Story Map

Information Technology High School
Ms.Hyde
English 5/Period 8^th
October 23, 2008
Pooja Kar

Title: The Lock and Key, by Sarah Dessen

Characters & Characterization:

Protagonist: Ruby Cooper, a seventeen year old girl, who thinks that she can do anything herself. She grew up in an environment where you don’t ask for help, it’s either you can do it or you can’t. She really never got her mother or father love when she was young; the only person she could count on was her sister Cora. Cora left for college when Ruby was ten years old with a promise that she’ll come back for her. Since then on Ruby began to realize that you can’t usually trust people. She thinks accepting help from others that’s a sign of weakness and she’s anything but weak.

Antagonist: Ruby Cooper, the mother of Cora and Ruby. She named Ruby after herself. Ms.Cooper started to change her perspective when her husband divorced her and left. Like Ruby she herself thought that excepting help from other was bad and weak. She always tries to show her point but when her daughter Cora left she realized that no one usually stays, they eventually leaves you behind. So with that thought she took Ruby away from her home and started moving from one place to another. Ruby watching her mother growing up and seeing how her mother became she started to have those feeling and thought that people don’t stay and she never gave anyone a chance to come close to her. Ms. Cooper didn’t corrupt Ruby physically but emotionally by showing her the wrong reason in life.

Setting:

Setting Time: Present time and one year ago

Setting Place: Little yellow farmhouse and Cora’s house.

The yellow house is very important place for Ruby. It’s a part of her that left behind when her mother left her and the social worker found her. It’s a past that might take some time to get over because she partly was raised herself.

Cora’s house is a place where she moved in when the social worker found out that she was only seventeen and still underage. It’s a place where she started to see and feel like she has a family, privilege and relationship which all new to her and it frightens her. Both of the houses holds a meaning to Ruby, one holds a past that she has to let go and start over and the new house is a place where she knows that she can and finally have a place that she might call her home.

Vocabulary:

Vigorously- energetic or forceful.

Imperceptibly- very slight, gradual or subtle.

Accumulate- to gather or collect, often in gruel degree.

Inane- lacking sense, significance or ideas.

Derivative- not original.

Plot: Ruby Cooper living alone in a little yellow house waiting till the day of her eighteen birthdays’ to come, when she’ll be legally adult. Her hopes were crushed when social workers came and asked her “Where is your mother, Ruby?” a question that she has no answer for. It also wasn’t her plan to be reunited with her long-lost sister Cora, who has to take care of her till she’s eighteen. Suddenly the life she knew is gone and completely wiped out. In a new world where she learns about family, privilege and relationship a thought that never came to her mind is suddenly front of her to live it. Ruby also learns the difference between being given help and being able to accept it. And sometime, it takes a little reaching out to someone to safe yourself.

Exposition: Ruby walked into her new room where she’ll be staying. Jamie, her sister’s husband, who is showing around the house while her sister is behind them the whole time keeping an eye on Ruby. Jamie excitedly is explaining everything to Ruby; he is even showing her the backyard where he is going to make a pond. She has flashback about her past when her and her mother moved into the yellow house and when their landlord came over for a friendly visit and her mother was pissed but didn’t show it.

Ruby planned to escape when her sister and her brother-in-law are asleep. When she was going to jump the gate because she didn’t want to take a chance by the front door she was caught by her next door neighbor. Nate was at the pool swimming that time when he saw Ruby trying to climb the gate but she was stopped when Jamie came back from walking Roscoe their dog.

Rising Action: Ruby decided to give it a chance to stay with her sister till she becomes eighteen and then leave. Ruby started to go to Perkins Day High, a private school. Cora and Jamie made a deal with Nate to carpool Ruby to and from school so she doesn’t need to take the public transportation, which Ruby thought it was unnecessary. Ruby’s first assignment in her English class was “What is family?” A question she never knew the answer too. Growing up in broken up family, she thought it was better for her not to write about her experiences. Later on the week she went to mall because her sister forced her to go and buy new cloths for herself. There she meets Harriet, a saleslady, who has a help wanted sign. Ruby thought it would good for her to have a job to save up.

Climax: Ruby and Cora got into a huge argument about what really happen. It all started when Cora said that she forgave her for not coming to her wedding, which got Ruby mad because in first place she always thought she was never invited. They both were deceived by their mother. Cooper lied to both her daughter about everything. Ms. Cooper lied to Cora about Ruby never wanting to see her and to Ruby about that her sister left her and never wanting her in her life. The huge moment in this story was when Cora told Ruby that she tried to get her back but their mother was in their way and that truth that their mother left Ruby before Ruby can leave her. Cora wanted to explain things to her but Ruby ran out of house. When she got to school she asked one of her friend Olivia to take her to the yellow house where her past is link to.

