Life of Pi Final Essay- A Meaningless Life

AN: I'm not quite sure about this essay. It seems really repetitive and redundant. However, I tried to get my point across and hope it is still meaningful to you.

You turn the page once more, the thin paper nearly crumbling under your touch. You eye the first word on the new sheet. Drab. You sigh and begin to write, as you have done yesterday and every day before. Yes, after working for nearly a year at the tiresome job of copying the dictionary, you are only in the fourth letter of the alphabet. You can feel the boredom seeping in through your skin, threatening to engulf you in its monotonous wrath. You suddenly stop, your pen poised barely a hair above your writing sheet. A realization spreads through your body as if you have been electrocuted. You have no purpose. The words ring clear in your mind now, and fear spreads throughout your body, the first feeling you have felt in months. Its chills send shivers through your veins as you try and process this new-found epiphany. Your life is empty. If you were to disappear, nothing in the world would change. Nothing. Life needs to have a purpose to have meaning. If you do nothing, if you feel nothing, you might as well be nothing. Without feeling and purpose, life is meaningless.

Pi Patel from Yann Martel’s Life of Pi may have known the dangers of feeling nothing, but that didn’t stop him from being tempted by an easy life of no consequences. Being lost at sea for months, it was a miracle to him when he happened upon an island in the Pacific. He soon fell in love with the island, believing that it was the perfect new life for him and his alter-ego tiger, Richard Parker. He may have stayed there forever, if it hadn’t been for the teeth he found embedded in the skin of a seemingly normal fruit. This sent a horrible realization through him- the island itself was a giant carnivorous plant that would eventually devour him, both physically and mentally. He learned an important life lesson- good things are not always what they seem. A simple, effortless way is the destroyer of life.

Just as Pi learned that he had to escape the island before it consumed him, we as people have to get out of our boxes before we are consumed by our own mindlessness. If we spend our lives stuck doing the same thing over and over again, we will never get ahead. People try to take the easy way out because they fear stepping out of their comfort zone. They figure, as Pi did, that if they can get out of the journey of life, escape into a safety zone, like Pi’s island, that they won’t have to try anymore. This is a dangerous situation to be in. You shouldn’t fear life, and fear the future. Do not fear love, do not fear pain. Only fear feeling nothing.

Although a life free of consequences is not the right path, some may ask why it’s such a bad thing to have a carefree life. Happiness, of course, is supposed to be a good thing. However, as Greek philosophy states, balance is key to life. Without an even balance of pain and pleasure, of life and death, catastrophe may occur and you may end up in a place that isn’t really all it’s made out to be. What would you have to live for if all you have is happiness? Even Pi realized that the island was not paradise, and he fled from it eagerly, knowing that true happiness was right around the corner. Sure enough, he reached real land a short time later. After all that pain he had to go through in the lifeboat, he was finally rewarded. This is true in real life as well. If we endure our pain with bravery, we will be rewarded.

Although Life of Pi as a novel is filled with challenging questions and debatable ideas, Yann Martel wants to reach out to the reader and make them understand that in life, there are no second chances. If you waste your life away now, you can’t have a promising future. Life is about taking risks, taking chances, and taking leaps, not hiding away in some dusty building copying a dictionary to earn your next paycheck. Everyone needs a real purpose, something that keeps them striving for more and challenging their spirit. Pi found himself out on that lifeboat. We too can find ourselves in our lives by stepping up and searching for real meaning. Without this purpose, this meaning, this passion, life has no meaning.

Incomplete

Incomplete. The world's simple sound pierces you like an arrow straight through your veins. It's truth is as blinding as the sun and nearly burns your senses because of it. Incomplete. The notion that there's something missing, something not in its proper place. Incomplete. To be incomplete is to be missing an important part of yourself that you on your own may not even be able to see.

The art piece 'Incomplete Open Cube' by Sol Lewitt is a simple piece that may not be considered special at first glance. It is only just aluminum painted white and formed in such a way that it appears to be a cube, but there are sides to it that are missing when you look closely. It appears to be just a simple optical illusion. However, I feel it can be taken in a variety of ways. I see it as a metaphor for people themselves who are incomplete and vulnerable because of it. After all, no matter which way you look at the piece, it just doesn't look right. It always looks as if there's something missing from the art, something slightly off-balance about the whole thing. This in itself is a metaphor.

Just like the artwork, life is nothing but an endless puzzle of shapes and lines, completely disarrayed but still fitting together to form the picture. When there's a missing piece to your life, it can rip you apart until you're a foundation of misery and despair. You'll just wander about, searching for what's missing, whether it be a person, a motive, or just simply finding yourself. When so much is missing, you can't see the full picture of life anymore. When the picture disappears, the meaning goes with it.

The metaphors and connections that this piece has for me are probably not what the artist originally intended. I believe it was just a creative way of organizing shapes, and there are many variations of this piece throughout various other museums. However, I felt the connection that I did because of what I have seen and witnessed in my lifetime already, and I know what it feels like to have a missing piece in my life as well as seeing the missing pieces in other people's lives. I think it's incredible that one simple piece of artwork can have that much impact on someone for being as unexciting as it may seem.

For all those people who are missing a piece or person in their life, don't worry! There are so many opportunities to get out in the world and find what you've been missing. Let life run it's course and you'll  be able to finish the puzzle in the end. You can't just sit by while time passes outside your window, you have to do something about it if there's something wrong. Don't let yourself be incomplete much longer- don't let yourself be missing something that you yourself can't even see.

A True Family

Response to Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees

You trudge on through the blinding rain, shivering as you go. You can see the faint glow of the city lights ahead of you and you wish that your feet would move faster. The only thing that you know is that you must reach the light, you must get away from your mundane life, and you must keep on going. Although the path you walk is hard and full of unpleasant surprises, you are not alone because you have your family with you. Life is a constant struggle of decisions, mistakes, and taking chances for everyone, and sometimes it can bring you down like a smack in the face. However, knowing that you are heading in the right direction with the people that mean the most to you can change everything. Even when times are tough, the trust and love for the people you care about will carry you through.

In the beginning of the novel The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, Taylor Greer is a teenage girl looking for an adventure. She had spent her life so far in Kentucky living with her mother and working in a hospital, and she was entirely through with it. One day, she just got up, changed her name, packed her bags, and drove off into the countryside. Taylor had planned on just driving until her gas tank run out, so she was less than thrilled when a stranger leaves a baby girl in her car and vanishes. However, over time, Taylor learns to love and protect the formerly abused girl, who she calls Turtle, and Turtle in turn learns to trust Taylor.

Both Taylor and Turtle’s lives were conflicted before they met each other. They were living in worlds where what was sacred was confused with what was profane. Neither of them had any idea what the real meaning of family was before they found each other, as well as an entire set of beloved characters, in Arizona. In life, family is not determined by whether or not you are related by blood to someone, but by the love and trust you feel for one another. The people who are your family are the ones who will stand by you and not let you get hurt. as Taylor did for Turtle. Without the love and support of a true family, life has no direction or meaning.

Love found its way into Taylor’s heart throughout the course of the novel and through many different people. After Taylor found Turtle, Lou Ann, Estevan, Mattie, and everyone else who made up her Western family group, her life became full of love and comfort. She learned things about the world she would never have noticed on her own. By the end of the novel, you can feel a sense of family, trust, and love between these people. “The sky went from dust-color gray and then cool black sparked with stars, and Turtle was still wide awake. She watched the dark highway and entertained me with her vegetable soup song, except that now there were people mixed in with the beans and potatoes: Dwayne Ray, Mattie, Esperanza, Lou Ann and all the rest. And me. I was the main ingredient,” Taylor comments on the very last page. This quote is a reminder to people everywhere that you don’t need a perfect family to be happy; you should be happy with who and what you have.

Life is a series of ups and downs, and there will be many problems that you will have to face along the seemingly endless journey. However, this doesn’t mean you have to face them alone. No matter what your past, there are people who will love and accept you for the person you really are. Even when it seems like there is no hope, the people you trust with your life will pull you through. They are your true family, and will stick with you until the end.

 

The Human Resistance to Change - Fahrenheit 451 Final Essay

You walk through the streets of the town you've grown up in, surveying the old gray buildings and the people in them. Everywhere you look, it is always the same. The people all around may as well be identical robots for all the difference in them.  In this world, there are so many invisible rules as to how to live your life that the people who inhabit it have become ashamed of the things that make them who they are. People are afraid to show themselves and stand up for what's right because they're scared of what other people may think of them.

In the novel Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag is a fireman who, at first, didn’t know what his life was about. He spent his days going by routine, and blindly following orders even when what he was doing was completely wrong. When he meets the innocent Clarisse McClellan who shows his how life should be, he begins to see his world for what it is: truly nefarious and in desperate need of change. The clearly ironic mode of this novel comes through when Clarisse is killed by a car and Montag becomes on his own with his new revelation. He knows now that his entire life has been scripted as just a phony actor on the stage, just like everyone else’s  around him. However, when he tries to send a message to the world by disobeying the rules, his house gets burned down because of it. People are blind when it comes to the truth, because they don’t want to be told that their entire lives have been done wrong.

