In Walter Farley’s classic novel, “The Black Stallion”, Alec Ramsay learns to be more responsible and mature. The novel starts off with Alec, after a summer in India with his Uncle Ralph, returning home for school. On the voyage home to New York The Drake stopped at an Arabian port to pick up a large, wild, untamed black stallion. The boy became intrigued by the stallion and confronted him one night, giving him a peace offering of a sugar cube. Night after night the boy continued to give a sugar cube to the savage stallion. One night, The Drake started to sink. The boy found himself in the ocean trying to find some way to stay alive. After spotting the stallion, he attached himself to a rope tied onto the horse’s halter. Hours later, the boy and stallion washed up on a deserted beach, hungry and tired. …show more content…
“The boy’s subconscious thought rose to the surface of his mind: ‘There’s food, Alec, food-if you could only find some way of killing him!’ Then he shook his head, hating himself. Kill the animal that saved his life? Never...” (Farley 37) This shows maturity within Alec that in a life-threatening situation loyalty comes before living, a trait even most adults don’t have. The stallion was hard to take care of. Although finding a home for the stallion, finding food for the stallion, and finding the money to pay for all of it wasn’t hard enough on Alec, he also chased down The Black after he got loose. “For a half an hour Alec and Henry frantically looked for The Black.” (Farley 132) Alec didn’t have to look for The Black nor did he have to take care of him for that matter. Alec did it to repay The Black’s kindness for saving his life. No matter how hard it was on Alec, he made sure the stallion was
Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses, is an incredulous story with no happy ending, where no one attains what they were attempting to achieve in the end. The story begins with a flat tone, but eventually grows to be suspenseful .[It] is set in a world of comparative [regularity], which is not to say it is any less dominated by evil ,any more controlled by rationality , logic or a divine purpose, than that of its predecessors.”(McCarthy) John and Rawlins are seventeen year olds, who have left their hometown to seek a better life,but what John doesn't know is that things will only turn for the worse. Both individuals come across a boy named Blevins ,who will be a very important character throughout the novel. As the story progresses, John will be faced with many poisonous encounters . John will face evil and evil will face him in the wake of the resurfacing of the heinous crimes that Blevins has committed, which leads them to being arrested and tortured atrociously. From having everything he will go to having nothing. Nothing.. This was
In reading “All the pretty horses” by Cormac McCarthy, we are introduced to the protagonist John Grady Cole. At the beginning of the story, John Grady is attending his grandfathers funeral in the ranch that he now shares with his mother. John Grady Cole, grew up in world where being a cowboy meant freedom and a ever growing relationship with the one thing he cared about more than anything… horses. The story seems to unravel in the early 1950s when the old west began to evolve to the new ways of the west and the definition of what made a man a cowboy increasingly blurred. As the story evolves, it becomes evident that the selling of his grandfather’s ranch leaves Grady feeling adrift and incomplete. Henceforth, he deicides to set foot on his own and find a new place to call his home. We see that the loss of his grandfathers ranch and the passing of the old west he knew, serves as a reflection of how John Grady’s character attempts to maintain this cowboy lifestyle that he witnessed growing up . John Grady Cole’s character tough young, serves as a hero in his journey of becoming a man. Combined with his passion and idealistic mentality, his love for horses and the open plains of Texas/Mexico sets him off into new adventures. Realizing that each scenario encountered paves the way towards a journey of harsh reality, this story serves as one of growth and the passionate search of the old cowboy life. Grady sets out on a journey to Mexico with his comrade Rawlins riding off into the sun with hopes of finding a new home; they rode in hopes of regaining their sense of beloning.
Edward "Blackbeard" Teach was undoubtedly one of the most feared and most despised pirates of all time. Edward Teach is thought to have lived in England before his pirate career, although his exact origins are unknown. He was named "Blackbeard", for his large black beard that almost covered his entire face. To strike terror in the hearts of his enemies Blackbeard would weave hemp into his hair, and light it during battle. Edward Teach was an unusually large man, carrying two swords, numerous knives, and pistols- he was feared by his own crew.
As he was living in the Auld’s household for about seven years, at the expensive of Mrs. Auld he was educated to read and write as a young boy. At Mr. Auld’s dismay the lessons and tutoring is forced to come to an end, even though we see the shared similarities between Mrs. Auld and Douglass. Similar to pharaoh’s situation, her heart has hardened as a result of her husband’s commands. By this time we know that Douglass possesses the knowledge of the alphabet, leaving nothing in his way for reading except the understanding of words. It is here that he makes an exchange for bread to the poor local boys who provide him with reading lessons. The boys themselves see that Douglass is no less a boy than they are except the separation of
. mine and his both,”(277) after which he challenges and is beaten by a boy “half again his size”(278) because the boy called his father a “barn burner”(278). He is left to make a critical decision between saving his family or his own morality. What prompts Sarty to betray his own moral character is his fear of Abner, who he describes as the “black, flat, and bloodless”. . . voice harsh like tin and without heat like tin”(279)....
