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Sometimes to start over, you need to be bare so you can find out why.

Good literature draws attention to a value system that explores the greatest and worse of the human experience and the growth that it makes (1).  

In my Final paper Blank, the memoir a brown girl dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson will be a story that explores a value system that is understood as Humanity. The understanding of human nature and its dilemmas with strong themes of death, destruction, truth, and change that is written in the noble language, carries great characters who speak across the times is what makes literature great {3}.

In a brown girl dreaming, the value system that was being explored through the childhood experiences of destruction and grief through a little colored girl named Jackie who living in South Carolina was her family history. As her growing experiences continue onto another world called Ohio, where her parents were married for a short time to her pre-teenage year back in -between worlds South Carolina and Brooklyn, New York all through adulthood years, she continues her growing lessons on truth and change.

Destruction is the first theme that Jackie learns through her early childhood years of growing up in the south where the moral value of identity was being discussed as her freedom as a colored person was being mocked by racism So her father moved them to Ohio.

“ You’ll face this in your life. Someday,” my mother will tell us over and over again. “  A moment when you walk into a room and nobody is like you. It is scary sometimes. But think of William Woodson and you’ll be all right.” page 14
 
“ You can keep your South,” my father says. “ The way they treat us down there, I got your mom out of there as quick as I could. Brought her up here to Ohio. “ page 29 

Grief is the second theme that teaches the moral value of self-worth.  Being raised in Ohio where Jackie‘s parent's marriage was falling apart. Her father was proven to be an absentee father and her mother was a young woman who tried to make her life their work. But was having conflicting feelings about her childhood home and her new married life.

“ You came late in the late afternoon,” my mother said. Two days after I turned twenty-eight. “ Your father was at work. Took a rush hour but trying to get to you. But by the time he arrived, you were already here. He missed the moment,” My mother said, “ But what else is new?” page. 18

Growth is the third and the biggest theme in a brown girl dreaming that teaches the moral value of Truth. Jackie learns through her grandparents’ stories and their well-spent time moments taught Jackie how to enjoy everything in every moment.

“ You will never, “ My mother says, “ ain't in this house. You will never say ain't anywhere.”  page 68

Change is the fourth and budding theme of a brown girl dreaming that teaches the moral value of living. When Jackie leans she is not a quick learner like her sister but she is sure and steady wither thinking that makes her feel the true power of the written language.

“ I want to be a writer.” page 313

Jacqueline Woodson comes to find herself, as told in brown girl dreaming when she is given her first composition book when she starts going to school. Although she does not remember how she got a hold of the book she does remember how good the book felt in her hands and how good the sheets smelled with the pale blue lines running across it.

I tried looking for the journal entry where I wrote that I want to be an environmentalist to save the Earth’s rainforests and be a writer but I cannot find the entry to tell you the rest.  I thought maybe it was because I like putting words together because I do not think it was ever about communicating with others. Now that dream is almost gone and writing for me has changed. I can’t remember why I wanted to be a writer and now I don’t know why I want to write.

I am a writer, journal keeper and a believer in many things.

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