"They all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of the skies usually depend wholly on this child's abominable misery" - The One Who Walks Away From Omelas p.258
All the things that contribute to this Utopian-like nature of the city of Omelas is only accredited to the misery of a young child, someone who can take all the pain away from these other citizens. For these people, seeing a young person suffer makes them think that they have more and are happy like the opening of this passage claims. To the audience, it seems that the people of Omelas need a type of balance and do not know what is good until they witness someone who has the complete opposite. They can not be happy with what they have until they see someone who is miserable without this. This quote signifies the selfishness of society and their need to compare themselves to others and only be happy when someone else is not.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The Chrysanthemums - Literary Analysis
In the short story “The Chrysanthemums” by John Steinbeck the author uses the flowers in Elisa’s garden to symbolize her femininity. Elisa’s garden is fell of beautiful big Chrysanthemums that are surrounded by a fence which helps with the symbolization that Elisa’s feminine beauty is caged in by the things around her such as her husband and his commitment to his work.
Elisa is introduced in the story with manly feature like having a face that “was lean and strong [and also a] figure [that] looked blocked and heavy.”(240) She has a “man’s black hat pulled low down over her eyes.” (240) She also “wore heavy leather gloves to protect her hands while she worked.” (240) This symbolizes how Elisa is covering up the feminine parts of her such as her figure, hair and hands.
Elisa’s husband sees the flowers that she worked so hard to gorw and pays no attention the beauty of them, but wants her to do something more productive with her talents. This symbolizes how Elisa’s husband pays no attention the beauty that Elisa possesses inside and out, but is more focused on the work that needs to be done on the farm.
When a stranger makes his way to the farm to look for some work to do, Elisa is instantly intrigued by his dark eyes and “calloused hands [that] he rested on the wire fence.”(242) By putting his hands on the fence of Elisa’s garden, the stranger is entering into Elisa’s beauty that she kept hidden from the outside. The stranger shows interest in Elisa’s chrysanthemums which excited her. Elisa runs “excitedly among the geranium-bordered path to the back of the house. And she [returns] carrying a big red flower pot. The gloves were forgotten now” (240) which Steinbeck uses to symbolize that Elisa is uncovering her femininity to the stranger. The excitement of this stranger brings out Elisa’s beauty when she sees herself in the mirror as what she is- a beautiful woman. She takes care of herself and puts on “her newest under-clothing and her nicest stockings and the dress which was the symbol of her prettiness.” (246) Her husband finally seems to notice Elisa’s beauty by only her outside appearance when she is dressed up.
Elisa is on the way to dinner with her husband when she sees a “dark speck” (24) which she knows is her flowers. Elisa realizes that she was used for her flowers and the stranger did not really notice the beauty of the flowers. The act of the stranger symbolizes an act of vampirism where the stranger sucks the life, which is the flowers, out of Elisa. Elisa then turns away from her husband and cries “weakly - like an old woman” (247) which symbolizes the beauty of Elisa being taken away by a man once again.
Steinbeck uses the flower to symbolize her womanly beauty and how no men understand her feminine side. The flowers were ignored by Elisa’s husband and taken advantage of by the stranger. This whole story shows the struggle of a woman’s place and society and the struggle to fit femininity in.
Elisa is introduced in the story with manly feature like having a face that “was lean and strong [and also a] figure [that] looked blocked and heavy.”(240) She has a “man’s black hat pulled low down over her eyes.” (240) She also “wore heavy leather gloves to protect her hands while she worked.” (240) This symbolizes how Elisa is covering up the feminine parts of her such as her figure, hair and hands.
Elisa’s husband sees the flowers that she worked so hard to gorw and pays no attention the beauty of them, but wants her to do something more productive with her talents. This symbolizes how Elisa’s husband pays no attention the beauty that Elisa possesses inside and out, but is more focused on the work that needs to be done on the farm.
When a stranger makes his way to the farm to look for some work to do, Elisa is instantly intrigued by his dark eyes and “calloused hands [that] he rested on the wire fence.”(242) By putting his hands on the fence of Elisa’s garden, the stranger is entering into Elisa’s beauty that she kept hidden from the outside. The stranger shows interest in Elisa’s chrysanthemums which excited her. Elisa runs “excitedly among the geranium-bordered path to the back of the house. And she [returns] carrying a big red flower pot. The gloves were forgotten now” (240) which Steinbeck uses to symbolize that Elisa is uncovering her femininity to the stranger. The excitement of this stranger brings out Elisa’s beauty when she sees herself in the mirror as what she is- a beautiful woman. She takes care of herself and puts on “her newest under-clothing and her nicest stockings and the dress which was the symbol of her prettiness.” (246) Her husband finally seems to notice Elisa’s beauty by only her outside appearance when she is dressed up.
Elisa is on the way to dinner with her husband when she sees a “dark speck” (24) which she knows is her flowers. Elisa realizes that she was used for her flowers and the stranger did not really notice the beauty of the flowers. The act of the stranger symbolizes an act of vampirism where the stranger sucks the life, which is the flowers, out of Elisa. Elisa then turns away from her husband and cries “weakly - like an old woman” (247) which symbolizes the beauty of Elisa being taken away by a man once again.
Steinbeck uses the flower to symbolize her womanly beauty and how no men understand her feminine side. The flowers were ignored by Elisa’s husband and taken advantage of by the stranger. This whole story shows the struggle of a woman’s place and society and the struggle to fit femininity in.
Stepping out of the Shadow - Creative Sample
“Aren’t you Lilah Rossi’s sister?” is what I would hear almost every day throughout my freshman year. “Nope, never heard of her.” is what I wanted to reply, but, in reality, Lilah is my sister, older than me by four years and I hated to admit it. My sister was not a person to be ashamed of knowing; in fact she was just the opposite. My sister could always see her name on the honors list, win the toughest tennis matches, march on a field while playing her clarinet without missing a step, and never lose her concentration while acting on stage. To top it all off, teachers would approach me with a sparkle in their eye to see if I was aiming to be President of National Honor Society like Lilah. No one could ever wonder why she won “Best All Around.”
Not surprisingly, I felt second rate when I went to high school. Being able to read fluently by preschool and having everything came easy to me in elementary school where I was the only Rossi child helped put me into all Honors classes when I transferred to Malden High. Seeing my sister succeed in school made my mom set the bar high when it was time for my high school career to start. I started to feel the pressure when I came into school when teachers would jokingly tell me they hoped I was as smart as my sister. I was positive that I was going to fail at this expectation. Instead of trying hard in school, I slacked. You would see me in the back of the classroom, asleep on the desk, only waking up to the vibration of my phone. When I received my almost-failing grades, my stomach would drop, then I would remember my motto “I would have done better if I tried.”
This same attitude carried on to my home life. My mother always denied the fact that my over achieving sister was the favorite. So avoiding the awkward conversation, I walked out of my front door and ran to the comfort of my friends. During the rarities where I was home, people yelling and doors slamming was the soundtrack of my household. Holding a bottle of black hair dye in my hand, I could hear people wondering why I would get rid of the “beautiful blonde hair” that Lilah and I shared. If people didn’t see me in a different way, I was going to force them to.
Two years later, I started to work at “Dance with Brigitte”, a dance studio in Malden where I was a teacher to young children. To these one and two year olds, I was Miss Stephanie, the best tower builder, the one with the cool pink hair, and the one who could ease their anxiety about coming to class. Looking at them, I saw that my future was to work with kids. As we were jumping through hula-hoops, I realized that I had been hurting only myself by not trying in school and saw that my dreams would never become a reality if I did not apply myself. Now, paying attention in class and seeing my own name on the Honor Roll list was made possible by keeping the smiles of these kids in my mind. I forgot all about the unsaid competition with my sister and focused on my own success in school and doing what made me happy with myself.
Going into my senior year at Malden High School, I now see the sister who I once resented as one of my role models. I look up to her and see a smart, strong woman, but one who I can not compare myself to. I went on a journey and reached my own means of success. By stepping out of the shadow that my sister and everyone else cast upon me, I found a true happiness and confidence in myself that can not be compared to that of others.
