ktmeng/mec huggingface dataset:
Topic: family

In this program they set-up job fairs and help with the selection for internship. Through this program her employers had a chance to see her in action. Finally she is reliable because I have elected to start school in the evening and work during the day. I cannot always be there to pick up my daughter at her different school functions and her part-time job she is always there to pick her up. If she has to go someplace and you are riding with her, she will be on time to get you there. She has never let me down.
Topic: family

Also, when we have our family reunion in Chicago the family looks to her to take the lead. We organized a fundraiser selling dinners. I sold a large order at my place of employment. On the day the dinners were to arrive, the person who was to drive and make deliveries canceled at the last minute. My sister stepped in, after cooking all morning. She made sure the dinners I had sold were there on time for lunch as I had promised, even though she was tired from cooking all morning. Enclosing, if I had to choose a mentor for my daughters other than my mother, she is the best candidate.
Topic: family

She will always be there for you and give great advice in difficult situations. I have taking her advice on several different occasions. She has inspired me to continue my education. She has spoken to young women at my daughter’s school about being a African-American woman in corporate America and living abroad in Germany before the Wall came down. She has a vast number of experiences she an share with people. I have shown why she is supportive, reliable and ambitious. She is in part a great example of strength and dedication for young and old to inspire to.
Topic: family

It seemed to me that she deserved everything it all. ” In the first quote the use of ‘either or ‘ shows that Larry is determined. Also in the first quote ‘I didn’t want to drink from Mother’s saucer’ although it is meant literally it can also be seen as a metaphor, which shows that the speech has been prepared and that therefore Larry’s feelings of jealousy run deep. In the second quote Larry’s feelings are against his mother, he sounds spiteful towards her when he realises that she has caused his deep feelings of jealousy.
Topic: family

These settings appear to be very different but are set in the countryside, which gives them a similar rustic charm. Both stories have similar elements in their settings. Time is the major difference to the changed setting not location. The settings of the stories make the reader respond in different ways. For example a lot of readers feel more comfortable reading stories set in recent times because they can relate to them. This is because of more modern language and issues. For this reason many readers may prefer ‘My Oedipus Complex’ to ‘The Half Brothers’ as it is set more recently.
Topic: family

A big difference between the two stories is humour. For example there is no humour at all in ‘The Half Brothers’ whereas a lot of humour is used in ‘My Oedipus Complex’. ‘The Half Brothers’ is very different because the absence of humour defines the story as a real tragedy. Humour in ‘My Oedipus Complex’ lightens the story considerably and it becomes merely unfortunate. The source of humour in ‘My Oedipus Complex’ is from Larry saying or thinking things that are ironic because he thinks he’s so mature but is really an inexperienced child.
Topic: family

For example “Ours was the only house in the terrace without a new baby, and Mother said we couldn’t afford one till Father came back from the war because they cost seventeen and six. That showed how simple she was. The Geneys up the road had a baby, and everyone knew they couldn’t afford seventeen and six. It was probably a cheap baby, and Mother wanted something really good, but I felt she was too exclusive. The Geneys baby would have done us fine. ” This humour is mocking to the narrator. This quotation shows that he really has no idea on the science of life but he talks as if he knows everything.
Topic: family

This is highly amusing to the reader. A similarity between the two stories is that in both, people learn something. For example in ‘My Oedipus Complex’ Larry and his father both learn that they shouldn’t fight each other, they learn to forgive each other and in ‘The Half Brothers’ William Preston learns that he should have treated Gregory more fairly the narrator also learns from his fathers mistakes. This shows that the moral of both stories is forgiveness. These stories can help readers because they can identify with the experiences of the narrators. The stories have different styles, however both use a lot of descriptive language.
Topic: family

For example similes are used in both stories, “it was like going for a walk with a mountain” in ‘My Oedipus Complex’ and “that always gushed out like a spring of fresh water” in ‘The Half Brothers’. The use of similes makes the language richer and more enjoyable to read. It also gives the reader a better image in their mind of the thing the author is trying to describe. Both authors also use adjectives but Elizabeth Gaskell uses them especially well by repeating them. For example “thicker thicker – faster faster”. This repetition gives the words a more urgent and panicked feel. It is very effective in drawing the reader into the story.
Topic: family

Mother to Son is a poem written by Langston Hughes and was first published in 1922 in Crisis Magazine. Langston was an African American poet who lived in Mississippi (Roychowdhury, 2014). The poem’s speaker is a mother who happens to be giving an advice to her son from the experiences of her own life. She states how her life has had hard and difficult times that she had to bear with all the time. In line 3-4, the speaker talks of how her life has been a staircase that has had “tacks and splinters” in it.
Topic: family

