The college experience and lessons learned today are not limited to age nor are the movies. In the 1986 live action movie, Back to School, Thornton Melon, played by Rodney Dangerfield, is a successful, self-taught business man going to college. In the 2013 animated film, Monsters University, James P. ‘”Sulley” Sullivan, voiced by John Goodman, is a youthful and immature first year college student. These characters in their relationships with others on the campus, share comparable personality traits, reveal mutual weaknesses, and learn more than academic lessons. Those lessons, however, are taught by different approaches because of their style and age-appropriateness. The comparable protagonists’ personalities and relationships in Back to School …show more content…
and Monsters University reveal common themes through their different age-appropriate film approaches. Children love to watch animated cartoons and laugh at all the funny stuff they do. They unknowingly receive fundamental tools for life through the hilariously written movies they love. Monsters University (MU) is no different. With animation, anything is possible like how all the monsters on campus are different in every way. There are no two monsters alike. The ways the monsters interact with each other are also how KIDS expect college to be like. Yes, parties occur and some are mean but none say any words remotely related to curse words. Back to School (BTS) offers a more adult appropriate view of college. Even though it was filmed during the 80’s, the popularity of pop culture is all through the movie, from the music to slang to what the actors and actresses wear. They all look roughly the same and have no personal style except for a select few. With it attracting a more mature audience, they can allow more intense scenes and vulgar language within the film. With the audience being different ages, the characters must be agreeable to the plot and theme of the movie. In MU, James P. “Sulley” Sullivan is a young college freshman straight out of high school. He is well known throughout the campus because his father was a top scarer at Monsters Inc., the power plant. He was hoping to ease through college and party and continue his fathers’ legacy on the Scarer Team. Sulley was a good scarer being tall with jaws that could kill and a roar better than a lions, but his natural born advantage became his weakness when he refused learning other methods of scaring. Cheating became his only option in the end but he admitted his wrong to the dean and his friends. Thornton Melon, in BTS, was alike to Sulley in some aspects and other he was not. Thornton was not straight out of high school; he owned his own clothing business and taught himself the art of business. He was well known throughout the camps by his clothes, and the massive parties he threw, and most of the United States knew him by his last name. He was very wealthy and used that to his advantage to further his educational career through cheating on papers and failing those papers. Thornton also used his money to enroll in the same college as his son so that he would stay in college. Although there is definitely an age difference, the relationships in both movies are strikingly similar.
In MU, Sulley gets acquainted with Mike Wazowski and they become instant enemies. Mike, from the beginning of his childhood, had been the outcast and frequently got picked on for being vertically challenged or not scary enough. Even through all those harsh words, he wanted to become a scarer. He was willing to learn what it took to be a great scarer. Sulley was not happy that Mike was beating him at his own game and they both got kicked out of the scare program. They then teamed up to regain their status as future scares. during the Scare Games and became good friends and accepted each other’s ways. Even after they became close, Sulley knew they could not win the games because he thought Mike could not be scary enough. Sulley broke the scare machine that rated the scarer and made it easy for Mike to win. Sulley apologized to everyone and told the dean what he had done. Mike eventually forgave Sulley and became the best friends you see in Monsters Inc. by scaring a bunch of police officers. Thornton’s relationship with his son, Jason, in BTS, had a rift in it cause by his retched ex-wife, Vanessa. Finally, Vanessa was kicked to the curb and Thornton decided to visit Jason at his college. Jason was not prepared for his surprise visit from his father and hoped he would not have to tell him that he was the towel boy for the school swim team and frequently got picked on by the jocks and frat boys. Jason thought he was not cut out for college life and wanted to be like his father. Thornton took that as an opportunity to be with his son and help him through college so he enrolled that day. All semester Jason studied hard and Thornton partied hard and paid NASA to write Jason’s astronomy essay, which Jason declined use of, and bought the rest of his own essays. Thornton got caught and denied that he cheated his way through school. Jason helped Thornton cram for his
finals so he looked like he knew what he wrote. Jason came to realize that buying things him was Thornton’s way of telling Jason that he loves him. He was expressing him love the only way he knew how. There are three things to notice through both movies: Firstly, when Thornton cheated his way through classes, he got caught and lied about it and denied that he would ever do such a thing. Because he lied about it, he must to work extra hard for his final to pass that semester. What that has in common with MU, is that Sulley cheated as well, but when the time came he admitted to the dean and his friends what he had done instead of lying about it. Notice the difference between MU and BTS on the aspect of cheating. Thornton got away with it and Sulley, even though he admitted his wrong, was expelled. Secondly, there is a big underlying statement in MU to be the real you and to use your own strengths to accomplish tasks instead of trying to be someone you are not. BTS agrees with that and shows that Thornton does not change through the story and Jason gathers his confidence in himself to find his love. Lastly, both show that everyone needs someone to help and encourage them along the way. They need someone to help with finals and to study. In MU, Mike helps Sulley study his techniques for the Scare Games and Sulley tries to help mike be scarier. In BTS, Jason helps Thornton study for his final exam and encourages him to keep going, just like Thornton encouraged Jason to stay in school. Back to School and Monsters University show how even though there is a significant age difference in the audience and time difference when the films were made, there are similar lessons to be learned at every age through the right approaches.