Not surprisingly, I felt second rate when I went to high school. Being able to read fluently by preschool and having everything came easy to me in elementary school where I was the only Rossi child helped put me into all Honors classes when I transferred to Malden High. Seeing my sister succeed in school made my mom set the bar high when it was time for my high school career to start. I started to feel the pressure when I came into school when teachers would jokingly tell me they hoped I was as smart as my sister. I was positive that I was going to fail at this expectation. Instead of trying hard in school, I slacked. You would see me in the back of the classroom, asleep on the desk, only waking up to the vibration of my phone. When I received my almost-failing grades, my stomach would drop, then I would remember my motto “I would have done better if I tried.”
This same attitude carried on to my home life. My mother always denied the fact that my over achieving sister was the favorite. So avoiding the awkward conversation, I walked out of my front door and ran to the comfort of my friends. During the rarities where I was home, people yelling and doors slamming was the soundtrack of my household. Holding a bottle of black hair dye in my hand, I could hear people wondering why I would get rid of the “beautiful blonde hair” that Lilah and I shared. If people didn’t see me in a different way, I was going to force them to.
Two years later, I started to work at “Dance with Brigitte”, a dance studio in Malden where I was a teacher to young children. To these one and two year olds, I was Miss Stephanie, the best tower builder, the one with the cool pink hair, and the one who could ease their anxiety about coming to class. Looking at them, I saw that my future was to work with kids. As we were jumping through hula-hoops, I realized that I had been hurting only myself by not trying in school and saw that my dreams would never become a reality if I did not apply myself. Now, paying attention in class and seeing my own name on the Honor Roll list was made possible by keeping the smiles of these kids in my mind. I forgot all about the unsaid competition with my sister and focused on my own success in school and doing what made me happy with myself.
Going into my senior year at Malden High School, I now see the sister who I once resented as one of my role models. I look up to her and see a smart, strong woman, but one who I can not compare myself to. I went on a journey and reached my own means of success. By stepping out of the shadow that my sister and everyone else cast upon me, I found a true happiness and confidence in myself that can not be compared to that of others.
Valerie Rossi: A Loud Spirit in a Silent World - Reseach Sample
It is a hot summer day. Your friend rings the doorbell and asks you to play. As you walk down the street with your friend, you hear the birds chirping and cars rushing by. You and your friends decide to play your favorite game, so you cover your eyes and say, “Marco.” Your friends reply, “Polo” and you are able to find them when you hear them giggling. After a couple rounds of Marco Polo, you hear your mother call you inside for dinner. At dinner, everyone in your family shares a story about their day. Then, you watch your favorite television shows with your siblings which is a perfect ending to your idea of a perfect day. You listen to the sound of crickets outside which slowly lull you to sleep. What if you woke up one day and lost the ability to hear the things you once took for granted? What would change? What challenges would you face?
In 1962, Doctors were baffled. Four year old Valerie Chuha was still laying in her hospital bed after being in a coma for four days. She had been diagnosed with spinal meningitis from unknown causes. On what would be the fifth day of her coma, the doctors noticed that Valerie was no longer in a coma but could not wake up from her trance-like state where she laid in her bed, paralyzed. (Chuha, Joan) The doctors pinched, poked and jabbed Valerie to get some type of movement from her. (Autobiography 3) After a couple failed attempts, the doctors and Valerie’s family was about to give up hope until the child screamed out, “I HATE YOU!” These three words were proof that a miracle had occurred. Valerie’s family rejoiced and her aunts and uncles crowded into the hospital room to see this young fighter. Happy tears and praises filled the room. A look of confusion and then anger appeared on Valerie’s face. This expression quickly changed when her beloved grandmother came in to see her little miracle. When her grandmother started to speak to her grandchild, the look of confusion overtook Valerie’s face again she and questioned, “Grammy, even you won’t talk to me?” Through tests completed by the doctors at the hospital, Valerie had permanently lost her hearing.
Four years earlier on April 23, 1958, Valerie Joan Chuha was born in Malden Hospital. She was born with fat cheeks and hair so short that she could have been confused for a boy when she was younger. Growing up, Valerie was the opposite of her introverted older sister Elizabeth. (Chuha, Joan) Valerie loved to meet new people and most of all, she loved to talk. She also enjoyed listening to music, singing, dancing, watching television and spending time with her grandmother Lilah Rivers. Growing up in the Malden Projects with her mother Joan, her father Stephen, her sister Betty and her newborn brother Stephen Jr. for the first five years of her life gave Valerie many friends in her neighborhood that she was able to fool around and play with until one day her life drastically changed forever. (Autobiography 2)
Right before Valerie’s fourth birthday, she became sick with a very high fever and her concerned parents took her to the doctors where they said it was just the flu and sent the family home. Valerie started to get worse and was too sick to be taken to the doctors again, so the doctor had to make a house call to the Chuha residence. Immediately upon seeing Valerie, the doctor rushed her to Malden Hospital. (Chuha, Joan) After numerous tests, the doctors came to the conclusion that this young child had spinal meningitis, “an infection that causes inflammation if the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord.” (“What” 1) Valerie was given medicine that was too strong for a child but the only thing that would be able to save her life but did not respond to the medicine she received. (Autobiography 3) She started to have many convulsions and finally slipped into a coma. Valerie was then rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital where the doctors told Valerie’s terrified parents that they have never seen a child this sick and live. They then added that if she did somehow come out of this coma, she would most likely end up being blind, deaf, mentally retarded, or a vegetable. Valerie’s parents would have accepted their daughter in any condition; all they wanted was for her to live through this, so for the next five days they prayed for a miracle. (Chuha, Joan) When Valerie finally woke up from her coma, everyone was ecstatic that she lived though this disease, her being deaf was not an issue, as long as Valerie was alive and well. Valerie’s grandmother Lilah reasoned that “if this was any one of the other kids, this might have been a very different outcome. She’s a fighter and that’s why she made it through this terrible illness.” Almost immediately after Valerie woke up from her coma, she knew that something had changed, but she could not really understand what had happened. She would get very angry thinking that everyone was ignoring and teasing her until she could grasp the concept that she no longer could hear. (Rivers, Vera)
After losing the ability to hear, Valerie faced even more challenges. Valerie’s speech gradually deteriorated until it was impossible for anyone in her family to understand what she was saying. She had to learn to talk all over again, but would never be perfect because of her handicap. (Chuha, Joan) Valerie also started to fall over whenever she tried to walk or climb up stairs when she came home from the hospital. The doctors found that Valerie gained nerve deafness from the spinal meningitis and was forced to learn how to walk all over again. (Autobiography 4) Valerie’s mother and father were discouraged by their daughter’s teachers to use sign language at home so Valerie was not able to learn a language that would help her communicate and express herself better with her family which now is one of her mother’s biggest regrets. (Chuha, Joan) Constantly being frustrated from not being understood and not comprehending what other are saying, Valerie often expressed fits of anger, once jabbing her older sister Betty with a ballpoint pen. (Knight) Valerie was also unable to enjoy some of her past favorite thing such as music and her favorite television shows. The biggest challenge that Valerie had with her handicap is that she “didn’t like depending on other people when [she] was younger, but [she] had no choice.” Since closed caption was not invented to accommodate the deaf yet, Valerie would need to ask her siblings what was happening on the television shows that they were watching together but most of the time they never told her completely what was going on, leaving her out of the hearing world. (Rossi, Valerie)
Growing up, Valerie was not going to let her deafness keep her from being a normal child. Even though her balance would never be as good as the other kids her age because of her nerve deafness, she was determined to learn how to ride a bike like her siblings and neighborhood friends. Valerie’s lack of balance made her fall off the bike and gain many scrapes and bruises, but she kept trying until she was able to successfully able to race her peers down the streets of Malden. When Valerie was young, a doll named Chatty Kathy was a very popular gift that Betty and Valerie both wanted for Christmas because it talked when her string was pulled. Valerie’s mother was nervous to buy that doll for Valerie because she would not be able to hear the doll talking and would feel left out so she bought Valerie a different doll for Christmas. Valerie refused to play with this doll, and when she was in a toy story with her mother, she picked up a Chatty Kathy and pulled the string. When Valerie felt the vibrations from this doll talking, she exclaimed, “It can talk!” which made Joan realize that he daughter deserved the doll because she could understand that it could talk and also she deserved to be treated like other children. (Chuha, Joan) At age eleven, Valerie took dancing lessons at a school in Malden. She danced on stage with all hearing girls, but felt the magic of dancing when she able to keep up with girls even though she was unable to hear the music. Being onstage made Valerie pretend that she was hearing like the other girls and that she was in a movie like the musicals that she watched as a child. (Rossi, V) On another instance, when Valerie was a teenager, she would go down to the basement where her younger siblings were having dance parties with their friends. Even though she could not hear the music blasting throughout the room, Valerie could feel the vibrations that the music echoed onto the floor and started to dance better than everyone else which surprised everyone at the party. (Chuha, Stephen)
