Title: If You Come Softly
Author: Jacqueline Woodson
Pages: 181
Genre: Coming of age
Characterization: is the methods a writer uses to reveal the personality of characters.
In the book If you come softly, the author uses characterization to show how two people with a different skin color can have a lot more in common than you think. Though Jeremiah is black, he is not a mugger or thief like what Ellie's sister Anne makes black people seem like by jumping to conclusions when she sees a African American jogger at the park one day with Ellie, on page 69. When Anne screamed and grabbed Ellie this shows us something about how she sees black people but, Ellie doesn't see African Americans the way she does. On page 70 she wonders to herself why "these black people who were just like us- who were equal to us? Why weren't they coming over for dinner? Why weren't they playing golf with daddy on Saturdays or quilting with Marion on Thursday nights? Why weren't they in our world, around us, part of us?"Jeremiah goes to Percy Academy, where he feels different sometimes being among white people. He wishes that he didn't have to be switching beds every night because since his parents split, he still has to be with each of them who live right across the street from each other. He is not a mugger or thief, just a human with the same problems as many others. On page 100, Jeremiah admits some of his feelings. How sometimes even with his homeboys he felt alone most days a loneliness that settles deep inside of him and lingered. Ellie is a girl he meets at Percy. At the park Ellie and Jeremiah both admit to each other sometimes they get scared. Though the color of their skin is different both of them are just human beings who have family problems and find comfort in each other.
If You Come Softly Poem
. If you come as softly
As the wind within the trees
You may hear what I hear
See what sorrow sees.
If you come as lightly
As threading dew
I will take you gladly
Nor ask more of you.
You may sit beside me
Silent as a breath
Only those who stay dead
Shall remember death.
And if you come I will be silent
Nor speak harsh words to you.
I will not ask you why now.
Or how, or what you do.
We shall sit here, softly
Beneath two different years
And the rich between us
Shall drink our tears.
.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Characterization By: Michelle
Posted by Michelle at 5:00 PM
Labels: Charecterization
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment