“The end depends on the beginning,” says Headmaster Woolbridge in the film adaptation of “The Palace Thief” by Ethan Canin. Is this true? Does the end really depend upon the beginning? In “The Palace Thief”, history teacher, William Hundert, meets a new student, Sedgewick Bell, who challenges his authority, and because of his self-importance, this challenge manifests itself until the end. In the beginning, Hundert has a job he is passionate about, a happy and uneventful life, and a moralistic view of himself. Hundert loves St. Benedict’s. “That school was my life,” (Canin, pg. 155) he says. He believes that his job at the school is of utmost importance. However, a boy walks into his classroom one day that does not fit his ideal picture, Sedgewick …show more content…
Benedicts, climbing the ladder of authority. One day, while reading the newspaper, he discovers that Sedgewick had become the chairman of a large corporation in America. He decided to send him a letter, and reconnect to his past. Meanwhile, he was becoming more involved in the decisions of the school, such as the hiring of a new chair of humanities. When deciding this, he vouches for his good friend Charles Ellerby, however, mainly because the other candidate had the idea that history had “become little more than a relic,” (Canin, pg. 177), which Hundert rejected. Although Hundert no longer worked as a history teacher, he still felt a sense of loyalty and ardor towards the subject, not wanting to let go of his days of teaching. Before long, Headmaster Woolbridge passes away and Hundert applies for the job as headmaster. However, Ellerby does as well and betrays him in order to get the job. He uses the gun that was given to Hundert and remains in his possession, to threaten him. Hundert was willing to do anything in order to secure the job and remain at St. Benedict’s, and therefore throws the gun into the lake at the school, which he quickly regrets because it rids him of the physical memoir he had. Quickly after Ellerby gets the job, he asks Hundert to retire, breaking his
Katie’s teacher, Mr. Dubey, puts a very high emphasis on the students at Katie’s school about how important school is. Because Katie starts to feel bad for using David to get into Harvard, his attitude toward the topic changes and he tells that she should be self-serving and not really care what people say and to not "ruin the rest of your life just because you feel a little guilty right now"(74). All of these conflicting messages on what Katie should be like, how she should treat others an...
When Hundert notices Sedgewick Bell’s improvement in his class, he makes the decision to raise the B he earned to an A, and place him in the Mr. Julius Caesar competition instead of Martin
Mark of the Thief is a book written by Jennifer A. Nielsen. This book is the first in the “Mark of the Thief” trilogy and is set in ancient Rome around the year 400 CE. The story itself takes place primarily in the city of Rome and the mines south of Rome where the story begins.
Solnit transforms the concrete idea of the schooling system into a concept focused mainly on the well-being of the student and the non-academic growth they experience. She expresses her belief that it’s a place of learning to conform or taking punishment and “one that can flatten out your soul or estrange you from it.” This abstract concept allows readers to have a much more moving response,
Adolph Myers, a kind and gentle man "[ is] meant by nature to be a teacher of youth"(215), however, the towns' people can not understand that the male school teacher - a not so common phenomenon at the time--spoke soothingly with his hands and voice only to "carry a dream into the young minds" (215) of his students. The young school teacher was wrongfully accused of doing "unspeakable things" to his students, and as a result was beaten and run out of town without being given a chance to explain the his love for the children was pure, and that he had done nothing wrong. Therefore, as young Adolph Myers, whose only crime is of being a good and caring person runs out of Pennsylvania, old Wing Biddlebaum, the lonely and confused victim of a close-minded society walks into Winesburg Ohio.
When the Thief Lord and he’s band of misfit orphans accepts Barbossa’s mysterious job from “The Conte”, he gets a picture of a wooden wing from a magical Merry-Go-Round and an address. He’s set to rob Ida Spavento, a photographer and former orphan herself. Victor, the detective following Prosper and Bos trail, catches onto the Thief Lords plans and follows the orphans back to the abandoned theatre “The Star Palace”, he then searches for the owner of the theatre, Dottor Massimo, a millionaire. Victor makes he way to Dottor’s mansion to buy the theatre, he’s offar is refused. But, there he discovers a boy, who looks similar to the Thief Lord, named Scipio Massimo. “He quickly lowered his head, but Victor had already recognized him. His hair was tied back in a tight little ponytail and his eyes didn’t look quite as arrogant as they had before, but there could be no doubt: This was the boy who had so innocently asked Victor the time, just before he and his friends had tricked him” (Funke, Chapter 17, page 114.) Victor makes his way back to the theatre where he is captured by the orphans and taken hostage. After hearing the boy’s story, Victor comes to the conclusion the boys are better off on there own, and agrees to keep their secret, and sends their Aunt on a wild goose chace.
