Tuesday, February 07, 2012

TY Extended Essay: Golden, Donnelly, Yen Mah

For her Transition Year essay, Lilian Glennon wrote on Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, A Gathering Light by Jennifer Donnelly, and Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen Mah. 

Lilian writes:-

For the past nine weeks I have studied  three fairly different books  and have chosen the theme of relationships. Every book has relationships and everyone has relationships, but not everyone has suffered as much as some of the characters in  the three books that I have read. I consider people very lucky to not have gone through the ordeals that they went through, to not have experienced as much pain and loneliness some of them felt. When I read them I honestly tried to understand it but none of us can actually know what it's like unless we have.

Just  for a moment take everyone in your life and imagine them not being there and  imagine being born into a family that never wanted you and being treated harshly for everything you did or being sold off to a geisha house by your father at the tender age of nine, or to have your mother die and be expected to raise your younger sisters as a teenage girl with no help from your sometimes alcoholic father.

Read the full essay here.

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