In the article "On Staten Island relentless bullying is blamed for a teenage girl's suicide" Vivian Yee wants readers to know about an incident that happened at the train station just outside Tottenville High School in Staten Island, where a young girl named Felicia Garcia who had been bullied, jumped to her death in front of a train. Yee wants readers to be informed about how bullying can force young teens to do drastic and dangerous things that can result in death. She wants them to be aware of the dangers of bullying and how it can affect others and themselves. She also wants her audiences to try to understand better if the reason that Felicia committed suicide was only because of the fact she was being bullied, or something else too. Finally she wants to help people realize that even though there are laws that require schools to develop policies to get rid of bullying and stop any harassment of students by other students things like this still happen.
In this article Yee wants readers to feel suspense and shock. Yee is able to capture these emotions by opening the article by saying "Felicia rarely cried, so when her friend saw her sobbing alone in a hallway between classes at Tottenville High School she knew something was wrong." This is giving us some suspense, we don't really know what's happening but the idea of bullying gets introduced at the very beginning. It makes you wonder why this poor girl is sobbing. Yee then goes on to state that two night before Felicia had posted this message on twitter "I can't I'm done I give up" this also is giving you suspense like what is going to happen. Yee makes you feel shocked because right after she informs you this girl had "given up" she tells the readers that Felicia had hurled herself in front of a train after school on Wednesday. The shock of the train hitting her is like a shock to the reader. It really makes you think about why she did it. Was it because of the fact that she was being bullied or was it something else? It makes you feel terrible that this poor 15 year old girl killed herself. It also makes me really mad, if she was being bullied why didn't any type of authority step in? Schools need to be more aware about what's going on.
Yee also makes you feel really sympathetic because on the front page of this article there is an image of two girls hugging each other right outside a makeshift memorial for Felicia. Seeing these two girls crying and holding each other it lurches something inside of you. This girl obviously had some people that cared about her but I guess she didn't know that. It's so sad to think that someone that young would think that suicide would be the right answer. I bet the author choose this image to display the hurt and sadness of this girls death in order to make you feel sad. Once again it also makes me feel upset that this girl felt like she had to hide all her feelings. For example in the article one of her friends said "If you tried to bully her she'd laugh at you"I don't know if this was a defense mechanism for Felicia or what. It just really makes you think about what some people could have done to prevent this from happening in the first place. It makes you feel angry that this happened at all.
Finally the other thing that Yee really makes you think about is who should be blamed? They really haven't identified one person who bullied her on a regular basis, and even if they did what would they do to that person. It really makes you think about the power of the internet and the power of words. In the article Yee states "It is not clear whether anyone will be disciplined in Felicia's case." It's awful to think that no one will really be punished for this, but on the other hand would it get through to the kids anyway? I don't know. It makes me feel like something needs to be done about this kind of thing. Lots of schools are aware of bullying but they don't know how to get through to the kids.
My ideas about bullying really haven't changed because of reading this article it made my opinions stronger. I think bullying is a terrible thing that needs to be stopped. Yee made me think a lot of things about suicide and why kids do it. After reading this article I feel like I need to do something to help administrators open their eyes. People need to be informed about the horrors of bullying and why it needs to be stopped now!
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