One thing that helped Valerie overcome the challenges she dealt with being deaf was her family. Her parents, her four sisters, (Betty, Lori, Diane and Kristy) and her two brothers, (Stephen and David) did not treat her differently because she could not hear. The way that they communicated with her was different, such as more facial expressions and body language had to be used since Valerie could not hear inflections in a person’s voice and that enunciation of speech was often needed. (Knight, Betty) At the same time, Valerie was not seen as deaf by her siblings, but as another one of their sisters. (Chuha, Stephen) Valerie was not considered the deaf sibling, but she was the sister who played school with her younger siblings and taught them various subjects which showed her potential for becoming a teacher. (Chuha, Diane) She was the sister that babysat her siblings, always paying attention to them and what they needed instead of overlooking their opinions because of their age. (Long, Kristy) She was also the older sister that could figure out the hardest directions in order to put together complicated Christmas presents, resulting in her “saving Christmas” many years. (Chuha, Diane) Valerie was always treated the same as the rest of the children in her family. She had the same chores, rules, punishment, and upbringing. It was important to her parents that she felt the same as the rest of her siblings and not treated any better or worse. (Notarangeli, Lori)
Valerie did need to receive a different education than her six other siblings. Right after she became deaf, Valerie was sent to the Boston School for the Deaf, a Catholic school run by the sisters of St. Joseph which was able to accommodate Valerie even though she was rapidly losing the ability to speak. She was able to flourish in school and make many friends with schoolmates and teachers. (Autobiography) She was seen as “very honest and very polite.” Valerie was also able to skip the seventh grade because she was very successful in school but never showed how smart she was by comparing herself to others. (Molloy, Cindy) In ninth grade, Valerie was one of the seven deaf students picked to attend an all hearing school to take a math and science class in hopes to start a deaf program at the F.A. Day Junior High School. (Rossi, Valerie) This program was successful and made it possible to create a deaf program at this junior high school and another at Newton North High School where Valerie attended for her high school career. Valerie also was the only deaf student picked to the part of a program called EdCo which was to create an advisory group for deaf students so they could receive the best education for them despite their handicaps. (“EdCo”) During this time on her education, Valerie was part of the minority of the deaf students and was constantly lost in the business of the hallways. She managed to make it through her heavy course load, and many nerve wracking oral reports in front of hearing students to make it to graduation. (Autobiography).
Even being deaf, Valerie was able to hold many jobs such as a babysitter, candy striper and document control filer at the Malden Public Library. When Valerie first started her job at the Malden Public Library, she was constantly watched by her co-workers and bosses who always waiting for her to make a mistake because she was deaf. She ended up proving to her bosses and coworkers that she was the best at all of the tasks that she was given at the library and ended up being promoted and transferred to a job at AVCO where Valerie did a lot of secretarial duties such as typing, cataloging, and filing confidential files entrusted in her. Valerie’s career was short lived because she was then accepted into Gallaudet College in Washington, D.C. where she went to pursue a degree in education to accomplish her lifetime goal of being a teacher to deaf students. (Rossi, Valerie)
At Gallaudet College, Valerie was able to enter as a freshmen because of the way that she placed on her exams, being able to skip the prep level, unlike her roommate, leaving Valerie with more work than her friends during her college career. Once Valerie moved into her dorm room in Washington, D.C., she joined as many clubs as she could since she was never able to participate in extracurricular activities when she was in high school because she had to take the taxi back home from school right after the bell rang. When Valerie was a sophomore, she was trying to juggle all of her school work and participation in clubs that she was too busy to notice that her Residence Advisor, Jim Rossi, a senior at Gallaudet was paying attention to her. (Rossi, Valerie) Valerie and Jim encountered each other many times when Valerie needed something such as getting into her dorm when she forgot her key and fixing the lights in her room. Valerie did not think that Jim was a student at Gallaudet because of his bushy beard, so she avoided any interests for him. Valerie and Jim never actually spoke until Jim was volunteering to help at the Gallaudet College Beauty Pageant and needed to find someone else to help, when Valerie’s friend brought her to help. Jim talked to Valerie during that whole event and they went back to his room where they shared chocolate chip cookies and great conversation. (Rossi, Valerie) After that conversation, Valerie started to date Jim and they both knew that they were meant to spend the rest of their lives together. (Rossi, James III) Shortly after Valerie’s relationship with Jim got serious, she was no longer able to complete all the work necessary to pass the requirements to finish her sophomore year and was called down to the Dean’s office to hear her reasons for falling behind. Valerie had no excuse for why she was failing and could not lie to the Dean of Gallaudet College, so she dropped out of college and went back to her job at AVCO where she missed her steady paycheck while she was at school. Her mother was not because all she wanted was for her daughter to be happy, and if Valerie was not happy at Gallaudet College, she would not have forced her to stay there. (Rossi, Valerie) Valerie then moved in with her Aunt Vera and her sister Betty and focused on supporting and taking care of herself.
Valerie and Jim kept in touch and he always visited her on his breaks from school. Once Jim graduated from Gallaudet College and received his Masters of Arts in Deafness Rehabilitation from New York University, this New York native moved first to Cape Cod and then Boston and started to work at Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission as a counselor for the Deaf to be closer to the woman he loved. (Rossi, James III) In 1981, Jim proposed an idea of marriage to Valerie since they became so close after three years of dating. Even though it was not a traditional proposal since there was no ring and Jim did not get down on his knee, Valerie did feel that it was a serious proposal, but said that she wanted to wait until her older sister got married before she did because she felt that it was the right was to do it. Betty got married in 1982, so Jim brought up the idea of marriage again, Valerie agreed and soon after they picked out an engagement ring and got things ready to get married. (Jim later made up for his nontraditional proposal on their fifth anniversary by getting on his knee and presenting Valerie with a ring bigger than her original engagement ring.) On August 18, 1984, Valerie Chuha became Mrs. James Rossi, getting married with a beautiful ceremony at Sacred Hearts Parish in Malden and a joyous reception at Case di Fior. The newlyweds then went on a cruise for their honeymoon stopping at Puerto Rico, the Bahamas and the Virgin Islands. Once the honeymoon was over, Valerie and Jim moved in together in the four-family house that Valerie’s father built and owned. Finally having a husband and a place to live, Valerie then got ready for the next big step of her life. On April 23, 1987, Valerie received the most special gift any mother could receive. Valerie’s first child, Lilah Joan, was born and named after Valerie’s grandmother. Valerie still needed to work at AVCO, where she was doing the work of seven people, so she could help support her family and help save to buy a house. Valerie employed her older sister Betty to watch her daughter during the week.
There were many technological advances created to help Valerie in her new life with her husband and daughter. TTYs were invented when Valerie was young which was used as a telephone for the deaf to communicate with both deaf and hearing people. Closed caption was invented for the television by the time Valerie was in college, so she was able to understand what was happening without asking someone else. Valerie had light sensors in her house that would blink whenever the baby was crying, the phone rang, the doorbell went off and even if someone yelled. Once Valerie got pregnant again, her father Steven and brother David, along with the rest of the Chuha Construction company decided to knock down the barn that was next door to the four-family house that Valerie and Jim were currently staying in and make a house for Valerie and her growing family to live in. The house was ready for Valerie, Jim and Lilah to move in jus days before Valerie had her next child.
On January 13, 1991, Valerie had another daughter Stephanie Elizabeth. She could not work anymore and force her sister to watch another child, so she made a decision to stay at home to take care of her family. Also, since AVCO was about to go out of business, she decided to just get laid off by the company instead of quitting. Almost two years after Stephanie was born, she started to have a high fever and would not eat or go to the bathroom, so Valerie took her to the doctor, who rushed Stephanie to the hospital. This two year old child was diagnosed with Toxic Shock Syndrome from unknown causes. To add to the problem, Valerie and her eldest daughter Lilah had the flu so they were asked to leave the hospital to get better. As Valerie was trying to get better from the flu while nursing Lilah back to health, she was stuck worrying about her other daughter that may not overcome this illness. After five days of sickness, Stephanie’s fever finally went down and she was able to eat spaghettios. To Valerie’s relief, Stephanie was able to leave the hospital and was completely healthy again. On October 15, 1993, Valerie had a third child, a son named James Thomas IV and her family was complete.
