Literary assignment
... making her decisions. “She was just an ordinary student attending classes at Columbine High School, she had an active social life, and she worked part-time at a Subway sandwich shop. The highlight of her week was her youth group.” This passionate young Christian woman had to end her life when she was 16, and her mother and father wrote the book they never wanted to write, Rachel’s Tears. Carmen’s mother was never happy with her daughter’s physical appearance. When they moved to Birmingham, away from Carmen’s dad who always supported her, Carmen starts to throw up after every meal to lose weight. She wanted to be thin, to be free. “If I was beautiful I could have everything I wanted. I could stay with Dad and Mum wouldn’t hate me.” Her mum never found out about her sickness and it got worse and worse everyday, but she didn’t sense herself getting any thinner, “I look down, gritting my teeth. Eight stone two. It’s more than last week. ‘I am fat,’ I hear myself saying, miserably, hopelessly”. “Our culture places a very heavy emphasis on physical appearance,” as Beth Nimmo quotes, looking perfect has become incredibly serious matter for teenage girls these days. Rachel was never happy with her looks. Differently from Carmen, Rachel hated her nose. “Rachel had fallen and broken her nose when she was young, and the accident left a little bump on her nose. I didn’t think it detracted from her looks at all, but she was very self-conscious about it and always wanted to have it fixed” However Rachel overcomes this aspect by simply accepting it and believing that she was never meant to be perfect. “I don’t think Rachel believed that she was suppose to be perfect. Rather she knew that the God she served is perfect”. Her family was also supporting and positive towards her look. They always considered her to be the beauty, whereas Carmen’s case her mum was the cause of her low self-esteem. One of her mum’s beliefs was that her daughter was some how going to be beautiful, perfect and thin. “I don’t care if it hurts. You’re my daughter, and I’ll have you looking nice”. “The fact that someone like Rachel had doubts about her appearance proves how difficult it is for young girls growing up today to have confidence who they are and how they look”. Being perfect also include having a stable and joyful family, which is your most reliable back up. Both characters go through the toughness of living in a broken family. “I believe that when her mother and I separated and divorced, Rachel’s sense of insecurity increased”. When Rachel was around seven years old, her parents separated and divorced. Carmen’s mother left her husband, Brian, as she moved to Birmingham with Carmen. After they left him there was no decent conversation between them, and if they tried it would end up in an arguments. “Trouble with you Brian, is you’re a bloody liar”. Rachel’s parents, however, resolved most of their problems long before April 20 1999. They didn’t end up solving these problems as husband and wife but there were no harsh feelings remaining between them. Unlike Carmen’s mother, Darrel and Beth tried not to show any negative judgment towards each other in front of their children. Rachel was only seven when her parents got divorced however it was huge impact on her. “The two people who should have been there for her more than anyone else couldn’t keep their marriage together. This affected her in way that I will probably never fully understand.” When Carmen knew her mum left her dad for good, all she ever thought about was getting back with her dad and never seeing her mum again. Rachel also missed her dad very much, although she learnt to live with it and support her mum with prayers; “Dear God, I ask for your help in this household. I ask that you replace the hate, with your love”. No teenage girls can escape from friendship troubles. Not even Rachel. Rachel wrote much about friendship in her journals, poems in particular. She started to struggle with her friends as she decides to live by her faith. “I lost all my friends at school. Now that I have begun to walk my talk, they make fun of me”. Her friends literally turned their backs on her because she decided to ‘walk her talk.’ However Rachel choose not to care. She takes it as an advantage and reach out to students who were lonely or sad or hurting in some way. “I have no more personal friends at school. But you know what… it’s all worth it to me. I am not going to apologize for speaking the Name of Jesus.” Carmen already struggles with her fr...