Real Boys by Christopher Booth
Outline
What this section of the book is trying to address here I think, is the need for people, (parents especially) to be aware of signs of depression in young males. The first chapter in this section goes through different scenarios and real life stories of boys that have had depression, and have been afraid to talk about it, or even didn't really even know that was what they were suffering from. As William Pollack describes his sessions with his different clients, we find that really, boys can be at times scared, afraid, and very often ashamed of communicating their feelings with others. Mainly because the "Boy Code" does not allow this.
Also part of this section deals with violence in young males. The need to fight back and be tough and how it is inbred in to the hearts of the youth today. How the image of today's society is all about revenge and fighting. "To be a man you need to know how to fight back". The Hollywood actors and how you are constantly bombarded with fighting and revenge. A good illustration is of the classic John Wayne scene of him riding off to seek revenge on the bad guy. This all contributes to young boys and how they view situations, or should I say handle situations.
What I learned about my history
Wow, what can I say? Not only has just this chapter changed how I view my upbringing and past but the whole book has. I can see how the "Boy Code" played a big role in my childhood. Even now as a young adult I can still see things that control the way I think and see things. When I was reading about some of the boys and their interviews with William Pollack, I remember thinking, "that's exactly what I went through at school. (When I went to public school) I remember being told many a time by my parents (and among others) to "be a man" or "not to be a sissy". I don't think my parents were not well meaning, I just think it was how they were raised and just like a vicious cycle, they probably were taught the boy code too. I distinctly remember my Dad teaching me as a young child to learn how to fight.
In the book “There Are No Children Here” by Alex Kotlowitz, the author followed the lives of two young brothers (Lafayette and Pharoah) while they grew up in the harsh streets of Chicago in the late 1980’s. The author uses the story of the two boys’ lives to discuss the social divide in our very own society and to persuade readers that there is a major problem in “the projects” of the United States.
In the book “The Boys of Winter” by Wayne Coffey, shows the struggle of picking the twenty men to go to Lake Placid to play in the 1980 Olympics and compete for the gold medal. Throughout this book Wayne Coffey talks about three many points. The draft and training, the importance of the semi-final game, and the celebration of the gold medal by the support the team got when they got home.
Alan Sitomer’s newest fast paced novel Homeboyz is a hardcore suspense story that will immediately put readers on the edge and leave them breathless in the end. Sitomer’s character, Teddy ‘T-Bear’ Anderson is an aloof seventeen year old that doesn’t care for anything other than to avenge his innocent fourteen year old sister Tina’s death, by targeting the infamous gang members of his city. As Teddy’s family mourns and his mother falls into a deep depression, his father Mr. Anderson, also known as Pops attempts to run the dysfunctional ailing household and his linen delivery company by himself. While Teddy observes his family, his desire to seek revenge grows stronger each day until he finally uses his extraordinary visionary skills to come up with a plan.
Fly-Boys written by James Bradley, reveals the truth about nine young American World War II pilots that were shot down over the island of Chichi Jima. Out of the nine pilots one was rescued by a submarine. The other eight were captured by the Japanese, and disappeared. After the war the American government, along with the Japanese, covered up everything that had happened on Chichi Jima. Which had meant that the lives of the eight Fly-Boys were erased. Only the American and Japanese governments knew that the pilots survived the war. In this novel James Bradley reveals the story for the first time. Although, critics might disapprove on all this information making him seem bias, but in reality it is the truth that has just never been discovered.
The book “Dead Girls Don’t Lie” written by Jennifer Shaw Wolf focuses on a variety of different ideas and topics, mostly fixating the murder of the main character’s best friend Rachel. With this also comes gang violence, lost and found relationships, and the fact that some people will go to great extents in order to keep a lethal secret from the public eye. Rachel and Jaycee were best friends up until 6 months before where the book started. But, an altercation between them caused the breakup of their long lasted friendship. It is soon found out that Rachel was shot through her bedroom window, which is at first suspected to be gang violence. When Jaycee doesn’t answer her phone on the night Rachel was murdered, she received a text that circulates
Jones, Gerard. “Violent Media is Good for Kids.” Analytical Writing: A Guide to College Composition 1. M. Clay Hooper.,D. Marzette., Beth Wade. Cengage Learning, 2011. 285-88. Print.
