# data[].attributes.body
An aging salesman who is having difficulties swallowing his pride during the realization that his life didn't add up to the American Dream. In the end, he doesn't actually give up on life, he ends his life to improve his families.

# data[].attributes.headline
"The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien

# data[].attributes.subject
"The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien

# data[].attributes.body
From flak jackets to weapons and ammo, they were burdened with the heavy weight of all their gear. However, nothing compared to the weight in emotional burdens they were left to carry forever.

# data[].attributes.body
Syliva is forced out of the slums on an educational trip where she realizes there is a better life out there that she is not a part of. She ends in deep thought and leads us to believe she is going to choose a better life for herself and fighting for equality.

# data[].attributes.body
When the Brownies girls try to stand up to Troop 909 they realize their actions in retaliation were no better than what they thought had been done to them.
" When you've been made to feel bad for so long, you jump at the chance to do it to others."
Two wrongs don't make a right.

# data[].attributes.body
"Oppressed" by the people in her past, Dee decides to redefine who she is by changing her name distancing herself from the ties that bind her to who she used to be.

# data[].attributes.body
A black boy's struggle to find his way after feeling cursed by his grandfather's dying words, telling him to conform to the white man's way. He fought through public torture until he was finally given a chance to give his speech. Afterwards, he was awarded a scholarship and he finally felt free of his grandfather's curse however it still seems as though he was still under the control of the white man's way.

# data[].attributes.body
Do not give up, fight for respect, fight for the honor you deserve.
"If we must die, O let us nobly die," (McKay 939).

# data[].attributes.body
I really enjoyed the pondering thought expressed in this poem. The unappealing imagery left me feeling that dreams should not be put off!

# data[].attributes.body
Instead of deeming Mrs. Wright a murderer and judging her actions, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter's related to Minnie Foster's situation. With their own guilt and reasoning Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter's excused Mrs. Wright of her convictions.

# data[].attributes.headline
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper"

# data[].attributes.subject
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper"

# data[].attributes.body
A strangely compelling story of a woman's mental constraints and finding herself confined within the walls of her marriage.  With every aspect of the story becoming an irony, she eventually drives herself insane watching the woman in the yellow wallpaper.  In the end she frees the woman and claims "I am free at last".

# data[].attributes.body
The pet canary and it's birdcage holds a lot of symbolic irony in this short play. The canary symbolizes Mrs. Wright with her beauty and singing in her younger years. Once she met Mr. Wright, symbolized by the bird cage, she was held back and confined to a life of misery. When Mr. Wright wrung the neck of her pet canary, she hung him by a rope around his neck, strangling him to death.

# data[].attributes.body
Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour"

Taking place in the 18th Century, with independence being a forbidden pleasure, Louise learns of her husband's passing and quickly finds herself elated over her new found freedom.  She joyously indulged in the thought of the years to come that would solely belong to her.  This picture describes her as she "opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome".  However, just as quickly as it came, her joy was ripped away when her husband was found to be alive.  Ironically in the end, she died not from the overwhelming of joy but the loss of it.

# data[].attributes.body
"Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid

Harsh criticism from loved ones tends to hurt the worst.  In "Girl", the narrator is haunted by the scandalous accusations from her mother.  Many times we tend to hold on to the painful things in our past instead of using them to strengthen us.