BookRags.com Literature Guides Literature
Guides
Criticism & Essays Criticism &
Essays
Questions & Answers Questions &
Answers
Lesson Plans Lesson
Plans
My Bibliography Periodic Table U.S. Presidents Shakespeare Sonnet Shake-Up
Research Anything:        
History | Encyclopedias | Films | News | Create a Bibliography | More... Login | Register | Help


How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over Again Study Guide

Print-Friendly  Order the PDF version  Order the RTF version
by Joyce Carol Oates
About 61 pages (18,340 words)
How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over Again Summary

Bookmark and Share Know this work well? Help others and get FREE products!

Plot Summary

In a partial and disorganized set of notes for an essay for her English class at a private school, a sixteenyear- old girl tells the story of a set of events that lead her to a house of correction and to an opportunity to contemplate her life and begin over again. Though the details are not presented in chronological order, the full story does emerge upon careful reading.

At fifteen years old, the narrator, the child of wealthy parents in one of Detroit's most affluent suburbs, escalates her habits of stealing and vandalizing by shoplifting a pair of gloves from an "excellent" department store and gets caught. Her parents react by hushing everything up and smoothing it over, and she never gets whatever attention she was craving. Her mother just wants to know why "if she.....

This is a free excerpt of 135 words. This section contains 442 words. This study guide contains 18,340 words (approx. 61 pages at 300 words per page).

Read the rest of this Literature Guide with our How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over Again Access Pass.

Ask any question on How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over Again and get it answered FAST!
Answer questions in BookRags Q&A and earn points toward
discounted or even FREE Study Guides and other BookRags products!
Learn more about BookRags Q&A
Copyrights
How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over Again from BookRags and Gale's For Students Series. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.



Join BookRagslearn moreJoin BookRags


About BookRags | Customer Service | Report an Error | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy