Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil starts with the main character, John Berendt as the Narrator. He first introduces the book by speaking of a man by the name of Jim Williams, the home owner of the Mercer house in Savannah Georgia. This intelligent yet cocky man is an antique dealer and is quite rich, owning many houses and valuable antiques. He spends most of his time restoring antiques and “living like an aristocrat, but not actually being one.” His assistant, Danny Hansford is very rowdy, he intrudes on Berendt's interview of Williams by storming into Mercer house cursing a certain “Bonnie” and insists that he get “jacked up” on drugs.…
Allan Tao English 7-5 May 2024 Title here. Before We Were Free is a historical fiction book written by Julia Alvarez which tells the story of a young girl, Anita, and her struggles and emotions as she navigates a world full of dangerous government agents, possible spies, secretive adults, and many boys fighting for a place in her heart. This book at surface level seems to be a simple romantic/action novel, but inside this book, there are many lessons to be learned. Two of these lessons are: you should never be too trusting of who you think to be your closest friends, and that you should never underestimate the power of the kindness of strangers. and that if you truly believe in something with all of your heart and are willing to die for it,…
At one point in life, we all wanted superpowers. The thought of having the ability to fly or read minds always seemed amazing. However, everything has its cons, no matter what. In Alexandra Bracken's book "The Darkest Minds," the main character, Ruby, went through was not being able to control her gifts, people constantly hunting her down, and was wanted as a weapon.…
Gavin De Becker’s, The Gift of Fear, is a very intriguing, thought-provoking book that attracts attention from all walks of life. The theme behind this well-written paperback is the importance of listening to your instincts when it comes time to consider fear and violence. De Becker’s background was security issues, which primarily was for the government, large corporations and working for celebrities where he provided insight on the innate survival skills that help protect us from violent crimes. He has had an extremely keen method of educating everyone to use our “gut feelings” to help us through difficult violent occurrences. The evocative account the examples that he provides throughout his literature are not only the key to survival in…
As Pittacus Lore once said, “I know what I’m capable of; I am a soldier now, a warrior. I am someone to fear, not hunt.” Fear is caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous. In the short story, “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, the main character Rainsford is repeatedly trying to convince his friend Whitney that the animals they hunt and hang on their walls have no sense of emotion or fear. But when he learns the unbearable feeling and anxiety of being the huntee, he is convinced otherwise.…
What can we learn when we journey through life? Journeys and experiences can help us evolve to overcome fears, losses, and help gain wisdom. Experiences that were gained through life and journeys were written in the story "Volar" by Judith Ortiz Cofer, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, and the poem “12 (From ‘Gitanjali)”. In “Valor” the narrator dreams of herself being a superhero in the world she wishes to break free from her real-life limitations. The narrator learned and went on a journey at home and in her mind, she enjoyed it, while in the real world her parents could control most of her life, in that dream and imagination she had freedom to be able to see everything.…
In “Night” by Elie Wiesel I learned that the history behind the Holocaust is very inhumane. For example, in the Holocaust a total of 1.1million children were killed. The children were not killed in a very gentle way, they were worked to death,gassed, and cremated. Another example, most people think that Jews were the only victim to the Holocaust. This statement is proven to be wrong because the Nazi’s persecuted homosexuals,the disabled,gypsies and non Aryans. In addition, when selection came, the fit were put back to work;the elderly and disabled were sent to be killed. Another fact is that Auschwitz was the largest camp there was, It contained 3 camps within itself. Auschwitz was the worst camp to be put in. The condition in the camps were…
In Survival of the Sickest, Dr. Sharon Moalem explores how harmful hereditary diseases that are still around in present day have survived through generations. He begins his journey into the world of medicine, genetics, evolution, and the influence of environment when he started looking into his grandfather’s strange love for donating blood and later his diagnosis with Alzheimer’s disease. Beginning at the age of fifteen years old he was determined to find answers and make connections. It wasn’t until years later that he put all the pieces together. Along the way he discovered incredible connections and reasons why so many hereditary diseases are still alive today. He organizes the novel into eight chapters that go into examining different hereditary…
Into The Wild A true story written By John Krakauer and published by Villard in 1996. Christopher McCandless grew up in Annandale, Virginia. In 1990 when he graduated from university, he stopped talking with his family and donated his College money to charity then started traveling across the United States then later abandoned his car in a flash flood.…
Throughout history, there has been a trend where populations affected by hardship at home have no choice but to leave in search for a better place. In Their Blood is Strong, an essay about the migrant people in the Great Depression, John Steinbeck describes the struggle of starvation in the plentiful garden of California. In another work by Steinbeck, his novel The Grapes of Wrath, he tells the story of the Joads, a family who must leave their farm in Oklahoma in search of work in California during the Great Depression. The Joads start out optimistic about the life they can have in California, but find a grim situation upon arriving. Similarly, Gregory Nava’s movie El Norte follows two Guatemalan siblings, Rosa and Enrique, who flee their home to go to America, but the life they find in the United States isn’t as easy or…
Jon Krakauer's is considered an eccentric writer to many, even so he is a very intelligent one. Into the Wild is a true story about Chris McCandless who is found dead in the Alaskan Wilderness. The story recaps his life prior to his death. Krakauer writes this story for the notion of how individuals exist in a state of nature might be a component of the work's essence. Jon also felt a connection to Chris death as he was a huge nature lover as well.…
“The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment, but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy. A man does what he must-in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures-and that is the basis of all morality” (John F. Kennedy). Courage is demonstrated in the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. In this story, Atticus Finch finds inner strength to defend an innocent black man of a horrible crime against a white girl in a small Alabama town filled with racism and prejudice. In the realistic fiction novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, the story shows that people express courage in many different…
Nelson Mandela once said, "I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it." He also learned that courage is the ability to stay strong through adverse situations. The characters in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird are courageous. The novel tells the story of how the Finch family overcame a predicament that emerged from racial discrimination. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch is disgraced for defending a black man who is accused of raping a white woman. This causes his children, Jem and Scout, to also face hostility. Despite this animosity, the Finch family bravely confronted any crisis that arose. Courage is necessary when facing adversity because it allows one to do the right thing and defend those who cannot…
Bibliography: Cisneros S, Eleven, Health Communications Inc., Deerfield Beach, FL, January, 1, 1997. (anthology), pp. 150-161.…
Courage isn’t just exemplified in literature, but in the real world as well. Rosa Parks is a famous African - American civil rights activist who was born on February 4, 1913. The United States called her “ The First Lady of Civil Rights “ and “ The Mother of the Freedom Movement “. On December 1 in 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, she was on a bus. Parks refused to listen to the bus driver, James F. Blake, when he told her to give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger because the white section was filled. It takes courage to stand up for your rights, so imagine the courage it took for Rosa to do something like that back then. She didn’t have any legal rights or any form of protection, and she defied the law. She didn’t want to be treated differently anymore, and she thought it was wrong. “ The only tired I was, was tired of giving in,”she said. Rosa wanted to do something not just for herself, but for everyone else who didn’t have the courage to do what was…