Critical Analysis on Edgar Poe's "to Helen" (1831) and Shakespeare's "sonnet 130" and Robert W. Tucker's "a New Isolationism: Threat or Promise?"

One's Own Place

Family is an important part of one's life. Home is one's first school and family members are the first teachers. Family relationships are special and create strong bonds. The bond between grandparents and grandchildren is especially unique. Grandparents with their love, wisdom, and insight motivate grandchildren to be better people. They are very often role models and mentors for younger generations. They teach values, install ethnic heritage, and pass on family traditions. "Grandma," by Gerald Haslam, is a vivid and emotional portrait of a relationship between a headstrong boy and his bitter yet wise grandma, and the gradual development of compassionate love between them after starting out on an uneven terms.

The grandson is headstrong as proven when, despite his "Grandma's" that the one-horned toads were poisonous and they spit blood from their eyes, he captures a toad for the second time and shows it to her. In fact, he described himself as being headstrong when he says, "I was determined to keep it, although I didn't discuss my plan with anyone" (71). Furthermore, he refuses to keep silent when his aunt and uncles decide to bury Grandma in a city cemetery - "'But Grandma has to go home,' I burst. 'She has to! It's the only thing she really wanted. We can't live her in the city,"' (75). Even when the elders warn him to keep quite and that he belonged with other children, not interrupting adult conversation, he does not give up. In the end through logic and reasoning, he succeeds in convincing the elders that Grandma should in fact be buried in the place where she belonged, at the ranch, where she had lived most of her life.

Unlike the boy, who is stubborn, Grandma seems like a bitter lady as evident when despite their best effort in trying to impress her and keep her happy; she calls the boy and his father names. She calls the boy "el malcriado," meaning 'the brat,' and his father "ese gringo" (72). She refuses to speak in English making it hard for the boy to understand her. In addition to that, Grandma hated the city - "Things too civilized simply did not please her. A brother of hers had been killed in the great San Francisco earthquake and that has been the end of her tolerance of cities." It sounds like she blames

San Francisco for her brother's death and is bitter toward them for it. She is so cynical towards the city that she even wipes her feet on the earth or grass after walking on the sidewalks. The boy reveals that his mom told him "Grandma was just old and lonely for Grandpa and uncomfortable in town" (74). This shows that Grandma is bitter towards life for taking her son and other people she used to know, for not being able to stay at the ranch where she had lived for more than half a century, and at having to go from place to place trying to find somewhere she could feel comfortable.

However, in spite of being bitter, Grandma is wise as well. She tries to make the boy leave the toad, two times, first through fear and when that didn't work, by trying to make him understand. This is evident in the paragraph where she explains that he should leave the toad alone- "Because the little beast belongs with his own kind in his own place, not