived there she was told that her job would be to help the Boer prisoners of war.

Although the task was not pleasing, Mary accepted the duty. The conditions that she worked in were deplorable. The hospital was filled with about 200 wounded men in need of care, and only one doctor and three nurses. Mary was rather busy with this task, and fortunately for her, over time the hospital got a few more doctors and nurses, and even a few male orderlies. Mary wrote letters to friends describing the conditions at the hospital. Typical Mary always added humor to even the saddest of letters. One of Marys final letters never got mailed to its recipient.

The letter told of the stench, the washings, the enemas, the bedpans, and blood (295) that she had to deal with every day. Those were the things that Marys entire life consisted of. She began her life by taking care of her ill mother, crusaded all of her life by elping Africans and British who were overcome by sicknesses found in Africa, and then later died from being surrounded by diseases all of her life. She always took care of others, never worrying about herself. One day she began to feel the same symptoms that she had for so many years treated. She tried to keep silent, not wanting anyone to see her weakness.

Finally, it was impossible to hide the fact that she was sick. Marys final days were spent in bed. She woke up one day with an intense stomach pain. She was rushed into surgery performed by one of the doctors she worked with and had become close to. He was convinced hat the surgery had fixed her problem, but Mary knew better. She knew herself well enough to know she was dying. She only had two dying requests. The first being buried at sea rather than in a cold tomb that was waiting for her back in England. She felt that she should be buried in the Cape of Good Hope where she spent a great deal of her time.

Her second request was hard for her friends to fulfill, but out of love for Mary, they did. Mary wanted to die alone. She wanted to have her final peace. She needed this. Her friends left her be. When she slipped into a coma, they returned to her bedside and waited. In order to fulfill Marys request to be buried at sea, her good friend and fellow doctor also requested a military burial as well. She would not have permitted this because of how humble she was. Many people felt that this military burial was the only thing appropriate for a woman who did as much as she did.

Her funeral was filled with many solemn speeches and final words. Mary would not go out that way, however. She always had to add that bit of humor to everything she did. When her casket was thrown overboard, it was not properly weighted and therefore did not sink. Her coffin bobbed up and down in the water for a while as her final goodbye. An anchor was eventually tied onto the casket and the body of the great Mary Kingsley sunk into the water where she rested with the beauty of the coral and pearls and other sea creatures surrounding her.

Now for the opinion part. The book was great. Mary Kingsley was an extremely interesting woman. She did many great things for those who not many wanted to help. However, the book was not easy to read. The book was rather repetitive. Mary was born, helped the sick, went to Africa, helped the sick, people died, she left Africa, went back o Africa, helped the sick, people died, left Africa, went back to Africa, helped the sick you get the point. It was a little bit difficult for me to pick out the important details to share with the class in this report.

I did not want to bore the class with the same thing over and over. Yes, I realize that Mary led an extremely wonderful life, and therefore all of the details of her life should be considered important. However, some of them were rather boring. Mary did a great deal of thing that should be looked up to and respected. I do respect this woman that I have never had the chance to meet. The things she did were extremely courageous. She put other peoples lives ahead of hers. Never once did she stop and say, This could be dangerous to me.

She was always willing to go above and beyond. It gives me a great example of a way to lead a selfless life. I am not saying that I want to go to the extremes that Mary did, but I think that I could definitely learn a lot about helping others by following her lead. We all can. Mary crusaded to help those who did not get help from others. She was a strong woman who did what she believed was right, not what others thought was right. She was a pilgrim of some sorts. She began what others eventually followed. Because of her, many others were willing to help those in need.

I would recommend this book to any of those looking to find their own inner strength. Reading of this womans adventures gives a great deal of motivation to get out and do something. If you are one of those who is thinking of going out and helping others and crusading for justice, this book would do a great deal for you. However, this book needs to be read in one sitting. If you read bits and pieces of this book at a time, it takes too long and therefore drones on. That is the trap that I fell into. I read chapter by chapter and it felt as if I was rereading the same part of the book over and over.

Part of the difficulty in the reading might come from the fact that the book was written about someone from that someones own books. Confused? Mary wrote a few books and lots of letters. She even wrote her fathers book for him. The research that the author of The Voyager Out based her writings on was Marys own writings. A lot of the book therefore was secondhand, and some was firsthand. At times it was hard to tell whether the information was gotten from something Mary erself said or from an assumption Katherine Frank got from reading Marys writings.