P encourages Arnold to be better in life. Mr. P is responsible for Junior’s fight against hopelessness and his wish of not giving up hope and realizing dreams. Mr. P, at first, appears to be your average teacher who hates their job, stuck in the middle, and can’t achieve a higher level job. Everyone thought that Mr. P looked really weird. He was only 4 feet tall, had no hair, but had dandruff, there would be food stains on his shirt, visible nose hair, and weighed maybe 50 pounds but only when he’s carrying his 15 pound briefcase. But the strangest thing about Mr. P is that sometimes he forgot to come to school. He tried to start a reservation Shakespeare Theatre Company, but failed miserably. Oftentimes, students would have to be sent down to the housing compound behind the school to wake Mr. P, who is always napping in front of his television. He sometimes teaches classes in his pajamas. He is fairly popular among the students, as not much is asked out of the students. On Junior’s first day back to school, he is given a Geometry book. But on the first page of the book, he sees the words “This book belongs to Agnes Adams.” Agnes Adams is his mother, which meant that the book was over 30 years old. Enraged by this thought, he threw his book at Mr. P. Consequently, Arnold is suspended for a week. Mr. P goes to talk to him. He talks to him about his sister, and how she used to write romance novels, but then suddenly stopped, and telling Junior things about
Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is considered the great American Novel with its unorthodox writing style and controversial topics. In the selected passage, Huck struggles with his self-sense of morality. This paper will analyze a passage from Adventures of huckleberry Finn and will touch on the basic function of the passage, the connection between the passage from the rest of the book, and the interaction between form and content.
“School can be a tremendously disorienting place… You’ll also be thrown in with all kind of kids from all kind of backgrounds, and that can be unsettling… You’ll see a handful of students far excel you in courses that sound exotic and that are only in the curriculum of the elite: French, physics, trigonometry. And all this is happening while you’re trying to shape an identity; your body is changing, and your emotions are running wild.” (Rose 28)
The main issues of the African people in the book “The Kidnapped Prince” were kidnappers and slave traders. An example of this is in the beginning of the book. While the adults of Equiano’s (main character) village are working in the fields, three kidnappers hopped the wall surrounding his peoples village. They kidnapped Equiano and his sister while they were playing. They are forced to travel with their captors and sold into slavery. Eventually Equiano is separated from his sister, as they both go to different “masters”. And although they do see each other at some point later in the book that would be their last meeting and they never see each other again.
...ne in the community warns Baby Suggs family that Schoolteacher is coming. They have all eaten of the ‘fruit’ but it has not brought knowledge, it has dulled it. Stamp paid had “…always believed it wasn’t the exhaustion from a long day’s gorging that dulled them, but some other thing---like, well, like meanness—…” (157). The community will soon confront evil personified by the people’s anger and the Schoolteacher’s hate that has arrived at 124.
The Black Prince was the eldest son of King Edward the 3rd. His real name was Prince Edward Plantagenet and he was born in June of 1330 at the royal palace of Woodstock. The Black Prince grew up to become one of the most famous me diaeval warriors of all time. It is not really known where his nickname (the Black Prince) stemmed from, however, it is certain that it originated about two hundred years after his death. There is no evidence to support that he wore black armor, which seems to have inspired the very famous nickname. He did, however, carry a shield of peace which was predominantly black. This is probably the most likely reason for his nickname.
He argues that students “want to be doing something real” (Gatto 23). Also, he explains that they produce a manageable working class and “mindless consumers” (27-28). His point is that students want to learn something new that helps them in their life better than actual books from school which don’t apply their interests and their experience (23). He recommends home-schooling as an option to schools (24). Gatto claims that contemporary schools “adopted one of the very worst aspects of Prussian culture: an educational system deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects.... ...
In the opening scenes that take place in the classroom, you become familiarized with the Gradgrind School and its fundamentals. The Gradgrind philosophy, based on the Facts, Facts, and more Facts of reality, is demonstrated as being not only cruel and destructive to the workers – the “Hands" of society – but is also humanly inadequate to the Gradgrind family it served. Mrs. Gradgrind observed that her husband has missed something in his life, yet, "not an ology at all." Louisa and her brother Tom, "the whelp," are nearly destroyed by the strictly mechanical principles of Gradgrindery. It was Hard Times for everyone.
In his later years at school, Stephen's isolates himself through his "relationship to authority [and conformity] and his rebellion against it" (Ryf 27). In the classroom Stephen is "pandied" (beaten with a cane) and accused of being a "lazy little schemer" by a Jesuit priest for not completing his homework due to his broken glasses (Joyce 50). In rebellion, Stephen reports the injustice to the rector only to later discover that the rector took th...