Share your literary essay with the rest of the students that chose this short story. Take some time to read 2 or 3 other essays. Comment on them. Your comment should be about something you noticed them doing well from our lessons. For example, "You did a really good job explaining your evidence"
“Ruth” is a short story by Laura Silverman that takes place mostly online on Twitter. The main character, Ruth, is a Jewish content creator/blogist who loves to share her thoughts, opinions and ideas on numerous topics. Everything was going well; she was getting more fame and comments by the day. Unfortunately, she soon received a tweet from a troll. Throughout the short story, we see how Ruth deals with these kinds of online haters. The author does this to teach us lessons about bullying & being assertive; Speak up for yourself, don’t let others bring you down.
ReplyDeleteDialogue is where the theme all started, in other words, when a troll left a hateful message on Ruth’s post about feminism. They commented, “Shut up Jew.” She was really frightened and didn’t know how to deal with it and because of this, Ruth was letting people bring her down. The author uses this to show an example how bad things can turn out if you persecute someone. Notably, some argue that the theme is bullying. Yet, it clearly created a theme of fears and differences because throughout the whole story, we mainly see how Ruth learns that she needs to defend herself and not let others bring her down because of who she is.
The most important part of figurative language the author used in this story was towards the end. One way they used figurative language was symbolizing the theme in a metaphor. “But it’s like all of their vitriol is bleeding into real life or something.” Simply stating that it's like the trolls were using every last bit of their cruel and bitter criticism in the comments they left. Another way they used figurative language was in the quote, “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented”, meaning to take a stand in injustice and oppression. It was also used as repetition. Ruth then went on explaining a more contemporary version of the quote. “And maybe if no one speaks up to those guys at a cafeteria table, they’ll grow up and become politicians…not allowing them to adopt from certain places because to be honest they’ve always heard bad things about those Jews”. Laura Silverman uses this to show that the theme is to speak up for yourself and don’t let others bring you down by what they say.
From the beginning to the end of the story, Ruth’s characteristics drastically changed. In the start, she was out there but got scared when a hater left a vile comment. Even when her friend told her she needed to do something about the problem, she was hesitant. In the end, Ruth realizes she can defend for herself after some of her friends encourage her to speak up for herself. She divulges, “I stand up for what’s right. So why have I not been doing that for myself?” When the troll continued to leave hate comments, she knew how to respond to their remarks soon enough. Ruth tweeted, “If I let trolls be the only voices out there, then they will win. So I will not encourage their hatefulness with my silence. Instead. I will fight back by promoting the heck out of some incredible Jewish books.” Therefore, this shows a big demonstration that explains the theme is to speak up for yourself.
In conclusion, the theme of “Ruth” is speaking up for yourself. This is first seen when the author used dialogue. Most of the communication was through tweets on Twitter left from a troll. Next, the theme was created when the author shows figurative language. Lots of repetition and metaphors were stated. Lastly, the author showed changes in the characters to create the theme. As a result, it is evident that the theme of “Ruth” is not letting others bring you down.
Nice! You explained the theme very well.
Delete“Ruth” is a story by Laura Silverman. This story takes place online/with Ruth because people keep calling her jew. The setting of this story is when she is on Twitter because since she's been on Twitter everybody's been calling her jewish and everyone's been talking bad about her. Ruth and Kaitlyn are trying to stop all of the haters so everybody can leave Ruth alone. This short story focuses on Ruth because one person found out that she is jewish and started sending her a lot of messages on Twitter and they are also hating on her.
ReplyDeleteThe author showed the theme through Dialogue. The first way the author shows dialogue through the theme is that “Pepe-Reborn couldn't get rid of her that easily K*ke.” Ruth's heart was racing because she didn't know who he was tagging so she was texting Kaitlyn for some advice but then her phone was buzzing again and again and again. Another pair of dialogue is when “Uh I meant great in it awkwardness. I'm going to bed, read more tomorrow.” She put her phone down and was hoping that disabling her account would be the right call. They were all people who were trying to bait her because they wouldn't be able to win if she wasnt online. She needed all the sleep she would get because she had a test the next day for school so she is shutting off her phone so she doesn't have to hear all the dinging.
The author showed the theme through the character changes. “Was scared when she got the first text” She was scared because she didn't know what was going on with her phone because it kept dinging. She checked her phone and saw all the messages of people calling her jew. “ Kaitlyn wouldn’t talk to Ruth for a little bit.” Kaitlyn didn't talk to Ruth because Kaitlyn wanted to end all of the drama of people calling Ruth jewish but Ruth was like no and wanted to try to find a way by herself. “They both started to talk to each other again and started to figure out things to do.” They started to talk to each other again because they wanted to figure things out so they could try and stop the people being mean to Ruth and to stop having them call her jews. This shows the theme because they stopped being friends then they became friends again to figure things out.
The author showed the theme through figurative language. “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.” If you ignore all the internet trolls that are calling her jew then they might go away and not try to annoy her. “If no one speaks to any of the guys at the cafeteria table, maybe they will grow up.” If they started to grow up maybe they would see that voting for laws isn't bad at all because all they heard about is things about all the jews. Some people interpreted it as creating the theme of friendship; however, it clearly created a theme of fear because Ruth is scared because this one boy found out she was jew and she started to make a lot of accounts to annoy her and make her scared that a lot of people knew she was jew.
At the end of the story she stood up for herself and tweeted herself . Her hands were shaking, she was really nervous and excited because the post she posted was very beautiful. Kaitlyn found Ruth in the hallway the next day at school and she asked Ruth if she was the worst because they aren't talking anymore because Kaitlyn tried to help Ruth out with all the people calling her jewish and Ruth didn't want help so then Kaitlyn and Ruth didn't talk anymore. Kaitlyn apologized and they started to talk again. So now since they are talking again and they are trying to ignore all the trolls.