Another difficulty I found while reading the book was that most of Mary Kingsleys family was named George, Charles, or Henry. Most of them also had one of those three for middle names as well. The females were named Mary and Charlotte. In order to keep this tradition alive, many of the men married women named Mary or Charlotte. Mary has a cousin Mary, her mother is Mary, and she is Mary. Her Uncle Charles did a lot, but her brother Charley was lazy. While reading I found myself having to reread in order to find out who was being alked about at this time.

For a good portion of my reading I was reading about Charley thinking that her uncle was the one being referred to. I had to reread almost an entire chapter once I discovered it was her brother. The audience of the book is most likely those who are already interested in doing similar deeds. The book is not so much a call to action as it is a remembrance of this great woman, therefore most of the readers probably already have some knowledge of what Mary did based on their own experiences. I think if the book had been written more to persuade others to get involved it would have been more nteresting.

Because the audience is assumed to already be interested in what Mary did, I am sure most of the readers did not get bored of the repetition of what Mary did throughout her life. In general I am glad that I read this book, although I am extremely glad that I am done with it. If anyone else would like to read it, great! I would encourage you to go out and gain knowledge of what this woman did to help the sick in Africa. It is a truly touching story. If, on the other hand, you have other things to do, other tests to study for, or parties to go to, I would suggest doing that first.

In the novels The Pact, by Jodi Piocoult and Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden there is a strong reflection of life and its negative aspects. Not only do both novels involve a female whos life is controlled by those around her, but the girls are also controlled by a desired conception of themselves that they feel they have to achieve. The predominant ideas that exist in both works are those concerned with ones personal will to live a certain way and to achieve goals that are believed to grant success. Both stories involve a female who, through out her life, endures the pain that sometimes comes with the bleak reality of our world.

The childhood traumas and the severe pressure exerted upon each of the woman causes them to suffer; However Sayuri, although, she is deprived of her individual freedom, uses her situation to its full potential where as Emily can not deal with the pain and has a mental breakdown. Both Sayuri, in Memoirs of a Geisha and Emily in The Pact suffer through a childhood trauma. Sayuri, begins her life in the small town of Yoroido, Japan, where she lives with her family and knows herself at this time, as Chiyo; her name does not change to Sayuri until years later.

Sayuri is dealing with the deterioration of her mother who is ill with cancer, and is preparing for her death, while her father is a quiet, distant man who neither knows Sayuri or her sister, Satsu. It isone afternoon when her father, with out confronting his wife or children makes a deal with a significant man to sell his children. Sayuri is taken to see a lady who inspects her in appalling ways to find out if she is suitable to be sold. Sayuri soon finds herself on a train leaving Yoroido, where she will be separated from her entire family and transported to a far town called Gion.

Years later, while being treated as a slave in an Okiya, a Japanese Geisha house in Japan, Sayuri is still traumatised by what happened to her. I couldnt stop thinking about Mr. Tanaka. He had taken me from my mother and father and sold me for slavery. He sold my sister to something even worse (Golden, 82). Sayuri never sees her parents again, for she receives a letter some time after she had been taken informing her that her parents had past away. Sayuri is left in an unfamiliar world alone, and sees no hope for a brighter future. It would have been enough to know that my father had died, or that my mother had died.

But to learn in a single moment that both my mother and father had died and left me and that my sister too was lost to me foreverat once my mind felt like a broken vase that would not stand. I was lost even with in the room around me (Golden,103). With these experiences, it makes it difficult for Sayuri to see anything positive in a life that has only offered her sorrow. Emily Gold in The Pact also under goes a devastating childhood experience. When Emily is very young, she is raped by an employee of Macdonalds restaurant when she goes to use the bathroom there one afternoon.

Emily never speaks a word of this incident to anyone. As hard as she tries to forget about this occurrence, and put it behind her, it is too difficult. The memories of the rape haunt her when she is making love to her boyfriend, Chris. Instead of her seeing her lovers hands touching her, she envisions the dirty paws of the man that abused her years ago. Everything was sharper. She could smell his black breath, feel the course hairs on the back of his hand, see her own face staring back at her. She was wearing something with an elastic waist; it snapped back against her hips.