The fact that Montag’s discoveries were being shunned by his peers  is strikingly  similar to the plot in “Plato’s Allegory of the Cave”. In the allegory, a man who has been chained to the inside of a cave his whole life, telling stories about a fire he can’t even see from behind, breaks through his chains and sees the sun for the first time. In Fahrenheit 451, this represents Montag opening up to the world around him when he meets Clarisse. Clarisse is a representation of the sun. However, in the allegory, when the man returns to the cave and tells the other men who have been living there that there’s more to life than they think, he is killed for his words. Montag may not have been killed for what he believed, but he had his entire life’s worth stripped from him in front of his eyes. This is what happens when you try to change the beliefs of people who believe that they are right. For those people, ignorance is bliss.

“Plato’s Allegory of the Cave” and Fahrenheit 451 may be highly unrealistic, but they are true in the way of the human condition. If you take a look around, you can see examples of resistance to change everywhere. Modern times tell you what to wear, what foods to eat, what products to use, and even what music is “in” at that particular time. No one wants to break out, and be different, for the fear of being discriminated against. In Fahrenheit 451, the firemen hide their true feelings about their work because they don’t want to lose everything they have. They just walk on the same path as everyone else, staying on the safe side, keeping their feet in line. It’s hard to break free of the crowd, but at some point you have to stop and ask yourself, “Is this really how I’m meant to live my life?” Once you figure that out and find your own road to take, your life and the people around you will benefit from it.


Therefore, the next time you walk down the street and see that everyone around you is the same, you should have the courage to stand up and be different. If everyone is wearing a gray suit, do something uncanny and wear yellow. Don’t fall into the pattern of everyone else. When most of the world is afraid to show themselves, it is important for those with a difference sense of self to stand up for what they believe in. That is how the world will maintain its balance for all of the years to come.

Fahrenheit 451 Response- "What Doesn't Kill Me Makes Me Stronger"

Author's Note: This essay is a response to the first 3/4 of the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. It also is responding to how Nietzsche's quote "What doesn't kill me, only makes me stronger" can be incorporated with the text.

"What doesn't kill me, makes me stronger". This famous quote by Nietzsche is often used as a reference to many different things. You can even commonly see it on the back of a sports T-Shirt. However, what does this quote mean? To me, it means that there is nothing to be lost from an experience, and that what you do can only help you in the end. Life is an endless series of choices, and no matter what path you take or how much pain you endure, you will come out a better person.

In the novel Fahrenheit 451, fireman Guy Montag is constantly faced with life-endangering choices. He is living in a dystopic world where a thing as simple as reading a book is strictly forbidden and could get his house burnt down to the ground. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens as Chief Beatty and his crew get word that Montag has been keeping books in his house. Montag's precious books are burnt along with his house by the firemen almost immediately. Montag gets enraged by everything that's happened and ends up burning and killing Beatty along with the other firemen there. As the chief burns, Montag thinks to himself, "Beatty, you're not a problem now. You always said, don't face a problem, burn it. Well, now I've done both. Good-bye, Captain." Their world as well as the real world is full of cruel irony like this. It was Montag's choice to murder, and it is up to him how his choice can turn his pain around and make him stronger.

Since Beatty's death was a painful choice made by Guy Montag, there is definitely a connection to be made to Nietzsche's quote. Whether the decision to burn the chief, as Beatty had burned so many people and books before, will benefit Montag immediately is unknown. In the long run, I believe that it will, as the quote states, make him stronger. Since the world he and the other characters are living in is about abiding by the rules and playing it safe, it was a bold and brave move to strike out as Montag did. This could eventually be a model to cause change for the better in their society. It all depends on the next choices Guy Montag will make in the ending section of the novel.

Ultimately, the choices you make in life will eventually make you a better person. Whether you are like Montag, trying to change the way others think, or just trying to make it through a tough time. It is necessary to have pain in your life in order to become stronger. It is a reflection of the choices in your life that brings you to where you are now. No matter what you have to endure in order to succeed, you will always come out stronger in the end.

Veterans Essay '10

Author's Note: This is an essay for the Veterans Essay Contest of this year. The prompt was "Does Patriotism Still Matter?". I tried to answer as honestly and accurately as I could.            

Patriotism. People may hear the word, but not know what it means. They assume it has something to do with our country, but they never know exactly what it entails. Patriotism, by definition, is one's love for their country. A love that exists for no other reason besides living in it, but yet is strong enough to take on an army. Patriotism is ageless and will never die.

           Some may ask if patriotism still matters after all these years our great America has been alive. To them I reply, what would the world be like without patriotism? What would people be like without it? Patriotism has been extremely important throughout American history. It has given us the strength and determination to stand up for our country, fight battles for it, and win wars in order to gain its freedom. Taking that away would be like taking away the spirit of all Americans. We would be nothing but borders, roads, and buildings, without any real meaning.

