The Body In The Woods by April Henry is about Alexis, Ruby, and Nick, who are the newest uncertified members of Portland’s Search and Rescue, trained volunteers that searches for people who are lost or injured. These three teenagers receive their first call-out from the Portland County Sheriff’s Office to search for Bobby Balog, the missing autistic man in Forest Park. One of the supervisors, Jon Partridge, assigns the trio to search in a particular trail, where Bobby is least likely to be found. There, they encounter a man jogging with his dogs, a man in his early thirties carrying a big duffel bag, a homeless guy with black dreads, and a white-haired man who claims that the birder’s notebook Alexis found is his. Instead of finding…
Sometimes in life when we have an experience that deeply affects us, it can change our whole perspective. The story “The Thing in the forest” is a example of how this can happen. The two main characters Penny and Primrose meet when they are children and share a horrific experience in the forest. Then by chance meet back at the scene and briefly reassure one another that what happened really did happen. But their contact ends there once again almost as if seeing each other was too uncomfortable. Then oddly enough both women end up going back to the forest looking for some kind of resolve. In “The Thing in the Forest” the two little girls encounter a terrifying creature that profoundly affects their sense of reality; this results in similar personal traits and shared sense of searching for what’s real despite that they never talk of it.…
It was a dreadful cold fall morning on November 7th and I was getting ready to board the bus for a state football game against the Becker Bulldogs. The police escorted us to Saint Cloud State under a lot of care. Even though I was a freshman and didn’t play much varsity, I was getting…
In the novel In the Lake of the Woods, O’Brien channels between his life in the present at the lake with his wife, and his life in the past, recalling memories from the war in Vietnam. The novel begins with a preview into the love life and marriage of John and Kathy Wade. While the novel progresses, their relationship begins to deteriorate and as the narrator jumps from his past to his present, the impact of his time in Vietnam becomes more apparent as a primary factor in the failure of their marriage. Throughout the book there are sections of hypotheses and evidence that observe a mixture of fiction and non fiction documents. Some are simply historical facts about the condition of soldiers after Vietnam, particularly the My Lai massacre, while others are fabricated interviews and statements from the characters in the story examining the strange behavior of John Wade himself. The way the chapters are arranged in a scattered format attest to how the jaded past of John Wade sporadically emerged into his life with his wife, the election, and his sanity.…
In his novel In the Lake of the Woods Tim O’Brien paints a vivid image of the horrors of the Vietnam War, particular the savagery of the Thuan Yen massacre. While prior to reading the novel readers instinctively blame the soldiers themselves for their immoral actions, as the novel progresses, O’Brien shows that while the soldiers may have physically committed the brutal acts of murder, blame cannot solely be placed on them. O’Brien depicts the Vietnam landscape as one that, due its elusive and chaotic nature, was partially responsible for the horrors that the men committed. Furthermore, the very nature of man and our innate capacity for evil suggests that while the soldiers themselves committed the physical acts of terror, our capability to commit such atrocities when placed within the scenario of war means that any individual would have been taken over by the insanity of the conflict. Ultimately, O’Brien demonstrates that while the horrors of My Lai are unforgivable, there are extenuating circumstances which suggest that blame cannot solely be placed on the soldiers who themselves were at times victims to the nature of war.…
I've become emotionless, knowing the events that occur around me. Living in the ghettos in 1942 is hell; for me and everyone here, our lives have become a routine of slave labor and starvation. My sister and I work hard to produce anything our ruthless enemies want, in the hopes of getting another ration of bread. They work us to the bones in the factory till dusk.…
Walking into the locker room about to get ready to go to our last football game of the season. I could smell the sweaty equipment from the kids who never take their pads home. The Hempfield Spartans 7th grade team would be ending their season 0-7 if we didn’t win today. As I was changing into my pads my friend mike walked in the room. I said “you ready for tonight”. “Heck yeah” replied Mike.…
It seemed years ago that I was brought to this camp, brought to a life without my family, a life where I only cared for myself, a life where I was not truly living. It seemed I lived in this camp my whole life, it was hard to remember that it had only been 5 months.…
