#cagedb

It was a nice day, my parents had just come home from work and my brother and I were watching television. My mom started to cook dinner while my dad joined us on the couch. After the food was ready, we ate dinner and talked about our day. The house was filled with joy and laughter and everyone was had smiles on their faces. Everything was perfect, there was absolutely nothing that could go wrong. At least, that’s what I thought at that time.

Everything started going wrong. It was all happening so fast, I had no idea what was going on. One day, my mom and dad were screaming and arguing with each other. The next day, they were not talking or even sparing a glance to each other. I did not know what caused this, and I did not like it at all. My brother and I were scared. Sometimes, he would come to my room and we would cry together. Both of us knew that our family was breaking apart. Our family was not the only thing breaking, our hearts were, too.

The day that I was dreading had finally come. My parents had signed their divorce papers. I knew that it was going to happen someday, but I had no idea that it would come so soon. What shocked me the most was that instead of fighting for my brother and I, they sent us away to our grandmother. I guess they did not love us as much as I thought they did. My brother and I were sitting in the plane, going to a different country.

Five years later, I was 16 and my brother was 14 years old. We have not heard from our parents in those past years. No visits, no emails, no letter, not anything. It was safe to say that our parents had officially abandoned us and did not want us anymore. Our real “parent” was our grandmother who provided us with a lot love in those five years. She cared for us more than they did and she never abandoned us. Even though a long time has passed since my brother and I got sent to another country, I was not over it. I still thought about my parents and how it would have been like if they did not divorce or send us away. Every time I think about that, I would start to get angry and upset, then cry and cry for a long time.

Five years after that is the present, I am 21 and my brother is 19. That means 10 years since our family had broken up. I am now over it and I stopped crying over my parents. I accepted the face that our family is broken and will never be able to go back to the way it was before. Hopefully, I will get a happy family that is not broken in my next life.

Introduction:           As we live and interact with other people, we start to get influenced and impacted by them. Whether it is in a negative or positive way, a little or a lot, they can affect your life. In To Kill a Mockingbird and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the two main characters (Scout and Maya) were surrounded by people who changed their life. The people in your life can have a big impact on you.

          As we live and interact with other people, we start to get influenced and impacted by them. Whether it is in a negative or positive way, a little or a lot, they can affect your life. For example, if you meet someone but they treat you badly, you could end up suffering. If someone treats you with love and compassion, you will become happy with your life. The people in your life can have a big impact on you.

          In I Know why the Caged Bird Sings, there are many people who had a negative impact on Maya. They all treated her badly and unfairly but that did not stop her from staying strong and growing as a person. There were three main scenes that stood out to me which demonstrated how some people negatively impacted Maya. The first scene is the rape scene with Mr. Freeman. Turning up the radio up loud, too loud, he said, “If you scream, I’m gonna kill you. And if you tell, I’m gonna kill Bailey. The next scene is when Maya was forced to be called something else just because a white woman thought her name was too long. I fumed in the kitchen. That horrible woman would never have the chance to call me Mary because if I was starving I’d never work for her. I decided I wouldn’t pee on her if her heart was on fire. The third scene was when the white dentist would not fix Maya’s mouth even when he owed Momma. “Annie, my policy is I’d rather stick my hand in a dog’s mouth than a ni——’s.” He had never once looked at me. Because of all that negativity given to Maya by some people that she had in her life, she was not always happy. She went through a hard time throughout her whole life. She got raped at a young age (8 years old), forced to change her name for a short amount of time for someone she didn’t even like, and wasn’t given dental care when she really needed.

          Similar to the story mentioned earlier, To Kill a Mockingbird shows some scenes that demonstrate how some characters negatively affected Scout. The first scene that I thought of was when Miss Caroline busted Scout for being literate. I suppose she chose me because she knew my name; as I read the alphabet a faint line appeared between her eyebrows, and after making me read most of My First Reader and the stock-market quotations from The Mobile Register aloud, she discovered that I was literate and looked at me with more than faint distaste. The second scene is when Jem and Scout go to Miss Maudie’s house to read to her but she greets them in a mean way. “So you brought that dirty little sister of yours, did you?” was her greeting. The third scene is when Jem tells Scout to start acting like a girl instead of a boy. After one altercation when Jem hollered, “It’s time you started bein’ a girl and acting right!” I burst into tears and fled to Calpurnia. A lot of people treat Scout unfairly mostly because she does not know a lot about what is going on around her. She got in trouble for knowing how to read when she is learning how to read in school, referred to as dirty, and told to stop being such a girl but then later on is told to start acting more like a girl. Since she is still young and naive, it does not affect her as much but will start to affect more as she grows up and matures.

In the two stories, there are many adult characters who have a negative impact on Scout and Maya.

To Kill a Mockingbird • “I suppose she chose me because she knew my name; as I read the alphabet a faint line appeared between her eyebrows, and after making me read most of My First Reader and the stock-market quotations from The Mobile Register aloud, she discovered that I was literate and looked at me with more than faint distaste.” (22) • “‘So you brought that dirty little sister of your, did you?’ was her greeting.” (141) • “After one altercation when Jem hollered, ‘It’s time you started bein’ a girl and acting right!’ I burst into tears and fled to Calpurnia.” (153)