In this case, the staircase is used as a metaphor. The woman was brought up in poverty stricken background, considering the images in the poem that reveal old staircase, ragged, like the ones found in an old decrepit building. The poet uses a tactile imagery to mean that the life of the speaker has been full of imperfections and that she had to go through a lot of challenges which she had to deal with to reach some place.
Topic: family

Another aspect of poor upbringing and hardships she had to put up with is portrayed in her accent. It shows how the speaker did not receive proper schooling and hence the poor grasp of grammar right from the early age. The speaker says that “I’se been a-climbin’ on” (“Mother to Son”, line 9) which does not depict good grammar as a result of poor educational background. There is a high possibility that she did not get opportunities for schooling in her early years of age.
Topic: family

Despite the challenges, the speaker of the poem “Mother to Son” portrays a person of character who is determined and strong, but also whose personality is of a caring person. It is evident where the speaker relentlessly climbs the old staircase with difficulties but never seem to give up. Nonetheless, the woman is caring for her son and advising him not to give up no matter what he is facing. In lines 5 and 12 of the “Mother to Son” poem, the speaker talks of “torn up” stairs and how she has to go over regardless of there being no light.
Topic: family

This shows perseverance and that she cannot give up pushing through even when she is uncertain of where she is headed given the darkness. The speaker has experienced struggles and uncertainties and yet she finds no reason, whatsoever, to give up thereby portraying willpower that is of a strong and courageous woman. Again, the concern and love she has for her son is exemplified in line 18 (“Mother to Son”) where she calls her “honey” and pushes him to keep on moving on.
Topic: family

In addition, the speaker notably insists that the road to success is not a straight path (“Mother to Son”, line 11). At this point the speaker is telling her son that even when he is not completely sure, given the uncertainties of life, he should stick to the target of reaching his destiny. She repeatedly states, in lines 2 and 20, that her life is not a “crystal stair”. The crystal stair represents easy life and people who are wealthy. They are people who probably never struggled or experienced the same difficulties like she did in their entire lives. She was optimistic that her son will make it in life regardless of their current situation and hence demanding her son to remain focused and never give up.
Topic: family

Moreover, the speaker is passionate about her son making it in life. She sees opportunities lying ahead of her son’s life. The son is encouraged that there is no time to “turn back”. Setting down a step behind would be hard to get back on track. That he (the son) should stay focused on what is ahead of him so as not to fall short of seizing the forthcoming opportunities. She is seen to keep reminding her son that challenges will always be there, but they should not act as blocks but rather as stepping stones with a zeal to making his tomorrow better. Turning back would mean a “fall” off the stairs which is taken to mean retreating back and wasting more energy and time trying to get back to that higher level he had already set in.
Topic: family

Everyone should aim at getting up the “staircase” regardless of the obstacles along the way. The author also brings an aspect of one having someone around them, who will offer encouragement and motivation whenever one feels like giving up. Despite the journey being arduous, one has to keep the chin high and with faith, carry on (Seifert, 2013). It also shows a possibility of making it in life regardless of the background one has come from provided one remains focused to reaching the destiny. Setting priorities and having a role model to look up to will give one an edge in knowing what to do, where and when. People are sources of inspiration and no one can make it in life all alone.
Topic: family

Primarily, the poem, “Widow Woman” put forth by Hughes Langston revolves around an idiomatic, rhythmic poem surrounding a woman whose husband has just deceased. As such, the woman desires nobody else and as well, needed by nobody else. Her late husband is called a mighty ruler due to the fact that he ruled of her for several years. The narrative ends with an italicized exclamation that nobody is in a position to tell when a woman such as a widow is free. Therefore, this paper canters on covering the general information about Harlem Renaissance, as well as the analysis concerning the “Widow Woman” narrative through focusing on the powerful voice for black women highlighted in the poem.
Topic: family

Relating to Miller (2015), the powerful voice for black women is showed in the poem, “Widow Woman.” Basically, the women play a critical role as the voice for the harassed minority of African American women. The women try to express their opinions based on gender affairs. For instance, the woman in the poem tries to relay her views on the truth that she does not desire anybody in her life following the death of her husband, which proves to possess double-bounds, being black and also being a female.
Topic: family

Besides, it highlights that women seek attention, credit, and respect. The poem exposes the underlying problems encountered by the black women when their husbands completely dominate over them without giving them a chance to express themselves. Hence, the most issues covered in the poem concentrates on plain wit and complex irony about the family, and existential restlessness of love, disloyalty, and heartache of ethnic pride and world-weariness concerning women in the society.
Topic: family

Ideally, the black women held perhaps the lowest position in the community. The formation of a female voice has also been an indispensable concern of women of other ethnic minorities. The women need an improvement in the black social and economic realities that would be realized through gradual and natural means via accommodation and cooperation as opposed to self-assertion. The topic of violence against black women is another issue that women undergo and how to aggressively manage to fight the obstacles of racism and sexism.
Topic: family

