E.A Draft Essay In Markus Zusak's novel, ¨I am the Messenger¨, Ed Kennedy faces an external conflict of having to deliver the right messages to each place without having any clues on what the message should be. However, this choice also illustrates true character as both, brave, and determined. Ed Kennedyś decision to follow through with the delivering the messages without knowing what will happen also reveals the universal theme that bravery requires commitment even though you may be unsure about the outcome. We first now Ed Kennedy as a cab driver in a small rural town living an average life with nothing going for him. Ed describes a little about himself in introduction,“Just prior to the bank holdup, I'd been taking stock of my life. …show more content…
A characteristic unknown to the reader until the messages began coming in. Ed isn’t the biggest, buffest guy out there so it takes a lot of commitment to confront someone like the man at Edgar street who beat and raped his wife each night. Ed states this one night while observing the home on Edgar street, “He has sex with her and the bed cries out in pain. It creaks and wails and only I can hear it. Christ, it's deafening. Why can't the world hear? I ask myself. Within a few moments, I ask it many times. Because it doesn't care, I finally answer, and I know I'm right. It's like I've been chosen. But chosen for what? I ask. The answer's quite simple: To care.” (1.6.33). Ed waits until the drunk is all tipsy one night and offers him a free ride back to the man’s home from the pub. Only after the man passes out from all the alcohol does Ed act. That night Ed took care of the man who was doing horrible things to his family. In another occasion, we see Ed’s commitment when he returns after not seeing a message complete with the Rose boys. Even though Ed could not deliver the message the first time, he returned to the Rose brothers to receive a ferocious beating to complete his message. He does not report the brothers and instead was content that his message has now been sent, and the Rose brothers who once fought each other so savagely, were together for that moment. “...Well done, Ed, I tell …show more content…
He doesn’t like how his mom says Ed hasn’t done anything to be proud of, and Ed falls into a slump. “Careful now, her statement comes out. Believe it or not, it takes a lot of love to hate you like this.” (3.10.54) Although Ed has taken such a heavy blow from his own mother he continues delivering the messages which demonstrates some true commitment. Through Ed’s Mom's statement, the author tries to explain how we will often be criticized for not being something others want us to be, but we should keep our head high and be true to ourselves, much like Ed Kennedy did.1 The word, “Hate”, brings a very strong connotation along with it. The fact that Ed’s father was described as a deadbeat drunk by Ed’s mother tells us that Ed does not want to follow in the same footsteps. Through using characters to say things like what Ed’s mother said, Mark Zusak brings up the common theme of having the strength to overcome hard
All the long misery of his baffled past, of his youth of failure, hardship and vain effort, rose up in his soul in bitterness and seemed to take shape before him in the woman who at every turn had barred his way. She had taken everything else from him; and now she meant to take the one thing that made up for all the others. For a moment such a flame of hate rose in him that it ran down his arm and clenched his fist against her.
In The Red Badge of Courage, Henry Fleming was drawn to enlist by his boyhood dreams. His highly romanticized notion of war was eclectic, borrowing from various classical and medieval sources. Nevertheless, his exalted, almost deified, conception of the life of a soldier at rest and in combat began to deflate before the even the ink had dried on his enlistment signature. Soon the army ceased to possess any personal characteristics Henry had once envisioned, becoming an unthinking, dispas...
One of his strongest qualities is adding a message that connects with many types of readers but at the same time focuses on one idea. These messages may not...
Ed learns to face all of his fears, and he was able to rise above his feelings of incompetence as he helps others in areas where they need the most help in. Some of the messages that Ed receive are as simple, for example, buying an ice cream cone for a single mother, a church that needs congregation, but others put Ed in real danger. Ed’s last message, delivered on the joker card, it's for Ed himself. During the delivery of this message, Ed realized that “he was not the messenger, but rather he was the message itself.”( Zusak, p. 357). This quote shows that even ordinary ones, can rise about their perceived ability to make a difference in the world. Through his journey, Ed discovers that he has now become “full of purpose rather than incompetence, he also becomes more confident, and also improved him as a human
WP Kinsella expressed his message multiple ways including, plot structure, point of view, symbolism, and more. One of his messages was people should work hard to make their dreams come true, even if it means having to overcome obstacles. Another message was that people often have unique ideas regarding what would constitute heaven. Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa is a great Canadian short story.