There were the familiar sensations of his fingernails scratching at her. His palms grinding up against her nipples, the burning between her legs. But this time there was more. The droning whirr of what? -bees? The tang of disinfectant. And the unmistakable scent of a kitchen, of something being fried in grease (Picoult, 175). Emily has visions of the rape in her dreams and in reality. This makes her feel dirty and worthless and she begins to wonder why she cant feel secure with anyone, including her own boyfriend, the guy she grew up with.

Because of this traumatising experience, Emily has lost her trust in people and is now self conscious and afraid to be touched by anyone else. It is manifest that Emily and Sayuri experience some brutal incidents in their childhood, and also clear that these occurrences effect them still years later. Both Emily and Chiyo are pressured and controlled through out their life by those around them and by their own personal ideas of life. When Sayuri is sent to live at the Okiya, it is made clear to her that the only way she will be successful in life is if she becomes a well-known Geisha.

If she does not succeed , her life is doomed. As soon as she arrives at the Okiya, it is made quite clear what is expected of her. If you work very hard, and obey everyone around you, youll grow up to be a geisha yourself one day. But you wont make it as far as next week unless you listen to mother and I very closely, and do exactly as you are expected to do (Golden, 40). At this point, all of the doors of dream and opportunity are closed to Sayuri as she is forced into something, that she does not particularly want to do, but would prefer it to being a slave for the rest of her life.

In Memoirs of a Geisha, the world that is entered is one where appearances are paramount; where a girls virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where woman are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. Sayuris life, when she is taken from Yoroido to Gion went through the dramatic change of belonging to her, to being owned by those around her who are more powerful in terms of wealth and status. As Sayuri gradually becomes more successful as a geisha, she no longer has control over, even, her own identification. Mahema, an experienced geisha, becomes her geisha sister.

This is when Chiyos name is officially changed to Sayuri. As Sayuri gets older, she is told that it is time to lose her virginity. Love, in her case is not an issue, but it is the man who pays the most amount of money, that will take away her innocence forever. Instead of Sayuri ever getting married, she will be assigned to a danna, a man who will support her financially. Once Sayuri is linked with her danna, there forms a karmic bond that will last a lifetime. Although Sayuri dreams of being together with a man she has loved for years, she is forced to be under the control of Nobu, a wealthy businessman.

Sayuri, once with him, is never allowed to be with anyone else. When Sayuri express her feelings to Mahema that she wants more than kindness out of the man she is going to spend the rest of her life with, Mahema immediately reprimands her. I thought we all wanted kindness. Perhaps what you mean is that you want something more than kindness. And that is something you are in no position to ask (Golden, 296). Sayuri feels the sorrow when Mahema explains this to her. She can not imagine spending the rest of her life with someone she has no feelings for.

Sayuri explains to Mahema that there are things she has always dreamed about, and Mahema’s response upsets Sayuri further. Youre afraid that after Nobu has touched you, all youre dreams can never be? Really Sayuri, what did you think life as a Geisha would be like? We dont become geisha so our lives will be satisfying. We become geisha because we have no other choiceYoung girls hope all sorts of foolish things, Sayuri. Hopes are like hair ornaments. Girls want to wear too many of them. When the get older, they look silly wearing even one (Golden, 297).

Through Sayuris life as a geisha, she is unable to make the decision who she will lose her virginity to, she is unable to even approach the man she loves let alone be with him, and her opportunities and chances for accomplishing her dreams are diminished into nothing. The only choice I can ever make is what kimono I will wear (Golden, 313). Sayuri spends her life in Gion, serving for wealthy men, and practising to be, how others want her to be. Emily in The Pact is also controlled by those around her, and by a perception of herself that she feels she must portray.

Through out Emilys life, both her and Chriss parents force the idea the one day Chris and Emily will be together, get married and have children. Emily knows nothing different than to be with Chris, because that is what everyone wants. It was clear that Chris loved her; of course hed want to make love to her. And certainly it was right-for Gods sake, shed been hearing her name linked to Chriss since before she could speak (Picoult, 141). Emily is so used to being told that her and Chris aregoing to end up together, it is as if her believing anything else is wrong.

Emily begins feeling, as their relationship becomes more serious, that what she and Chris has doesnt feel quite right. This frightens Emily, because she is violating the perception that everyone has created for her. If she isnt with Chris, she will disappoint everyone. When Emily becomes pregnant, everything good starts to disintegrate. Emily begins to view herself as a failure. She had spent her entire life being what everybody else had always wanted her to be. The perfect daughter, the budding artist, the best friend, the first love.