Experts say that all babies are born with a love of water because it is all that surrounded us for our 9 months of development in our mother’s womb. That is why water births are recommended so as not to traumatize the baby. Babies thrown into the swimming pool after only being weeks old are like fish taking to the sea. Yet, at a certain age, from being fishes, we turn into dogs with a severe case of hydrophobia. Nothing and I mean nothing can make a child go near water.
Topic: family

The most I was allowed to do was sit on the steps of the pool playing with my inflatable water toys while my cousins were busy doing water cannons and belly flops. They often ribbed me about being the only kid in the family who could not even doggie paddle but I did not mind them because I wasn’t really into any of their water stunts. But of course, Murphy’s Law dictates that if something is bound to go wrong, it WILL go wrong. I remember sitting on the first step of the swimming pool dunking my water gun into the water and then firing at my cousins who were trying to splash me with water.
Topic: family

My body temperature wasn’t evenly distributed because my chest and head were not in the water. Only my legs were submerged up to my stomach. I got tired of playing with the water gun and started playing with my battery operated motorized tugboat. I would let it float away from me a bit and then reach out and grab it, pulling it back. But the waves the other kids were making in the water were large and strong, the boat would often get too far away from me and I would have to step down from where I was to get it back.
Topic: family

Everybody was busy with the summer backyard barbecue and my cousins were really into a water game that they had made up for play so nobody was really watching me and I did not notice that I was standing on the danger zone step of the pool. The minute I lunged for the boat, I knew I was in trouble. The step disappeared from under me I found myself completely submerged and without any idea of how to stop myself from sinking. The next thing I knew, my dad was holding me by the shoulders and picking me out of the water.
Topic: family

I was gasping for air by that time and was crying so hard because in my child mind, I was more afraid of being blamed for breaking the rules and making my parents mad. It never occurred to me that I could have died at that very moment. I turned black and was so cold and traumatized that I went rigid and refused to take any more baths from that moment on. Not even in a bathtub in the safe supervision of my parents. That was the last time I ever spent any time in any body of water till I reached the age when I could join the cub scouts.
Topic: family

My mother knew I would be in trouble when the time came for me to undergo the swimming lessons with the other scouts. I had never overcome my fear of drowning and I would have a problem when a camping trip called for me to swim with the troop. Sure the scouts would teach me how to swim. But first they would have to get me to go into the water. So, two weeks before the scheduled camping trip, my mother brought me to the local YMCA hoping to end my nerve wracking fear of drowning. She held me close and tight as she encouragingly coaxed me down the steps and into the water.
Topic: family

I wasn’t a tall kid for my age so we stopped at the 2nd to the final step where the water was just touching my chin. She spoke lovingly to me and reassured me that she would not let me go and I nothing would happen to me because she would not let it as she slowly guided my head under the water. She seemed to exude a different kind of trust in the water. She seemed to be the master of the waves it created and was an energy that I was imbibing at that very moment. Everyday, we did the same exercise until, after a week, I was finally confident enough to try the doggie paddle that she taught m to do.
Topic: family

I learned to love the water and trust in it. The scouts may have taught me how to drown proof myself, but it was my mother’s love that gave me the confidence to let go of the fear and believe in myself. Nowadays, I swim in Olympic sized pools sometimes twelve feet deep. Each time I get into the water, I remember how my mother loved me enough to insist upon me learning to master my fears and not let it stop me from achieving my dreams and goals. All from those simple swimming lessons that she gave me.
Topic: family

Veronica Keys ENG 112 6/20/11 Explication Essay 1 Why Mother Savage Why Mother Savage takes place in Virelogne during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The narrator retells the story behind the ruins of a thatched cottage. At thirty-three years of age, Mother Savage’s son volunteered in the war (on the French side), leaving his mother alone. Mother Savage lived alone in her cottage until the Prussians came one day. Since she was known to have money, she had to take four of them. They seemed to be good boys.
Topic: family

Since they saw Mother Savage was an elder lady, they showed consideration toward her and helped with as much as they could. She fed them and treated them well even though they were the enemy and her own son was fighting against them. One day she asked them if they know where the French regiment was, since her son was in the 23rd of the line. The Prussians said they knew nothing. After one month of living with those four soldiers, Mother Savage received a letter.
Topic: family

Have you ever felt so left out or unwanted that you approach anyone available whether they care about you or not? When a person needs someone to talk to but there is no one there, what does one do? In John Steinbeck’s, Of Mice and Men, Curley’s wife is very lonely and feels extremely useless. She feels that the only way she can get attention is by going around and flirting with guys. Although everyone see’s Curley’s wife as a “whore” who just wants to seduce guys, her true desire is to have someone she can go to who makes her feel loved.
Topic: family