When wandering physically or mentally, courage will lead you back to the path. In “Home of the Brave” a heart touching memoir by Katherine Applegate, Kek experiences his new life in America with the assistance of his caring friends and family. He struggles along the way but never loses hope to find his mother. The most important theme in “Home of the Brave” is courage. Courage is when you have hope to better the future for you and others. This theme is shown when Kek continuously strives to find his mother even though his friends are indirectly saying that she is gone.
The Messenger was originally published in 2002 in Australia, where it received the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Book Award in 2003. The author, Markus Zusak, received several starred reviews for The Messenger. Most focusing on the successful development of a sympathetic character as he struggles to become a stronger person. The Messenger is about an ordinary young man, Ed Kennedy, who is sent playing cards with messages written on them from an unknown source. The messages written on these playing cards are perceived to be missions for Ed to complete. Ed, the main protagonist is described as the ‘epitome of ordinariness’ and is called a ‘dead man’. Zusak shows that ordinary people can do extraordinary things by pushing themselves
It is said that when a man returns from war he is forever changed. In the short story, “The Red Convertible,” Louise Erdrich demonstrates these transformations through the use of symbolism. Erdrich employs the convertible to characterize the emotional afflictions that war creates for the soldier and his family around him by discussing the the pre-deployment relationship between two brothers Henry and Lyman, Lyman's perception of Henry upon Henry's return, and Henry’s assumed view on life in the end of the story.
Today, we have a lot of veterans who are coming home from war that are being displaced. In this chapter it talks about a Vietnam War soldier named Norman Bowker who arrives home from the war. In the chapter, Speaking of Courage from the book ‘The Things They Carried’ written by Tim O’Brien, Norman feels displaced from the world and everyone there. A returning soldier from the Vietnam War is driving around a lake on the 4th of July in his fathers big chevrolet, but then realizes he has nowhere to go. He starts to reminisce about his father, ex-girlfriend, and his childhood friend. Norman talks about all the medals he had won. He starts to think about his fathers pride in those badges and he starts to have a recollection about how he had almost own the silver star but blew his chance. He continues to drive around the lake again and again. He continues to imagine telling his father about the story of how he almost won the silver star, but failed to do so. This paper will analyze Speaking of Courage with the new criticism/formalism lens.
Works Cited and Consulted: Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. Canada; 1976. Gibson, Donald B. The Red Badge of Courage: Redefining the Hero.
In the novel, I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak, Ed Kennedy is just an ordinary bloke who’s grown up at the far north of town, also known as “everyone’s dirty little secret” (page 17). As the story progresses, Ed receives four playing cards that require him to do three challenges each. According to Ed, these challenges are like “missions” with harsh consequences if not completed. While progressing through each mission, Ed produces changes to the lives of many people.
Nonetheless, after Ed is picked to deliver “messages”, he is required to help and make a difference in his town. His participation ends up being an adventure to his own personal growth. Ed changes the lives of others but also learns that his life also has value and prospect. This theme is conveyed through characterisation, developing relationships and allegory.
... came as a big shock. After having analyzed his feelings towards race relations in his life, his father’s interpretation of this passage now resembled that of his own. At the start of the essay Baldwin hated his father because his bitterness bothered him but he concludes with the desire to be with his father again. As he evaluates his experiences with racism alongside his feelings from the death of his father, he realizes that his father held correct opinions on white people and his whole life he hated the wrong person. James Baldwin perpetuated hate during his life by directing it at his father and didn’t even notice until he was hated himself; unfortunately, he lost that precious time with his father.
In Isaiah Berlin’s Agnelli Prize winning essay, “The Pursuit of the Ideal,” the British philosopher claims that, “we are doomed to choose, and every choice may entail an irreparable loss.” Berlin’s statement is proven true in The Way the Crow Flies by award winning author Ann-Marie MacDonald. Set in a post-war era, The Way the Crow Flies tells a captivating story of a wing commander, named Jack McCarthy, and his family after they move to a close-knit community called Centralia. Jack’s choices in Centralia eventually place him in a compromising position. His daughter, Madeleine, falls victim to her fourth grade teacher’s horrible abuse after school. These two main plots are then intertwined with the death of a little girl, and an innocent boy named Ricky Froelich is placed on trial for her murder. Now, both Madeleine and her father Jack find themselves doomed to choose secrecy or exposure and find that every choice they make has great consequences. Over the course of The Way the Crow Flies, the theme of choice and its consequences is developed by Cold War chicanery, sexual abuse, and confrontation.
The key themes of Baldwin’s essay are love, hatred, rage, and anger. These themes quickly transform into recurring strands that Baldwin applies throughout his essay. These ...