Lawrence, D. H. The Rocking Horse Winner." The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. R. V. Cassill, ed. New York: W. W.
The author, W.S. Merwin, uses a paternal tone with varying intensity to personify his book and make it a child being released into the world alone.
Adolescence is a time of struggle for most of us. It is the time in our lives when we figure out who we are. In Black Swan Green, Jason Taylor is a thirteen year old boy who is figuring himself out in David Mitchell’s version of a 1980’s Great Britain. Throughout the book, Jason moves through his peer community’s social ranking but spends most of the novel at the bottom of the hierarchical system. At the beginning of the chapter “disco,” Jason breaks Neal Brose’s calculator and grasses on the school bully. After this incident, Jason gains self-confidence and learns not worry about what others think of him. In middle school, I always learned to make a joke out of whatever mockery was being directed toward me. Yet, after a full year of being
McCarthy’s plot is built around a teenage boy, John Grady, who has great passion for a cowboy life. At the age of seventeen he begins to depict himself as a unique individual who is ambitious to fulfill his dream life – the life of free will, under the sun and starlit nights. Unfortunately, his ambition is at odds with the societal etiquettes. He initiates his adventurous life in his homeland when he futilely endeavors to seize his grandfather’s legacy - the ranch. John Grady fails to appreciate a naked truth that, society plays a big role in his life than he could have possibly imagined. His own mother is the first one to strive to dictate his life. “Anyway you’re sixteen years old, you can’t run the ranch…you are being ridiculers. You have to go to school” she said, wiping out any hopes of him owning the ranch (p.15). Undoubtedly Grady is being restrained to explore his dreams, as the world around him intuitively assumes that he ought to tag along the c...
In relation to the novel, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass’s disobedience ultimately sparked his freedom. Being introduced to the “heart-rending shrieks” from his aunt at such a young age, slavery implanted a long-lasting effect on his life. Often times, when one experiences a painful memory in the manner such as watching a family member hit until they are covered with blood, sparks a fire to stand up for what is right in the back of their mind. Douglass carried those visions of his aunt along with him his whole life, as well as his own repulsive
This book is full of extraordinary courage, determination and will. Kien was subjected to many injustices, most of which were inflicted by the males in his life and community. Kien’s mother’s boyfriend, Lam, was a cruel man who took advantage of people around him. He raped the family maid, Loan, and he raped Kien as he slept alone at night. Lam was a sociopath and very manipulative, he took advantage of Kien’s family. Kien’s cousins were also cruel to him and his brother. They were poor, and took great joy in tormenting Kien and Jimmy. His cousins were glad to have others around who were considered “lower” then they were. Tormenting Kien’s family made the cousins feel better about themselves. When the boys were given a dog, the cousins kicked it to death while laughing. It was mostly males, but there were also female figures who took part in the violence surrounding him. His aunt was a person who had the power to stop the violence, but she only encouraged it. She got a sense of power by having Kien’s family being so destitute and dependant on her.
No Horse to be a safe haven for him as he questions his identity. As Agnes states near the end of
The presentation of childhood is a theme that runs through two generations with the novel beginning to reveal the childhood of Catherine and Hindley Earnshaw, and with the arrival of the young Liverpudlian orphan, Heathcliff. In chapter four, Brontë presents Heathcliff’s bulling and abuse at the hands of Hindley as he grows increasingly jealous of Heathcliff for Mr. Earnshaw, his father, has favoured Heathcliff over his own son, “my arm, which is black to the shoulder” the pejorative modifier ‘black’ portrays dark and gothic associations but also shows the extent of the abuse that Heathcliff as a child suffered from his adopted brother. It is this abuse in childhood that shapes Heathcliff’s attitudes towards Hindley and his sadistic nature, as seen in chapter 17, “in rousing his rage a pitch above his malignity” there is hyperbole and melodrama as the cruelty that stemmed from his abuse in childhood has been passed onto Isabella in adulthood.
Walter Elias Disney Why should the great man Walter Elias Disney be worthy of being awarded a statue in Trafalgar Square? I say, "Of course! " This to me is a quick and simple answer. However, as shocking as it may seem, others may need to be persuaded to agree.
Anderson makes effective use of fantasy to teach a moral lesson. He builds up the story in such a way that the reader does not care for the validity of the incidents. The moral lesson is that the proud and the disobedient must suffer.