Outside Reding Blog #3

This novel is similar to other novels we have read in class and movies we have watched. To begin with Bella like Richard Wright, from Black Boy, lives with her mom because her parents are divorced. Also like Richard she sees her father very rarely and at the age of 17, one year older then Richard when he moves north and lives his mother, she goes to live with her father. Another reason why she is like Richard is because like Richard she has just moved. Richard is always moving and having to get used to a new situation.

Bella is like the main characters in Black Boy, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and The 400 Blows because she is in some ways old for her age. She shows us that she has always seemed old for her age because her mom is so irresponsible when she says, “‘My mom always said I was born thirty five years old and I get more middle-aged every year.’” In response to Edward’s comment, “‘You don’t seem seventeen,’” (105-106).

Another way that Bella is like the main characters in the books Black Boy and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is that she is learning more about her surroundings and the world she lives in. Richard learns more and more about segregation and racism as Black Boy continues and Oscar from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, learns more about other people’s lives, learning that everyone has a different life. Bella finds out that the world contained things that are not normal. She says, “Well, they were something. Something outside the possibility of rational justification was taking place in front of my incredulous eyes. Whether it be Jacob’s cold ones or my own superhero theory, Edward Cullen was not… human,” when she finally accepts that there are more things in the world than she knew (138).