She had been so busy meeting everyone elses expectations, in fact, that it had taken her years to remember exactly why it was all one big farce. She was not perfect, far from it, and what you saw outside was not what you were really getting. Deep down she was dirty, and this was the kind of thing that happened to girls like her (Picoult, 202). The fact that Emily gets pregnant destroys her. She is unable to tell even Chris who is the father in fear of what her might think of her. She is unable to tell her parents, because she does not want to break the image they have of her.

Consequently, all the pressure and control deprives Sayuri of her individual freedom. However, she is still able to use her situation to its full potential. Emily, on the other hand, can not deal with such pain and has a mental breakdown, which in the end leads to suicide. As soon as Sayuri enters Gion she has two choices: to work hard to become a successful Geisha, or not to work hard, and suffer. She chooses to work hard to be successful. Despite this choice, Sayuris life does not belong to her anymore. She will do what she is told by those around her. And she will work not to attain love, or satisfaction, but to attain money.

At the beginning of the novel, Sayuri is looking back at her life when she begins her story. She comments in the opening paragraph: The truth is, that the afternoon when I met Mr. Tanaka Ichiro really was the best and the worst afternoon of my life (Golden, 1). Because Sayuri becomes a geisha, she learned that life has to offer some good things, but also a lot of bad things. Through this she learned to appreciate the wonderful things that much more. Although Sayuri never doesget to be with the Chairman, the man she wants to be with, she thanks him for what he gave her.

I wasnt thanking him for the coin, or even for stopping to help me. I was thanking him forwell, for showing me that something besides cruelty could be found in this world (Golden, 114). Although Sayuri goes through unimaginable emotional pain, she is still able to hold on to the pleasant things she can find, and make the best of them. Sayuri looks at her options and realizes they are slim, and decides to make the best of herself with what she has. You must be very proud, Mrs. Nitta, of how well your daughter is doing. Her fortunes have surpassed expectations! Wouldnt you agree? Golden, 297. Sayuri works so hard to become successful, that she surprises even the bitter, strict mother of the Okiya. Sayuri gains so much respect, that she sees decisions being left to be made by herself, instead of someone else. The years when Sayuri lives in Gion, are the years of the great depression, followed by the Second World War. It is clear that many suffered in Japan. If Sayuri had not been taken from her poor town in Yoriodo, she would have died. Gion, however, is one city, that for the most part, in the midst of all the traumas, and misery, still has some light shine on it.

While most Japanese lived in the dark valley through all the 1930s, in Gion, we were still warmed by the sun (Golden, 333). Although, when Sayuri is taken away from her home town, she lost her whole family, and her entire childhood, the move entitled her to many luxuries and experiences she would never of been able to endure if she had still lived in Yoroido. Becoming a geisha, in one way closes up all of Sayuris opportunities, but on the other hand, opened up an entire world of experiences and visions that would change her life. It is clear that Sayuri in the end prospers from all the suffering she goes through.

For Emily, the pain is too hard to deal with and her confidence is too low, she simply can not handle it, and she eventually ends up killing herself. Emily takes one look at herself, and sees how her life is treating her, and ultimately thinks that being dead would be better than being alive. Emily is too confused with in herself to deal with these problems. She is unaccustomed and unprepared for change due to the fact that she has such a set vision of herself that she must display. When she realizes that life is not always how you plan it to be, she does not know what to do.

Before Emily becomes pregnant, she expresses her fear of change. I wish things could stay like thislike nowforever (Picoult, 209). Death seems to totally preoccupy Emily. He realizes that this was Emily now, that the only time she seemed happy was when she was planning the way she would die (Picoult, 281. ) Life is no longer something Emily enjoyed. To her, it is an annoying phenomenon that only offers her problems. Her depression seems to be noticed by others around her, as if she is silently letting out a call for help. Emily paints a picture of a free form skull, with storm-clouded eye-sockets and a lolling tongue.

She entitles it self-portrait. It is evident that Emilys vision of herself is one of a girl who has failed and sunk to the darkest failures possible. She sees herself as a mentally dead person, whose body is still participating in a futile life. Emily eventually ends up killing herself in desperation for some peace and hapiness, and in an escape from her problems. Sayuri and Emily are both forced to endure ruthless and painful circumstances for a time in their life. Sayuri, although often unhappy, deals with her struggle and becomes a better person because of it.

