Have you ever found yourself at a high point and getting everything you thought you wanted only to get knocked down, beaten up and left back at square one? I know I have, as a musician, and as a person. This would also apply to a certain character from a novel I am reading. You might recognize the title from a movie a while back, “Pay It Forward”. Anyways, there is a particular character given the chance to start over. He also is what some may consider to be unworthy to some deserve this help. Especially since he is a homeless junky. Jerry describes himself as looking like a typical homeless person, especially when he realizes he is looking in a mirror on the way to meet Trevor (30,31). He also writes a letter describing how unworthy he is …show more content…
He specifically states this when he says, “He used to have [the feeling] all the time, the feeling that what-ever-is-up-there – ‘whatever’ because words like ‘God’ made him edgy – was looking right at him when something was said.”(29-30) It is inferred that he is questioning his faith because he refers to this feeling in the past tense. That alone suggests that he doesn’t get this feeling anymore. I think he will be able to pick himself up and off of this rut of hopelessness through seeing how much hope Trevor has for him. Although he goes to jail, I feel as though Jerry’s starting over doesn’t involve being sober, but no longer being depressed and deprived of faith. I believe this because he mentions shooting stars when he talks to Arlene when she drops him off at work, “When I was a kid, we used to call that a falling star. I used to think if you saw one, you’d get your wish” (50). This shows he did have faith at one point in time, and it still peaks through in what he says and thinks. So, if it appears in what he says, then there is hope that it can return to allow him to start life over again with a more hopeful outlook on life. In conclusion, Jerry is in a rough state, he isn’t perfect, he loses his chance at a different life and he doesn’t have faith in anything; I believe Jerry will make a full start at life with faith and that is what starting over really
In the Lilies of the Field by William E. Barrett, Homer and Mother Maria both display straightforward, hardworking, and stubborn character traits. Firstly, Homer and Mother Maria both display a straightforward personality by being brutally honest about their opinions. For example, when Mother Maria asks Homer to build a chapel, Homer speaks his mind by telling her he does not want to build it. Mother Maria shows her straightforward behavior during Homer’s stay at the convent. One morning, when Homer sleeps in late, Mother to becomes extremely upset and is not afraid to show how she feels about him. Secondly, both Homer and Mother Maria display a hardworking spirit. Homer is a hardworking man because after finally agreeing to build the chapel,
Hope and joy can be hard to find especially when times are tough. This is a situation in Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse , the character Billy Jo and her family are living in the time of the Dust Bowl and are struggling financially . Her father is a farmer in a time where nothing grows and after an accident Billy Jo’s mother passes away. This is a big part of Billy Jo is effected emotionally and shows seems very sad. Billy Jo has to move and has to move on and find joy and hope even in tough times.
People have goals everyday, believe it or not some people think that dreams aren't worth it. I believe that it is worth it to dream because it gives a person a goal, it makes them feel good, and it makes them stronger. I know this from The Pearl, A Cubs video, the Susan Boyle video, and We Beat the streets.
Fourteen-year-old Jerry Renault is like your typical skinny or thin teenager in his freshman year at Trinity, a boys' Catholic high school. He tends to dwell on depressive emotion, sexual frustration due to hormones, and loneliness from his mother as well as asking his own existent in the world. He is has no mother and had recently died in a few months. He often remembers and recalling times of his parents lived together in a house with a large backyard and front lawn which his father never got tired of mowing it. He's trying to make quarterback and to do well in school despite that fact weighing him down. As well as being best to be a good son to his widowed father but Jerry is beginning to freak out of his father’s boring life style. He worries about ending up like his dad and being stuck in the same routine as his father. Realizing this factor, Jerry decides to make a change in his life out of impulse saying "No" to chocolates but, he's really saying "no" to the entire “universe” that The Vigils and Brother Leon created at Trinity. The random guy out from the streets accuses Jerry of being a "Square boy. Middle aged at fourteen… “. Disregarding the guy’s aimless lifestyle, he begins questioning all the routines in his life. It’s not like he doesn't love and appreciate his father but Jerry becomes more worried that he'll grow up and be trapped in the kind of boring life as his dad. He comes to the realization that his father is stuck living a dull, almost unhappy life as he looks in the mirror and "sees his father's face reflected in his own features." We can see also in the story, Jerry tends to waver in the border lines of excitement and boredom by isolating himself and not being isolated. In the beginning of t...