Instead of calling Curley’s wife by her name they say “Curley’s woman”, “a tart” , “the new kid”, etc. If men talked to her more and started calling her by her name Curley’s wife wouldn’t flirt as much and would feel way more valuable than she did. In conclusion, even though people don’t see that Curley’s wife has more to her than being a flirt, she only wants attention, and grabs it when she has the chance.
Topic: family

Stories from In Love and Trouble, like other Alice Walker’s works, are the portrayal of black women. I would interpret the term “black women” as women who have gone through all sorts of hardship and struggles, but not all women in the world or only those with black skin. I strongly argue that Walker’s characters are better represented as women who suffer the way African American women do, than as women with black skin. I will justify my argument by referring to specific examples from two short stories in the book, namely Roselily and Everyday Use.
Topic: family

In Roseliliy’s imagination, God has black skin, which is a sharp contrast to the traditional white God image in the Western world. The black God image shows her questioning on why there are different races, which implies her sufferings as a result of her black skin. Her race also brings about her poverty. She is so poor that she has no choice, but gives away his fourth child to his father. What is worse, her life is so hard that she marries herself off to a man to whom she is not attached. The reason she marries him is that she is “impatient to be done with sewing” and “with doing everything for three children, alone” (7).
Topic: family

Roselily knows clearly she will no longer be herself after the marriage: “She thinks she loves the effort he will make to redo her into what he truly wants” (8). She has no choice but transforms herself to the kind of woman her husband wants. She has to wear robes and veil although “her body itches to be free of satin and voile, organdie and lily of the valley” (6). Washington suggests “the very robe and veil she is wearing are emblems of servitude that she yearns to be free of” (92). She has to have babies for her husband although she is “not comforted” (7) with the idea. The sentence “They [babies] are inevitable” (7) even implies she has no choice but has babies. Every decision she makes is forced by her difficult conditions, rather than by her own will. Driven by her extreme poverty and her burdens, she has lost her own self totally.
Topic: family

Like Roselily, Maggie suffers from the triple burden as a black woman. She undervalues herself and suffers from low self-esteem owing to her “psychological scars” (Weston 154): “Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eying her sister with a mixture of envy and awe” (47). She never notices her own worth of her cultural inheritance and her ability to quilt.
Topic: family

White women never belong to the same world of Walker’s characters. They do not suffer the same way Roselily and Maggie do. They at least carry no burden of race and may not live in poverty. Despite living in a male-dominant society, they are respected by males. As Chafe argues, “Black women have not had the so-called benefits of being female; they have not been sheltered, protected, or idealized by their men to the extent that [is] possible for white women” (qtd. in Beverly 38). White women and Walker’s characters hardly have anything in common. We thus cannot say that Walker’s characters are represented by all women.
Topic: family

Apart from black women, there are also other cultural groups that suffer the similar plight as Walker’s characters, such as Chinese-American women, mainland Chinese women in Hong Kong, and so on. I will use the case of Chinese-American women as an example to justify my point. According to Hui, ethnic minority groups, women in particular, are often considered inferior in Western societies, particularly the United States. She even finds African-American women and Chinese-American women similar in the sense that the stereotypes on both groups carry negative and discriminatory meanings. In fact, there are several parallels between the Chinese-American women and Walker’s characters. Like Roselily and Maggie, Chinese-American women are oppressed triply. Being a minority group in a white-dominant society like America, they are placed in an inferior position and are discriminated against. Since the well-paid jobs are often confined to the white, they tend to live in poverty. Women in the male-dominant Chinese society also have to endure all sorts of hardship and oppression in their own families.
Topic: family

They will lose their own selves after marriage. They have to serve their husbands as if they were their masters and be entirely obedient to them and in some cases may be maltreated by their mothers-in-law. There is a Cantonese custom that at the first time a woman enters her husband’s flat and becomes his wife, she is required to pass a basin with burning fire at the entrance, symbolising getting rid of all the bad luck of the woman so that she will not bring bad luck to the family. Customs like this are extremely humiliating to women. Chinese-American women are in an even worse situation than their counterparts in China as their husbands, who encounter injustice and oppression, may take them as scapegoats and abuse them. Worse, deprived of education, they feel ashamed of their lack of intelligence, in the same way as Maggie. They are often unaware of their own worth.
Topic: family

Walker also presents in In Love and Trouble some black women’s struggle with their own ethnicity and identity. After years of oppression and suppression, some black women become uncomfortable with their own ethnicity and have a growing desire to assimilate into the mainstream community. According to Washington, these women are “victims, not of physical violence, but of a kind of psychic violence that alienates them from their roots, cutting them off from real contact” (95). She also considers education a factor of the struggles among those black women.
Topic: family