            While the thought of destroying the spirit of America might scare some people, some simply may stand by and let it happen. People are afraid and ashamed of being laughed at for being avid supporters of our country, and for good reason. Patriotism is slowly dwindling into nothingness, and soon it may be gone altogether. We need to work to keep our country's patriotism alive by showing our love for America in various ways.

             But what can the public do that we aren't already doing? When everyone thinks of serving the country, they envision soldiers or a military profession. However, there are many smaller ways to make a difference. One way to help would be to volunteer for a good cause. Showing love for the people in the country is just the same as showing love for the country in general. If everyone helps out, we can make the United States great again.

            Considering all the ways to show love for our country, the answer to the question "Does patriotism still matter?" is an easy 'yes'. Patriots are extremely important to the welfare of this country and will be for as long as America is around. Patriotism is the spirit of the United States of America and will never die.

Inevitable Corruption

A response to Animal Farm by George Orwell.

The king surveyed his kingdom from his window. The window was large, expensively constructed, and had a beautiful stained glass pattern that reflected the light in millions of hues. In fact, the entire castle and courtyard was simply breathtaking, from the expertly designed interior and the pricey furniture to the beautiful garden and the cleanly cut landscapes. However, as the king looked out past this magnificent realm, he noticed with great sadness how the rest of the region appeared: dirty, poor, and poverty-stricken. “Such a pity,” the king said to himself. “It’s just too bad, however. I am the king, and my needs come first.” Just like the king, the pigs in the satire Animal Farm by George Orwell were standing by while their loyal followers, the other animals, perished. So much control can never be a good thing, and as they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

At the beginning of the novel, all of the animals residing at Manor Farm are eager to begin a revolution against mankind and anything resembling it. After taking over the land for themselves, the new leaders, the pigs called Squealer, Snowball, and Napoleon, design commandments that the other animals agree to follow. Ultimately, they can be combined into one simple statement: “four legs good, two legs bad”. However, as time goes on, the rules slowly are altered and eventually get diminished altogether. In the end, the animals had become what they had sworn they would never be. They ended up acting exactly like the men they had rejected initially. This is what happens when so much pressure is put on someone to be ‘as good as the ones that came before them’, which was the case when Napoleon tried to create a better farm than the old owner, Mr. Jones did. Napoleon, as well as Squealer and Snowball, gained too much power too quickly and ended up nearly destroying the farm with their ambitious plans to upstage humanity.

Just as the characters in the novel faltered in their plans, the people involved in the Russian Revolution that occurred around 1917 failed to achieve their goal of a communist world. Since the novel is a satire, each of the characters and animals represents a person or a group of people from the actual Revolution. Throughout the novel, the author George Orwell is trying to tell the readers about the flaws of the Russians. He is saying that although their original intentions of creating a better country with communism were good, Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky, represented by Squealer, Napoleon, and Snowball in the novel, could not manage the power they were given and ended up creating a world of fear and inequality. Humanity is simply not fit to handle great power and control, no matter how good-hearted of a person is entrusted with the honor.

Leadership is a difficult role to take on, and will corrupt if the leader has complete control. If the animals in the farm had stuck to their principles of ‘Animalism’ and made sure all animals were treated equally with no ultimate ruler, they might have had a better life. The same goes for humanity. If people keep their lives under control and don’t get too caught up in their greed and selfishness, they will succeed. After all, having control over everything will always end in disaster.

Waking With Wings

A Story Response to Maximum Ride

I blinked open my sleepy eyes, yawning. I had had a horrible night of sleep, and I had been looking forward to sleeping in. So much for that plan, I thought, groaning. I sat up straight, trying to wake myself up. It was not until I had adjusted to the light that I noticed that I was not in my bedroom anymore.

The room I was in looked like the inside of a science lab. It had bleached white walls that smelled of chemicals, and there were rows of metal crates that seemed to stretch endlessly along them. I was in the crate in the farthest corner from the door, so I couldn’t see much outside of the room except for an empty gray hallway. There was nothing to suggest how I had gotten into this building, or any way I could get out.

Examining the room around me, growing more worried by the second, I saw that there were other people in the crates besides just me. Not people, I realized, feeling my stomach clench in disgust, creatures. Every one of the cages was filled with some sort of mutated human, with everything from little girls with three arms to teenage boys without faces or hair. It was all I could do not to throw up on the spot. It was as if I had stumbled upon some sort of a twisted freak show in the middle of a hospital.

Where am I? I thought, panicked. Is this a dream? I pinched myself in the arm, feeling terrified when I didn’t awaken back in my house. It appeared that I was really here, somehow. Whoever, or whatever, had brought me here obviously must have had a reason, but I certainly didn’t resemble any of the other misfortunate people here. Did I? I felt to make sure I had all of my limbs and facial features, just in case.

