Good, But Not Good Enough Essay

There ar times when we tone of voice we must be perfect in order to enthrall others. No bet if we did the best we could do, if it wasnt perfect we felt like a failure. We want the approval that comes with perfect ness. every day we see a unfermented commercial or magazine masking an image of a hunky, greased up muscle man or an anorexic model with tons of make up air brushed on her corpse and purchase order compares you with that image. We as a multitude tend to use those false images of mantrap as a scale to lay out the rest of the population by and if you do non fit in that course of instruction you are not beautiful. So we reach out to be accepted to be authorise by the rest of society.In Janice Mirikitanis meter Suicide Note a new-fangled Asian American college bookman apologizes to her parents for not be perfect. Perfect in school and perfect in manners. make up though the girl worked very bad and did very well it wasnt smashing full in her mind and per adventure in her parents mind to be praiseworthy of her parents love or life itself, and so her only option was dying to abye for her hellhole of imperfectness.The poem beginsHow many notes compose/ ink smeared like raspberry prints in snow./ not honest adequacy not pretty sufficient not alacrity enough / dear mother and beginner ./ I apologize/ for disappointing you / Ive worked hard, / not good enough / harder, peradventure to please you.(373.1-9)Clearly the girl in this poem the girl is apologizing for much more than grades. She has set unrealistic standards for herself and has a escape of self worth all because she cannot attain these standards. She cannot change the way she looks, yet she is apologizing for not world pretty enough.She withal goes on to talk about how life may start been better for her if she were a son instead of a daughter. She would be worthy of love because she associates strength, confidence, beauty and smarts with being male. I would swagger through life / muscled and bold and assured,(373.17-18).Who do we blame for this young girls negative self-image? Is it societys fault that she values being a male more than her give life or is it her parents fault for not making her feel the love that she so desperately demand right now? Obviously she was never appreciated for her work because shes constantly apologizing for not being good enough throughout the whole note and negotiation about how failure, disappointment and disapproval cause her closer to committing self-annihilation. perhaps if her parents voiced how they felt about her this tragedy could have been prevented.Further into the poem she dialogue about how she will atone for her sin of imperfectness. My sacrifice I will twilight / bone by bone, perched / on the shelf of my womanhood,/ fragile as wings(373-374.31-34). She is move with the idea of jumping from a ledge knowing that death will be the out come of her actions. Who will be there to stop he r since she doesnt matter? Not strong enough(374.35) she utters next. She doesnt yet have the courage to evaporate like a baby domestic fowl from a nest off of her window ledge. She pictures herself as a sparrow sillied and dizzied by the wind(374.39). The reason she pictures herself as a sparrow because a sparrow is a little bird that is not considered to be a really important creature. Compared to a hawk or an eagle, a sparrow is a peasant bird, or an normal bird. People have noticed sparrows before, only when never pointed them out like they would if they were a hawk or an eagle. They would praise a hawk or an eagle, not a sparrow.Each line in the poem is building the young girl up to that state of mind where only death is the escape. Shes thinking of all the things that have led her up to this point.not good enough not strong enough / not smart enough(374.48-49)Maybe this way someone will in conclusion notice her. She hopes that they will bury / my bird bones beneath / a hardy languish(374.57-59). The pine refers back to the branch where she pictures herself as a male child. The pine represents what would have happened if she turned out to be a boy. This could also mean, that in the hereafter she wants to be as strong as a pine, hoping that she would be brought back in the afterlife as a boy.The suicide was a way for the college student to be noticed. It was very unfortunate that she had to take her knowledge life just to work over attention, and to get appreciation for all the things that she had done and salvage it wouldnt be good enough for her parents.