In Manchild in the Promised Land, Brown directly depicts the exceedingly complex society of Harlem and its people, its actions, and its rhythms. Using various rhetorical devices, Brown recounts his journey growing up in Harlem and becoming a writer. With this, he persuades us that a generation of people who have lived through struggles is still capable of having a life without bitterness because they are not defined by their childhood. As a member of the Harlem Buccaneers gang, Claude Brown witnesses death first-hand. Yet above all this, he has been able to land on his two feet and become a distinguished man.
_________________________________________________________ Mark Haddon’s novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, is a remarkable novel exploring the world of Christopher, a fifteen-year-old boy with Aspergers Syndrome. As a consequence, this condition, leaves Christopher’s ability to emotionally connect with people scarce. Haddon explores Christopher’s many behavioural problems, along with the emotional and physical journey which takes place in his life to discover truth – who killed Wellington? As the story unravels we discover a lot more than just Wellington’s murderer, resulting in the novels mysteriousness and immensity until the very end. The gulf which separates Christopher from his parents and the rest of us makes him unconditionally unique as a result of his disability, resulting in him to be considered as an ‘unsolved mystery’.
Rags to Riches From Street Life to living the young American Dream, Ragged Dick is a novel written by Horatio Alger Jr. Taking Place on the streets of New York City in the 1800’s this inspirational novel is about a about a young boy Richard Hunter and his attempt to live a better life and to achieve the American Dream. Richard Hunter also known as Ragged Dick is a homeless fourteen year old city boy. He is described as a plucky street boy who smokes, gambles and speaks ungrammatically. But don’t let that fool you.
Through a dangerous circumstance, Tom Benecke risks his life trying to fill his empty pockets; however, he learns what he should have been filling his pockets with all along. Tom Benecke is a tall, lean, dark-haired man who is more concerned about success at work than the truly important things in his life such as his wife. This character was interesting to me because of the lessons he learns about life and himself throughout the story. I do not like Tom's selfishness and his obsession with work, but in the end of the story I came to admire the choices he makes to change himself. A friend of mine reminds me of Tom because she always puts other things before her family.
I had my own dreams of transformation…”(8). By hanging out with bad friends, it influences Toby to be more like them. This is because to him, his friends are important to him and he does not want to risk losing them. The crowd he spends time with and the events he does with them take him farther from who he truly is deep inside. Toby’s position in feeling like a fraud, in having emptiness within himself, and finding himself shows how difficult his life can be.
In the end of Job’s story he is rewarded with double everything he had lost before and had a happy life until his mid 100’s. Holocaust victims suffered everyday with trying to escape the Nazi’s torture. For the majority of inmates the suffering of Auschwitz was soul-destroying. Primo Levi, author of “If this is Man” a memoir of Levi’s 11 month stay at Auschwitz, stated it this way in imagining what the Nazis might say to their victims: “‘We, the master race, are your destroyers, but you are no better than we are; if we so wish and we do wish, we can destroy not only your bodies but also your souls, just as we have destroyed ours’ (Levi 1988, 53–4). Levi’s suicide seemed to demonstrate that the reach of the Nazis was unlimited.
In contrast, though Troy had major social issues, he dealt with adversity quite well. Once his lover became pregnant, he was man enough to go to his wife and come clean. When he and his father fell out, he wasted no time in transforming from a 14year old to a man. The tone of this story may vary, depending on the reader. As an African American, I found the tail dark and gloomy, with potential to worsen as the story unfolded.
Victor must come to terms with his own identity, not simply as Indian, but as a man within a large and often puzzling world. Thomas, serving as metaphorical mirror of mnemonic reflection, helps Victor to understand his own role as a member of community, of society, of a family. In the other two sources, They tell how Victor realize that he was wrong to treat Thomas the way he had, and that Thomas has no family, no friends, and all he really wants is for someone to listen to his stories and he isn’t ashamed of who he is. I also think that Victor realizes just how often Thomas has been there for him, even though he has treated him badly. Unfortunately, Victor doesn’t feel that he can be friends with him because the others on the reservation will give him a lot of trouble.
He was very unpopular, clinging close to Phineas, who was Gene’s only source of social interaction. When he was not with Phineas he would feel as if,” I would have lost face with Phineas, and that would have been unthinkable.”(Knowles Pg. 34) Gene did everything he could to stay in favor with Phineas, even by taking part in’ The Suicide Society’ (Knowles. 56-57), when he longed to be studying for examinations. Striving to be the best academically and to be so much like an adult, pressured Gene into thinking he had to be, ”serious sometime, about something.
The boy feels like he is carrying on the legacy of “the good guys.” This compels him to retain his moral center even when the father does not. Whenever the father and son come into contact with evil, the boy pleads with his father for mercy. The father and son’s experience with exile is essentially a synopsis of the theme of the book. Their journey through the living hell of the world is harrowing; filled with narrow escapes and brushes with the pervading evil. Throughout it all though they retain their hope, the only thing they have.