This Is Where It Ends was written by Marieke Nijkamp. 10:00 a.m. The principle of Opportunity, Alabama's high school finishes her speech, welcoming the student body to a brand new semester and a time for redemption and time for achievement.. 10:02 a.m. The students get up for their next class and walk to the doors. 10:03 The auditorium doors won't open. 10:05 Tyler starts shooting. Told from four perspectives over the span of 54 Disturbing minutes, terror reigns as one student's calculated revenge turns into the ultimate game of survival. The track team and two kids that broke into the principal's office are the only people that can help save the students and teachers inside the auditorium. Will the track meet be fast enough to run to the
During the summer, I read a novel entitled Nilda written by Nicholasa Mohr. I found the novel interesting and different from ordinary novels because Nilda had a different style of writing, a journal-like style. The story is mainly about the life a young Puerto Rican girl named Nilda during the years of World War II. Nilda goes through numerous experiences that are both good and catastrophic. From camp to miracles and new friends to losing loved ones, Nilda is a novel of surprises waiting to be uncovered.
on a map of the front line, "Here we are, we hold two hundred yards of
No one knows whether Karma actually exists, or if it is superstition. Many people do not believe in such invisible mysterious power, but in the world, things actually exist. These happenings are complexly intertwined with each other and passed down to the next generation. Struggling with trick of fortune, people are learning important life lessons and gradually maturing as a human being. Pulitzer-winning author Junot Diaz introduced these unexplained mysterious cycles in his novel, “This Is How You Lose Her”; it brings up some controversial issues. Some people might say that the novel gives hope to many women as a special guidance on how men should treat women because each situation will likely happen in the real world. The main character and narrator Yunior excuses “I am not a bad guy” in the very first sentence in the novel (4). Then he defends his attitude and claims that he did not mean it. Although a love affair easily gets the reader’s attention, Diaz splendidly illustrates the theme of family that delivers the message that one’s personality is affected by most close people, such as family and close friends, through his imperfect characters, figurative and connotative language and symbols.
In the late 16th and early 17th century, Jesuit missionaries went to Japan in order to spread their Christian faith. In the beginning these missions went well, with nearly 300k converting to Christianity. However, over time their presence was frowned upon, as they were seen as outsiders interested in changing Japan’s culture. As a result, Christian missionaries began to sneak back into Japan. This led to the systematic elimination of many Japanese Christians, and Jesuit missionaries. In the novel Silence, Shusaku Endo illustrates the discrimination, and suffering many Christians endured in Japan during this period.
The book, A Thousand Steps, has several characters. Tama is a fugitive who is very determined to live free from slavery. Another character is Elinore who is an active abolition is determined to find happiness at all costs (Bunkley, 4). There is Julie who she has no past and she seeks a future among the Indians. Hakan is full of himself with a major responsibility of taking care of his people. Tama is the main character who is born as one of the slaves in a huge cotton plantation, in North Carolina (Bunkley, 7). Her actual father is the master of the cotton plantation and her mother is one of the slaves who work in the cotton firm.
In the short story “Being There”, by Jerzy Kosinski, there are multiple examples of satire that are displayed throughout both the book and the movie. A few of them are: media, death, politics, and racism. The satire of the media was very similar in the book and the movie. Media played a big role in society and still does to this day.
I would say that In the Wake: On blackness and Being by Christina Sharpe is the most memorable book that I have read studying HIST 444. I enjoyed reading this book not only because she used a word ‘wake’ to describe many factors, but also the fact that she used her story and her friends and families’ stories to elaborate the anti-blackness. Anyways, I think the definition of wake which emerged more strongly is ‘process’. On page 21, she mentions that ‘wake’ is process and through the wake, they could grief for their dead friends and family. I recalled 12 Years a Slave. In the movie, Solomon and his slave comrades sing a song and grieve for their dead friends in a funeral ritual. According to Sharpe, a term wake helps passing of the dead through
A theme in which plays an important part in the novel, The Awakening, is that choices have inevitable consequences. This is connected with Realism because a big belief in Realism is; ethical choices are often the subject, character is more important than action and plot. In multiple cases in this novel, the reader sees the type of choices the characters make and the effects and outcomes that follow after them. Also in some ways, people change their personality and their change in character adds a part in their future. Leonce choice of how he views Edna and he treats her have an effect on him and consequences on and her. Edna is a big part of this novel being the main protagonist and all of her ethical choices that have an enormous consequence on her. Some of these choices are, wanting to be with Robert, to follow the path of Mademoiselle Reisz and becoming an artist, and ultimately deciding to take her life.