This conversation indicates her disrespect to her grandmother and aunt. She thinks they oppressed her. She even does not take into consideration the importance of the name “Dee” in linking one generation to another. Besides, she does not regard highly or treasure her family’s heritage. When she was offered a quilt by her mother, she refused and criticised it as “old-fashioned” and “out of style” (57). Her later change of notion of the quilts and attempt to get them are simply caused by the fashion She does not really appreciate the quilts, not to mention linking the quilts to her family history or ancestors. Dee feels shamed with her family and her roots and rejects her identity as an African American. She claims herself to be an authentic African and dresses herself in the so-called authentic African style and using an African name, but all these are due to the fashion. She is still confused with her own identity.
Topic: family

Lots of Chinese-Americans are confused and struggle with their own identity, in the same manner as Dee. This is particularly the case to those females of the second generations. Their hardship and oppression caused by their race and gender would lead to their negative feelings towards their own ethnicity and heritage. They will try to assimilate themselves to the mainstream white society in an attempt to get rid of all those sufferings and burdens. Some Chinese-Americans despise their family tradition and customs and some even avoid speaking Chinese, which is probably the most significant symbol of their Chinese identity.
Topic: family

As the name of the book indicates, Walker’s characters live in “love” and “trouble”; while “trouble” refers to all those burdens they carry, ‘love” refers to the linkage among the black women. One feature that Walker’s characters have in common is their close bond with other female family members, especially the mother-daughter bond. It is this kind of bond that unites them together and gives them strength and extraordinary endurance to survive all the hardship, oppression and humiliation brought about by their status as African-American women.
Topic: family

In Everyday Use, the narrator and her daughter, Maggie, represent black women who value highly their linkage to their female ancestors as well as family members. Their paying special attention to their linkage to their ancestors can be seen in the naming of the family. Three members in the family use the name “Dee’, including the narrator’s daughter, her aunt and her grandmother. Such inheritance of the name symbolises the linkage among the family. That is why the narrator is so shocked when her daughter abandons the name and says she does not want to be named after the people who oppressed her. Besides, both the narrator and Maggie appreciate and value highly the two quilts because they are the heritage of their family and link their generations to their ancestors: “They [the quilts] had been pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me [the narrator] had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and quilted them… In both of them scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago” (56). Maggie wants the quilts as her dowry out of her love of her family and they are also her memory of her grandmother. The quilts represent “the creative legacy that African Americans have inherited from their maternal ancestors” (Christina 3).
Topic: family

The narrator also tries to protect the quilts by preventing them from being taken away by Dee, who does not understand the value of the heritage and treats them as art. The narrator keeps them for Maggie, who is attached to the family and knows how to preserve the heritage. On top of the linkage among generations, the story also shows the strong mother-daughter bond between the narrator and Maggie. In spite of their small amount of direct interaction with each other, they have a very close relationship. They are so close that words are not really necessary: “After we watched the car dust settle I [the narrator] asked Maggie to bring me a dip of snuff. And then the two of us sat there just enjoying, until it was time to go in the house and go top bed” (58). They enjoy each other’s company even without speaking. They also understand each other and share the same set of value on their cultural identity and heritage. Maggie never worries her mother, a sharp contrast to her sister Dee, who only gives the narrator troubles.
Topic: family

Similarly, there is a strong family bond in traditional Chinese families. Suffering from the oppression from the patriarchy, their low opinions of themselves and the oppression from the society, Chinese-American women often unite together, which is the strength for them to survive all those hardships. Although it is a taboo in the Chinese society to use exactly the same given name as any member in the family, it is very common for siblings to share one character in their two-character given name, which connects them together. Women tend not to have a strong bond with their brothers, which attributable to the fact that they suffer low self-esteem and do not find themselves comparable to their brothers. Like the quilts in Everyday Use, women in traditional Chinese families would pass their cultural heritage such as embroidering from generation to generation, which creates a linkage with their ancestors.
Topic: family

Each character caught up in their own cycle of self-destruction and method of escaping their reality that they do not realize that they are making their present situation that much worse. Mary, Tyrone, Jamie and Edmund have all mastered the art of denial, but have failed to understand the concept of responsibility and forgiveness. Throughout the play, O’Neill’s theme is one of a disclosure into the life of a seemingly normal family on the outside yet convoluted with bitterness on the inside, bringing O’Neill’s premise of illusion and truth into the whole story.
Topic: family

Mary Tyrone, a once beautiful girl who dreamed about becoming a nun or perhaps a pianist, has become terribly unsatisfied with the turn of events of her life and the person she has become, tries to flee the self proclaimed world of evils she is living in mainly through her morphine use. She blames her addiction to morphine on the stinginess of her husband, who hired a slip-shod doctor to prescribe her pain killers for the pain giving birth had caused her.
Topic: family

Though she blames her husband it is Mary’s own anguish and guilt that caused her to keep coming back to the drugs, the guilt of leaving her baby alone with her son, which caused him to die, the guilt of letting her family slip into such a degree of disparity, that’s what she wanted to run away from and that’s why she is addicted to morphine. Throughout the story there is much mention of a fog that surrounds the house, “[Fog] hides you from the world and the world from you.
Topic: family

