The Party On Demand Essay

The Party

When the story begins the girl comes upon her supposed friends who have recently received invites to the “most important party of the year” and is speculating about how great it would be if she was invited to the party. She thinks about how much she wants to be popular and how much she idolizes Bridget, the popular girl throwing the party.  A quote from the first page shows how important this party is to the school. “To not be invited meant standing in stagnant water.”    Even when all her friends already have their invitations and she doesn't, she keeps on hoping. Her hope is shown in this quote:  “…that Bridget was still holding an envelope with my name on it”.

    

Towards the middle of the story, the main character converses with her classmate named Meredith about the party. Neither of them had been invited, but they showed very different reactions to this rejection. Meredith’s versatile opinion about the party greatly surprises our main character and left her with a feeling of empowerment: “I wish she’d invited me so I could tell her no. She’s such a brat. And all that phony hugging. What’s that all about anyways?” What Meredith says allows her to realize that the party is irrelevant- that it would not change who she was.   After her conversation with Meredith, she then goes back to her lunch table. Her friends try to console her and the main character begins worrying again, even with Meredith’s inspirational speech fresh in her mind.   Her anxieties and insecurities resurface quickly, “Maybe she didn’t invite me because of my hair. It’s so long and stringy. Maybe it’s my coat. It is pretty ugly compared to some of the other girls’ coats. I should have bought another color.  But what does it really matter? None of my clothes match. I’m way too tall but there isn’t anything I can do about that, and she couldn’t not invite someone to a party because they were too tall, could she?  Maybe I should smile and hug more but I just can’t get into hugging people unless I know them really well. Probably if I’d smiled more, I would have been invited.” As you can see she now resorts back to petty insults to herself trying to come up with a plausible explanation for her “social exile.”

After going on a very bumpy road the main character comes upon a shaky resolution. Though at first she desperately wished to attend the party by the end she decides it’s not worth the stress or the hassle. Unfortunately, she still yearns secretly for popularity, so when she sees Bridget approaching her with an invitation she tries not to get her hopes up. Bridget offers her the invitation making her heart soar until she comes to this realization “I am an afterthought. I am not on the A list. I'm just filling the space so the vans will be full. Take it, you know you want to go.” This makes her brave and the war that was waged in her mind over the small envelope comes to an end. She finally had the courage to come to produce a decision.

Throughout the course of the story, the protagonist went through a great ordeal about a something as trivial as a single party. This helps her reevaluate the concept of being herself. She now realizes that she doesn’t need to be popularity to be happy with herself and that no one can tell her who she is or what she should be, least of all Bridget. This lesson is a hard one to learn, especially for one so young but our main character learns it quickly and lets it override all the stupidity and drama of school.

     How would you feel if you were excluded from a big event all your friends have been invited to?  There’s one girl who will sympathize with you. In the short story “The Party,” there is a party to which the main character (who is the only one who was left out) is not invited to. Through the course of the story the girl, who is first unbelievably saddened by not getting invited, becomes more independent and breaks away from the hierarchy of cliques and traditional roles in a school, coming to terms with herself and her priorities. The girl learns that popularity and the newest things do not really matter in life.

The Skeleton Key Ending

           This was horrifying. I was being strangled for the outside in. Before I even moved Itchoua was already pulling something out of the wall, from a place I had never seen. He opened a large kit marked emergency and started mixing things. Then I remembered, he had used to be a scientist before he retired to this job.
        "Rat poison, I am making an advanced rat poison," he explained, never looking up.
         Days passed and he never moved from the lap top unless he was throwing a new batch out the window. It got so bad we had to force feed him, but the rats never died. Contrary to that, the rats seemed to get more vicious with each questionable liquid that was thrown at them. Finally Itchoua stood up in a daze. A sudden anger struck him and he chucked some chemicals across the room which immediately started a fire. Le Gleo raced to put it out, less the rats got in but Itchoua just stood up and hit the wall where the lab top had been.
        "We are doomed," he choked out in a strangled voice.
        Blizzards of dust billowed out of the hiding place where the scientific kit had been stored. Something shiny caught my eye and I stumbled over and groped around until it was firmly locked in my grip. I released and found I was staring at a dainty silver key with three skeletons dancing on top.
        "What is that," Le Gleo questioned.
        "A key, and I bet I know right where it goes." With that, Itchoua took off toward our bunk room. He struggled with a bed until there was a space in between it and the wall, revealing an indent in the wall in the exact for of the key. I fumbled clumsily to put the key into the imprint, knowing that this could be our last hope. Suddenly a groan filled the room and the wall pulled back revealing a tunnel. We cautiously started down it, then wisely turned back. Gathering what we could of our dwindling supplies we began a hike that could end in death. Having only a lighter to illuminate the tunnel we trekked for what seemed like years until our food and water was gone and we were are the brink of madness and starvation. We saw the light...we were dying, but wait was that the metropolitan buzz of a city. I resisted the urge to fall to my knees, knowing very well I might not be able to get back up again and dragged my companions 50 more yards to the exit of the tunnels. I had walked 20 miles, under the ocean to save my.....that was when I blacked out.
        I woke up in the hospital with two nurses peering at me over their clip boards.
        "You saved them you know?" One red headed one smiled down at me.
        "No, I didn't, the skeleton key did," They just looked at me like I was crazy. But years later Itchoua, Le Gleo, and I still laugh and shudder about this. Now we are on a new island. It was named in our honor. The
         Skeleton Rat Island.

