Friday, April 29, 2011
Harlem on Lock
- Pick a character that interested you and write about them in depth. You can also analyze a relationship between two different characters.
Harlem on Lock is a fictional book written by Karen Williams. The name Harlem on Lock explains the book perfectly; Harlem is the name of the main character. This book portrays Harlem struggles and finding the perfect dad and man to love her. She does this while going from the projects to a beautiful upscale life after the death of her heroin addicted mother and her heroin addicted father who raped her. A drug dealer name chief saves her but then makes her his sex prisoner basically, and throughout the book Harlem has to try and leave while getting her real man back , and still finding out about her two fathers. Pick a character that interested you and write about them in depth. You can also analyze a relationship between two different characters. Obliviously now by reading I'm going to talk about the main Character Harlem and her four different male relationships. I'm going to compare:
- Stuckey (Real father) vs. Uncle Earl (fake father for eighteen years)
- Savior (Neighborhood Crush) vs. Chief (Abusive drug dealer)
Savior is the man who grew up next to Harlem in the LA project he, one day after he realizes that Harlem didn’t have a Christmas she ends up going shopping with her neighborhood crush Savior who's a couple years older than her. Then savior takes her to a swap me and said to her "I'm getting out out of here real son. Maybe somewhere like Colorado. Build a life out there. How bout it, Harlem? Would you leave with me?" then she says yes (Page-39). The relationship between theses two characters is on and off but basically it’s much better than her and chief.
When Harlem gets home one day her dad hits and her and someone jumps her dad which then causes her mom to take them to the hospital so then Harlem has to do a stripper job but then savior comes and saves her from that too. Then Aja the mom dies of a drug overdose than her dad to make money takes her virginity so she can start prostituting out of her house. This time around Savior can't save Harlem because he got arrested but she doesn’t know that so. The prostituting leads to chief the head drug roller taking care of Harlem for a whole year but that comes with a price, of being his girl but that comes with pain.
Chief is a horrible drug dealer that at first teaches Harlem that you can still be fine and rich. He takes her in after raping. But then after a while of chief being nice he loses it and starts to make crazy sex tapes, raping her in front of friends, and even once at her birthday party she didn’t want to sleep with chiefs friend so he drown her in the pool in front of everybody. Who was this hero to save her Savior was.
The difference between Savior and Chief when it comes to Harlem is that Chief is the real hero he doesn’t beat Harlem in to making her do things. Chief has a serious control problem and when the major drug dealer that was before him goes to jail for 20 years and comes out he even tries to put Harlem in harm’s way. The way he treats her is not like her man, but after being brought up in the projects and never having anything when she met chief all of that changed for good. She was blinded by all the shopping he could do for her, she couldn’t look past that. But the thing is Savior could have got her all of that. But when he’s arrested and know one know what happened Harlem begins to think that Savior is like her parents, bad people that leave her every time the tough gets going, and then he comes out of jail and he saves her again and again and again, like a true savior.
Now Harlem has her dad Earl who raped her as a teenager and her real dad stuckey a major drug dealer who she doesn’t find out about until later on when she is trying to overcome chief. As a child Earl was very mean to her no matter the grades no matter what she did he wasn’t satisfied. Once when Harlem was little she moved earls hand from his face so he wasn’t mad and he said “You ever touch me again ill slap you silly”, and ever since then Harlem knew that her and earl would never have that father daughter relationship. Harlem met Stuckey when he was just getting out of jail and he came to visit chief, he demanded that chief give back the land of drug property that was his territory to sell. But he didn’t.
When Earl rapped Harlem she didn’t like him in the end when he went to rehab did a good job got left and then went to the hospital and was in a comma, Harlem went to go speak to him. Earl had asked about her and wanted to go see her badly. When she finally went she said her words and a couple days later when he died Harlem felt OK she wasn’t stressed or anything, but she wasn’t sad for his death. This shows that she can get over a dramatic event and move on and live her life to the fullest with savior by her side.
When Stuckey died in the shootout with Chief she was sad, she honestly loved him as a father even though the lifespan of time spent with Harlem between Earl and Stuckey is the same Stuckey had as much lasting effect. Stuckey offered Harlem a chance to give him a second chance and really raise him, but it didn’t happen and she was sad that she said No. That was one of her only things that she regretted doing.
So to analyze all four of Harlem’s relationship I can say even though she may start off bad, she ends of in a good note.Ha
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
8. Pick a character that interested you and write about them in depth. You can also analyze a relationship between two different characters.If you read my last blog posts I basically gave summary of what the book was about, and while reading my comments I realized that I had forgot to talk about the question I would be answering while writing my essay in two weeks so here's the question AGAIN:
Pick a character that interested you and write about them in depth. You can also analyze a relationship between two different characters.
Obliviously now by reading I'm going to talk about the main Character Harlem and her four different male relationships. I'm going to compare:
- Stuckey (Real father) vs. Uncle Earl (fake father for eighteen years)
- Savior (Neighborhood Crush) vs. Chief (Abusive drug dealer)
In order for you the reader to Understand what I'm talking about You have to understand the rest of the story. So last time I left out on the part where Savor had just come back into Harlem's life. By this time chief was annoying the f*** out of Harlem with everything he did to her, the constant horrifying sex, the beating, and especially the lock down.
