Readers enjoy stories when they can empathize with the characters in them. On the surface, Facing the Lion by Joseph Lekuton and Life As We Knew It by Susan Pfeffer seem like 2 completely different stories. Facing the Lion is an autobiography of a young boy named Joseph growing up as a member of a subgroup of the Maasai tribe in northern Kenya. Life As We Knew It is a fictional collection of diary entries by an American 16 year old girl named Miranda, whose family is fighting to survive the aftermath of a meteor knocking the moon off of its axis. But, readers of either story are able to form deep connections. Facing the Lion and Life As We Knew It are both stories that readers love because of their protagonists, conflicts, and use of pathos. …show more content…
In Life As We Knew It, Miranda ends up being responsible for the health and safety of her entire family. She says on page 295, “...I fell a dozen times as I made my way to the hospital… It didn’t matter. Each time I fell I got back up and started again. No one else was going to rescue us. It was all up to me.” Miranda has to take up a role that hardly anyone ever has to, regardless of age. Joseph, in Facing the Lion, goes against his father’s wishes and chooses to go to boarding school to receive an education, which is not a common practice in his community. At school, his experience is typical to any other school kid’s. If you’re a troublemaker, you’re punished, and there’s one schoolyard bully who thinks he’s in charge. But Joseph’s experience is also unique. He describes on page 46, “The first thing we were told when we arrived was to take off our traditional clothes-- our nanga and beads. The missionaries supplied us with uniforms instead,” then on page 51, “Every time school closed for the vacation, I had to find my way home. That was one of the hardest things: The village might be 5 miles away, or it might be 50. Sometimes I wouldn’t know exactly where my family was. I had to search for them.” Once again, it’s unlikely that the reader experienced anything exactly like Joseph or Miranda. But they are able to understand the emotions they’re feeling, because they have felt them before, too. The conflicts …show more content…
Joseph is a strong, young boy who values his family, his pride, and his community. He faces various struggles throughout the book, but none of them seem to stop him from continuing to live his life. His tribe’s philosophy and mission is to just keep living. They have to face manmade and natural problems on a day to day basis. Joseph never feels bad for himself, but through the use of pathos, the reader does. The reader projects a feeling of sadness onto the character, because it’s how we would feel if we were in the same situation. On the other hand, Miranda acts most like the way a typical person would in her situation. She is upset, angry, and frustrated, at the world, the people around her, and herself, for feeling this way. Readers also know this, and agree with her. The author’s use of self pity in their protagonists, and the lack of it, urge the readers to feel pity and sadness for the main
Prior to the meteor, Pfeffer initially characterizes Miranda as an average teenager that embodies selfishness and apathy, but later reveals that these attributes do change. Before life becomes utter chaos, Miranda spends her time worrying about the things in her life like having “enough money for…skating lessons” (8) or “spen[ding] the weekend working on an english paper” (10). When Miranda is of...
As I read pages 134-135 I began to realize that Joe Rantz is particularly much different from me. First, at the start of page 134 Thula is shutting Joe out of her life again. I don’t have a step parent but even if I did I would never let anyone treat me this way for most of my life. I believe that makes this passage a window so I may observe a different way to handle things. Even Joyce, Joe’s fiancé does not understand why Joe would allow himself to be looked upon in this manner. Joe is very impassive and relenting once Thula tells him to leave. This is a noticeably different personality from people I have encountered. It gives me a window to see a different mindset and way of thinking. Of which is wonderful for a reader because often we assume
Her realization that she is not alone in her oppression brings her a sense of freedom. It validates her emerging thoughts of wanting to rise up and shine a light on injustice. Her worries about not wanting to grow up because of the harsh life that awaits her is a common thought among others besides the people in her community. As she makes friends with other Indians in other communities she realizes the common bonds they share, even down to the most basic such as what they eat, which comforts her and allows her to empathize with them.