Emily finds her life too distressing and unbearable and gives up trying to improve her life. Both works are very similar in that both women suffered childhood traumas. Sayuri is taken away from her family, and sold. Emily goes through the terrible experience of being raped. At a young age both girls experience negative circumstances, thereby altering their view of life. Both Sayuri and Emily are also controlled by others and by a perception of themselves. Sayuri isunable to make any of her own decisions, until she becomes one of the most successful geisha in the history of Japan.

Up until then, those around her control her every move, and make all of her decisions. Emily is pressured and controlled in that everyone has made for her a pathway through life, in which she is to walk. She has a perfect image laid out for her. When Emily violates this image by getting pregnant, and by continuing to let the haunting memories of rape destroy her relationship with Chris, she is scared, and feels she is failing. Emily suffers a mental breakdown. The contrast between the two stories is evident: Sayuri deals with her situation, by taken advantage of the positive opportunities she has, she makes the decision to become a geisha.

She sees all of the negative aspects, yet does not let go of the positive ones. Emily, on the contrary, lets her unpleasant experiences be a cause for her destruction, instead of making her stronger. The Pact and Memoirs of a Geisha are both worth while novels that allow us to become aware of reality. They are good comparable novels because we can see one alternative of dealing with lifes conflicts, which is ending them by ultimately ridding yourself of existence, or the other alternative, the one Sayuri took, which is realizing what positive things life still has to offer in a time when suffering is weighing you down.

In the beginning, Lovey and her best friend, Jerry, are watching the Shirley Temple movie before they go to church. They never get to see the end because they have to go and leave. They make up the endings and cry in the middle of the pastor’s sermon. On Lovey’s birthday, Jerry would make her a gift certificate from the toy store for $500. Lovey is very embarrassed to be speaking pidgin English. She doesn’t tell anyone, not even Jerry, how she is ashamed of how she talks, looks, or even where she lives. Lovey secretly wants to be haole, but she knows that she can’t. Everyone in her class has a very hard time speaking proper English, and the teacher yells at them for not being able too. Lovey has a hard time in math class and gets teased for being Japanese.

It’s as if the rest of the students expect her to be smart just because she is Japanese. Lovey is supposed to write her own obituary for her English class. It gets her thinking about death, and consequently she thinks about it all the time. Lovey dreams and fantasizes about being haole. She thinks up of the perfect house with all the trimmings. She wants to marry a haole so she can have a haole last name. Lovey makes haole friends so that she can sleep over their houses and eat their food. Her father says that she is crazy for wanting to be friends with haoles, and that she should stop. Lovey and her family do many things together.

They sit on the back porch picking fleas off of their dogs, squeezes blackheads off of her mothers back, count all white cows, sing war songs, and pick macadamia nuts for extra money. A normal Sunday afternoon would be their Mother smoking Parliaments on the porch of their house, grumbling about white hairs, and Lovey picking fleas off of their dogs. Lovey and her sister, Calhoon, goes to their Aunt Helen’s on Saturdays while their mother sews leis or cashiers at the Lei Stand for extra money. They watch the old crazy ladies stand behind the fence, muttering to themselves. Lovey wants to become pregnant ust like her neighbor Katy is.

She secretly dresses up and acts like she is pregnant. Her mother tells her that it is hard because there is a lot of pain that comes with labor. Lovey’s mother gives her an at home perm. It’s called a Toni Perm, and it gets messed up bad. Lovey comes out with an Afro, and Calhoon teases her about it and calls her an Oompah Loompah. Lovey is given rabbits to breed and take care off. She loves them very much, but one day the cages are torn open by wild dogs that kill all the rabbits. To make Lovey feel better, her father plays home movies, and Calhoon threatens to kill the dogs with their athers gun.

Calhoon never lies. She tells Lovey one day, while they are out hunting, not to shoot the Japanese blue pheasant or it will haunt her. Calhoon and her Father both have the ghost eye. They can see ghosts in their house and are drawn to them. Since Lovey killed the bird, she now is awakened by a ghost that bothers her in the middle of the night. Lovey’s father bought a cow to raise so that they could kill it, and eat it. Calhoon and Lovey get to attached to it and name it Bully. One day, the kitchen smells of wild meat. Their father is cooking hamburgers. After the first bite, none of them can finish ating it.

