Compare Contrast Essay

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I Comparison/Contrast Essay As kids, different situations and values learned shape us differently. As shown in the autobiography excerpts “Always Running” by Luis Rodriguez and “An American Childhood” by Ann Dillard, there are similarities and differences in which the kids in the stories grow up to remember passionately due to the situation they had found themselves in. Both kids are running from either an older figure or an authority figure. The essays contrast in that one has a negative ending leaving the character with a bad memory and the other story has a lighter happier ending despite the struggle while running away and to figure out what was going to happen to her, which at the end she finds herself happy and exhilarated. Different locations, different social status. There is no doubt the writers in the stories grew up in very different environments and this makes for an evident contrast. Luis Rodriguez was from Mexican descent lived in a gang filled area of Los Angeles, where crime and discrimination was abundant. Blacks, Whites, Mexicans and others did not live at peace with each other. “It never stopped, this running. We were constant prey and the hunters soon became big blurs: the police the gangs, the junkies, the dudes on Garvey Boulevard who took our money, all smudged into one.” Says Luis after feeling he was in a constant run for his life, this place was dangerous, it was not safe. To differ from Luis’ story, Anne Dillard recalls how she felt when she was running from the redhead man in the neighborhood she lived in. “Wordless we split up. We were on our turf; we could lose ourselves in the neighborhoods backyards.” In this quote, Anne tells the reader she feels safe of her surroundings. That she knows where she is and is comfortable enough to run around free and

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