Valerie faced two more scary health problems with her other children. Lilah dislocated her hip when she slipped down an icy stairwell and had to go through surgery to get a pin inserted in her hip bone and endure a lot of physical therapy which Valerie always made sure that she was around for. Years later, her son Jimmy was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis after long-term pains in his hip. He had to spend many days in the hospital but always had his mother by his side who always kept Jimmy’s mind off of the reason why he was in the hospital. (Rossi, James IV) Jimmy was then later diagnosed with Crohn’s disease which is when the “immune system [attacks] the gastrointestinal tract and [produces] inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract.” (“Crohn’s 1) Again, Valerie stayed by her son’s side, and eventually sent to a Crohn’s camp in New York where Jimmy was able to understand his illness and relate to other children who also have it. (Rossi, James IV)
In 2001,Valerie’s youngest sister, Kristy had her first child, but had to keep working in order to gain health care benefits for her family. She was weary of the thought of putting her young baby into a daycare, so Valerie offered to watch Jared on the weekdays for a measly one dollar an hour. (Rossi, Valerie) Valerie put in a lot of work taking care of the housework, providing for her children’s needs while also caring for a baby, while also making sure she had a hot meal on the dinner table by six o’clock every night. All this exhausted Valerie, but she never complained because she was doing a big favor for her younger sister. Valerie did not sleep very much at night and relied on naps during the day which could have contributed to her upcoming disease.
At a normal doctors appointment, Valerie’s doctor revealed that she had Type II diabetes which meant that her blood sugar level was too high. She was not forced to take any medicine yet because her type of diabetes could be kept under control with diet and exercise. Not wanting to rely on medicine like her grandmother, mother and brother who all had diabetes, Valerie went on a strict diet and committed herself to walking around the Forestdale Cemetary near her house. She lost a total of twenty-five pounds but Valerie’s successful plan started to slip when she started to “cheat” by eating her guilty pleasure food such as anything chocolate. A year after she was diagnosed with Type II diabetes, Valerie was forced to be put on medication, constantly checking her blood sugar level and fighting temptations to “cheat” on her diet. (Rossi, Valerie)
Like any typical couple, Valerie and Jim had many disagreements, but after almost twenty years of marriage, their arguments started to become more frequent and became visible to the children. Since Valerie and Jim were considered middle class and spent most of their money on their children and their needs, they were not able to buy the materials things that they wanted, such as a bigger house, nicer cars and extravagant things to fill the house that Jim was not satisfied with. They started to argue only simply about money and the material things that they wanted, but these fights started to escalate into bigger issues such as Lilah’s education and ability to go out with her friends. Jim would not allow Lilah to do what she wanted, even watch television, because he claimed to want her to focus on her studies. Valerie felt trapped under the rule of the “man of the house”, she was not able to change Jim’s mind about their daughter’s lifestyle, but tried to keep the peace in her home by letting Lilah sneak into the living room to enjoy ‘The Bachelor’ with her. Valerie started to become tired of these arguments and would close her eyes when her husband started to talk, which was an immature way that she would treat him because once she did that she completely cut out what he was trying to say. When Valerie’s three children begged their parents to divorce, they made a conscious choice for her children to stop fearing what they would see their parents argue about in their own home. In order to keep her family together, Valerie and Jim went to see a marriage counselor in Boston who dealt with Jim’s anger and Valerie’s immaturity. Going to the marriage counselor put the broken pieces of a family back together and improved the family dynamics in every relationship.
Valerie spent all of her time focused on her kids and their happiness. She always put their needs before hers, taking her daughters hand-me-downs instead of buying herself a new outfit. Valerie dealt with all different kinds of trials and tribulations that comes with raising children, but her love for her three children never died down for a second. She never gave up on getting close with her daughter Stephanie no matter how many times she was pushed away or yelled at. Valerie also wanted to be the mother who is always at her kids games and supporting anything that they are involved in. She was always seen at any of her children’s games bundled up in her winter jacket even if she was only going to see her child play for a measly five minutes. (Rossi, James IV) Valerie made a point to instill certain values in her children such as respect, honesty, and kindness but she was also known for being supportive and understanding of her children and their mistakes. No matter what had happened during the day, Valerie would always check on her children every night to make sure they were safe in bed and without fail would say “Good Night, Sweet Dreams, I Love You, See You Tomorrow.”
Valerie did not originally teach her three children sign language because she was fearful that it would hinder the way her children would learn how to speak with their voices. (Rossi, Valerie) The child most fluent in sign language ended up being the first born child Lilah and became the person who always spoke for Valerie to became her “ears” and interpreter. This helped Lilah become an outgoing and independent woman which is very different from the shy and clingy child that she was as a toddler. (Rossi, Lilah) The constant reliance on her children to talk and complete other tasks for Valerie may be seen as hindering them or as a “burden”, but her son Jimmy proves the opposite in saying that by having deaf parents, he is able to be “more patient and understanding towards all types of people and [he learned] a new language all at the same time.”(Rossi, James IV)
Valerie “is special because she has a passion for life. She wants to try so many things and for many deaf people, they seem to feel like they can’t do something because of their disability, but not” her. Valerie never let her disability decide what she can and can not do in life, starting the second she lost her hearing and still having that mindset now. (Rossi, Lilah) Valerie may have many regrets about certain choices she made in life such as not teaching her children sign language, dropping out of college, and never becoming a teacher to the deaf, but she knows that the decisions that she has made lead her to the successful life that she has been blessed way. She gave more than enough to her three children. She may have missed on some opportunities because she was deaf, but she did not want her children to do the same thing. Valerie did not live through life as a victim or as different than anyone else, Valerie made sure that throughout her life she lived her life the way she wanted without focusing on her handicap. Valerie “lived such a normal life with such a big handicap as not to hear which she never used as a ‘crutch’.” (Notarangeli, Lori)
In 1962, Doctors were baffled. Four year old Valerie Chuha was still laying in her hospital bed after being in a coma for four days. She had been diagnosed with spinal meningitis from unknown causes. On what would be the fifth day of her coma, the doctors noticed that Valerie was no longer in a coma but could not wake up from her trance-like state where she laid in her bed, paralyzed. (Chuha, Joan) The doctors pinched, poked and jabbed Valerie to get some type of movement from her. (Autobiography 3) After a couple failed attempts, the doctors and Valerie’s family was about to give up hope until the child screamed out, “I HATE YOU!” These three words were proof that a miracle had occurred. Valerie’s family rejoiced and her aunts and uncles crowded into the hospital room to see this young fighter. Happy tears and praises filled the room. A look of confusion and then anger appeared on Valerie’s face. This expression quickly changed when her beloved grandmother came in to see her little miracle. When her grandmother started to speak to her grandchild, the look of confusion overtook Valerie’s face again she and questioned, “Grammy, even you won’t talk to me?” Through tests completed by the doctors at the hospital, Valerie had permanently lost her hearing.
