The Leap Essays - Point Of View, Style, The Reader, Free Essays

The Leap Essays - Point Of View, Style, The Reader, Free Essays The Leap In the short stories ?The Leap? by Louise Erdrich, and ?The Mother Who Never Was? by Lisa K. Buchanan, both of the main characters undergo a dynamic change. In one story the mother?s change is that she is regretting giving away her daughter. In the second story the change would be how the mother would save her daughter. In the story ?The Mother Who Never Was? by Buchanan, Anna, the mother, gave her daughter, Kathleen, up for adoption. Anna was about eighteen years of age. In this story the reader could often see in their mind, the pain that Anna is going through. We know that Anna is in pain because she says, ?I should be proud to have provided a childless couple with the gift of a daughter. But I find little in these noble sentiments. There is no resolve to having relinquished my only child. I think I will mourn her forever.? Another reason why the reader feels that Anna is going through pain is because she tells us that she would never be able to have another a child. Anna loves to do gardening work in the spring. The reader feels that maybe she loves gardening so much that it will take her mind off putting her daughter up for adoption. The reader thinks that nothing will ever take her mind off putting her daughter up for adoption because, Anna will never be able to conceive a child again. The cha nge that the reader feels that is going through Anna?s mind is that if she knew that she would not be able to give birth to another child that maybe she would not have put her daughter up for adoption. The dynamics of this story is that if she would have known that she could not conceive another child she might not have put her daughter up for adoption. In ?The Leap?, by Louise Erdrich, the main characters is the narrator and her mother. The narrator in this story is the daughter and she is reminiscing about how her mother saved her life. The narrator, as a young girl, was home when her parents were out and a fire started. When the parents came home the mother saw her daughter up in a window with no way to get out. Since the mother was a trapeze artist she stripped down to nothing on but her underwear, she then climbed up a tree and swung branch to branch in able to get to the window where her daughter was. As a young lady the narrator was very embarrassed that her mother, on live television, would strip down to her underwear and do a trapeze act to save her daughter. The reader might see where the narrator is coming from because we would all be embarrassed, to some extent, if our mothers have ever done that. The reader can see clearly that the mother is very brave, strong willed, and cares deeply about her daughter. We can see tha t the mother is brave because she did a trapeze act blindfolded and she also saved her daughter from a house fire. This is not the first time that the daughter has been saved by her mother. The narrator has been saved by her mother three different times. The reader may not see what the change is in this story; the only thing that the reader may see is at the end when the mother saves her daughter from the fire. After her mother came down to the ground, she held her mother tight to almost say thank you. The narrator at first was very embarrassed that her mother would do such a thing in her underwear, but at the end was very delighted that her mother would do such a thing just to save her. In conclusion, the reader can see the dynamics in these two short stories. In both of these stories they both have a mother daughter relationship. The changes in these stories made the reader think. They think about how much their parents really mean to them.

All About Like

All About Like All About Like All About Like By Mark Nichol Like is one of the most versatile of words, with senses encompassing multiple parts of speech. Here’s a review of its various meanings and uses. As a verb, like means â€Å"enjoy,† â€Å"feel affection for,† â€Å"regard favorably,† â€Å"thrive in,† or â€Å"wish to have.† It can also mean â€Å"approve† or â€Å"prefer.† The noun like refers to preference or something that one likes. In recent years, it has acquired the sense of â€Å"an acknowledgment given online in approval of content another person has posted.† The word appears as a noun in idiomatic phrases such as those in â€Å"We haven’t seen the likes of him for a long time† (meaning â€Å"Someone resembling him hasn’t been seen for a long time†) and â€Å"She’s partial to lavender and the like† (meaning â€Å"She’s partial to lavender and things that are similar to it†). As an adjective, like means â€Å"possessing the same or similar characteristics or qualities,† as in â€Å"They finally admitted that they did not have enough like interests to sustain a relationship.† As a suffix, it has an adjectival function. Treatment depends on what precedes it. Most words with the suffix are closed, with no hyphenation, as in â€Å"birdlike movements.† However, if the base word ends with l (â€Å"the cell-like room†) or is a proper noun (â€Å"a Christ-like bearing†), employ a hyphen. The adverb like, stands in for approximately or nearly, as in â€Å"It was more like a dark orange than a pale red.† When informally referring to measurements, the adverb is sometimes used interjectionally: â€Å"It was, like, as long as my arm† or â€Å"He seems to come around every few years, like.† Similarly, it is parenthetically employed in conversational English for emphasis (â€Å"I was, like, astonished†) or, paradoxically, to suggest an offhandedness (â€Å"They were, like, hoping somebody would offer them a ride†). Casually, it can also mean probably, as in â€Å"I’ll be there in time, like enough.† The preposition like means â€Å"comparable,† â€Å"similar,† or â€Å"typical†; that’s the part of speech that is essential in a simile such as â€Å"The grass, ruffled by the wind, looked like a rolling wave.† As a conjunction, like means â€Å"the same as† or appears in place of â€Å"as if† (â€Å"She looked like she was about to cry†). Informally, it is employed similarly to the casual adverb to introduce a quotation, paraphrase, or thought (â€Å"He’s like ‘Don’t even think about leaving now’†) or, following it’s, to express a widely held opinion (â€Å"It’s like, it’s not going to make any difference.†) As a preposition, like is often considered inferior to or even improper as a substitute for â€Å"such as,† but as with some other supposedly undesirable usages, this is acceptable in even formal prose. The adjective like derives from the Old English term gelic, meaning â€Å"similar.† Most of the other parts of speech derived from this usage, but the verb stems from lician, which means â€Å"please† or â€Å"be pleasing or sufficient†; the connection is perhaps that to be sufficient is to be suitable, which is to be similar. Words based on the root like include the following: alike: similar likeable: agreeable likelihood: probability likely: seeming to be right, suitable, or true, or very probable; also, promising or attractive liken: compare likeness: similarity likes: preferences likewise: in the same manner liking: the action or feeling of enjoying a person, place, or thing Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:25 Subordinating ConjunctionsDo you "orient" yourself, or "orientate" yourself?Punctuation Is Powerful