They realize that it is a Bully burger. Pages 85-116 Everyone at school tease Lovey and Jerry for being friends. No one understands what they are to each other. They do have many things in common and are the best of friends. Lovey and Jerry play Barbie together, and Jerry steals Barbie clothes from his rich cousin, Ingrid. Jerry’s brother, Larry, goes into Lovey’s room one day, and marks up the Barbie and cuts her hair. Lovey is devastated and they swear to get even. Halloween comes, and they go trick-or-treating at the rich peoples houses on Reed’s Island. They give out real chocolate, and lots of candy.

Jerry finds a bag full of marijuana in Larry’s shoe box under his bed. He brings it over to Lovey’s and they decide to roll it and sell it so that they can get money to buy more Barbies that Larry had messed up. After they had sold all the dope, the go over to Wigwam to buy all the Barbie stuff. They run home and stash it in the back of Lovey’s closet. The next time that they go over to Jerry’s house, Larry is there with his friends and they want to know where their dope is. Larry and his friends beat Jerry and Lovey up for taking it. They laugh at how much they bleed, and blame it on each other. Pages 118-180

For the first time, Lovey has gotten her period. She is very scared that everyone can tell that she has it. She doesn’t want anyone to know, because she will be teased at school. Lovey’s teacher French-braids her hair everyday. She loves her teacher very much. She spends her school days with her, getting her lunch, taking role, and then she even starts to sleep over her house, and do the chores. Jerry and Lovey go there almost everyday, helping out around the house. One night, the teacher tells them about God. How in the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses says only 44,000 can live on earth after God destroys the planet.

She wants them to be one of the 44,000 that live. One night they hear the teacher laughing hysterically with a green glow coming from her room. They get real scared and run home in the middle of the night. Lovey’s mother gets mad because now they are both scared of everything. She puts Lovey on a plane to Molokai to live with her grandmother for a while so that she can forget what has happened. Grandmother does her best to pass the time for Lovey, but she doesn’t know that Lovey is still scared of her teacher. She doesn’t sleep until the sun comes up the next day, that she hears little men laughing.

Lovey tells Grandmother one day, and they go to the church to talk to the reverend. They pray for her. Lovey and her father have a new moneymaking idea, to pluck feathers off of dead peacocks and to sell them to the feather lei makers. They go on long drives together, and her father tells her stories of when he was young. She enjoys these times very much because he would have never told anyone these stories unless they were in such circumstances as that. He talks about his house back in Haupu and how he misses it. He would like to go back there with Lovey and climb the mountain. Pages 183-276

The town has a carnival, and Lovey and Jerry go together. They each don’t have very much money, but win a Coke bottle. They see Larry and his girlfriend, Crystal, in the games area, and ask her if they could carry around some of their stuffed animals. She says ‘yes’ and they get a big pink bear, and a snake that Lovey wraps around her neck. When they see girls from their school, they shake up the Coke bottle and dump it on them from the top of the Ferris wheel. Lovey doesn’t understand why Jerry wants to be friends with Lori, a Japanese girl that hates her. She is a popular snob with no respect for anyone.

He doesn’t now, and just shrugs. Lovey and Calhoon take sewing classes in the bottom of the Singer basement. When Lovey makes clothes and wears it the next day, Gina makes fun of it. Lovey wants to give up, but her father tells her that you can’t win if you quit. So, she tries again, and Calhoon and Lovey work very hard to make a pair of patchwork denim hip-hugger bell-bottoms for her. It looked like real store-bought ones, and Gina could not say a thing about it. Lovey feels real proud. At the end of the year, they have a grad dance that Jerry and Lovey go to. They both have been trying their hardest to become popular.

Jerry keeps insisting that Jenks likes her, even though he doesn’t show it when they are at school. He is real nice to both of them on the weekends when they are at the beach, but because he is popular, he doesn’t even give them a nod at school. When the dance comes, Lovey waits in anticipation for Jenks to ask her to dance. She got all dressed up, but he never does. Until the last slow dance of the night. They dance together and Lovey is happy. Lovey’s father goes on a three day hunting trip with his friends. They go out and hunt goats near the lava flow. When he comes back he has blown out his eyes.

