Facing Challenges Essay

561 Words3 Pages
Dealing with life’s challenges is essential for an individual to grow and develop. It is life lessons and individual learns and coping mechanisms they develop that allows them to grow. Dealing with life’s challenges is essential for an individual to grow and develop however they also need strength and resilience. People are sometimes faced with a challenge that questions the path in which they have chosen to take. When facing challenges people often hold prejudices and these cause one to contradict them. Dealing with life’s challenges is essential to for an individual to grow and develop will be discussed through the exploration of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird and The Basketball Diaries based on the true story of Jim Carrol. Both of these texts represent people who deal with life’s challenges and to grow and develop as an individual. Strength and resilience are essential when growing up. This is seen in To Kill A Mockingbird when “Frances looked at me carefully, concluded that I had been sufficiently subdued, and crooned softly ‘Nigger lover…’” The use of pace, Harper Lee uses two commas, putting emphasis and shock on the following ‘Nigger lover’. Scout responds to the challenge of being called something she is not and having to deal with one of life’s challenges of not being able to resort to violence in order to grow and develop as and individual. This is also seen in The Basketball Diaries when Jim says, “Frist it’s a Saturday night thing, you feel like a gangster or a rock star- just something to kill the boredom, you know?” the use of a simile shows Jims feeling of being bigger than he is. For Jim, drugs empower him. Some people react differently to others in life’s challenges. Jim uses drugs to become strong and resilient rather than a more positive response, which allows him to grow. In facing challenges people often hold prejudices and these
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