“Happy Endings”
Lovey is a little girl who wants to be just like Shirley Temple with blond curls, pink cheeks, pouting lips, bright eyes, just perfect in Lovey’s eyes. She could not be so different than Shirley in her own mind. Lovey feels Shirley is the perfect, most acceptable little girl, she has ever seen. In “Happy Endings” Lovey is a little girl who likes happy endings. She has a very active imagination. Lovey and Jerry are friends who imagine things together, things that involve the TV shows they watch. On the “The Checkers and Pogo Show” Lovey really likes the “Merry Unbirthday” celebration where the child picked got to keep handfuls of pennies. Even though the children knew that that wasn’t a lot of money they thought to be picked would be exciting. Jerry and Lovey liked to pretend they were part of the show, Lovey really wanted to go to the show for real and be the unbirthday child. Jerry and Lovey believed in happy endings to the stories they played.
Shirley Temple movies were on TV during this time period and Love enjoyed watching them. She liked the way Shirley Temple “sob-talked”. Lovey felt that to have real happy endings to your stories you needed someone to watch you cry over them. Lovey thought Shirley was the best crier ever.
Hi BetteJo,
ReplyDeleteGreat writing. When I looked at this question on our homework I could not decide how to respond to it. I thought you compared Lovey to Shirley Temple very good.I saw a couple of grammatical errors. Thanks for the read, it was great!
Hi BetteJo,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your writing. I liked how you expressed the emotions and feeling of Lovey to the way she felt about Shirley Temple and how well she used her imagination wishing some part of her life could be like Shirley's. Thanks for the nice read.
Hi BetteJo,
ReplyDeleteYour post has me thinking about the fantasy world both Lovey and Jerry participate in. I think we learn a lot about a person's lived experience and her/his perception of that experience through her/his fantasies.
Lovey fantasizes about being one of the kids she sees on TV. In her mind, her life would be better--she'd be considered cute, wear nice clothes, have fun all the time, and be a person others envy.
I love the contrast we see in her wanting to be Shirley Temple, but ending up an Oompah Loompah. It is tragically funny.
Thanks for sharing your insights!
Lauren
HI Bette Jo,
ReplyDeleteYou bring to light very good points about the imaginary world that Lovey, and Jerry live in all the while in reality they live in a tropical paradise. It is saddening to see the reality of idolization has on kids, to see that they automatically assume that there is some thing wrong with them just because they dont look like Shirley on TV. This is a recurring problem in our society, that we are constantly surrounded with images of what it is to be attractive. I like your points thanks.
Cody.