2 On the Road
Evan knew that his father would never let him disappear for the summer. He had to know his son’s whereabouts at all times. His father would enlist his mother to find him; his mother would protest, briefly, that Evan is old enough now to be on his own. But she, too, would want to know what hd become of him. And his father would point out that Evan was at a vulnerable age—old enough to get into serious trouble, and then have no idea how to deal with it. His mother would look doubtful for a few minutes aftre that. She would be waffling, and then his father would run down the list of examples of celebrity kids run amok. The Drew Pendergast story would be brought up, Chappaquiddick, the Whittlingtons. The Hilton sisters would clinch his argument, so much so that he woldn’t even have to say anything beyond their names. They both agree about the Hilton sisters.
Just like that her faith in him would be forgotten. She would say out loud, to justify herself and explain to me, even tho he was not there, that she had to locate me for my own safety. So many kids around the wrrld are abandoned by their parents—willingly or unwillingly—but Evan couldn’t get out from under his parents’ thumbs even though he was nearly twenty-one now, would be in four weeks. Safety was just the excuse; they wanted to encure that Evan wouldn’t embarrass his father—and that entailed a never-ending vigil whose price was that Evan would never have a life of his own. His whole life, as long as his father was in the spotlight—and he would never voluntarily leave it—Evan would have to run his decisions past them, so that his father could decide whether there might be any political downside.
Once the Senator had his mother on his side, the ...
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...hich case, he could have the whole summer to himself, and that was all he needed. It’d be too cold to spend the summer in the deep woods without a whole lot more preparation. And besides, he hoped to have himself sorted out by then. End of the summer, he’d have his head on straight—no later than the end of September for sure. By the time the leaves turned and the fall foliage was at its brightest and most glorious, he’d be ready to leave the woods and come back to civilization. He knew where he needed to go and what he needed to do.
He wondered if this goal setting was a good idea. Maybe it was just another legacy of his over-controlling parents and it was something he should drop completely. But he didn’t want to drop it: it gave him a sense of security. That he wasn’t turning into a recluse, that he would rejoin all his friends and the human race.
Out of these two investigations, various factors emerged to be contributory to Evan’s behavior. The first thing that came out clear is that his parents had refused to disclose to him his real biological father. Currently, Evan stays and lives with his stepdad and this made him angry and then developed rebellion
In the high criminal neighborhood where the other Wes lived, people who live there need a positive role model or a mentor to lead them to a better future. Usually the older family members are the person they can look up to. The other Wes’s mother was not there when the other Wes felt perplexed about his future and needed her to support and give him advises. Even though the other Wes’s mother moved around and tried to keep the other Wes from bad influences in the neighborhood, still, the other Wes dropped out of school and ended up in the prison. While the author Wes went to the private school every day with his friend Justin; the other Wes tried to skip school with his friend Woody. Moore says, “Wes had no intention of going to school. He was supposed to meet Woody later – they were going to skip school with some friends, stay at Wes’s house, and have a cookout” (59). This example shows that at the time the other Wes was not interested in school. Because Mary was busy at work, trying to support her son’s education, she had no time and energy to look after the other Wes. For this reason, she did not know how the other Wes was doing at school and had no idea that he was escaping school. She missed the opportunities to intervene in her son’s life and put him on the right track. Moreover, when the author was in the military school, the other Wes was dealing drugs to people in the streets and was already the father of a child. The incident that made the other Wes drop out of school was when he had a conflict with a guy. The other Wes was dating with the girl without knowing that she had a boyfriend. One night, her boyfriend found out her relationship with the other Wes and had a fight with him. During the fight, the other Wes chased the guy and shot him. The guy was injured and the other Wes was arrested
The world of young adults is a complicated landscape, with cliques and a desire to fit in. This push for conformity stretches not only through behavior, but more noticeably through the apparel worn by youths. At the beginning of the story, the narrator states that she and her friends are in “trouble,” but they “do not know what [they did], and [they are] sure [they] did not mean to do it” (103). This fear of the unknown continues throughout the entirety of the story, and readers can infer that the crime the girls have committed was simply dressing out of the norm for their age. The narrator also mentions that she is “white-skinned, ebony-haired, red-lipped, and ethereal,” far different than the expectation for her being “suntanned, golden-haired, peach-lipped, and earthbound” like her mother had been (103). As time repeats itself, so too do the fashion trends popular among the masses, and the look that the narrator’s mother portrayed was the same as the look her daughter is expected to adhere to. This is not the case, though, and because of her and her band’s choices in clothes, the narrator feels ostracized by not only her peers but her father as well, who “looks at [them] without moving his mouth or turning his head” as they leave the house (104). This reaction, or lack thereof, indicates that the father disapproves of the choices his daughter has made about how she dresses, but feels as though it is not his place to criticize her. The ending line does an excellent job at summarizing the angst felt by most teens as the narrator and her band feel as though “[they] are right to turn [themselves] in” to the pressures exerted by their peers to comply to what is expected of them (104). Just as women’s individuality is torn down by the pressures
