My name is Margaret is short story about a young African American woman named Margaret who works as a servant for a wealthy white woman named Mrs. Cullinan. Mrs. Cullinan has such little regard for her servants that she refuses call them by their real name. After some time Margaret becomes angered and won't tolerate this oppression any longer. She decides to break some of Mrs. Cullinans favorite kitchenware as a way to stand up to her authority. We are examining this story to extract a common theme of challenging authority and breaking the status quo. Margaret had become desperate and frustrated about her situation with Mrs. Cullinan. Margaret couldn’t quit the job because her mother wouldn’t allow her to. She needed to find a way to be fired from her job so she could escape the oppressive environment. She soon found a way to do so while also tormenting this insensitive woman at the same time. Margaret intentionally dropped and shattered a casserole dish and two green glass coffee mugs, all of which were Mrs. Cullinans prized family heirlooms from her mother. Margaret’s decision and subsequent actions were fueled by anger and frustration. While not the most mature course of action I believe it was the best thing she could have done at the time. I don’t think there was a way for her to reason with Mrs. Cullinan or to handle the situation diplomatically so she chose the next best thing and it was ultimately very effective. The moral of the story is that Margaret was in a very oppressive environment and she made a courageous decision to incite change and to establish the fact that she too is powerful. When I was 14 my friend Rob and I agreed to clean up leaves for a family friend and he would pay us for the work. We went on a Saturday morning and began the simple but somewhat large task of moving many fallen leaves from the driveway, patio and lawn into the surrounding wooded area at the back of the house. The neighboring property on the opposite side of the house was only separated by a split rail fence and was also littered with fallen leaves. Halfway through our day, we were encountered by a man on the other side of the fence claiming that we had pushed some leaves onto his property. He demanded that we come onto his side of the fence to remove them. The leaves had obviously been there for some time and the man was attempting to persuade us into cleaning up a portion of his property so he wouldn’t have to. Rob and I became immediately aware of the man’s dishonesty and lack of respect. Again he insisted, pointing at the debris strewn across his lawn. We argued for a few moments and indicated our awareness of his deceptive behavior. The man realized that we weren’t dumb enough to be swindled. He immediately began to withdraw and even commended us for standing up to him. His change in tone was laughable. Rob and I felt a small sense of victory and scoffed at the man as he retreated back to his house and we continued our work.
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