It won’t let you alone. It keeps reminding you and warning you and calling you back . . . ” (O’Neill 98-99). The fog symbolizes the alternate reality that Mary enters when she takes morphine. It’s like the rest of the world is not there, and no one can reach into the fog where she is. The foghorn is a constant reminder that the fog is present and therefore points out to the reader the family had problems they can’t control. Another method of forgetting reality Mary used was seeking refuge in her past, which caused her much resentment but did so time and time again like her morphine habit.
Topic: family

She uses an idealized recreation of her girlhood as an escapist fantasy for all the turmoil that is going on around her. James, Tyrone as referred to by the family, is the husband and father who escapes the pressure of the expectancy and the blame that his whole family has put on him by drinking. Tyrone who had a rough childhood became an actor to soon become washed up because he takes the road of money instead of following his passion, cannot forgive his mistake and blames the downfall of his life on that single decision.
Topic: family

The family seems to hold resentment toward him for his bad investment decisions and his frugality. See the reason for Tyrone’s prudence is to save money so that his family wouldn’t have to endure the extremely underprivileged conditions he had to endure while growing up. Except what Tyrone doesn’t realize is that he is saving so he can become the hero in a hypothetical situation while ignoring the needs of the family in the present. Both of the boys, Jamie and Edmund have both followed in their father’s footsteps and become alcoholics themselves.
Topic: family

Jamie, the family disappointment, ever so jealous of Edmund wishes that his younger would fail so he wouldn’t make Jamie look so bad and Edmund has always had the burden of not feeling part of the family only as a replacement for his deceased brother Eugene both turn to alcohol to numb their pain. Edmund also tried to break away from his family’s troubles by leaving his home but was forced to come back when he ran out of money. The brothers use their little squabbles and sibling rivalry as a way to entertain themselves and take up their time so they wont have to think about the problems that are going on most of the time.
Topic: family

Out of all the characters in the play, they seem to be the ones with the most grasp on reality but are silenced by the denials of their mother and father. For example when Jamie expressed a concern for his brothers health and his consumption, his mother snaps back with “why do you say that? It is just a cold! Anyone can tell that! You always imagine things! “(O’Neill, 26) quieting Jamie’s unease. Throughout the whole play we are forced to listen to the family fight about the same arguments repeatedly, because though the Tyrones do fight, they always hide and suppress the most important feelings and nothing therefore gets resolved.
Topic: family

Anytime that any of the Tyrones tries to speak up for one of their concerns or about what goes on in the family, they are either silenced, reminded that those are one of the forbidden topics that they shouldn’t speak about, or are told not to listen. ” Now, now, lad. You better than pay attention” (O’Neill, 112). It seems that the only way the Tyrone family knows how to deal with problems is by avoidance, and the images of light and dark used throughout the story convey the difference between truth and “hiding in the shadows”. A Long Day’s Journey Into Night” is a metaphor for how the family’s once great and bright past leads into the misery that is their present. Maybe the family’s despair comes as an effect of their escape from reality by means of morphine, alcohol addiction, and self congratulatory delusion, or maybe because each persons isolation from each other and lack of family bonding experiences (notice that they don’t even eat dinner together). What they haven’t realized is that by totally ignoring their present and trying to hide all their pain they are only blinding themselves to the good in their lives and jeopardizing their future happiness as well.
Topic: family

Level of Loneliness between Single Child and Child having siblings Department Of Applied Psychology The Islamia University of Bahawalpur Research Supervisor Miss Ambreen Anjum Researchers Group 2 GirlsBoys Name Roll No Name Roll No Aniqa Sleem10M. Zubair12 Komal Aithaf15M. Hassan18 Sadia Kanwal16 Sobia Humaira17 Sana Majeed19 Threem Zara20 Supervisor Certificate It is certified that group no. 2 third semester BS Psychology session 2010-2014 has completed all the requirements of research work on “Level of loneliness between single child and siblings” under my supervision.
Topic: family

Ambreen Anjum Research Supervisor Psychology Department Islamia University Bahawalpur Contents Sr. No| Contents| Page No. | 1| Abstract| 5| 2| Introduction| 6| 3| Method| 7| 4| Results| 9| 5| Discussion| 13| 6| References| 14| 7| Appendix| 15| Abstract This research is conducted on the topic level of loneliness between single child and siblings. The population of our research paper is Bahawalpur City and our sample is IUB students. We used purposive sampling to select the participants from the population. A total of 90 students (38 single child and 52 siblings) aged over eighteen to twenty five years were selected.
Topic: family

