eng midterm quotes

10th

all this time I thought I had the hardest row to hoe

ellen foster 1: end quote realization

ellen foster 2: no longer racist

I made a list of all the things I want my family to be…white and have running water. Now it makes me ashamed that I said that.

sometimes [my grandma] talks so strong to me that I have to check in the mirror to see if i’ve turned into [my father] without knowing. I decided I would jump off a bridge if I did.

ellen foster 3: break the cycle of abuse

which matched the dream which was hung up in her head

a worn path 1: hope for education & prosperity for her grandson

she doesnt come for herself- she has a little grandson. She makes theses trips regular as clockwork.

a worn path 2: making the long treck regularly for grandson

he going to find it hard to believe there’s such a thing in the world

a worn path 3: prioritizes him & his joy above her own neccessities to buy him a windmill—-reps her hope for future generations

only to break away from my black life… to not hear fathers preaching voice again

bread givers 1: escape

I’ve got to live my own life! It’s enough that mother and the others lived for you. Thank god, it’s not the olden times! thank god, I’m in america!

bread givers 2: live for yourself vs others

like a starved thing in the dark, Im driven to reach for it [knowledge]

bread givers 3: knowledge

I feel the shadow still there, over me. It wasn’t my fathers, but the generations who made my father whose weight was still upon me

bread givers 4: generations burden

there was one in the school who was what I dreamed a teacher to be… he kept that living thing, that flame that I used to worship as a child

bread givers 5: flame

I fear that aroudn them, I will always be a child, and they a symbol, 2 sides of a chasm, full of meaning and resentment.

teh best we could do 1: parent daughter relations

If I bridged the gap between past and present… I coudl fill the void between my parents and me. And I could see Viet Nam as a real place, and not a symbol of something lost.

teh best we coudl do 2: past to mend future

though my world was small, I sometimes dreamed of being free in it.

the best we coudl do 3: free small world

by the time I researched enough about my past, I realized that by the time I was born, Viet Nam was not my country, and I was just a small part of it.

the best we could do 4: realization

I gazed upon a kind of reality hidden to childhood

marigolds 1: see deeper

one can not have both compassion and innocence

marigolds 2: loss of innocence

they said too much that we couldent understand, they didnt make sense. they were too beautiful, they interfered with the perfect ugliness of the place

marigolds 3: what they represented

innocence involves an unseeing acceptance of things at face value, an ignorance of teh area below the surface

marigolds 4: most important!!!!

she has lived for 19 years. that is all life that has happened outside of me, beyond me

I stand here ironing 1: her life

I let her be absent…how different from my now-strictness with the others

I stand here ironing 2: absent

we left it all to her, and the gift has often eddied inside of her, clogged and clotted.

I stand here ironing 3: left it to her

let her be. so all that is in her will not come to bloom, but in how many does it? there is still enough to live by.

I stand here ironing 4: bloom

one day you’ll come back too. not me. not until somebody makes it better. who’s going to do it? the mayor?… the thought makes me laugh.

the house on mango street 1: coming back

I have not decided to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain

the house on mango street 2: tame

I have inherited her name, but I dont want to inherit her place by the window

the house on mango street 3: grandmother

studies al night and sees the mice, the ones her father says dont exist

the house on mango street 4: alicia

he could help us be free if we listened, that he would never be free until we did.

sonny’s blues 1: his music does what???

they were not about anything very new, he… was keeping it new at the risk of ruin…to find new ways to make us listen, for the tale of how we suffer and…triumph is never new, it always must be heard.

sonny’s blues 2: what where the blues about???

the darkness is what the old folks have been talking about. its what they come from [and] endure…if he knows too much about what happened to them, he’'ll know …too soon about what’s going to happen to him

sonny’s blues 3: darkness

boys exactly like we once were…some escaped the trapp, most didnt, those who got out always left something of themselves behind

sonny’s blues 4: trapped in the cycle exactly like us

the very day … grace was buried, I was sitting in the dark, all by myself. My trouble made his real.

sonny’s nlues 5: my trouble

his face became smooth, bland, deviod of all expression

teh golden bough 1: expressions

I wondered how long it would be before someone came to see me with a bread knife up his sleeve

teh golden bough 2: cycle repeats in how long?

sometimes she listens to …their american voices.. as tehy discuss a glittering alien world…she almost cant believe what she hears

Ms. dutta writes a letter 1: alien world

you dont understand, do you mother? shyamoli smiles shakily

ms dutta writes a letter 2: shyamoli

it [happiness] isn’t about being needed, or being with family. It has something to do with love, I think, but in a different way than I earlier believed.

ms. dutta writes a letter 3: happiness

she yanks frantically at the wire until she hears it give…she hears her self breathing, a harsh uneven sound filled with guilt.

Ms. dutta writes a letter 4: alarm clock guilt

the sari was the color of transition… unexpectedly heavy… a sari that could change one’s life.

clothes 1: the sari

I feel caught in a world where everything is fozen in place… if I were to stretch my arms, I would touch its cold unyeilding edges.

clothes 2: worlds edges

my unlived life gathered itself into a scream

clothes 3: unlived life

the sari …is borrowed…My fingers are numb, disobediant

clothes 4: the widow’s sari

in the mirror, a woman holds my gaze, aprehensive yet steady. She wears a blouse and skirt the color of almonds

clothes 5: finall mirror