Four years earlier on April 23, 1958, Valerie Joan Chuha was born in Malden Hospital. She was born with fat cheeks and hair so short that she could have been confused for a boy when she was younger. Growing up, Valerie was the opposite of her introverted older sister Elizabeth. (Chuha, Joan) Valerie loved to meet new people and most of all, she loved to talk. She also enjoyed listening to music, singing, dancing, watching television and spending time with her grandmother Lilah Rivers. Growing up in the Malden Projects with her mother Joan, her father Stephen, her sister Betty and her newborn brother Stephen Jr. for the first five years of her life gave Valerie many friends in her neighborhood that she was able to fool around and play with until one day her life drastically changed forever. (Autobiography 2)
Right before Valerie’s fourth birthday, she became sick with a very high fever and her concerned parents took her to the doctors where they said it was just the flu and sent the family home. Valerie started to get worse and was too sick to be taken to the doctors again, so the doctor had to make a house call to the Chuha residence. Immediately upon seeing Valerie, the doctor rushed her to Malden Hospital. (Chuha, Joan) After numerous tests, the doctors came to the conclusion that this young child had spinal meningitis, “an infection that causes inflammation if the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord.” (“What” 1) Valerie was given medicine that was too strong for a child but the only thing that would be able to save her life but did not respond to the medicine she received. (Autobiography 3) She started to have many convulsions and finally slipped into a coma. Valerie was then rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital where the doctors told Valerie’s terrified parents that they have never seen a child this sick and live. They then added that if she did somehow come out of this coma, she would most likely end up being blind, deaf, mentally retarded, or a vegetable. Valerie’s parents would have accepted their daughter in any condition; all they wanted was for her to live through this, so for the next five days they prayed for a miracle. (Chuha, Joan) When Valerie finally woke up from her coma, everyone was ecstatic that she lived though this disease, her being deaf was not an issue, as long as Valerie was alive and well. Valerie’s grandmother Lilah reasoned that “if this was any one of the other kids, this might have been a very different outcome. She’s a fighter and that’s why she made it through this terrible illness.” Almost immediately after Valerie woke up from her coma, she knew that something had changed, but she could not really understand what had happened. She would get very angry thinking that everyone was ignoring and teasing her until she could grasp the concept that she no longer could hear. (Rivers, Vera)
After losing the ability to hear, Valerie faced even more challenges. Valerie’s speech gradually deteriorated until it was impossible for anyone in her family to understand what she was saying. She had to learn to talk all over again, but would never be perfect because of her handicap. (Chuha, Joan) Valerie also started to fall over whenever she tried to walk or climb up stairs when she came home from the hospital. The doctors found that Valerie gained nerve deafness from the spinal meningitis and was forced to learn how to walk all over again. (Autobiography 4) Valerie’s mother and father were discouraged by their daughter’s teachers to use sign language at home so Valerie was not able to learn a language that would help her communicate and express herself better with her family which now is one of her mother’s biggest regrets. (Chuha, Joan) Constantly being frustrated from not being understood and not comprehending what other are saying, Valerie often expressed fits of anger, once jabbing her older sister Betty with a ballpoint pen. (Knight) Valerie was also unable to enjoy some of her past favorite thing such as music and her favorite television shows. The biggest challenge that Valerie had with her handicap is that she “didn’t like depending on other people when [she] was younger, but [she] had no choice.” Since closed caption was not invented to accommodate the deaf yet, Valerie would need to ask her siblings what was happening on the television shows that they were watching together but most of the time they never told her completely what was going on, leaving her out of the hearing world. (Rossi, Valerie)
Growing up, Valerie was not going to let her deafness keep her from being a normal child. Even though her balance would never be as good as the other kids her age because of her nerve deafness, she was determined to learn how to ride a bike like her siblings and neighborhood friends. Valerie’s lack of balance made her fall off the bike and gain many scrapes and bruises, but she kept trying until she was able to successfully able to race her peers down the streets of Malden. When Valerie was young, a doll named Chatty Kathy was a very popular gift that Betty and Valerie both wanted for Christmas because it talked when her string was pulled. Valerie’s mother was nervous to buy that doll for Valerie because she would not be able to hear the doll talking and would feel left out so she bought Valerie a different doll for Christmas. Valerie refused to play with this doll, and when she was in a toy story with her mother, she picked up a Chatty Kathy and pulled the string. When Valerie felt the vibrations from this doll talking, she exclaimed, “It can talk!” which made Joan realize that he daughter deserved the doll because she could understand that it could talk and also she deserved to be treated like other children. (Chuha, Joan) At age eleven, Valerie took dancing lessons at a school in Malden. She danced on stage with all hearing girls, but felt the magic of dancing when she able to keep up with girls even though she was unable to hear the music. Being onstage made Valerie pretend that she was hearing like the other girls and that she was in a movie like the musicals that she watched as a child. (Rossi, V) On another instance, when Valerie was a teenager, she would go down to the basement where her younger siblings were having dance parties with their friends. Even though she could not hear the music blasting throughout the room, Valerie could feel the vibrations that the music echoed onto the floor and started to dance better than everyone else which surprised everyone at the party. (Chuha, Stephen)
One thing that helped Valerie overcome the challenges she dealt with being deaf was her family. Her parents, her four sisters, (Betty, Lori, Diane and Kristy) and her two brothers, (Stephen and David) did not treat her differently because she could not hear. The way that they communicated with her was different, such as more facial expressions and body language had to be used since Valerie could not hear inflections in a person’s voice and that enunciation of speech was often needed. (Knight, Betty) At the same time, Valerie was not seen as deaf by her siblings, but as another one of their sisters. (Chuha, Stephen) Valerie was not considered the deaf sibling, but she was the sister who played school with her younger siblings and taught them various subjects which showed her potential for becoming a teacher. (Chuha, Diane) She was the sister that babysat her siblings, always paying attention to them and what they needed instead of overlooking their opinions because of their age. (Long, Kristy) She was also the older sister that could figure out the hardest directions in order to put together complicated Christmas presents, resulting in her “saving Christmas” many years. (Chuha, Diane) Valerie was always treated the same as the rest of the children in her family. She had the same chores, rules, punishment, and upbringing. It was important to her parents that she felt the same as the rest of her siblings and not treated any better or worse. (Notarangeli, Lori)
Valerie did need to receive a different education than her six other siblings. Right after she became deaf, Valerie was sent to the Boston School for the Deaf, a Catholic school run by the sisters of St. Joseph which was able to accommodate Valerie even though she was rapidly losing the ability to speak. She was able to flourish in school and make many friends with schoolmates and teachers. (Autobiography) She was seen as “very honest and very polite.” Valerie was also able to skip the seventh grade because she was very successful in school but never showed how smart she was by comparing herself to others. (Molloy, Cindy) In ninth grade, Valerie was one of the seven deaf students picked to attend an all hearing school to take a math and science class in hopes to start a deaf program at the F.A. Day Junior High School. (Rossi, Valerie) This program was successful and made it possible to create a deaf program at this junior high school and another at Newton North High School where Valerie attended for her high school career. Valerie also was the only deaf student picked to the part of a program called EdCo which was to create an advisory group for deaf students so they could receive the best education for them despite their handicaps. (“EdCo”) During this time on her education, Valerie was part of the minority of the deaf students and was constantly lost in the business of the hallways. She managed to make it through her heavy course load, and many nerve wracking oral reports in front of hearing students to make it to graduation. (Autobiography).
Even being deaf, Valerie was able to hold many jobs such as a babysitter, candy striper and document control filer at the Malden Public Library. When Valerie first started her job at the Malden Public Library, she was constantly watched by her co-workers and bosses who always waiting for her to make a mistake because she was deaf. She ended up proving to her bosses and coworkers that she was the best at all of the tasks that she was given at the library and ended up being promoted and transferred to a job at AVCO where Valerie did a lot of secretarial duties such as typing, cataloging, and filing confidential files entrusted in her. Valerie’s career was short lived because she was then accepted into Gallaudet College in Washington, D.C. where she went to pursue a degree in education to accomplish her lifetime goal of being a teacher to deaf students. (Rossi, Valerie)
At Gallaudet College, Valerie was able to enter as a freshmen because of the way that she placed on her exams, being able to skip the prep level, unlike her roommate, leaving Valerie with more work than her friends during her college career. Once Valerie moved into her dorm room in Washington, D.C., she joined as many clubs as she could since she was never able to participate in extracurricular activities when she was in high school because she had to take the taxi back home from school right after the bell rang. When Valerie was a sophomore, she was trying to juggle all of her school work and participation in clubs that she was too busy to notice that her Residence Advisor, Jim Rossi, a senior at Gallaudet was paying attention to her. (Rossi, Valerie) Valerie and Jim encountered each other many times when Valerie needed something such as getting into her dorm when she forgot her key and fixing the lights in her room. Valerie did not think that Jim was a student at Gallaudet because of his bushy beard, so she avoided any interests for him. Valerie and Jim never actually spoke until Jim was volunteering to help at the Gallaudet College Beauty Pageant and needed to find someone else to help, when Valerie’s friend brought her to help. Jim talked to Valerie during that whole event and they went back to his room where they shared chocolate chip cookies and great conversation. (Rossi, Valerie) After that conversation, Valerie started to date Jim and they both knew that they were meant to spend the rest of their lives together. (Rossi, James III) Shortly after Valerie’s relationship with Jim got serious, she was no longer able to complete all the work necessary to pass the requirements to finish her sophomore year and was called down to the Dean’s office to hear her reasons for falling behind. Valerie had no excuse for why she was failing and could not lie to the Dean of Gallaudet College, so she dropped out of college and went back to her job at AVCO where she missed her steady paycheck while she was at school. Her mother was not because all she wanted was for her daughter to be happy, and if Valerie was not happy at Gallaudet College, she would not have forced her to stay there. (Rossi, Valerie) Valerie then moved in with her Aunt Vera and her sister Betty and focused on supporting and taking care of herself.