He can’t see, and he’s scared. Father is still mad at Lovey for burning Calhoon when they were at the incinerator. He is so depressed and sad that Lovey can think of only one thing to do. She borrows some money from Katy, and buys a plane ticket to Kauai. She gets a cab there and goes to Kipu. She fills a ziplock bag with dirt, and then goes back to the Big Island. She fills another ziplock bag with dirt from their backyard. Lovey’s mother is really mad at her. No one knew where she went, and they were all worried about her. They take her back to her father’s hospital room to explain herself.

She tells her father where she was, what she has done, and why. He is so happy that they all forget that they were worried about her. The dirt is so that when he dies, he will be buried in dirt from two places. His home in Kipu, and his home in Hawaii. When he is buried like that, he will know that he is finally home and at peace. The Main Characters Lovey Nariyoshi- A young girl living in Hawaii. She has a sister named Calhoon, and a best friend named Jerry. She is an outcast at her school, and is teased constantly. Lovey wants to be someone she isn’t. She always fantasizes about being haole or popular.

Jerome (Jerry)- Lovey’s best friend, they spend all their time together. The one person that keeps Lovey happy and together. He has a brother names Larry that always picks on them and hurts them physically. Jerry and Lovey are the best of friends, they love each other to death. Hubert (Inky) Nariyoshi- Lovey’s father. He is her inspiration, and what she tries to imitate. She always tries to please him, and be just like him. Hubert loses his eyesight and becomes depressed. Lovey remembers him telling her that he wants to be buried in dirt from his house in Kipu and his house in Hawaii.

She gets him happy y going to Kauai and getting the dirt as he wanted. He loves her very much. Throughout this whole book, Lovey is wishing that she is haole. She occupies her time by thinking what her life would be like if she was white. I think the author is trying to tell us that we should accept our life just as it is. To strive to make it better, but also, not to have unrealistic dreams. In the end of this book, I think Lovey finally gets the message from her father to stop trying to be someone your not, and to just be yourself. That is what this whole book is about. To be who you are, not someone that your not.

Cathy Spellman’s, The Playground of The Gods is an exuberant novel which deals with murder in a remote tropical paradise but can further be read as an illustration of man’s ignorance and invasion of nature. “Do it big, or stay in bed. “( Larry Kelly). These are words that Thoros Gagarian lives by. He is one of the wealthiest men in the world and when picking his private paradise, only one place on earth could serve his needs and fantasies. This place is Mora Utu-The playground of the Gods-a green jewel in the placid blue expanse of the South Pacific, the most luxurious and seductive rivate preserve anywhere on the planet.

Once his prized-possession has been found, Thoros immediately ships the island natives to a different island and brings in his construction crews to hurriedly build his paradise in order to have it ready for a celebratory visit by 12 of his close friends. In the introduction to the story, Cathy Spellman makes clear the notion that the protagonist, Thoros Gagarian views himself as an indestructible god. Her descriptions of his haste purchase of his Island paradise shows a man for whom their is no boundaries. His arrogance is further displayed in his building f his compound.

Spellman’s voice of reason comes from a spiritual Mexican couple who are Thoros’s servants. They not only warn but predict of many consequences to the ignorance to which nature is being shown. Nature will not permit alteration on such a scale. (Emilio, 114). However, these warnings are ignored by the men who do not appreciate a bizarre servant couple speaking of things which money can’t buy and power can’t control. This is when Spellman’s utilization of irony comes into the picture. A member of the party catches a tropical fever, yet he can’t be cured because he tree which possesses the antidote was destroyed in the creation of the facility.

This is followed by a serendipitous chain of events which is climaxed when an immense typhoon hits the island and takes two of its visitors as its sacrifices. “In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments, there are consequences. “(Ingersoll). This statement indicates the underlying theme of the novel. Man’s ignorance regarding nature is a fatuous fault, for which he will have to face the consequences. Whether it be in the near future, or impending on him till the moment where he realizes that his ignorance has not come without its price.

When studying a novel it sometimes helps to look at the language used in a specific passage. In the novel In The Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje, this approach is extremely helpful. It will help you better understand the characters and give you a clearer idea of what the author is trying to say. Within the novel, the passage entitled “The Skating Scene,” where Patrick observes the loggers skating late at night, is stylistically interesting. By looking at metaphors, symbolism and diction, we can gain a better understanding of the characters and make connections within the scene and then to the novel as a whole.