But when savior comes back into the picture he fumed at the fact that Harlem is with Chief the only real problem is that Savior doesn't know or realize that Harlem isn't still with chief because she wants to but because she is shit out of luck. But soon later on after chief goes on one of his crazy rampages with Harlem she sends Harlem out on a dangerous drug mission with Savior. But when Savior finally talks to Harlem about whats going on in her life she finally realizes the truth and that makes him fall for her even more.
They then start to re-kindle what the had before in the lovely Las Vegas, but have to keep it a secret; and at the end of there drug trip Savior offers her the chance to run away from her but it she chooses not to go because of what Chief will do to Savior. But later on on Harlem's first Birthday Chief drowns her in front of everyone at her party, which really causes makes Harlem believe it's time to leave chief and that's exactly what she did.
But when she leaves she meets her real father then he dies in a gun down and she ends up killing chief and like many stories she lives happily ever after.
They then start to re-kindle what the had before in the lovely Las Vegas, but have to keep it a secret; and at the end of there drug trip Savior offers her the chance to run away from her but it she chooses not to go because of what Chief will do to Savior. But later on on Harlem's first Birthday Chief drowns her in front of everyone at her party, which really causes makes Harlem believe it's time to leave chief and that's exactly what she did.
But when she leaves she meets her real father then he dies in a gun down and she ends up killing chief and like many stories she lives happily ever after.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
So the book I decided to read for Mr.Sutherland's English class this time around was Harlem on Lock by Karen Williams. This book is extremely interesting and I suggest to people who enjoy bold about Black characters going through a struggle and rising up go ahead and read this.
In this book the main characters name is Harlem even though she was born in Harlem she lived in California since she was born. Before she was born he father and mother moved out to California so that they can get away from there heroin addiction, but even back in the projects of L.A they still found heroin. In order for Aja Harlem's mother to upkeep there drug addiction she has to prostitute herself but she becomes very ugly so no man really wants to by her out so then she ask Harlem to perform sexual favors to the landlord for heroin and she does but after that shes still a virgin so she didn't have to have sex with.
Harlem Becuase if her parents addiction doesn't have nice clothes shoes or anything and with that when Christmas rolls around she has no one to spend it with and she doesn't get any presents from anybody so it's like really bad. Then she ends up going shopping with her neighborhood crush Savior who's a couple years older than her. Then savior takes her to a swap me and said to her
"I'm getting out out of here real son. Maybe somewhere like Colorado. Build a life out there. How bout it, Harlem? Would you leave with me?" then she says yes (Page-39).When Harlem gets home her dad hits and her and someone jumps her dad which then causes her mom to take them to the hospital so then Harlem has to do a stripper job but then savior comes and saves her from that too. Then Aja the mom dies of a drug overdose than her dad to make money takes her virginity so she can start prostituting out of her house. This time around Savior can't save Harlem becuase he got arrested but she doesnt know that so. The prostituting leads to chief the head drug roller taking care of Harlem for a whole year but that comes with a price, of being his girl but hat comes with pain. After some years of pain and betrayal Savior is released from jail and is back in Harlems life as Chiefs main soldier.
Friday, April 1, 2011
It's weird in most people Vignettes project at some point they talked about there family. Most people either talked about injuries, emotions, past expirences, hair, and the oh-so common topic of family. Most people when they talk about family they talk about how close they are to there family,ot what there fmaily personally means to them. I didn't see alot of vignettes where there were certain people picked out from others; when looking for some commmon topics to talk about I saw the words Dad in several languages. There was the Tatuszu Kasia's pronuctiation in polish, Papi Christians Dad in Spanish, and Ldazhe in the once again oh-so common language of english; just Dad.
When reading Kasia's vignette she talks about who her father is in my opinion and what he means to her
My Dad, my tatuszu, he’s so conservative. Born and raised in Polish communism in the 60’s, refugee status in the late 80’s- he can’t help himself sometimes, you know. (Kasia)
Now looking at Christian's vignette he uses the words Papi to describe his father instead of saying Dad or Daddy, and when he uses these words to describes this type of special experience he had with his father.
PAPI! HOLD ON! (Christian)
Come on Cristian, hurry, there’s a neat little smell over by that tree.
See when Ldazhe talks about her father unlike Christian or Kasia she doesn't use a special word to describe her father or a special relationship with her father; it's like becuase she doesn't have this positive realtionship she has no special word; maybe it is becuase she doesn't call her father anything but dad, but it was still kinda crazy.
I knew my dad like I knew the dark scared me. Yet I never knew my dad would become what I was afraid of....I didn’t recognize my dad and his ferocious face, red and swelling. (Ldazhe)
And instead of saying poring oh "Dad" she adds in this "Tatuszu" I'm not even sure if in Polish Tatuszu means father but it's a ncie descritive word to say father; after I get this point of Tatuszu and a fighter based on Kasia's words I think that Kasia is proud of her father.
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