I stayed huddled up in my cage for what seemed like eternity until I heard a noise coming from outside of the room. I tilted my head toward the sound, and was startled when a man in a long white coat stepped through the doorway and came to stand in front of me. Two other men quickly followed, each carrying a notebook and a felt-tip pen. Their faces were hard and sophisticated, and none of them seemed to feel any sympathy for me or the others in the cages. They simply passed their gazes over their prisoners until their eyes all stopped on me.

Trying not to breathe too loudly, I stared up at the three men in white, my eyes wide with fear. “Yes, that’s the one,” The first man exclaimed, “Our newest experiment. Would you like to see it? It’s quite an impressive version of the past human-aviary experiments we’ve done.” He spoke in a dead-sounding monotone, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Human-aviary? Experiment? The words made no sense. After all, I was fairly sure that ‘aviary’ was a word in reference to flying creatures such as birds.

The man who had first spoken reached out a gloved hand toward the door of my cage. I recoiled instantly, shrinking into the back corner. I wasn’t about to let them get at me, not when I was still clueless to who they were and what they were walking about. The man pulled the lock and the door of the crate swung open with a dull creaking noise. “Get out,” a voice commanded me strictly. I obeyed, cautiously stepping into the bright room, never taking my eyes off of the man who had spoken.

“What do you want with me?” I choked out in a broken voice. It would’ve sounded much more menacing if I hadn’t been dehydrated and terrified at the same time, but it was all I could manage.

The men didn’t reply, they acted as if they hadn’t heard my question. The three of them walked around me in a slow circle, nodding in approval and writing on their notepads. I felt like a science exhibit in a glass case under the curious eyes of the spectators. Who knows, maybe I was.

“The wings are 16 feet when extended fully, and as you can see they retract completely and flatly against its back,” The man who seemed to be leading the examination told the others. They nodded again in response. Wings? I gasped in surprise as the word echoed through my brain. I don’t have wings!

The curiosity overwhelming me, I put a hand behind my back and felt between my shoulder blades. Feeling nothing, I reached my hand under my sweatshirt and gasped at what my fingers touched. Feathers. Bone. There were wings attached to my back, just as they had said.

I resisted the urge to throw up. How had this had happened to me? Where was my family, my house? Before I had the chance to start throwing accusations at the men in the white coats, I was interrupted by a new voice, coming in from the hallway. A tall man with a disconcerting grin on his face entered the room and folded his arms across his chest, giving me an positive look. “I’m Jeb Batchelder,” he said, “and welcome to the School.”

Flight

A Poem Response to Maximum Ride


Your feet pound
You run impossibly fast
Over the crumbling ground
Gaining speed with every step

Your wings begin to unfurl
And your mind begins to race
Until you are off into the air
Toward your impossible mission

Though the way will be long
Though the path may be uncertain
It doesn’t override
The pure sensation of the ride

There are no words
To describe the feeling
Flying will give you
When you’re high above the sky

There are no sounds
That can describe
The whoosh of the wind
Beneath your feather-light wings

There are no sights
That can be seen
That are anything like your view
Of the world below you

It is not until
You take the chance
And join the people
Of the crisp blue air
On one journey
One purpose
For one thing
That you can understand
The freedom of soaring
And the rush of adrenaline
That is the flight

Graceling Project- Bitterblue's Journey

The fear paralyzes the small princess as she slowly climbs out of the rickety window after her mother. She knows what may happen when she gets to the bottom, and she fears what will happen if she doesn’t. All through the descent, she feels as if voices are whispering in her ear, telling her to turn back, back to the tranquil safety of her room. Clenching her teeth and locking the voices up in her head, the frail, gaunt girl finds the strength to keep climbing, all the way to the bottom. She and her mother know that though the way may be ambiguous, the only one thing that really matters is to escape; escape her father, the king of Monsea, and his terrible power.



King Leck, Bitterblue’s father and king, seems to be just what he appears: A kind, loving ruler, that takes care of injured animals and helps the weak. His uncanny ability, or “Grace”, of deluding people’s opinions and suspicions about him is something very few are able to resist and repel. Princess Bitterblue is one of those few people, and so is her mother. This horrible king has dark plans for the both of them, and therefore they were forced to leave behind the people and possessions they loved and run away.


As Bitterblue and her mother, Queen Ashen, run blindly through the pounding snow, the young girl frantically considers their condition. Just a ten year old girl and her weakened mother. How were they ever to survive the harsh winter? If they did manage to escape the clutches of Leck and his soldiers, where would they go, where would they live? The princess’ head swarms with doubts and confusion as they proceed onward.