Thinking that the war was just an ideal character. Convincing the reader to believe the boys didn't know the risk they were taking by being in this war. They way the boys viewed it, shows that, true their are some hard times in wars, but their minds are young and they thought it was just another thing to talk about. When they should have been taking things more serious, but thinking about the good parts helped them to keep a hold on their sanity. "They ought to have been mediators and guides to the world of maturity, the world of work, of duty, of culture, of progress to the future", was the beliefs of the boys after their friend Behn dies. Their generation thought that the authorities were going to look after, and take care of them, the authorities were thought of real highly by them. Until their friend passed away, then everything changed. "We had to realize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs", this is where they came to reality that, everybody was taking care of their selves, and didn't want anything to do with other peoples problems.
The boys live a new life without adults and social norms. Roles in their makeshift society have been carried out but Jack’s self-imposed responsibility only aims to fulfill his personal agenda. Jack’s fervent character is aggressiveness masquerading as passion. This destructive behavior sends Jack to a faster decline to savagery in relation to his peers.
What do we learn about life in the 18th century and how successfully does the writer convey this information whilst telling us a good story?
The purpose of Knowles’ novel is to exaggerate the life of two young boys to the extreme in order to reveal the unfortunate things that can occur in a relationship when these themes are not taken seriously. As stated in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, "It (A Separate Peace) can be viewed, for example, as a tale of Original Sin, with the Devon School as an Eden enclosing the great Tree of Knowledge through which humankind falls far from innocence but is redeemed by the suffering of a totally innocent one. It may also be approached as a reworking of the classic tale of the need to accept the potential evil within everyone and thus make peace with one’s self." BIBLIOGRAPHY "A Separate Peace." Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Vol. 78, No. 1, pp.
Love has many definitions and can be interpreted in many different ways. William Maxwell demonstrates this in his story “Love”. Maxwell opens up his story with a positive outlook on “Love” by saying, “Miss Vera Brown, she wrote on the blackboard, letter by letter in flawlessly oval palmer method. Our teacher for fifth grade. The name might as well have been graven in stone” (1). By the end of the story, the students “love” for their teachers no longer has a positive meaning, because of a turn in events that leads to a tragic ending. One could claim that throughout the story, Maxwell uses short descriptive sentences with added details that foreshadow the tragic ending.
An Uncommitted Child The novel, High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, describes the life of a man who lives through his music and his childish ways. Rob Fleming is a man who struggles with commitment when it comes to what he needs, yet commits to what he wants. This lack of commitment leaves Rob struggling with the relationships with the people in his daily life. Living his life in a careless and childish manner, Rob Fleming burns the bridges with those who are close to him, and as a result realizes how much he truly cares for them when it’s too late. There were many jobs that Rob had taken over over the years; with each job he has there is a lack of passion and drive which results in his lack of commitment.
In the poem “The One Girl at the Boys’ Party,” Sharon Olds uses imagery to convey pride in her daughter’s growing femininity. What would seem to be another childhood pool party for the girl turns into an event that marks a rite of passage to adulthood. Though the narrator is reluctant of her daughter’s search for an identity, she ultimately sees her daughter’s transformation to womanhood as admirable. Olds’ pride is first shown when the girl begins to lose her innocence from the unfamiliar surroundings of masculine men. The narrator says, “They will strip to their suits, her body hard and indivisible as a prime number” (5-6). The girl’s stiff and confident stature that this image conveys suggests that she is anxious yet willing to progress
In “Boys,” Rick Moody shines light on the conflicts the boys face. The boys weren’t always prepared for the conflicts they faced nonetheless, they always figured out how to handle them. For instance, “Boys enter the house, kiss their mother, she explains the seriousness of their sister’s difficulty, her diagnosis” (Moody 242). The boys come into the
As the boys witness death and mutilation all around them, any preconceived notion about the indoctrination, "the enemy" and the "rights and wrongs" of the conflict disappear, leaving them angry and perplexed. The story is not about heroism but about toil and futility and the divide between the idea of war and the real life and its values. The selected passages are full of violence and death and loss and a kind of perpetual suffering and terror that most of us have never and hopefully will never experience. Both authors ability to place the reader right there on the front line with the main character so vividly, not just in terms of what he physically experienced and witnessed All the complicated, intense and often completely numbed emotions that came along...