Roland Smith “Elephant Run” is a young adult historical fiction novel published on September 25th, 2007 about a 14 year old boy by the name Nick Freestone who lives with his father on his teak plantation in Burma. The Japanese soon take over Burma and his father Jackson Freestone to a prison camp leaving Nick to escape to try and save his father with a help of some friends he finds along the way. Roland Smith leaves the audience with a sense of love for their family after reading this book, the type of dialogue Smith uses throughout this book to show that Jackson truly loves and appreciates his son will sure have an impact on you. The small important detail Smith uses throughout the book makes the book much more detailed and descriptive which …show more content…
The conflict of the story is Nick Freestone is separated from his father and he Nick is left all alone to figure out how to escape himself and to figure out how to help his father escape the prison camp. I know what you are all thinking , I've never been held in a prison camp before, but this relates to the readers in a way that it may not seem to. The conflict relates to most of the young adult audience in the way that there was a time in your life maybe that you have experienced or will experience where you too will need to help out a family member and even if you don’t need to you will want to , as Nick states in this quote, “... yes Mya I know it will be difficult, I don’t need to escape, I don’t need to save my father, I don’t need to risk my life for my own father, but I WANT TOO.” …show more content…
The theme is first shown in the beginning of the book when Nick has such an impact on him and his father being separated by the Japanese and they get put into different camps. The theme keeps getting shown throughout the book due to Nick trying anyway he can to not only escape himself but also figure out where his dad is and help him escape, and I may not be that smart but I do know if you were to do that for someone you truly do love them. Once Nick and his Dad escape and all the worries and stress are gone Jackson (Nick’s Father) sits Nick down and tells him how much he appreciates all he has done and states “In the end, the only thing that matters is
Throughout the novel the feelings the man has for his son are sacred; the man makes great sacrifices for his son to continue to live and have a future in a world that has been devastated and stripped of all humanity. The boy is the only source of light for
The theme in a story is a message or lesson that the author wants the reader to take away when reading the story. These themes can teach the reader lessons, get points across or help them understand the book better. All Quiet On The Western Front displays the themes: the horrors and destruction of war and the effects on soldiers, sacrifice, loss of innocence, and friendship.
Through the father’s journey, it becomes clear to the reader that the father gives up in the end and does not have anything else to live for. He does not even want to talk to his own family. This allows readers to highlight the difference in the journey with the narrator in “Battle Royal”, because the narrator never gives up and always pushes himself to do better things and break all these limitations
The book overall is a very hard book to understand because of the way it was written and the time frame in which the book was taking place in and the complexity of the characters the book has. Nick Caraway is particularly difficult because he is not only a major character to keen into he is also telling the story a year later and reflecting his thoughts on how he behaved. Nick holds the qualities of slow judgement on people he meets but he only does this because it was infused in him at a young age by his father and he is very practical with what to do and how to do it also he has some integrity to him and knows how to handle himself as a man. Nick must be understood because he is not only the man caught in the cross fire
Ernest Hemingway uses the various events in Nick Adams life to expose the reader to the themes of youth, loss, and death throughout his novel In Our Time. Youth often plays its part in war, and since In Our Time writes very frequently about war; it is not a surprise that the theme of youth is seen in many of the stories. In “Indian Camp” the innocence of youth is shown in the last sentence of the story: “In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die.” (19) When this sentence and the conversation Nick and his father have before they get on the boat are combined in thought it shows that because of Nicks age at the time that he does not yet understand the concept of death.
...e, before I get through, a picture of the whole world-or as much of it as I have seen. Boiling it down always, rather than spreading it out thin” is well explaining in his passage “Big Two-Hearted River”. He is trying to let the reader not only see a whole true world about destruction from war in both mental and physical way by his pure writing, telling details and fact but also feel the power of Nature’s healing. The theme of change first appears in the passage when he first returns his homeland from war. The main theme healing of nature is shown throughout the passage. Nick is seeking for the beauty of nature and desires to fit himself in once again in order to recover his hardened heart and unpleasant memories from war. Later on the theme of freedom is revealed when Nick regains his freedom and self-confidence as a normal man. Nature is his salvation of the soul.