Valerie and Jim kept in touch and he always visited her on his breaks from school. Once Jim graduated from Gallaudet College and received his Masters of Arts in Deafness Rehabilitation from New York University, this New York native moved first to Cape Cod and then Boston and started to work at Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission as a counselor for the Deaf to be closer to the woman he loved. (Rossi, James III) In 1981, Jim proposed an idea of marriage to Valerie since they became so close after three years of dating. Even though it was not a traditional proposal since there was no ring and Jim did not get down on his knee, Valerie did feel that it was a serious proposal, but said that she wanted to wait until her older sister got married before she did because she felt that it was the right was to do it. Betty got married in 1982, so Jim brought up the idea of marriage again, Valerie agreed and soon after they picked out an engagement ring and got things ready to get married. (Jim later made up for his nontraditional proposal on their fifth anniversary by getting on his knee and presenting Valerie with a ring bigger than her original engagement ring.) On August 18, 1984, Valerie Chuha became Mrs. James Rossi, getting married with a beautiful ceremony at Sacred Hearts Parish in Malden and a joyous reception at Case di Fior. The newlyweds then went on a cruise for their honeymoon stopping at Puerto Rico, the Bahamas and the Virgin Islands. Once the honeymoon was over, Valerie and Jim moved in together in the four-family house that Valerie’s father built and owned. Finally having a husband and a place to live, Valerie then got ready for the next big step of her life. On April 23, 1987, Valerie received the most special gift any mother could receive. Valerie’s first child, Lilah Joan, was born and named after Valerie’s grandmother. Valerie still needed to work at AVCO, where she was doing the work of seven people, so she could help support her family and help save to buy a house. Valerie employed her older sister Betty to watch her daughter during the week.
There were many technological advances created to help Valerie in her new life with her husband and daughter. TTYs were invented when Valerie was young which was used as a telephone for the deaf to communicate with both deaf and hearing people. Closed caption was invented for the television by the time Valerie was in college, so she was able to understand what was happening without asking someone else. Valerie had light sensors in her house that would blink whenever the baby was crying, the phone rang, the doorbell went off and even if someone yelled. Once Valerie got pregnant again, her father Steven and brother David, along with the rest of the Chuha Construction company decided to knock down the barn that was next door to the four-family house that Valerie and Jim were currently staying in and make a house for Valerie and her growing family to live in. The house was ready for Valerie, Jim and Lilah to move in jus days before Valerie had her next child.
On January 13, 1991, Valerie had another daughter Stephanie Elizabeth. She could not work anymore and force her sister to watch another child, so she made a decision to stay at home to take care of her family. Also, since AVCO was about to go out of business, she decided to just get laid off by the company instead of quitting. Almost two years after Stephanie was born, she started to have a high fever and would not eat or go to the bathroom, so Valerie took her to the doctor, who rushed Stephanie to the hospital. This two year old child was diagnosed with Toxic Shock Syndrome from unknown causes. To add to the problem, Valerie and her eldest daughter Lilah had the flu so they were asked to leave the hospital to get better. As Valerie was trying to get better from the flu while nursing Lilah back to health, she was stuck worrying about her other daughter that may not overcome this illness. After five days of sickness, Stephanie’s fever finally went down and she was able to eat spaghettios. To Valerie’s relief, Stephanie was able to leave the hospital and was completely healthy again. On October 15, 1993, Valerie had a third child, a son named James Thomas IV and her family was complete.
Valerie faced two more scary health problems with her other children. Lilah dislocated her hip when she slipped down an icy stairwell and had to go through surgery to get a pin inserted in her hip bone and endure a lot of physical therapy which Valerie always made sure that she was around for. Years later, her son Jimmy was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis after long-term pains in his hip. He had to spend many days in the hospital but always had his mother by his side who always kept Jimmy’s mind off of the reason why he was in the hospital. (Rossi, James IV) Jimmy was then later diagnosed with Crohn’s disease which is when the “immune system [attacks] the gastrointestinal tract and [produces] inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract.” (“Crohn’s 1) Again, Valerie stayed by her son’s side, and eventually sent to a Crohn’s camp in New York where Jimmy was able to understand his illness and relate to other children who also have it. (Rossi, James IV)
In 2001,Valerie’s youngest sister, Kristy had her first child, but had to keep working in order to gain health care benefits for her family. She was weary of the thought of putting her young baby into a daycare, so Valerie offered to watch Jared on the weekdays for a measly one dollar an hour. (Rossi, Valerie) Valerie put in a lot of work taking care of the housework, providing for her children’s needs while also caring for a baby, while also making sure she had a hot meal on the dinner table by six o’clock every night. All this exhausted Valerie, but she never complained because she was doing a big favor for her younger sister. Valerie did not sleep very much at night and relied on naps during the day which could have contributed to her upcoming disease.
At a normal doctors appointment, Valerie’s doctor revealed that she had Type II diabetes which meant that her blood sugar level was too high. She was not forced to take any medicine yet because her type of diabetes could be kept under control with diet and exercise. Not wanting to rely on medicine like her grandmother, mother and brother who all had diabetes, Valerie went on a strict diet and committed herself to walking around the Forestdale Cemetary near her house. She lost a total of twenty-five pounds but Valerie’s successful plan started to slip when she started to “cheat” by eating her guilty pleasure food such as anything chocolate. A year after she was diagnosed with Type II diabetes, Valerie was forced to be put on medication, constantly checking her blood sugar level and fighting temptations to “cheat” on her diet. (Rossi, Valerie)
Like any typical couple, Valerie and Jim had many disagreements, but after almost twenty years of marriage, their arguments started to become more frequent and became visible to the children. Since Valerie and Jim were considered middle class and spent most of their money on their children and their needs, they were not able to buy the materials things that they wanted, such as a bigger house, nicer cars and extravagant things to fill the house that Jim was not satisfied with. They started to argue only simply about money and the material things that they wanted, but these fights started to escalate into bigger issues such as Lilah’s education and ability to go out with her friends. Jim would not allow Lilah to do what she wanted, even watch television, because he claimed to want her to focus on her studies. Valerie felt trapped under the rule of the “man of the house”, she was not able to change Jim’s mind about their daughter’s lifestyle, but tried to keep the peace in her home by letting Lilah sneak into the living room to enjoy ‘The Bachelor’ with her. Valerie started to become tired of these arguments and would close her eyes when her husband started to talk, which was an immature way that she would treat him because once she did that she completely cut out what he was trying to say. When Valerie’s three children begged their parents to divorce, they made a conscious choice for her children to stop fearing what they would see their parents argue about in their own home. In order to keep her family together, Valerie and Jim went to see a marriage counselor in Boston who dealt with Jim’s anger and Valerie’s immaturity. Going to the marriage counselor put the broken pieces of a family back together and improved the family dynamics in every relationship.
Valerie spent all of her time focused on her kids and their happiness. She always put their needs before hers, taking her daughters hand-me-downs instead of buying herself a new outfit. Valerie dealt with all different kinds of trials and tribulations that comes with raising children, but her love for her three children never died down for a second. She never gave up on getting close with her daughter Stephanie no matter how many times she was pushed away or yelled at. Valerie also wanted to be the mother who is always at her kids games and supporting anything that they are involved in. She was always seen at any of her children’s games bundled up in her winter jacket even if she was only going to see her child play for a measly five minutes. (Rossi, James IV) Valerie made a point to instill certain values in her children such as respect, honesty, and kindness but she was also known for being supportive and understanding of her children and their mistakes. No matter what had happened during the day, Valerie would always check on her children every night to make sure they were safe in bed and without fail would say “Good Night, Sweet Dreams, I Love You, See You Tomorrow.”