Suddenly, from a far distance, Bitterblue hears a noise that resembles shouting. She turns instinctively toward the sound, but ends up wishing that she hadn’t. Even from the distance, the endless troops of soldiers were conspicuous. “They’re coming for us”, Bitterblue’s mind whispers to her, “They’ll never let us get away”. The girl knew her mother had noticed the uprising dilemma, for she was quickening her pace at rapid intervals. The stark panic on her face was obvious, she didn’t attempt to hide it from her daughter as she might’ve in the past. As if in a trance, she turns, wild-eyed, to face the girl beside her. “You must run! You must run far away so they will never catch you! If they catch you, all will be lost, for you are the future of Monsea!” And with that, Queen Ashen pushes the girl into the thickets and takes off in the opposite direction, leading the oncoming soldiers away from the girl and toward the edge of the forest.


Confused and abandoned, Bitterblue moves the branches out of her face, blinking rapidly.
She stares in blank shock at the empty space where her mother once stood, before she remembers that she has to run. The reality of the situation crashes over her like a tidal wave. Gripping the knife she carried at her side, the small princess begins to move away from where she had last seen her mother. She knows she can’t be seen by the soldiers and by Leck, for they are so much faster than she is and will overtake her immediately if she pauses for even a sheer moment.

As time passes, Bitterblue wonders what has become of her mother, and if she has made it to safety. It seems to have been hours, days even, since she left her home in the castle. By this time, the girl is following one of many streams leading away from the valleys of the kingdom and westward, toward the mountains where she will be safe from the corrupt search parties of her father. Though she stumbles in the darkness of daybreak, she refuses to let the soldiers gain on her. Thoughts of those she has left behind race through her mind like photographs.

Eventually, exhaustion overtakes her, and she starts to feel dizzy and tired. Summoning up her last bit of strength, Bitterblue climbs her way into a nearby tree stump. She grips her knife in her small fingers and hugs her knees to her chest, unsure of what is to come. All she knows is that whatever she may face next, she will have to do it alone.

The Innocence of Childhood

an essay response to the novel The Adevntures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain

You watch as the children tumble out of the schoolyard in one large mob, screaming, yelling, and waving their hands about. They rejoice to the start of summer vacation, and you can almost feel their excitement in the air. Their immaturity and innocence strikes you suddenly, for it has been a long time since you’ve seen others behave in such a way. Then you remember that children will be children, and they will remain young and innocent for many years before reaching maturity. In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Tom and his friends continue to be innocent throughout the novel, never quite reaching experience. It takes a lot of responsibility and honor to grow up, neither of which Tom Sawyer ever quite has.

"Some people think they're smart - always showing off!" (pg. 86) As Tom continues through his blissful life of mischief and adventure, he playfully brags, boasts, and does ridiculous stunts like fence-jumping to try and get Becky Thatcher, the girl who he likes, as well as his other classmates to like and admire him. When he is rejected by them, he feels miserable and crestfallen. These behaviors are clearly examples of childish, immature behavior. Tom, like many other children in the world, believes that if you try to get attention, you will be rewarded and praised by those watching. The child will go to ridiculous measures to get that attention. It’s in a child’s nature to do so, and it’s very normal. It will not be until they are older and more mature will they know that showing off never gets you anywhere.

As well as his displays of showing off, Tom provides readers of the novel with plenty of foolish adventures. As showed in the pirate expedition in chapters 13-17, Tom rushes ahead into a plan without thinking of the consequences. When he goes out into the wilderness and drags his friends Huck and Joe with him, he is taking them away from their homes, and in Joe’s case, a family. While the boys are out having the time of their lives, the people that love and care about them are worried sick. Completely oblivious to what they’ve done, Tom and his friends continue with their “pirating”. If Tom had had more experience and consideration for others, he would never have gone on this ridiculous outing. He would know how much it would hurt the ones that would miss him.

With all of the attention seeking and misadventures, Tom is the perfect example of an innocent child. He lives in a perfect, untouchable world barely tainted by the evil that is Injun Joe. When a child is young, they seem unaware of the important things in life, and seek only to please themselves. As Tom learns by witnessing the murder of Dr. Robinson while he is sneaking around the graveyard, sometimes pleasing yourself comes with a consequence. Because of Tom and Huck’s graveyard adventure, the boys were constantly fearful that the murderer, Injun Joe, would come after them. Children of this world don’t think about what they’re doing until the weight of the consequence they will suffer comes crashing down on them. Tom is certainly no different.