Before Grimm, before Supernatural, and even before Wicked, there was one “reimagining of classic fairy tales with interwoven plots and grey scale characters” and that was Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim uses four familiar stories to set the scene for his overarching plot allowing him to concentrate on jokes and creating new relationships between old characters. He also uses familiar characters in ways that blend categories. Through much of act one every character is stock through and through, yet by the end of the play our dashing prince charming has become an unapologetic adulterer, and the wicked old witch becomes an anti-hero. In addition to plot and character Sondheim pays special attention to his musical numbers; just from the first number we understand the characters relationships to one another, their motivations (having children, going to the festival, visiting grandma, and not starving), and we’re introduced to the play’s key metaphor: the woods. While these aspects were vital to the performances success I will be concentrating on the diction and acting.…
8:01 AM, I’ve got just enough time to finish the last question on my history homework before the first bell rings. I was weaving my way through the crowd on my way to the library when my friend Josh interrupted my plan. He dragged me over to him saying, “Ty! Ty! I’ve got to tell you something.” Josh explained that he wanted me to join the Baseball team because of the new coach that signed up for the job. Immediately I interrupted saying, “There is a new coach?”. Josh explained that the coach was from a team that went to the state championship a couple years back. He thinks the new coach really going to really help me if I join, because I was not the “best” player last year. “Bzzzzzz” the bell was ringing for class. As I was walking toward first…
It was winter season and that meant basketball. This year was special because I got to play for Davidson Day’s seventh and eight-grade team. See at our school the middles school ran through 5th to 8th. The middle school basketball teams were divided into a 5th-6th-grade team and a 7th 8th grade team. This season was different; we would play more games and different teams. Also we got a new coach and older teammates. Tryouts were rough; the older kids were picking on the 7th graders constantly. I was the only one they liked because I was good. The season got even worse. The 7th graders never played in the games and sometimes in the locker room older kids would yell at us for messing up. This was horrible to watch and be apart of.…
My heart is a mixture of hope and hopelessness, all around me is despair and misery and yet if I give up I perish. Every where I go I have to hold on to my emotions. Wherever I walk I see mutilated bodies and to think, that person could have had a life, makes you brake inside. But you have to stay strong, I got used to them, it becomes just a part of my nature. I mean, I see a body and then I disassociate myself completely from it. It was complete genocide. We unwillingly got forced onto a train. There were more thane 30 of us all in one carriage it was dark and there was only one window on the train. There was constant voices yelling, crying, mourning and screaming. A long time had past and noise began to dimmer. I made my way to the little…
The whistle blew for the game to start, my goal of this game was to show my skills, and for everyone to notice me. I wanted to be known throughout my school. I got tired of being known as my older brother’s little brother. I got tired of being behind my brother’s shadow; I wanted to start my own path. I thought showing my skills during the game would be a good start for me to…
It was a cold morning on the 20 of December, that morning I woke up sleepy as a sloth. I didn’t have school that day and from my room I could smell the beans been cocked. The atmosphere at home didn’t feel right, I felt like if there was something going on and I was the only one that didn’t know. My mom and sister looked suspicious. My house was small, it had two bedrooms and one bathroom. My sister got on her blue BMX bike and went out, I didn’t know where she was going but she went faster than a missile. Out of nowhere people started coming, more and more people, I counted 27 people including an 8 years old buy that fall asleep as soon as he got to my house. I was freak out and ran to my mom and I ask her, mom what’s going on who are these people, and she told me, my love we are going to America.…
The sun was shining, perfect weather to pack boxes. My long fingers started to tingle not knowing what was going on I kept packing. My mom yelled “it’s time to get ready Thomas” I got changed into my baseball clothes. I got my baseball bag and told me mom goodbye as I was heading out the door. When I went to the entrance of where everybody was at it was locked. I throw my bag over the fence. When I finished climbing over the fence I bolted to my team. When I got there I was late and my coach told me “Go practice with somebody.” and then he pointed over at the group of people. “Can I practice with you?” I asked one of my teammates. He replied “okay” we put on our mitts. When the person throw it to me I could still feel the tingle in my hand. I know I wasn’t going to catch the ball. It went into my mitt…