Hanging Fire by Audre Lorde: A Teenage Pregnancy

Many teens nowadays not only suffer with the anxiety of getting into college, but also suffer with the anxiety teen pregnancy may bring. "Hanging Fire" by Audrey Lorde helps depict the lives of many young girls who suffer through teen pregnancy. Those girls suffer through the isolation, neglect from their parents, and the negative thoughts others give them. "I am fourteen and my skin has betrayed me", the girl in the poem now has to see her stomach expand, due to her pregnancy, at such a young age.
The girl feels too young to be dealing with pregnancy "and momma's in the bedroom with the door closed". The girl feels neglected, because when she needs her mother the most she is not there for her. So now that her mother has left her in neglect what will become of her? Will she be able to pull through and become strong on her own? After all we only have ourselves to count on. "Nobody even stops to think about my side of it", she may have been raped but it doesn't matter because no one believes or even wants to hear her side. Overall the poem reflects on the struggles of teen pregnancy.

A Leg Taking Over

People sometimes face obstacles in which they may or may not be able to overcome. In the text Joy, a twelve year old girl, has her leg blown off by a shotgun. Since the incident it seems as if Joy has tried to be the ugliest she can be;it almost seems as if the leg took over her. Joy became so ugly that she even changed her name to Hulga, so that it could reflect her personality. "Hulga got up and stumped, with about twice the noise that was necessary, into her room and locked the door."

 Hulga wants to make herself as ugly as possible and by stomping around she shows just how ugly she can be. There was nothing pretty about Hulga's artificial leg and she made sure that anything that crossed its path would also turn ugly. When the bible salesman came into Hulga's life she thought he was her next victim when in all reality it was her who suffered in the end. All of Hulga's pride was taken away as soon as that salesman took her leg and ran off. Hulga thought she was more superior than everyone else, but once that ugly bulk of wood was stolen from her, she realized that she was the one who was naive.

Like White Elephant Hills; Decisions Theme

Often people are faced with great life changes that can change things for the better or worse. Many times people don't know how to deal with the changes they are faced with and fall vulnerable into letting others make their decisions. I've faced some tough decisions in my life that were not decided for on my own part. It was the week before my eighth grade graduation and my mom told me we were leaving to California to attend my cousin's wedding; a part of me was excited, while the other part of me was bummed at the news that i would not be a part of my class' graduation. I remember thinking that graduation would be the last day my class would be a whole; some would go to Saint Bede, others would go to Hall, and from there only half of us would be left. Graduation was 4 years ago and still to this day I regret not going and experiencing those laughs shared at that ceremony.
In Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants", the girl was faced with a very tough decision; should she have an abortion or should she not? The girl was very young and naive and for that she was not able to decide on her own. Even though in the back of her mind she knew what she wanted to do (keep the baby), she went along with what the father of her baby, the American, wanted; and that was to get rid of the baby. The American said, "I think it's the best thing to do. But I don't want you to do it if you don't really want to". He was very low-key about wanting to get rid of the baby. Though the American played it all off cool, the girl knew that she had to do whatever the American wanted in order for him to stay. Life is all about making decisions and sometimes the decisions you want to make are altered by the thoughts of others.