Although Tom can be criticized and ridiculed for his mistakes, people have to remember that he is still innocent. It takes time for innocent behaviors to diminish and fade away into the certainties of experience. In the novel, Tom never reaches the level of maturity that most adults have. He still believes in superstitions, rumors, gossip, and fairytales. Tom just isn’t quite ready enough to handle the responsibility of experience. However, in time, Tom will realize that life isn’t just fun and games. This is when his true life will begin.

Friendship

A Responce to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Shading your eyes from the afternoon sun, you exit the school building. Your eyes instantly seek out your friends, for you can’t wait to tell them about your experiences of the day. You know that your friends will listen, that they’ll cheer you up when you mention your difficult math test, and that they’ll congratulate you on your perfect spelling homework without resentment. Friends are always there for you to confide and trust in, even when you’ve lost all hope in yourself. Friends will offer a new vision of the world and its problems, and will help you see through their eyes. No matter what kind of situation you get yourself into, friends will get you out.

What would happen if there wasn’t such thing as friendship? If there was no one in the world to relax around, feel secure around, and be yourself around? You would be swallowed up by the others around you, scared to expose yourself, scared to be who you truly are. The world would be weighing down upon you, and there would be nothing to do about it, nobody to listen and care. Eventually, friendless, you would be driven to the point of madness and destruction, and there would still be no one to help. Keeping your friends close to you so you won’t lose them is very important, and is a lifelong process throughout many sets of friends.

Luckily, in the romantic world of Tom Sawyer, friends are plentiful and easy to come by. In the novel, Tom has two good friends, Joe Harper and Huck Finn. They accompany him on his various adventures, no matter how ridiculous they are. Whenever Tom gets an idea, he goes immediately to his friends and shares it with them. This proves that even though Tom is innocent and mischievous, he understands the values and benefits of friendship. Without the company of Huck and Joe, Tom’s plans would certainly fail. Friends help you to succeed in your dreams, no matter how foolish they are.

However, you don’t need to have millions of friends to be happy. Sometimes, all you need is a best friend or two, as long as they’re people you really trust. Tom Sawyer didn’t have all the children in his school as his friends, but he continues to be blissfully happy with the friends he does have. As long as you keep your friends with you and treat them with love and respect, you can accomplish anything.

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn~ FINAL ESSAY

You walk tiredly up the steps to your school, the same drab gray school you’ve been going to all your life. When you reach the door, you stop to think about what is to come. What is to come today, tomorrow, and even in the far-off distance. Sometimes the pressure of what people are expecting of you, the knowledge of what may happen if you take the wrong step, and the lack of familiarity you have of growing up may overwhelm or frighten you. As you go on in life, having the confidence and strength to accept and prepare for the future can make life seem far less menacing.

Francie Nolan’s life was pretty uncertain. As she moved toward experience she suffered through many hard choices that would affect her future. One of her choices to make was education. She changed schools early on in her childhood, trying to plan an easier life for herself with the higher quality learning. When her father died and money became tight, there became a decision. Was she or was she not to go back to high school? Even when she made her decision, the unexpected happened and she was forced to work while Neeley went back to school. Francie decided to live with her mother’s choice and did the best she could with what she had, earning her a high paying job. Using your own strengths and senses you can accept what you have in life and succeed without what you don’t have. Sometime in life you’ll get what you’ve rightfully earned and then your life will come full circle.

Moving from innocence to experience is a hard path with many twists and turns. You don’t naturally learn about growing up or moving on. You must teach yourself and move to experience for yourself no matter how hard it may be, as is the theme of the novel. Throughout life you will have to make many choices just like Francie, and it is your own job to prepare for them. Making the wrong choice may cost you an opportunity, and an opportunity missed may cost you a wonderful time. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from your mistakes and make new decisions. If everyone made the right decision on the first try, there would be no lesson learned, and therefore, no greater knowledge of life. Mistakes are human. They’re a part of life, and the point of the novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is that we can move on toward experience living with what we’ve done already.

Some people spend their lives worried about the future. Always afraid to take the next step for fear that they will choose the wrong path toward experience and end up with a life of regret. Planning what you’re going to do before you do it can make all the difference, and having a solid plan can help you achieve and accept what your future is destined to be. Accepting what is to come and doing the best with it will help clear the path from innocence to experience of doubt.

Hope

A Responce To A Tree Grows In Brooklyn

The woman and her children huddle together under a worn, ragged blanket. It’s getting dark out, and the nights in winter are bitterly cold. However, things may turn out better for this family than others, for these poverty-stricken people have something that nobody else has: hope. Hope is something you hold onto when there’s nothing left. Hope is the luminous candle burning in the night. While sometimes the faith of the people is overshadowed by uncertainty and doubt, one hope alone may save you from destruction and insanity. If you hold on to your hopes and dreams, the world will be a brighter, happier place to live in.