In “The Skating Scene” many metaphors are used throughout, making is very poetic. One very powerful metaphor seen in this passage is: “This was against the night” (page 22). This emphasizes the light and dark imagery found in this passage. Ondaatje points out that for Patrick day is work and night is rest, however, he sees the loggers skating and having fun at night. They are going against what Patrick has been taught. In a way they are showing him a new side to life and he is transfixed. This sense of excitement is also shown in the pace of the passage.

As the loggers are skating the pace gets faster, and then starts to slow down when he goes back home to his routine life. By going against the night, the loggers are essentially breaking the rules: “Their lanterns replaced them with new rushes which let them go further past boundaries” (page 22). This idea of going past boundaries reminds us of a part later in the novel. Patrick goes past boundaries when he sets fire to the Muskoka Hotel on page 168. Instead of being an observer like he always is, he actually steps in and goes “against the night.

By comparing Patrick in “The Skating Scene” to when he goes to the Muskoka Hotel, we can see how he grows and changes throughout the course of the novel. Another powerful metaphor in this particular scene is: “And a moon lost in the thickness of clouds so it did not shine a path for him towards the trees” (page 20). This metaphor again emphasizes the light and dark imagery in the scene. Even though there is no path for Patrick to follow, he still finds his way to the skaters by travelling towards the light from their lanterns. He is attracted to the light much like a moth is.

He is also like a moth in the way that he likes the darkness and in the way that his character seems to ‘come out’ at night. The fire he sets to the Muskoka Hotel and the attempted bombing of the waterworks both happen at night and are both examples of things that are unlike his character. Metaphorically speaking Patrick is a moth. Symbolism is also something that is seen quite often in this passage. Skating is a symbol that represents freedom. When you are skating, you are in control of what you do; you are free to do and try whatever you desire.

During the day, the immigrants work for Harris, helping to build his dream and getting paid poorly for it. They follow orders all day, and now at night they finally have a chance to be free of the rules. This idea of freedom can be related to Caravaggio who, while in jail, has to follow strict rules and whose freedom is restricted. The only way to get his freedom back is to escape, so that is what he does. For the loggers, the only way to escape and have some feeling of freedom is to skate at night.

Specific phrases used to describe the men skating shows that it is like a dance. “One man waltzing with his fire” (page 22), “each step seemed graceless and slow” (page 21), and “they could leap into the air” (page 21), are all characteristics of dancing. Dancing is another example that represents freedom, which is perhaps why Ondaatje makes the parallel between skating and dancing in this scene. The loggers are also symbolic in this passage. To Patrick the loggers represent a life that he wants.

There are ten of them and one of him, which can be seen as a small community. Patrick wants to be a part of this community where he would have friends and feel a sense of belonging: “He longed to hold their hands and skate the length of the creek slowing down through cut rock and under bridges and into town with these men…. ” (page 21). Patrick decides that after seeing the skaters he wants a change in his life: “To the boy growing in his twelfth year, having lived all his life on that farm where day was work and night was rest, nothing would be the same” (page 22).

Ondaatje uses this quote as a means of foreshadowing to show the reader that Patrick’s life is going to change throughout the novel. Not only is Patrick jealous of the skaters because they are having fun and going “against the night,” but they seem to possess magical powers too. The diction in this passage supports this idea beautifully. Ondaatje uses words like “haunted house” and “coven” to remind us of witches.

The way the loggers are described gives a sense that they have magical powers too, for example, “…. ey could leap into the air and crash down and it would hold the,” (page 22), “When they collided sparks fell into the ice…. ” (page 21), and “their lanterns….. let them go further past boundaries” (page 22). Personification is also used to show that the skaters have magical powers: “A tree branch reached out, its hand frozen in the ice, and one of them skating under it” (page 21). The idea of witches and magic reminds us of a quote on page 93. Patrick talks about Clara and says “ Something about her cast a spell on me…I don’t know what is it.

It seems that Patrick is fascinated with people who possess these magical qualities. It is evident that by doing a stylistic analysis of a passage, we can get a better understanding of characters and make connections within the passage and then to the rest of the novel. This is certainly the case with “The Skating Scene” in Michael Ondaatje’s In The Skin of Lion. The metaphors, symbols and diction he uses in this particular passage clearly show that he is truly a brilliant writer.