Where they grew up, kids as young as 8 years old were recruited into illegal operations; Wes and Tony included. Mary tried everything she could, but had lost her sons to the wonder and curiosity that money brings. The important place a mother should hold in her son’s life vanished and she was left to take care of their mistakes. Later in their lives, both boys were caught in a heist that set them up for an entire lifetime in jail. Their arrest sent “cheering responses” from everyone in their community. The boys were not only involved with a robbery, but a murder as well. The word spread quickly about their sentences and a “collective sigh of relief seeped through Baltimore. At home, Mary wept” (Moore 155). Many families go through traumatic experiences comparable to Mary’s situation. The choices her sons made left her alone, parallel to the isolation the boys were experiencing as
Similarly, Xavier and Elijah from Three Day Road go through a path of losing love and friends eventually turning to enemies. To begin, Xavier and Elijah war quickly noticed by other comrades because of their hunting skills. Xavier and Elijah grew up with a native background where Xavier doesn’t see killing as an ordinary thing to do. This is seen when Xavier is being shot at for the first time. He witnesses how close it was for him to be killed, responding, “The other side wants to kill me, and I’ve never even seen their faces” (Boyden, 33). Much like Paul, Xavier share many similarities to show guilt, shame and innocence. Xavier as well as Paul, thinking for all his comrades and there service for the war. Showing how his culture has taught and raised him to do so. War gives soldiers the main purpose to kill, while for Paul and Xavier killing a human is not morally wrong. In addition, Paul, like Xavier haves regret and shame for all the comrades and enemies that they have lost. This causes them to go into a state of anger and guilt which they cannot control. This is seen after Xavier cannot think straight after destroying a base along with enemies, Xavier proclaims, “I replay it over and over in my head so that I don’t sleep all night, pulling the pin on my mill bomb, throwing it and watching it arc until it disappears into the crater, the concussion and screams. I have killed someone now” (Boyden, 75). Images of horror replay in Xavier head after he kills a group of men. It is shown that Xavier is attached emotionally to his victims. While most soldiers are alone and cannot express their feelings, this leaves these thoughts as a burden which can lead to insanity. However, Xavier finds love during the war which gave him hope again...
Chris a sixteen year old African male enter into therapy seeking professional help. Chris grew up in an urban neighborhood in New York, together with his mother and father. Chris develop problems due to longing attention. He begins to act out, hang around with the incorrect crowd, and get into fights.
believed that money would make him happy. When he became rich, his dream then became
Connie, a stereotypical fifteen year old girl, views her life and her family with dissatisfaction. Jealous around her twenty-four year old sister, June, despite June’s outward plainness, and tense around her irksome mother, Connie escapes to the mall with her friends. She and her clique of friends feel like they own the place, and the rest of the world: “Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home…” (1-2). The sense of freedom intoxicates them.
Eva was the single mother of three kids. She was the matriarchal figure in her household, which did not only consist of her children, Pear, Plum, and Hannah and Hannah’s daughter Sula, but also many others who boarded in her house. There were three young boys, all named Dewey by Eva, who had arrived to the house at the same time. Eva knew that if she named them all the same name it would make them feel as though they were equally loved and cared about. Such name-calling created a positive camaraderie between them. Also in the boarding house resided a drunk, Tar Baby, and various newlyweds. Eva kept the whole house under control.
The two sets of parents differed in parenting styles, The Block’s family demonstrate the difficult side of adolescents. Massie’s parents are resistant (neglectful) to their parenting and lack in awareness of their daughter’s development and growth. Their care free life style often leaves Massie feeling misunderstood. Claire’s parents the Lyon’s are quite the opposite, they are very aware of their daughter’s development of adolescents. They are consistently working on their relationship with Claire in trying to stay in tune to her emotions and experiences. The Lyon’s strive to be an encouragement for their daughter, instead of placing hard judgement to what they see. The parents of Claire work to have an open relationship with Claire, which results to Claire reaching out to her own parents when her challenges become too much for her to
did not want to follow in his father’s footsteps. Instead, he was attracted to the
Life on the road is meant for the strong at heart and the mindful skills of a person who knows what they’re doing. To live the life on the road you need a set skill and mind to handle the rough odds ahead of yourself. It is not for the weak and the non experience because they will get brutally hurt or even worse killed in the process. Challenges such as food, knowing where to find clean water, heat for the cold nights, shelter, and most important how to hunt and pick berries. Without these essential set skills a person will not make it on their own on the road by themselves. Some of us are born into a society of helpful hands and assistance with daily life functions, but in this case you will be alone with no helping hand or handouts. Life on the road is meant for the strong and is not for everyone.
The father’s character begins to develop with the boy’s memory of an outing to a nightclub to see the jazz legend, Thelonius Monk. This is the first sign of the father’s unreliability and how the boy’s first recollection of a visitation with him was a dissatisfaction to his mother. The second sign of the father’s lack of responsibility appears again when he wanted to keep taking the boy down the snowy slopes even though he was pushing the time constraints put on his visitation with his son. He knew he was supposed to have the boy back with his mother in time for Christmas Eve dinner. Instead, the father wanted to be adventurous with his son and keep taking him down the slopes for one last run. When that one last run turned into several more, the father realized he was now pushing the time limits of his visit. Even though he thought he was going to get him home, he was met with a highway patrol’s blockade of the now closed road that led home.
With the son’s fear amongst the possibility of death being near McCarthy focuses deeply in the father’s frustration as well. “If only my heart were stone” are words McCarthy uses this as a way illustrate the emotional worries the characters had. ( McCarthy pg.11). Overall, the journey of isolation affected the boy just as the man both outward and innerly. The boys’ journey through the road made him weak and without a chance of any hope. McCarthy states, “Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all” (McCarthy pg. 28). The years of journey had got the best of both, where they no longer had much expectation for