“Born in the USA”

The recurring use of the words highlight how lousy it can be to live in the USA. One example of how it’s miserable to live in the USA is when Bruce Springsteen says: “The first kick I took was when I hit the ground.’ This shows that as soon as he is born he is going to have a hard life. This is ironic because he’s only a baby. Another example of how it’s miserable to live in the USA is when Bruce Springsteen says: “He had a woman he loved in Saigon; I got a picture of him in her arms now.” Bruce is talking about his brother dieing in Vietnam and the last person that got to see him was his woman and not him. This shows that dieing in Vietnam War was unfair.

In the story, " The Chaser", by John Collier, there are several examples of irony. An example is when Collier talks about how to fall in love it costs a dollar, but to kill someone it costs five thousand dollars. To fall in love Alan bought a love potion for a dollar from an old man. But he also will likely go back to buy poison to kill the woman he wanted to fall in love with, and he pays five thousand dollars. Another example of irony is when the old man says, "Maybe it will clean gloves. I have never tried. One might call it a life-cleaner. Lives need cleaning sometimes." He's referring to the posion and how sometimes its a good thing to kill people. He thinks it's kind of like cleaning. The story "The Chaser" was interesting becuase it explained in detail alot of Irony.

In his article “Child Soldiers”, Mike Wessells writes “Child soldiering violates the fundamental rights of children, exploits youth for political purposes, subjects them to slaughter and the ravages of war, and immerses them in a system that sanctions killing. And it also poses formidable security risks for others. A society that mobilizes and trains its young for war weaves violence into the fabric of life, increasing the likelihood that violence and war will be its future. Children who have been robbed of education and taught to kill often contribute to further militarization, lawlessness, and violence.” In this article, “human rights.com” writes “many thousands of children are serving as soldiers for both rebel groups and government forces in current armed conflicts. These young combatants participate in all aspects of contemporary warfare. They wield AK-47s and M-16s on the front lines of combat, serve as human mine detectors, participate in suicide missions, carry supplies, and act as spies, messengers or lookouts.” In this article, " The issue of child combatants has received much press in the last decades, but now there is a growing awareness of what drives young people to join the armed forces.

Queen Elizabeth's Speech to Her Navy

In Queen Elizabeth’s Speech to Her Navy, on the invasion of the Spanish Armada, she tries to deliver a speech to her navy about how she is a good leader. Elizabeth uses her female identity to spur her soldiers on. “I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king” this quote tells how she feels about her identity and how it can become useful. However, throughout the rest of her speech she tells of her country and what her goal and thoughts are on her country and how far she would go for it.

Charecterization in Secret Life of Bees

*Lily: "That night I lay in bed and thought about dying and going to be with my mother in paradise." page 3
*Lily: "I decided I would take four or five centuries to tell her about the special misery about living with T.Ray." page 3
*Lily: "I had asked god repeatedly to do something about T.Ray." page 3

*T.Ray: "Yeah, and there was a goddamn herd of buffalo in here, too." page 5
*T.Ray: "get in your goddamn room!" page 7
*T.Ray: " i guess they must have flown out of that cuckoo clock you call a brain." page 5
*Rosaleen: "you're charming enough," page 9
*Rosaleen: "you don't need to go to some high-falutin school to get charm." page 10
*Rosaleen: "what about vomit in a sink?" "they teach a charming way to do that?" page 10

Question: What happened to Lily's mom?

The Secret Life of Bees: By Melany Gianiotis

Sue Monk Kidd’s, Secret Life of Bees, concerns a young girl searching for stability in a complex environment. In the beginning of the novel, Kidd uses imagery to help the reader visualize what’s happening in the book. For example, the reader experiences the sensation of tiredness: “Finally, sometime close to midnight, when my eyelids had nearly given up the strain of staying open, a purring noise started over in the corner, low and vibrating, a sound you could almost mistake for a cat.” Another example is how the imagery reinforces the relationship between the narrator and her father: “Suddenly I couldn’t stand not showing it off to somebody, even if the only person around was T. Ray.” Lastly, this shows that she misses her mother and would much rather die and be with her than have to live with her father, who she doesn’t have a good relationship with: “That night I lay in bed and thought about dying and going to be with my mother in paradise.” Overall there is a lot of visualization in this novel.

McCarthy’s Diction: By Melany Gianiotis

All authors have their own kind of diction. In the excerpt from Cormac McCarthy’s, Child of God, the author makes diction which is both clever and simple. An example is “I seen him shoot a spider out of a web in the top of a big red oak one time and we was far from the tree as from here to the road yonder.” This shows that he’s clever but simple so the readers visualize it. Another example is “When I done that his old head jerked back and his eyes went kindly funny and I said: well, well, how sweet it is.” He makes the reader think about what he’s saying which also makes it clever and keeps what he says simple. Finally, an example is “I thought to myself: well he’s trying to save his ape a whipping is what he’s trying to do.” McCarthy’s making this clever too because he’s showing the readers he’s thinking clever. He keeps it simple by stating something that is obvious.