Francie’s life is filled with uncertainties. Will her family come out of poverty and make enough money to keep their house? Will she and her brother, Neeley, grow up and have families of their own? It takes a lot of hope, faith, and trust to overcome these situations. If people didn’t have hope, there wouldn’t be anything left to look forward to. People would stop trying, believing strongly in the lie that nothing will get better, that everything they wish to achieve is just a far-off dream, nothing more. Depression and hopelessness would consume the world.

Keeping your hopes alive and vividly trying to achieve them is perhaps one of the most important things you can do in your lifetime. No matter how little money you have, how much you’ve lost already, or how utterly devastating your circumstances are, if you have hope and faith that everything will turn out alright, you will carry on. Your world will be a bright place filled with light, even if all you have is that one small candle.

Fear

A Response to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

The young girl stands rigid with fear as she gazes down the long, treacherous road. She knows it is her duty to continue, to proceed, but she just can’t seem to take the first small step for fear of what may come if she does. Fear is a concept in everyone’s lives that we all have to deal with. Whether it be fear of growing up, failure, or something as common as spiders, every person on this planet is terrified of something. In A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Francie must face her own fears and uncertainties as she continues down the road of her life. Learning how to deal with fear is a necessary concept to succeed.

When someone is afraid of something, they tend to hide from it or ignore it, pretending it isn’t there at all. While it may not be the truth, it comforts the person and assures them they have nothing to worry about. Then, when he least expects it, he has to face his fear and make a choice as to whether he wants to defeat it or run away from it like a coward. If you run away, you are therefore going back to pretending its existence was all a sham. You will be safe for now, but fear will always find away to strike again. The ones who face their fears by saying they’re not afraid and defeat their terrors with pride, end up being the most successful in life.

While it may seem like fear is unavoidable, that doesn’t mean people have to fear all things potentially threatening. Fear can take over your mind and destroy your bravery with doubt, but not everything is to be feared. If you learn how to deal with your fears and face your own treacherous road in life, you will succeed and be a stronger person.

"All Summer In A Day" Response

The girl looks out her attic window at the streets below. Children her age are playing in the streets, their squeals of laughter echoing to where she stood. The girl could have gone outside and joined them, but once again she declined their offer, choosing to stay home by herself. If we isolate ourselves so much that we are always alone, all our sanity will be lost and we’ll miss out on the greatest experiences.

What would happen if everyone just suddenly stopped socializing? Stopped talking to their friends, ignoring their parents, and spending the whole day locked up in their rooms? The world would turn into a place of fear, uncertainty, depression, and irony. People would stop seeing the purposes in life and would feel they couldn’t rely on anyone but themselves to help them in their troubles. When opportunity knocked on the door, the people wouldn’t bother getting up to answer it. They’ll miss out, and will never know what they’re missing out on. It’s a sad life to live in.

While it may seem like isolation is the enemy, that doesn’t mean it can’t be helped. What if that girl would have gone out to her peers in the street, took a risk in asking to be a part of their group, and ending up having the time of her life? The human race is all about uncertainty. That doesn’t mean we can’t face up to it and be a part of something greater than ourselves. People shouldn’t isolate themselves, or their life will be something they will live to regret.

Veterans Day Essay

When Is The Right Time To Honor Veterans?
by Alaina Mundt

Veterans are very important to our country. They fight for us, serve for us, and unfortunately, die for us. They sacrifice everything for the love of America. However, some people believe they are not worth honoring for more than one day a year. People need to stand up for them and show the veterans that they really do care about what veterans do for us. Anytime is a time to honor veterans and all the things they do for us.

Can you imagine packing some bags, leaving your family, and heading off to a foreign country? This is what all veterans, at one point, did. Can you imagine fighting and risking your life because you wanted to, not because you had to? All former soldiers and other veterans did this for us, and for our country of America. Defending our country while leaving everything behind is a brave, difficult thing to do. Veterans deserve more respect than we give them.

Many veterans leave their country for years before coming back, but some don’t come back at all! Others become injured, sick, go missing, or are even kidnapped or taken hostage by another country or group of people. There have been many soldiers that are never able to walk, write, see, hear, or play athletic games again because of their injuries. It is very hard for the soldiers that aren’t injured to see their friends suffer when there is nothing they can do. War is very difficult, complex, and just downright a horrible thing to go through. Veterans have fought for us at any cost, knowing that they are taking a huge risk.

Restricting our honoring of veterans to only one day a year actually makes a lot less sense than most people realize. Veterans don’t restrict their dedication to only one day a year, do they? Anytime is the time to honor veterans. And the more we respect them, the more committed they will become to serving our country. They will know that we are a country worth fighting for.