Foreshadowing in The Westing Game

             There are many examples of foreshadowing in The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin but the one I have chosen is a very mysterious. Foreshadowing is "the act of providing vague advance indications; representing beforehand"(http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=foreshadowing) In the book there is a bomber who is targeting people and this quote gives an awesome example of foreshadowing, "But the Wexler apartment was exactly where the bomber planned to set the next bomb" (Raskin 80). This is telling you where the next bombing is going to happen, therefore revealing part of the plot. By telling us this fact as you read on you are always on your toes expecting a bombing to happen at any time.The author cleverly showed us a new part of the story without giving too much information away like the time, date, ect. which made people excited to read on.This piece of foreshadowing helped move the story along from the last bombing to the next part of the book without saying 'Then this happened, and then this happened' it gave you something to think about or to be worried about. Overall a very intriguing foreshadow.

Impressing story (I know it's not a super cool subject but it's fun)

     In the green leafy woods the dew runs off the plants slowly as the sun is lost behind the clouds. The morning was gray and foggy, foggy enough to miss the little colony of fairies perched precariously in a tree, then again the fairy colony is almost always missed. On a leaf in a tall oak tree a little figure, Godiva, sleeps, her golden curls splayed out all around her and her wings tucked gently under her. Slowly the leaf breaks off and begins drifting towards the ground. Her eyes open wide in fright as she struggles to her feet, flailing her wings frantically. It didn't work....she braces for impact but a gust of wind suddenly carries her back up to the small bridges and platforms of her family's house. She sunk down outside her house, unready to go in after nearly dying by leaf.
     "Godiva!!! You get in here right now young lady!!" shrieked the shrill voice of her stepmother, startling Godiva and making her step into the house. "You are late and you brought no nuts," Godiva's stepmother, Thorna, spat at her.
     "I'm sorry mother-"
     "I've told you, do not call me mother," Thorna cut Godiva off, "Anyways go get nuts and if you can't find any don't even bother coming back. Why did your father have to die and leave you with me? Now go!"
     Godiva automatically turned, eyes full of tears for her father and fluttered away to the nut clearing wanting to impress Thorna by bringing home lots of nuts. Up in the air Godiva flew through the mist until she realized she didn't know where she was. A feeling of unease coursed through her as she struggled to land.
      "Help, Help," a voice carried in on the wind making the hair on the back of Godiva's neck stand up. Her mind told her to stay where she was but her wings flapped to life and propelled her towards the mysterious cry.
      She came upon the scene all too soon to mentally prepare herself for what was coming. Under a fallen tree lay a male fairy, one who should be dead. Her father.
      "Father! I thought you were dead," Godiva yelled joyously.
      "Godiva, my daughter. I am alive but soon I will be dead if you cannot get me out from under this log. Help me." Godiva's father, Randalo, said in a pained voice. With that Godiva went to work pushing the log away and pulling out her father.
       Back in the kitchen Thorna was beginning to get worried, for her stepdaughter who she claimed to hate. Finally after putting it off long enough she set out to search for Godiva, she knew how easy it was to get lost in the mist. Thorna flew through the fog until suddenly she heard cries of triumph from a site somewhere north of her. On she went until she reached a clearing in the fog. In the clearing there were two figures. A man she once knew and loved, and her stepdaughter who she too loved just couldn't bring herself to admit it after the sudden death of the girl's father.
     "Randalo? Could that be you? I thought you were dead! Godiva, my daughter, how did you find your father?" Thorna flew from the shadows over to her family.
     "Thorna, you have come. Now my family is complete. Tell me did you take good care of my Godiva while I was captured far away?" Randalo beamed with pride.
     "No Randalo I did not take good care of her well. I was a miserable woman and I couldn't be around her without hating her for being so much like you. And I am sorry Godiva, I loved you every minute but I couldn't speak to you without being reminded of your father," Thorna apologized.
    "I forgive you mother, it was not your fault." Godiva whispered.
    "I am back now and Godiva you have made me as proud as anyone can be, and while I am sorry I left you two alone no harm has befallen either of you." Randalo began.
    "I am proud of you too, child." Thorna agreed.
    "That's all I ever need. Now let's go home we've had a long day," Godiva said, taking to the air. Thorna and Randalo followed.