Valerie did not originally teach her three children sign language because she was fearful that it would hinder the way her children would learn how to speak with their voices. (Rossi, Valerie) The child most fluent in sign language ended up being the first born child Lilah and became the person who always spoke for Valerie to became her “ears” and interpreter. This helped Lilah become an outgoing and independent woman which is very different from the shy and clingy child that she was as a toddler. (Rossi, Lilah) The constant reliance on her children to talk and complete other tasks for Valerie may be seen as hindering them or as a “burden”, but her son Jimmy proves the opposite in saying that by having deaf parents, he is able to be “more patient and understanding towards all types of people and [he learned] a new language all at the same time.”(Rossi, James IV)
Valerie “is special because she has a passion for life. She wants to try so many things and for many deaf people, they seem to feel like they can’t do something because of their disability, but not” her. Valerie never let her disability decide what she can and can not do in life, starting the second she lost her hearing and still having that mindset now. (Rossi, Lilah) Valerie may have many regrets about certain choices she made in life such as not teaching her children sign language, dropping out of college, and never becoming a teacher to the deaf, but she knows that the decisions that she has made lead her to the successful life that she has been blessed way. She gave more than enough to her three children. She may have missed on some opportunities because she was deaf, but she did not want her children to do the same thing. Valerie did not live through life as a victim or as different than anyone else, Valerie made sure that throughout her life she lived her life the way she wanted without focusing on her handicap. Valerie “lived such a normal life with such a big handicap as not to hear which she never used as a ‘crutch’.” (Notarangeli, Lori)
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Irony- Gospel According to Mark
In the short story “The Gospel According to Mark” by Jorge Luis Borges, the author shows through irony how an ordinary character can be transformed into someone Christ-like. The protagonist Baltasar Espinosa comes to La Colorada Ranch as “one of the common run of young men from Buenos Aires, with nothing more noteworthy about him than an almost unlimited kindness and a capacity for public speaking.”(183) Espinosa was a character with different sides to him. He claimed to be a free thinker like his father and “was full of opinions, or habits of mind, that were questionable”(184), but at the same time prayed “the Lord’s Prayer and [made] the sign of the cross every night”(184) like his mother.
Espinosa came to La Colorada Ranch to visit his cousin, but when his cousin goes on a trip to “close a deal on some cattle”(184) Espinosa finds his only company to be the Gutres, a naïve country family. One night, after dinner time, Espinosa starts to read the Bible to the Gutres which they “listened attentively [and] absorbed”(186) everything being said to them. The Gutres started to follow Espinosa wherever he went, “as if lost without him.”(186) The Gutres have Espinosa repeat the Gospel of Mark over again which makes Espinosa see these people as children “to whom repetition is more pleasing than variation or novelty.”(186) He sees no threat from these people who worship Espinosa and everything he says.
After a few days, the Gutres ask Espinosa if Christ died to save all men including the ones that killed him. Espinosa truthfully tells the Gutres that Christ did die to save others from the gruesome fate of Hell. The Gutres seem to receive some sort of wake up call, bow to their knees asking for a blessing. They then take a change in their demeanor by spitting “on him, and [shoving] him toward the back part of the house.”(187) He sees the Gutres making a cross out of the beams from the roof.
Espinosa realizes that by him being a thirty-three year old man with a beard, he was a Christ figure to the Gutres. The Gutres sincerely believed in the gospel that Espinosa read to them daily and wanted to kill him in order to save themselves. This ending is ironic because Espinosa considered himself a free thinker, not a Christ-like preacher but reaches him demise the same way that Jesus Christ did. By preaching to the Gutries, he was subconsciously telling them to crucify him.
Espinosa came to La Colorada Ranch to visit his cousin, but when his cousin goes on a trip to “close a deal on some cattle”(184) Espinosa finds his only company to be the Gutres, a naïve country family. One night, after dinner time, Espinosa starts to read the Bible to the Gutres which they “listened attentively [and] absorbed”(186) everything being said to them. The Gutres started to follow Espinosa wherever he went, “as if lost without him.”(186) The Gutres have Espinosa repeat the Gospel of Mark over again which makes Espinosa see these people as children “to whom repetition is more pleasing than variation or novelty.”(186) He sees no threat from these people who worship Espinosa and everything he says.
After a few days, the Gutres ask Espinosa if Christ died to save all men including the ones that killed him. Espinosa truthfully tells the Gutres that Christ did die to save others from the gruesome fate of Hell. The Gutres seem to receive some sort of wake up call, bow to their knees asking for a blessing. They then take a change in their demeanor by spitting “on him, and [shoving] him toward the back part of the house.”(187) He sees the Gutres making a cross out of the beams from the roof.
Espinosa realizes that by him being a thirty-three year old man with a beard, he was a Christ figure to the Gutres. The Gutres sincerely believed in the gospel that Espinosa read to them daily and wanted to kill him in order to save themselves. This ending is ironic because Espinosa considered himself a free thinker, not a Christ-like preacher but reaches him demise the same way that Jesus Christ did. By preaching to the Gutries, he was subconsciously telling them to crucify him.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Hemingway Parody
It was a normal Wednesday afternoon at Falden High School. The sun was shining but it seemed to shine just a little brighter on B and V, the popular girls in school. These girls were heading into the cafeteria to have lunch at their normal table when they came to find the lowly sophomore J sitting at their table by herself eating her lunch and trying to finish her homework before next period.
“Are you kidding me?!” B said.
“What’s going on, B?” V asked
“This sophomore is sitting at our table!”
“ Well there’s only two of us, there‘s room for us at like every other table?”
“That’s not the point V, do you even know about J?”
V had heard some things about J when she first came to Falden High School. She assumed they were mostly rumors, as almost everything that traveled around the school was.
“She‘s pathetic, V.”
“What do you mean ‘pathetic’?”
“ I mean, my mom told me that J‘s is a complete druggie and J got taken away from her mom a couple years ago.”
“Who does she live with then?”
“I don’t know, I heard she lives with her grandmother.”
“Well how does that make her pathetic, B?”
“Come on V, just look at her. She’s been doing this whole emo thing ever since her mom went to jail. She’s just doing it for attention.”
“Well maybe she’s just really upset.”
B ignored V’s last statement. She just stared at J waiting to get some sort of eye contact. Nothing. Many other tables were open for the two girls to sit at, but to B this turned into a personal battle to show herself and this girl that she was the ringleader of this school. B walked up the table where J was sitting.
“Move.” B demanded.
“Excuse Me?”
“I’m sorry, Are you deaf? I said move.”
“Why?”
“This is our table.” B looked over at V. V turned her head away from the confrontation.
“Well I was sitting here first. There’s a bunch of other tables in the cafeteria that you can sit at.”
J looked back down and continued to work on her history homework. To B, this was the stupidest thing that a sophomore could do to a senior, especially her. Infuriated, B reached over the table that she felt was rightfully hers and shoved J’s books off of the table. The lunchroom heard this commotion and suddenly became quiet.
“Now, I guess you didn’t hear me correctly, I told you to move.”
“And I told you that I was here first.” J quivered.
“Ok hunny, I guess you don’t understand the rules of this school so I’ll help you out. This table belongs to V and I, so either you can move or I can move you.”
V couldn’t believe the way that B was talking to J. J looked around the cafeteria and noticed that almost the whole school was watching this and snickering. Defeated, J picked her books off the ground and slugged out of the cafeteria. B and V sat down at the normal table. V had lost her appetite.
“Honestly B, did you really have to do that?”
“Yes, V, I did. You didn’t find that hilarious? The way she thought she could stand up to me like that?”
“I don’t understand why couldn’t she sit here for one day? What would happen if we didn’t sit at this table for one day?”
“It’s not about the table V, you should know that. It’s about the fact that J just gets on my last nerve by thinking that she can be a moody snob and think that she can just sit where ever she wants. She’s been going to this school for two years now, she should know the rules… So you coming over after school?”
“Umm.. No I can’t.”
Right at 2:15, V left the school and caught the train into Boston. She stopped in front of the St. Mary’s church and took a big breath before she entered. She sat down in her normal chair, listened to others and waited for her turn.
“Hi, my name is V, and my mother is an alcoholic.”
“Welcome V.” The group chimed in.
“ My mothers has had an alcohol problem since I was 11 and its took 6 years for me to find a place where I can talk about it. I can’t talk to anyone in school, not even my best friend B, she would never be able to understand. No one understood until I came here.”
“All you can do is pray.” said one of the people at the meeting.