While there is optimism in Jackson’s life we also find loneliness. The author shows the desolation that Jackson feels in the following line: “Piece by piece I disappeared” (p.170). The author portrays a slow dissolution of self. While there are people in his life there is a detachment as well. Throughout the story we realize that Jackson seems to buy his friends, through Rose and Junior with alcohol to the Aleuts with breakfast. Jackson’s “teammates, defender’s and posse” disappear and this further isolates Jackson. While Jackson lives a solitary life this does not stop him from buying friends where he
One example of the theme occurs when the author first introduces the story. “But the summer I was 9 years old, the town I had always loved morphed into a beautifully heartbreaking and complicated place.” (pg. 1). The author is saying that the year she turned nine, she found out something about her town that broke her heart and changed the way she saw it. This quote is important because it supports the theme. It shows that now she is older she has learned something about her town that made her wiser than when she was younger. She is now more informed because the new information changed her and caused her to begin to mature.
in part.” Living through his grandmother’s memory in the end, Jackson, throughout his depressing and yet oddly fantastic journey to only end up where he started is a wonder. He connected with his people, united in poverty and injustice, purely Indian. Metaphors
During the entire story, the readers are sympathetic towards Jackson. Alexie’s familiar syntax and direct approach makes to readers feel some connected and understanding towards Jackson and his circumstance. Jackson redeems his grandmother’s regalia. He was the “hero.” The story does not state if this adventure cause Jackson to find himself but it did provide the readers with a sense of hope through kind gestures and perseverance.
Out of the four main Gothic themes, I would say the most prominent theme in this episode is justice and injustice. The other themes are present, for example when Nick and Hank were stuck in that office booth surrounded by bees they experienced confinement, Nick experienced terror when he stepped on the dead bee bodies (he thought the bees were around) and horror when the bees actually came later on, and Nick experienced appearance and reality when he realized the girls who were murdered were not actually human like they appeared. That being said, justice and injustice is by far the most common theme employed in this episode. In the Gothic world, justice must ultimately win over injustice. All those who directly or indirectly commit a heinous
Ernest Hemingway uses the various events in Nick Adams life to expose the reader to the themes of youth, loss, and death throughout his novel In Our Time. Youth very often plays its part in war, and since In Our Time relates itself very frequently to war throughout; it is not a surprise that the theme of youthful innocence arises in many of the stories. In “Indian Camp” the youthful innocence is shown in the last sentence of the story: “In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die.” (19) When this sentence and the conversation Nick and his father have before they get on the boat are combined in thought it shows that because of Nicks age at the time that he does not yet understand the concept of death.
With the son’s fear amongst the possibility of death being near McCarthy focuses deeply in the father’s frustration as well. “If only my heart were stone” are words McCarthy uses this as a way illustrate the emotional worries the characters had. ( McCarthy pg.11). Overall, the journey of isolation affected the boy just as the man both outward and innerly. The boys’ journey through the road made him weak and without a chance of any hope. McCarthy states, “Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all” (McCarthy pg. 28). The years of journey had got the best of both, where they no longer had much expectation for
The first theme I chose to focus on was freedom. I chose this simply because of the fact that he uses this word repeatedly throughout his book. I thought this was a great theme because he constantly talks about how you cannot and should not let yourself get bogged down worrying about what other people think about you or how other people perceive you. Nick believes that you are in control of you and only you, and if other people do not accept you for who you are, then that is on them and that is their problem. Nick says that people must stop trying to live up to everyone else’s expectations. He also says that we have to stop these negative attitudes, despite what our circumstances are, and we have to stop the nonsense of thinking we are not “good enough.” I chose the image of a person who has different paths in front of them to choose from. I chose this to depict that everyone always has options no matter what their circumstances are. Everyone has a choice of how they will live, as well as what their attitude and outlook on life will be. Nick learns th...
"Shooting an Elephant" is perhaps one of the most anthologized essays in the English language. It is a splendid essay and a terrific model for a theme of narration. The point of the story happens very much in our normal life, in fact everyday. People do crazy and sometimes illegal moves to get a certain group or person to finally give them respect. George Orwell describes an internal conflict between his personal morals and his duty to his country to the white man's reputation. The author's purpose is to explain the audience (who is both English and Burmese) about the kind of life he is living in Burma, about the conditions, circumstances he is facing and to tell the British Empire what he think about their imperialism and his growing displeasure for the imperial domination of British Empire.