, (1987) was used in this study. We used pretested Urdu translated version of this questionnaire. This questionnaire contained 20 questions regarding loneliness. The mean loneliness score for single children was 47. 8±10. 2 and while for siblings this score was 47. 8±8. 4. Student T test was applied, for significance; there was significant difference between two groups with p value of 0. 49. Introduction Loneliness occurs when a person network of social relationship is smaller or less satisfying than the person desire.
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Thus loneliness reflects a discrepancy between the person desire and achieved level of social interaction (Russell, Kao, et al. , 1987). Lonely people have poor social skills and lack specific skill required for interacting with others and developing friendships (Jones, Hobbs, & Hockenbury, 1982). Lonely people simply may not know how to initiate an interaction with someone or how to keep a conversation lively. This line of reasoning simply suggests that training these people to develop social skills might provide a simple solution (kitson and morgan 1990).
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Loneliness is considered to be an expression of negative feelings of missing relationships and occurs in individuals of all ages. The opposite of loneliness is embeddedness. Loneliness is one of the possible outcomes of the evaluation of a situation in which an individual has a small number of relationships (pinquart 2003). However, many determinants work together in explaining why some people with small numbers of social contacts consider themselves lonely whereas others feel good and sufficiently embedded.
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Among these determinants is the presence or absence of an intimate partner (dannenbeck 1995); the size and functioning of family relationships, particularly parent-child bonds (kaufman and uhlenberg 1998) The purpose of present study was to find out difference of loneliness between only child and child having siblings. Method Participants A total of 90 students (24 boys, 66 girls) aged over eighteen to twenty five years were selected from six different departments of the Islamia University of Bahawalpur. Purposive sampling technique was employed for selecting participants.
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Out of these 38 were “only child” and 52 child were having siblings. Materials The UCLA Loneliness Scale Version 3 designed by Russell, Kao, et al. , (1987) was used in this study. We used its pretested Urdu translated version. This questionnaire contained 20 questions regarding loneliness. Out of 20 questions, 9 questions were structured positively or non lonely worded and remaining 11 were structured negatively reflecting loneliness. These positive questions were added to exclude the possibility of systematic biases in responding. For each questions 4 option were given which are “rarely, sometime, never and always”.
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For positive questions score allotted to each option were as “4 for never, 3 for rarely, 2 for sometimes and 1 for always”. For negative questions this scoring was reversed. For categorizing loneliness, 3 categories were formed. Up to 49 score was considered normal, 50 to 59 score were considered moderate loneliness, above 59 score was considered high loneliness. This grading of loneliness was based on special correspondence with the author of this questionnaire Mr. Russell through email. The original author recommended this classification system. Along with this questionnaire 8 basic demographic questions were also administered egarding name, education, age, gender, residence, parents, birth order and number of siblings. Procedure The study was carried-out in December 2011. The departments were first contacted by application to the head of department and this was followed-up by a telephone conversation to arrange a suitable date and time for the department to be visited. Prior consent was taken from participants. Before the questionnaire was administered, students were assured of the confidentiality of their responses, that there were no right or wrong answers and that they should fill in the questionnaire as truthfully as possible.
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After collecting the questionnaire the loneliness score was computed manually by respective researchers. Then whole data was stored and analyzed using SPSS Version 16 software and Microsoft Excel 2007 for windows. Cross tables were generated and p value was computed by SPSS. Mean, S. D and Student T test was performed on Microsoft Excel 2007. Chi Square test was used for significance testing. Results In this study 90 students are selected. Their basic demographic profile is given in table no. 1. Table no 1. Demographic data| | | Frequency| Percentage| 1| Respondent Gender| Male| 24| 26. 6| | | Female| 66| 73. 3| | Respondents Birth order| Only Child| 38| 41. 1| | | Having Siblings| 52| 58. 8| 3| Respondents family system| Nuclear| 75| 83. 3| | | Extended| 15| 16. 6| 4| Respondents Parents| Both Alive| 77| 85. 5| | | Mother Died| 3| 0. 03| | | Father died| 9| 0. 1| | | Both died| 1| 0. 01| 5| Respondents Residence| Rural| 16| 0. 17| | | Urban| 74| 82. 2| Out of ninety students 66 were female. Out of ninety students 24 were male. 41. 1% students were only child. 58. 8 % students had siblings. 83. 3% students live in nuclear family system. 16. 6% students live in extended family system. Both mother and father are alive of 85. % students. Mother of 0. 03% students was died. Father of 0. 1% students was died. Both mother and father were died of only 0. 01% student. 0. 17% Students Lived in rural areas. 82. 2% Students lived in urban areas. Association of loneliness with birth order Table no 2. Loneliness Score for only child Total number (Mean±S. D)| 3847. 8±10. 2| Loneliness Score for child having Siblings Total number (Mean±S.