V stayed at the meeting until she had to go home to her mother who was passed out on her bed. She checked her mother’s pulse to make sure she was still breathing like she did every night. V broke down into tears, not knowing how long she could handle doing this anymore. She then thought of what she heard today at the meeting, “All you can do is pray.” V got down on her knees, put her hands together and closed her eyes.
“Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven …”
“Are you kidding me?!” B said.
“What’s going on, B?” V asked
“This sophomore is sitting at our table!”
“ Well there’s only two of us, there‘s room for us at like every other table?”
“That’s not the point V, do you even know about J?”
V had heard some things about J when she first came to Falden High School. She assumed they were mostly rumors, as almost everything that traveled around the school was.
“She‘s pathetic, V.”
“What do you mean ‘pathetic’?”
“ I mean, my mom told me that J‘s is a complete druggie and J got taken away from her mom a couple years ago.”
“Who does she live with then?”
“I don’t know, I heard she lives with her grandmother.”
“Well how does that make her pathetic, B?”
“Come on V, just look at her. She’s been doing this whole emo thing ever since her mom went to jail. She’s just doing it for attention.”
“Well maybe she’s just really upset.”
B ignored V’s last statement. She just stared at J waiting to get some sort of eye contact. Nothing. Many other tables were open for the two girls to sit at, but to B this turned into a personal battle to show herself and this girl that she was the ringleader of this school. B walked up the table where J was sitting.
“Move.” B demanded.
“Excuse Me?”
“I’m sorry, Are you deaf? I said move.”
“Why?”
“This is our table.” B looked over at V. V turned her head away from the confrontation.
“Well I was sitting here first. There’s a bunch of other tables in the cafeteria that you can sit at.”
J looked back down and continued to work on her history homework. To B, this was the stupidest thing that a sophomore could do to a senior, especially her. Infuriated, B reached over the table that she felt was rightfully hers and shoved J’s books off of the table. The lunchroom heard this commotion and suddenly became quiet.
“Now, I guess you didn’t hear me correctly, I told you to move.”
“And I told you that I was here first.” J quivered.
“Ok hunny, I guess you don’t understand the rules of this school so I’ll help you out. This table belongs to V and I, so either you can move or I can move you.”
V couldn’t believe the way that B was talking to J. J looked around the cafeteria and noticed that almost the whole school was watching this and snickering. Defeated, J picked her books off the ground and slugged out of the cafeteria. B and V sat down at the normal table. V had lost her appetite.
“Honestly B, did you really have to do that?”
“Yes, V, I did. You didn’t find that hilarious? The way she thought she could stand up to me like that?”
“I don’t understand why couldn’t she sit here for one day? What would happen if we didn’t sit at this table for one day?”
“It’s not about the table V, you should know that. It’s about the fact that J just gets on my last nerve by thinking that she can be a moody snob and think that she can just sit where ever she wants. She’s been going to this school for two years now, she should know the rules… So you coming over after school?”
“Umm.. No I can’t.”
Right at 2:15, V left the school and caught the train into Boston. She stopped in front of the St. Mary’s church and took a big breath before she entered. She sat down in her normal chair, listened to others and waited for her turn.
“Hi, my name is V, and my mother is an alcoholic.”
“Welcome V.” The group chimed in.
“ My mothers has had an alcohol problem since I was 11 and its took 6 years for me to find a place where I can talk about it. I can’t talk to anyone in school, not even my best friend B, she would never be able to understand. No one understood until I came here.”
“All you can do is pray.” said one of the people at the meeting.
V stayed at the meeting until she had to go home to her mother who was passed out on her bed. She checked her mother’s pulse to make sure she was still breathing like she did every night. V broke down into tears, not knowing how long she could handle doing this anymore. She then thought of what she heard today at the meeting, “All you can do is pray.” V got down on her knees, put her hands together and closed her eyes.
“Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven …”
Setting- Greasy Lake
Greasy Lake
In the short story Greasy Lake by T. Coraghessan Boyle, the once beautiful lake provides a not so typical “baptism” to one of the main characters. The Greasy Lake also symbolizes the loss of innocence of the teenagers who visit the lake during “a time when courtesy and winning ways went out of style, when it was good to be bad.”(130)
The protagonist is a nineteen year old bad boy who goes up the Greasy Lake with his friends one night to “drink beer, smoke pot, howl at the stars, savor the incongruous full-throated roar of rock and roll against the primeval susurrus of frogs and crickets.”(130) Greasy Lake was not always a place for teenage partying, before the Indians had named the lake Wakan which was “a reference to the clarity of the water.” (130) After many years, and many careless people, the lake became “fetid and murky, the mud banks glittering with broken glass and strewn with beer cans and the charred remains of bonfires.”(130) The protagonist goes to the lake with his friends and gets into a bad situation when a “bad greasy character” (132) starts to beat up the three boys. The protagonist gets consumed with his bad boy instinct and came at the man “like a kamikaze, mindless [and] raging”(132) and almost kills the man with a tire iron. When another man comes at the young boys, they all run in different directions, and the protagonist runs into the Greasy Lake waters.
The main character feels something strange in the water and realizes that it is a dead body under him in the lake. Thoughts rush in his mind, and the person who thought he was such a tough man admits to the audience that he was “a mere child, an infant”(134) which is showing a change in the young boy. When the protagonist attempts to get out of the lake, he stumbles back and “the muck [take] hold of [his] feet .. and suddenly, [he] was pitching face forward into the buoyant black mess.”(134) This symbolizes the lake engulfing this bad boy and making him think about what he has been doing. When the main character emerges from the muck, the “bad greasy”(130) characters leave and he feels a “rush of joy and vindication.”(135) He is about to leave the lake with his friends, when he sees two young girls who call them over and want to party with them. The young boys decline the offer, that hours before they would be more than willing to accept. This action by the boys show the change that this experience instilled in them.
The setting of Greasy Lake allows the main character come to the realization that is it not good to be bad. Greasy Lake was once a place that these boys did all the wrong things, but after their lives are threatened, the main character goes through an unusual baptism-like situation. When he leaves Greasy Lake with his newfound perspective, he sees “a sheen of sun on the lake”(137) which shows that people who have lost their innocence can gain it back.
In the short story Greasy Lake by T. Coraghessan Boyle, the once beautiful lake provides a not so typical “baptism” to one of the main characters. The Greasy Lake also symbolizes the loss of innocence of the teenagers who visit the lake during “a time when courtesy and winning ways went out of style, when it was good to be bad.”(130)
The protagonist is a nineteen year old bad boy who goes up the Greasy Lake with his friends one night to “drink beer, smoke pot, howl at the stars, savor the incongruous full-throated roar of rock and roll against the primeval susurrus of frogs and crickets.”(130) Greasy Lake was not always a place for teenage partying, before the Indians had named the lake Wakan which was “a reference to the clarity of the water.” (130) After many years, and many careless people, the lake became “fetid and murky, the mud banks glittering with broken glass and strewn with beer cans and the charred remains of bonfires.”(130) The protagonist goes to the lake with his friends and gets into a bad situation when a “bad greasy character” (132) starts to beat up the three boys. The protagonist gets consumed with his bad boy instinct and came at the man “like a kamikaze, mindless [and] raging”(132) and almost kills the man with a tire iron. When another man comes at the young boys, they all run in different directions, and the protagonist runs into the Greasy Lake waters.
The main character feels something strange in the water and realizes that it is a dead body under him in the lake. Thoughts rush in his mind, and the person who thought he was such a tough man admits to the audience that he was “a mere child, an infant”(134) which is showing a change in the young boy. When the protagonist attempts to get out of the lake, he stumbles back and “the muck [take] hold of [his] feet .. and suddenly, [he] was pitching face forward into the buoyant black mess.”(134) This symbolizes the lake engulfing this bad boy and making him think about what he has been doing. When the main character emerges from the muck, the “bad greasy”(130) characters leave and he feels a “rush of joy and vindication.”(135) He is about to leave the lake with his friends, when he sees two young girls who call them over and want to party with them. The young boys decline the offer, that hours before they would be more than willing to accept. This action by the boys show the change that this experience instilled in them.
The setting of Greasy Lake allows the main character come to the realization that is it not good to be bad. Greasy Lake was once a place that these boys did all the wrong things, but after their lives are threatened, the main character goes through an unusual baptism-like situation. When he leaves Greasy Lake with his newfound perspective, he sees “a sheen of sun on the lake”(137) which shows that people who have lost their innocence can gain it back.
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