In the essay “Everything Now” Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers, author Steve McKevitt blames our unhappiness on having everything we need and want, given to us now. While his writing is compelling, he changes his main point as his conclusion doesn’t match his introduction. He uses “want versus need” (145) as a main point, but doesn’t agree what needs or wants are, and uses a psychological theory that is criticized for being simplistic and incomplete. McKevitt’s use of humor later in the essay doesn’t fit with the subject of the article and comes across almost satirical. Ultimately, this essay is ineffective because the author’s main point is inconsistent and poorly conveyed.
In his novel Being There, Jerzy Kosinski shows how present day culture has strayed away from the ideal society that Plato describes in his allegory of the cave. In his metaphor, Plato describes the different stages of life and education through the use of a cave. In the first level of the cave, Plato describes prisoners who are shackled and facing a blank wall. Behind them is a wall of fire with a partition that various objects are placed and manipulated by another group of people. These shadows are the only action that they ever see. They can only talk to the surrounding prisoners, and watch the puppet show on the wall in front of them. Naturally, the prisoners come to believe that the shadows on the wall in front of them are reality. The second level of the cave is where a prisoner is released of the chains and is forced to look at the light of the fire behind him. The light hurts his eyes, and after a moment of pain and confusion he sees the statues on the partial wall in front of him. These were what caused the shadows that he took to be reality. This enlightenment is the start of education for the prisoner. He then is taken from the cave into the light of the sun. At first the prisoner can see only shadows, then reflections, then real people and things. He understands that the statues were only copies of the things he now sees outside of the cave. Once he is adjusted to the light, he will look up to heavens to gain a true understanding of what reality is. This is what Plato refers to this understanding as the Form of Goodness. In Being There, Chance is in the deepest part of the cave, yet the world around him is too ignorant to realize this (Johnson 51-54)
Sylvia Barret, a new teacher is starting her first day in room 304. She finds out that teaching isn’t all that she thought it would be. Her first friend is Bea a veteran teacher who helps Sylvia out by explaining how Calvin Coolidge high works. The writer takes all the craziness of a normal high school and embellishes them; for instance the school guidance counselor is always using big words and thinks all the students need help. And Mr. Mchabe the administrative assistant who is nosy about everything. The Janitor who is never available.
The novel, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other (2011) written by Sherry Turkle, presents many controversial views, and demonstrating numerous examples of how technology is replacing complex pieces and relationships in our life. The book is slightly divided into two parts with the first focused on social robots and their relationships with people. The second half is much different, focusing on the online world and it’s presence in society. Overall, Turkle makes many personally agreeable and disagreeable points in the book that bring it together as a whole.
Vine Deloria, author of The World We Used to Live In, not only introduces his readers to indigenous Native American spirituality and traditional practices including ceremonies but also brings several important ideas of native spirituality to the forefront. He discusses the importance of having and maintaining a relationship with mother earth and all living beings; an interconnectedness with nature in all forms that is crucial to the understanding and practice of Native American spirituality. Dreams and visions were discussed as an important form of communication in indigenous spirituality. The important relationships with animal and plant spirits are discussed. The concept of power and what is considered power in Native Spirituality. Deloria talks about the importance of place in indigenous spirituality. It is believed that power and wisdom rests in places. The landscape holds memories of all that has ever happened. Through all the aspects Deloria discusses in his book, readers get a clear view and better understanding of Native American spirituality through various accounts of different tribal activities and interviews from both emic and etic perspectives of culture. By using a wide range of research, Deloria does a fairly good job of remaining unbiased which is a difficult thing for anyone to do.
Like Life by Lorrie Moore thematically presents stories revolving around romance and how heartache and how irony can arise in a relationship. Two stories within her book present characters that are unable to cope with the "real world" and end up being lonely. “Vissi d’Arte” and “Starving Again” focuses more with male protagonists who both fail at creating a long lasting relationship and affection for something by being narrow minded and blind by their actions.
Wars, civil wars, poverty, natural disasters and many more factors forces people to leave their home behind in search of a new place to settle down. There are around 15.4 million refugees in the world – people who has nowhere to go because their homes have been destroyed. But who are going to help these refugees, who have already lost so much. This short story, The Go-Between written by Ali Smith focuses on a 33 years old African refugee, who has repeatedly tried to cross the Spanish border unsuccessfully.