"the first day" summary
Gaby Setiabudi
Ms. Stronks
ELA
March 16, 2015
Ms. Stronks
ELA
March 16, 2015
“The First Day” Summary
The short story “The First Day” by Edward P. Jones take space in New Jersey during a September morning. It tells the story of an African American, five rear old girl, who wants to go to kindergarten. She must fight against people who are against her coming due to the area she live in order to achieve this goal. First, she explains how dressed up with perfume, perfect hair, and her favorite dress with excitement as she goes to school. Then, as she walks up the stairs of Seaton Elementary School with her mother, a woman greets them “, and she acts as if she had known me all my life,” (pg. 25) by touching her shoulder, cupping her hand under chin. After that, the lady asks them where they live and when they answer, the woman shakes her head and explains how that area is too far for their school and tells her mom she can’t attend. Next, the mom stubbornly tells the woman, “I want her to go here,” my mother says. “ If I’ da want her someplace else, I’d took her there.” (pg. 25) the woman tells her the area is to far where Seaton provides. Next, she takes her daughter to another school, Walker Jones, which is a larger and newer school which her daughter is quite fond of. Finally, as her mom walks up to register, she asks the lady to help her since her mom had just explained she could not read and write and gives her daughter a look of embarrassment and shame, a look she has never seen before. As the story ends, she hears the multiple sounds of children running and talking, but above it all she looks behind and listens to the sound of her mother’s footsteps leaving.
The short story “The First Day” by Edward P. Jones take space in New Jersey during a September morning. It tells the story of an African American, five rear old girl, who wants to go to kindergarten. She must fight against people who are against her coming due to the area she live in order to achieve this goal. First, she explains how dressed up with perfume, perfect hair, and her favorite dress with excitement as she goes to school. Then, as she walks up the stairs of Seaton Elementary School with her mother, a woman greets them “, and she acts as if she had known me all my life,” (pg. 25) by touching her shoulder, cupping her hand under chin. After that, the lady asks them where they live and when they answer, the woman shakes her head and explains how that area is too far for their school and tells her mom she can’t attend. Next, the mom stubbornly tells the woman, “I want her to go here,” my mother says. “ If I’ da want her someplace else, I’d took her there.” (pg. 25) the woman tells her the area is to far where Seaton provides. Next, she takes her daughter to another school, Walker Jones, which is a larger and newer school which her daughter is quite fond of. Finally, as her mom walks up to register, she asks the lady to help her since her mom had just explained she could not read and write and gives her daughter a look of embarrassment and shame, a look she has never seen before. As the story ends, she hears the multiple sounds of children running and talking, but above it all she looks behind and listens to the sound of her mother’s footsteps leaving.