Her struggles are of a flower trying to blossom in a pile of garbage. Growing up in the poor side of the southside of Chicago, Mexican music blasting early in the morning or ducking from the bullets flying in a drive-by shooting. Julia solace is found in her writing, and in her high school English class. Mr. Ingram her English teacher asks her what she wants out of life she cries “I want to go to school. I want to see the word” and “I want so many things sometimes I can’t even stand it. I feel like I’m going to explode.” But Ama doesn’t see it that way, she just tells, Julia, she is a bad daughter because she wants to leave her family. The world is not what it seems. It is filled with evil and bad people that just want to her hurt and take advantage of
In the movie “Diary of a Black Woman”, Helen is a dark complected woman who is very fancy and classy. Helen is a pretty well mannered woman , dressed neatly. Helen has every dollar wished for in the world but yet, does not own a bit of happiness even if desired. Throughout the experience of love, Helen’s personality changes; from warmly soft to a harsh cold hearted woman with a shattered heart.
...en-year-old girl”. She has now changed mentally into “someone much older”. The loss of her beloved brother means “nothing [will] ever be the same again, for her, for her family, for her brother”. She is losing her “happy” character, and now has a “viole[nt]” personality, that “[is] new to her”. A child losing its family causes a loss of innocence.
Josie is a woman that all look down upon because of her so called wicked ways. Even her father and brothers feel there is no goodness in her. Yet, Josie shows us goodness on page 6 she tells Mike her younger brother "Don't mind my rough tongue, Mike. I have to see you go, but it's the best thing for you." This displays just a little of Josie's inside. She has had to be something she is not for so long, that being a decent person would mean letting people know she is not like they all perceived her. And to Josie, that is worse than dieing.
There is a lot of emotion being tossed into the story, and changes the setting which carries out these feelings of happiness, loneliness, isolation and despair. Shelly script shows how varied and Frankenstein dramatic adjustments can create the atmosphere of
“The story employs a dramatic point of view that emphasizes the fragility of human relationships. It shows understanding and agreemen...
Just as Johnny’s courage shines through so does his fast maturity from child to adult. His childhood was stolen away from him by his illness but instead of sulking he pulls himself together. He takes every difficulty in stride, and gets through them. Even when he is feeling down he hides it for he does not want anyone else to feel his pain. Being a seventeen year old boy he wants to do the things all other seventeen year old boys do.
...ne’s suffering are portrayed throughout the story. It eventually leads to a deeper understanding between Sonny and his brother. This has changed and improved their relationship. The brother, through his guilt, came to recognize his role in Sonny’s life. He finally was able to understand what his mother was asking of him. Through the renewal of their relationship, they both learn to accept each other as the persons they really are. Sonny and his brother grew up under the same circumstances; poverty, the temptations that exist from living in Harlem and the racial injustices that exist during this time period. They learn to deal with their individual sufferings in their own way. Suffering can be an intense experience, but can lead to a self awareness that would not otherwise be acknowledged without it.
Although the movie The Lion King is often times viewed as nothing more than a child-based movie, in actuality, it contains a much deeper meaning. It is a movie that not only displays the hardships of maturation, and the perplexities associated with growing, but it is also a movie that deals with the search for one's identity and responsibility. As said by director Julie Taymor, "In addition to being a tale about a boy's personal growth, the `Lion King' dramatizes the ritual of the `Circle of Life'." Throughout The Lion King, Simba must endeavor through the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth to take his place in the circle of life, as king of the pridelands.
Joseph as an individual started as a lost, depressed individual with no insight on what is happening in his life which leads to constant flashbacks to his father. The loss of Joseph 's father pointed out the feeling of how many children across this world might feel especially in places where conflict and war are still existent. This story did have a little bit of the plot focused on racism but the idea of being new and unique dominated the
When trying to understand these particular characters’ experiences, it is very important to consider their worldviews, which promote “[th...
She is marginalize from society by her partner and she has to live in the shadows of him. She is unbelievably happy when she found out about the death of her husband. She expresses her feelings of freedom in her room where she realize she will live by herself. This illustrates that Louise has been living in an inner-deep life disconnected form the outside world where only on her room away from family and friends she discovers her feelings. It is important to mention that even though Louise has a sister, she does not feel the trust to communicate her sentiments towards her. We discover a marginalization from family members and more surprising from a women, Louise’s sister. The narrator strictly described Louise’s outside world but vividly reveals what is in her mind. At the same time she feels guilty of her emotional state by recognizing that she loved Brently mallard sometimes, her husband. Louise contradict herself but this demonstrates her emotional feelings about her husband disregarding her marriage. The situation of this woman represents the unhappiness and disgraceful life that women had to suffer from their