Falling Action: Except going to the house she went to the wood which is a mile away from her house and there she meets Adam, her friend boyfriend, there she got drunk and smoked some joint trying to forget what happen that day earlier. From there she went to meet her so called boyfriend so she can have someone to talk to. Instead she walks into his room where he and her friend were all up on each other. She realized that no matter what you try to do even if you try to open up you do get hurt eventually. When she got home late that day she thought that Cora was going to be mad at her whom she can handle but when she saw that it was Jamie who was mad she couldn’t take it. She felt so guilty, that she didn’t realize that she wasn’t just hurting herself but the people around her especially Jamie and Cora. Nate is always there to help her out when needed, because he has secret of his own. He also thinks that he’s not wanted, so he keeps up with what his father does to him. He gets abuse whenever he does something wrong. So Nate and Ruby always there for one another, no matter what the circumstances are, but Ruby wants to take action for what is Nate going trough the only thing that is holding her down is Nate himself.

Resolution: Ruby finally got her question, “What is family?” answered. She now knows that family is the people who’ll be there no matter what, for hardship and for pure enjoyment. To start over again you have to let go of the past and maybe sometime give and get a second chance. She took hold of Nate’s hand and told her sister what was going on with him and his father. She was inspired what her sister does for others and slowly she realized that she even did that for her but mostly in a loving sisterly way. Ruby later on realize that something small can be big if you let it happen but one thing you should always remember is that you have to be the one let someone in to help you. Later on when Nate went to Arizona to live with his mother till the day he leaves to go start college. Cora and Jamie are both happy that Ruby got into a college and that they are both going to be parents really soon.

Quotes:

“…not everything’s perfect, especially at the beginning. And it’s all right to have little bit of regret every once in a while. It’s when you feel it all the time and can’t do anything about it…that’s when you get into trouble.” Page 169-170

I think this quote is saying that not everything can be perfect but you have to try to make it the best. There are no consequences if you feel like you did something wrong and its natural thing but if you think you always going to be doing something wrong every time you try then you have a problem. In everyday life human being makes mistake and you try to see what you did wrong and make sure that it doesn’t happen again. There are some people out there in the world who thinks that what ever disaster happen it’s all there fault. In this quote Jamie was trying to explain to Ruby that no matter what happens you have to know that you took a chance and there might regrets later but you have a satisfactory of knowing that you took the risk.

I agree with this quote because as human we do make mistakes but we learn how to accept and fixing it. Growing up we learn that nothing in this world is perfect, it’s up to us to make the better of it. There are times when you have regret when you think about “I should have or I shouldn’t have”. There are your basic regrets but what’s important is that you took the chance of something different that you might like or not. It all depends on you to make the choice.

“If you accept the worst you’ll never be disappointed” Page 340

I think this quote is saying that you get so use to of something bad happening that you usually take it as something normal. For example in this book we see how Ruby deals with her life changing but do we even realize that she keeps on thinking that something horrible is going to happen any minute. She’s never that surprise when she assume that something is wrong but she get surprise when she see’s that nothing bad is going to happen. I remember this one part in the book, which she was excepting her sister to kick her out that she even didn’t try to unpack her things but her sister surprised her by saying that they should go shopping for new things. We assume the worst for that we’ll never be disappointed when it happens but she should always think positive because things can happen.

I agree with this quote because we do assume the worst when something happens. I always think of the worst and when it happens am not that as disappointed as I should be. I guess we kind of get use the idea of us doing something wrong that we take it as our normal daily life.

Conflict: Man vs. Self

Ruby is having a hard time adjusting into her new life, where she has constantly fighting her own emotions and thought. She keeps on thinking that she’s better being on herself then letting other people taking care of her. She doesn’t realize that sometime to help yourself you might need someone else help. She pushes everyone away who wants to help her thinking that she can do it on herself and like I said in the beginning she thinks excepting help from other is a sign of weakness.

Themes:

Family is Important:

Ruby and Cora is struggling to fix their relationship. Sometime family can be a handful, but for Ruby it’s all new. She knows that she had a perfect family when she was young and she also knows that she had a sister who would do anything for her, but those where in the past. Now she’s not even sure she wants to get to know her sister or her brother-in-law if she’s planning on leaving soon. “What is family?”(Page 161) a question that was asked by her English teacher but an answer she didn’t know. She knows the basic definition of family, but what does it truly means to her. She slowly lets her sister and other people into her life, she finally realize that family isn’t something you can choose it’s given to you. You might hate them in certain time but you always love them no matter how much they might have hurt you. They love their mother a lot that they hope that she’ll be okay when she gets out of rehab. Ruby and Cora, both realized that no matter what happens on the way, you eventually go back to the people you started with, your family.

Giving and Getting Second Chance to Start a New Beginning:

In “Lock and Key” there is a very big theme where everyone deserves a second chance in life. And that’s what happens to Ruby, Cora and Nate. They all got second chance but it all depended on themselves to giving it and accepting it. Cora wants to start a new beginning with Ruby but it depends on her if she wants to accept it or not. Ruby tries to give a second chance to Cora when she realizes that Cora is trying in her part to start something. Seeing this, Ruby realizes that to have a family you have to reach out and hold on to that person. Jamie also taught her that to start all over you need a new self which can be done by fixing few flaws but other then that you should be the person you want to be not what other excepts of you. Nate was going to the same thing but in his case he was being abuse by his father. When he was going to move back with his mother in Arizona, Ruby told him to give it a chance to make amend with his mother because she might just surprise him. Nate and Ruby realizes that to start over only depend on what you do.

Literary Elements:

Flashback:

Ruby has a lot of flashback about her past before she moved in with Cora. Most of her flashback would lead her back to the yellow house where everything changed. “The Honeycutts owned the little yellow farmhouse where my mom and I had been living for about a year” (pg 5) Her mom and her used to move from place to place and they use to forge their background so no one would ask question when they would disappear again in the middle of the night. Ruby’s usually use to do her mother jobs because her mother would either sleep in or go out and get drunk. Their job was “Commercial Courier called itself an ‘all-purpose delivery service’” (pg 32) it was a delivering job when you return lost luggage’s to the customer when they couldn’t find it in the reclaiming area at the airport. She also started to remember about her past with her sister Cora. Where Cora would come and help her out in night or she’ll stay by her when their mother was drunk. “Shhh, I remembered her saying as we stood in our nightgowns in our bedroom…If my mom was sleeping Cora would hold my hand and we tiptoed into the kitchen.” (pg56)

Symbolism:

In this story a key is the symbol of Ruby past life. The key holds something dear to her because she had a chain go through the hole so she can keep with her all the time. “…I’d just lifted it up gently, reassured to see that the outline of that key remained on my skin, the one that fit the door to everything I’d left behind.”(pg17) The key holds a strong meaning for Ruby because it was something that she only knew about when she growing up and then suddenly it to go away, it was hard for to let go. She’s wasn’t even sure if she wanted to let go till then end of the book when it said that she dropped the key into pond and was watching it sinking down till it disappear because she was letting go of the past and was ready to take on a new life and challenge.

Mood:

This story has a lot of moods; some are sad, anger, happy, fear and finally love. The author wrote this book in a way that you can feel the emotions that were coming out of the text. In the beginning you can feel the combination of sad and fear mixed together. Ruby felt sad and scared because that her mother left without a word and then she suddenly has to lie with her sisters. She probably always felt that something will happen but to her surprise she never knew that she did have some fear in her to know that she might be alone in this world. You can also feel the anger when Cora tries to comprehend with her. The little sister she use to know isn’t there any more and Cora blames herself about it. “She dropped her hand from the rack, then turned to face me. “Because you’re a minor” she said “and your mother abandoned you.”(pg45) Also when Jamie lost his temper when Ruby came home drunk and high when she ran out of the house the day when she and her sister got into an argument. In the end of the book you can sense the happiness and love of a family. Ruby realizes that family and true friends are the only two peoples in the whole world if going to drop what they doing just to be there for you.

Annotated Bibliography:

Dessen, Sarah. Lock and Key. New York: Penguin Group, 2008.

Sarah Dessen’s Lock and Key, takes you in a ride, where a girl is just trying to find out where she belongs. Ruby Cooper a seventeen year old girl who is abandoned by her mother in a yellow house, one afternoon when she came back from school. The social worker came to her house and told her that her game was over and that she needs to go with them until they a place that she can stay. With all the reason, she never accepted to be reunited with her sister Cora, who was gone or out of her life for ten years. Suddenly living in a whole new world where you have family, privilege and relationships are more important, a place that Ruby thought she’ll never have. Then why is she ungrateful, and not letting anyone coming close to her? Why does she carry a key around her next and what does it symbolize? Only one person can break down those walls that are surrounding her heart and thought, and that is the cute, popular boy next door Nate. And if he does will Ruby learn how to help other while she also learns how to accept help as well.