In The Big Field, author Mike Lupica explores the theme, "Success uses motivation as fuel." Lupica portrays this theme through the main character, Hutch. Throughout the entire book, Hutch, a young boy that has just recently joined a highly talented baseball team, displays moments that exemplify this main theme. Hutch and his team have a chance to play in the stadium of the Miami Marlins, a Major League Baseball team, as long as they can keep winning games and advancing through a challenging tournament; however, Hutch's favorite position on the field, shortstop, the position located between 2nd and 3rd base, has already been filled on the team. Unfortunately, Hutch gets a demotion from shortstop, to second base, the position located between 1st base and 2nd base. Although Hutch was disappointed and melancholy about the switch in position, he was even more upset about the downgrading of leadership, since the
“Mom, I can’t sit in that courtroom everyday and watch Marlene go through this. It is hell to sit there, and I can’t take much more time off from work, or they are going to fire me and then what will we do?” Stopping by to see his mother, Jerry said.
for them. Jerry tries to do this a couple of times, but he is not successful. After his
Each time, Jerry went to see his wife at the state prison, which wasn’t often, she complained, “Jerry, why aren’t you supporting me? You never come to see me anymore. You know deep down in your heart that I am innocent.”
One of the biggest difficulties of people being an individual rather than actually judged it’s the fear of judgement. Most people amuse that they’re going to be judged, going back and though in their heads not letting themselves be or do what they want. Unlike Jerry he said “no” even though he was done with the Vigils assignment without thinking, and then quickly rejected it. Jerry couldn't understand why said “no” again having an inner battle with himself, saying “ Why did you do that? I don’t know. Have you gone crazy? (cormier page 119)”. Jerry wasn’t the only one who’s scared of judgement Goober also wonder if he’s doing the right thing. He wanted to be there for Jerry but he didn’t want to become a victim too.
He resists the stereotypes that others place upon him. Stereotypes are the “assumptions of what people are like, whether true or false” (Henslin, 2013, p. 118). John does not use drugs, rarely drinks alcohol, and is highly motivated, definitely not the “stereotypical” homeless man. He hides his homeless status from most of his friends and many of his family members, as he does not want this to be his master status, or the “status that cuts across the other statuses that an individual” (Henslin, 2013, p. 107), which could change the way he is viewed by them. John intentionally restricts his social interactions with others, especially with other homeless individuals, to avoid drama. While constantly looking out for the few lucky individuals he allows in his world.
Jerry is a very individual kind of person, likes to be alone, find out things by himself, and
Later when Jerry arrives at the "party" he admires Milo's dress and wonders about the other party-goers because so far it is only to two of them. Milo said that they are the party. Jerry is not the type of guy that wants to be someone's escort. He offers to return the money and suggests that she find some other man to do this for her. She tells him that she is more interested in his work than him. She wants to help him make it big and introduce him to important art dealers and such. While at a club he has a chance encounter with the infamous Lise.
Jerry's motivation is completely internal. We can understand it as his desire to get away from his mother, to assert his independence, but actually nothing has been asserted, other than his own will. And the result of his adventure is to return to his mother. He has been changed, but not in the way you might think. He wants his mother to be proud of him: he blurts out at the end that he can hold his breath for two minutes, but his mother pays little attention. "Don't overdo it," she says. Jerry cannot tell her about the tunnel. He has a secret he keeps from her
At the beginning of Edward Albee’s play The Zoo Story, Peter is approached by Jerry, who leaves an first impression that he is eccentric by repeatedly shouting that he has been to the zoo. In actuality, Jerry has already mapped a plan in which to free himself from a life of isolation and loneliness using Peter. The result of his mother, father, and aunt dying has led to his lifestyle of a social recluse from a young age, which lends to Jerry constantly antagonizing Peter. An obvious showing of this antagonizing is apparent when Jerry tells Peter that he could let Peter’s house cats loose and eat the birds, leading to their sickness death. The isolation does not seem as apparent until Jerry begins his tirade of wanting to kill his landowner’s dog. The two can both be considered alone, but different forms. Jerry and Peter are actually caged animals wanting to find their place among the zoo.
Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!"