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D)| 5247. 8±8. 4| Student T test P value| 0. 49| Quantitatively there is significant difference among 2 groups of loneliness as indicated by p value. Association of loneliness with family system Table No. 3 | loneliness| | Normal| Moderate| High| | Total| FamilySystem| nuclear| 40| 27| 8| | 75| | extended| 12| 3| 0| | 15| | Total| 52| 30| 8| | 90| Chi Square Value 4. 098 P value 0. 129 Significant association was found between family system and loneliness. Child with nuclear family system feel more lonely. Association of loneliness with gender Table No. | loneliness| | Normal| Moderate| High| Total| gender| male| 13| 10| 1| 24| | female| 39| 20| 7| 66| | Total| 52| 30| 8| 90| Chi square Value 1. 577 P value0. 455 Significant relationship was found between gender and loneliness. Female feel lonelier as compared to males. Discussion This study evaluated the loneliness among only child and child having siblings. It was as questionnaire based study where two groups were compared. It came out be that that loneliness score is approximately same in two groups as evident by their mean loneliness score.
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But student t test indicated that the loneliness is more prevalent quantitatively among only child. The sample size is small so the result of this particular study cannot be generalized. As it was a question based study it was prone to the recall bias and systematic bias. Along with difference in loneliness between two group their determinants were also studied which shown that the family system has significant impact on person social interactions and in turn on the loneliness. The children who belonged to nuclear family tend to have higher loneliness score with respect to children coming of extended families.
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It may be that children in extended family have more exposure and develop better social adjustment as compared to children of nuclear families. Also it was found to be that females were lonelier than male. It may reflect problem in their social adjustment and due to constraints put on in our society that female felt lonelier and secondly it may be a chance observation or it may be due to selection bias as more of the researcher were females ( 6 females out of 8 researchers) and they could have preferably contacted females to fill the questionnaire as it was more convenient for them. References . Burger, E. (1986). Personality theory and research. (6 ed. ). wadsworth: New York. 2. Gierveld, J. D. J. ( 1987) . “Developing and Testing a Model of Loneliness. ” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53,119-28. 3. Gierveld, J. D. J. (2006). A 6-item scale for overall, emotional and social loneliness. Research on Aging, 28,5, 582-598. 4. Kaufmann. , Gayle, & Uhlenberg, P. (1998). Effect of
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transitions on the quality of relationships between adult children and their parents. Journal of Marriage and Family, 60, 924-938 5. Kitson, Gay C. and Leslie A. Morgan. (1990). The Multiple Consequences of Divorce: A Decade Review. ” Journal of Marriage and the Family, 52,913-24. 6. Pinquart, M. (2003). “Loneliness in Married, Widowed, Divorced, and Never-Married Older Adults. ” Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 20,31-53. 7. Russel, D. W. (1996). UCLA loneliness scale (version 3): Reliability, validity and factor structure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 66,1, 20-40. Appendix Department of Applied Psychology, The Islamia University BAHAWALPUR Consent: Are you willing to answer some question? Your identity and answer will be kept confidential and used only for research.
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Yes NoSignature: _____________________________________ Name:_______________________________ Education_______________________________________ Age:____________Gender:____________ Home Residence : RuralUrban Parents: mother and father both aliveMother passed away father passed away Mother and father both passed away Family System: NuclearPolygamousExtended (Joint family) Hostel life Experience in years (if any):___ Total No of Siblings: Male_____ Female________ Your Birth order:_________________ For each of the following statement, please indicate how often you feel the way described.
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Here is an example: How often do you feel happy? If you never felt happy, you would respond “never”, if you always feel happy, you would respond “always” | Never| Rarely| Sometimes| Always| How often do you feel that you lack companionship? | 1| 2| 3| 4| How often do you feel that there is no one you can turn to? | 1| 2| 3| 4| How often do you feel alone? | 1| 2| 3| 4| How often do you feel that you are no longer close to anyone? | 1| 2| 3| 4| How often do you feel that your interests and ideas are not shared by those around you? | 1| 2| 3| 4| How often do you feel left out? 1| 2| 3| 4| How often do you feel that your relationships with others are not meaningful? | 1| 2| 3| 4| How often do you feel that no one really knows you well? | 1| 2| 3| 4| How often do you feel isolated from others? | 1| 2| 3| 4| How often do you feel shy? | 1| 2| 3| 4| How often do you feel that there are people who really understand you? | 1| 2| 3| 4| How often do you feel that you are “in tune” with people around you? | 4| 3| 2| 1| How often do you feel part of a group of friends? | 4| 3| 2| 1| How often do you feel that you have a lot common with the people around you? 4| 3| 2| 1| How often do you feel outgoing and friendly? | 4| 3| 2| 1| How often do you feel close to people? | 4| 3| 2| 1| How often do you feel you can find companionship when you want it? | 4| 3| 2| 1| How often do you feel that there are people who really understand you? | 4| 3| 2| 1| How often do you feel that there are people you can talk to? | 4| 3| 2| 1| How often do you feel that there are people you can turn to? | 4| 3| 2| 1| (For researchers use only) Add Columns: + + + Total: