A hero named Mor

Though the novel does give the reader some insight as to what Mor was thinking and experiencing, I don’t think it exactly places or removes blame; Durrow seems to allow the reader to do that. I can understand why many might think Mor was a bad mother for doing the things she did, but I see Mor as a kind, loving person who would do anything to protect her children.

Durrow doesn’t give the reader much information on Roger either, but there is some dotted throughout the novel. We can piece together that he was an alcoholic and perhaps abusive, seeing as he made a conscious effort to stay away from his children to protect them. Mor left Roger and brought her children to Chicago to protect them. While there, she was in a similar relationship and began to see the racism people had against her children. Mor realized the difficult and hateful lives her children would lead. Because of this, she brought them up to the roof with her, not because she was murderous, but rather to carry out a mercy killing. She was scared for her children because of the difficulties she knew they would face and in order to protect them, she killed them.

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The theory of social justice

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky provides insight as to how terrible and destructive racism can be, but this doesn’t come as news to most readers. It addresses the already familiar issues of racism from whites as well as racism towards mulattos from blacks. While I do think that publicizing these problems does help society progress towards equality, I don’t believe that pure social justice can be achieved. Hatred is much more fluid than we would like to believe and, as history has shown us, if one group gains equality, the discrimination simply shifts rather than disappears. Xenophobia will always exist because we, as humans, tend to suppress what we don’t understand, rather than embrace and learn from it. Social justice appears to be a theoretical state, rather than actually obtainable.

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A victim of her surroundings

This story brought out many things to my mind in what a mother who commits suicide with her children goes through. The author creates a sense of sympathy for this woman who in most cases people reading an article would say how horrible she is. But this woman went through so much being abused, neglected and just the problems bottling up in her life, who wouldn’t consider such things? It shows me that our actions towards others can put so much pain and pressure on a person that it would lead them to create a wall of isolation, a wall of no way out. If only we would consider how we treat people, maybe stuff like this would not happen. But oddly in this story, Rachel seemed to always love her mother even though she jumped off the building with them. This might indicate that she did understand what her mother was going through a little bit, maybe a portion of understanding that led to hold on to the loving mother that she had. Most people would hate their mother for what she did if they survived, but no Rachel. If we would only see things as Rachel did, maybe we would have more compassion in this world.

The Birds are out

When looking at the last page it points out that everyone is a bird. The black people in the story are one bird the white people a different bird and lastly the mixed race people a different bird. This points out that people were seeing each other as what they looked like on the outside whether than what is on the inside. People would just watch what each other would do instead of asking or wondering why they were doing what they were doing. Some people were different birds though all together in my mind whether they were black or white or whatever because they would be the people to discover why a bird looks the way it does and getting to know it better over just appearance and action. One character in the story that would be like this is Laronne because she accepted Nella, Rachel, and Robbie into her life and even told the apartment superintendent that they were family. The other character that is completely different is Rachel due to the fact she stops seeing everyone just as black, white or inbetween when she starts relating the blues to her life.
Rachel is the swan that is seen at the end of the story for a few different reasons. The first one is because swans are seen as beautiful and through out the story Rachel is described as being pretty or beautiful by many different people. The next reason she is the swan that takes a little while to start flying is because Rachel takes awhile to start seeing the positive side of things and not seeing just black and white anymore. The way Rachel even describes the specific swan as being awkward points out how Rachel was different from everyone else as being both white and black. There were swans who flew away when the nickel hits the water and there are birds that stay. This swan was both for a little bit by not exactly flying away as fast as everyone else, but instead is described as running on the water for a little bit. This shows how Rachel is both white and black. Next when the bird is flying now it is the beauty that is seen in Rachel.
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An unwanted bird

Rachel had put bird feeder outside of grandma’s house which attracted an unwanted black crow. A crow like a raven, can symbolize death in this passage. The imagery here is what I believe is describing what grandma is going through with the loss of Aunt Loretta. When the crow startled grandma as if someone was breaking in, it was almost like death was knocking on the door for her. Grandma in this chapter was very concerned about her death so she was obsessed to go through her collection and cash in for here pay day. Stuff like all her vegetables and flowers in her garden died,and nothing left to save all give an idea of grandma dying in side herself.
Rachel though, didn’t seem to mind the crow as grandma did. In this too, it might describe the longing for death in Rachel’s heart because she was the only that survived. With all the struggles she’s been through with the accident and being the new girl, the unwanted bird of death might seem pretty tempting for her. And for Rachel too, grandma told her to bury her father in her heart and stop holding on to him. And maybe in a way, that’s what Rachel wanted, is to bury what happened that day but she just keeps holding on.

The Blues

When Rachel was talking to Drew about the blues what popped into my head was the reading of "Sonny's Blues" because of how the blues effects people in different ways. The way that was seen with "Sonny's Blues" was in my mind as a motivator, while in The Girl Who Fell from The Sky it was seen as a way to look forward to good times. This is shown when Rachel describes the blues as a blue bottle with a beautiful plant inside. Because of the dark color of the bottle it is hard for light to get inside the bottle. When the light is bright enough it does let the plant grow beautiful and green as Rachel said to Drew. She also goes on to think about how it would have been different if Mor would have known about the blues and been able to see better things during bad times. Rachel uses the blues to get through bad times and be able to keep her bad or sad feelings in that bottle also, but for the most part just letting the plant grow and see the beauty in life and see the good things in her life.
The fact she starts talking about the blues shows that she is now getting back in my mind atleast to the girl she was when she was with Mor and not seeing differences in races. I see this because anybody can listen to the blues where as she was starting to see what different things white people would do as compared to what black people would do. This is also points out to me that she is growing up because a young girl would never try to relate the blues or any other music to their lives because they don't necessarily have any big problems to deal with. The fact she is looking at the blues and connecting it to her life and along with Mor shows she is understanding of her life and all the problems or dilemmas she has to deal with on a day to day basis and will still look forward to the goood things or also the silver lining in her life to look at positively. For the most part I just saw this as a key part in the story to show when she is really grown up being able to not just look at the bad but also see the good. The only way this is really possible is because she deals with different races and also bigger problems day to day and at a young age to understand it better. Mor couldn't necessarily adapt to everything because of how she wasn't used to the problem of different races and therefor almost wouldn't be able to understand the blues ability to see the positive side of things she only saw the bad side.
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Escape Via Sexuality

Even though sexuality is not very prominent in the beginning of the book (because of Rachel's age) it progressively plays a larger role in the story. When Rachel is stumped or backed into a corner instead of fighting back against what she knows morally she should do, she caves and does what society and her peers would pressure her to do. First with Anthony Miller and soon after with Jesse.
Rachel caves into everything Anthony Miller could have ever asked for instead of standing up for herself and finding out on her own, she tries to allow sexuality to take over and give him what he wants. This also happens with Jesse, this is when sexuality is influenced by another escape route, alcohol. When this happens it gives off a double whammy effect and everything begins to go wrong because she does not ever confront the situation and stick up for herself. Time and time again Rachel caves and allows the world to get the best of her and she escapes by appeasing it.