Alan Sitomer’s newest fast paced novel Homeboyz is a hardcore suspense story that will immediately put readers on the edge and leave them breathless in the end. Sitomer’s character, Teddy ‘T-Bear’ Anderson is an aloof seventeen year old that doesn’t care for anything other than to avenge his innocent fourteen year old sister Tina’s death, by targeting the infamous gang members of his city. As Teddy’s family mourns and his mother falls into a deep depression, his father Mr. Anderson, also known as Pops attempts to run the dysfunctional ailing household and his linen delivery company by himself. While Teddy observes his family, his desire to seek revenge grows stronger each day until he finally uses his extraordinary visionary skills to come up with a plan.
Melba Pattillo Beals book, Warriors Don’t Cry, is a memoir about her experience as one of the Little Rock Nine. From a very young age Melba sees the many problems with segregation. Throughout the book she recalls several memories involving the unfairness and struggles that her, her family, and other African Americans had to go through in the South during the time of segregation and the Civil Rights Movement.
Edmundson was considered one of the “interesting” teachers because of the fact he would tell jokes in order to keep the students interested, since it was the one way he figured worked; however, he did not “teach to amuse…or for that matter, to be merely interesting” (Edmundson, Greene-Lidinsky 390). College students get to pick their professors and they have to ability to find out if the professor is to their liking, or else they can just drop the class and/or find a better-suited professor. Edmundson felt as though the student’s “passion seems to be spent,” and that “university culture” is becoming more and more “devoted to consumption and entertainment” (Edmundson, Greene-Lidinsky 391). Furthermore, colleges make it even worse due to the fact that they make the campuses beautiful in order to attract students to apply, so students attend those campuses imagining that the classes will be just as
All towns, cities, and areas have their own specific traits. Small towns tend to be more like a family, while big cities tend to be more passive. Then there are the small areas where people do not make much money and struggle to get by. These areas tend to be more violent and more influenced by drugs and alcohol. This is the area that Andre Dubus III grew up in, in his memoir Townie. His parents were divorced and neither of them made much money so he and his two sisters and brother ended up moving from one small crummy neighborhood to another. In these neighborhoods he would get involved in the wrong crowds and end up doing drugs, drinking, and fighting. This became a way to show power. The most powerful people were strong and always came out on top in fights, had all the drugs and alcohol, and therefore all the power. This drove many people to fight so that they could move up this chain of command. No one wanted to be the bottom because that was the position of the most abused people of the neighborhood. This need and fear is what drove Andre to fight and the understanding of this fear is what drove him away from fighting.
“School can be a tremendously disorienting place… You’ll also be thrown in with all kind of kids from all kind of backgrounds, and that can be unsettling… You’ll see a handful of students far excel you in courses that sound exotic and that are only in the curriculum of the elite: French, physics, trigonometry. And all this is happening while you’re trying to shape an identity; your body is changing, and your emotions are running wild.” (Rose 28)
Many times when reading a novel, the reader connects with one of the characters and begins to sympathize with them. This could be because the reader understands what the character is going through or because we get to see things from the character’s perspective and their emotions and that in return allows a bond to form for the reader. The character that is the most intriguing for me and the one I found comparing to every book that I read during school was Stacey from the book “Ravensong” Lee Maracle. The character Stacey goes through a lot of internal battle with herself and it’s on her path to discovery that she begins to understand herself and what she’s capable of. Throughout the novel, Stacey has a few issues she tries to work through. This is emphasized through her village and in her school that is located across the bridge in white town. Stacey begins dealing with the loss of Nora, and elder in her town. And this in return begins the chain of events that Stacey begins on the path of self-discovery not only on herself but everyone around her. She begins to see things differently and clearly. Stacey is a very complex and confused character, and she begins to work through these complexities through her thoughts, statements and actions.
What do we learn about life in the 18th century and how successfully does the writer convey this information whilst telling us a good story?
While societal attitudes attitudes may change over time, the challenges associated with the transition from childhood to adulthood remain constant. The ideas of individuality, alienation and loss of innocence fortify the theme of coming of age across the texts The Catcher in the Rye and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The Catcher in the Rye, a bildungsroman novel written by J.D. Salinger in 1951, focuses on teenager Holden Caulfield’s transition from childhood to adulthood in 1950’s America, whereas the film The Perks of Being a Wallflower directed by Stephen Chbosky in 2012 follows teenager Charlie experiencing a similar transition in 1990’s America. Despite their varying contexts, these ideas are presented in both texts through the use the
Setting: This book starts out in this kids house his name is crash. Then they go to the arcade. That is where they spend most of the story. Then close to the end they go to the riverside.
Mike’s studying pays off as he gets accepted into Monsters University as a scare major. Mike continues to study hard, while Sulley, one of his classmates, relies on his natural scaring ability. Sulley comes from a talented family of scarers which causes him to be lazy and depend primarily on his scare technique. As the semester progresses, Mike and Sulley continue to argue to prove which monster is the better scarer. During the final exam, Dean Abigail Hardscrabble fails both of the monsters and kicks them out of the program. Hardscrabble felt as though Sulley did not study enough and although Mike had all of the scarer’s knowledge in the world, he was not scary at all.
Time is everything. When you waste time on something you forget about the other important aspects in life. When you spend little time on something you tend to forget what you just heard in a short frame of time. The story “Once More to the Lake” by E.B. White and the poem “Forgetfulness” by Billy Collins both use syntax and diction to develop their common theme of Annihilated Time. Syntax is the way a sentence is structured and what is in it. Diction is your choice of words and how they relate to the text.
I thought the poem was relatable and interesting. Facebook is a part of mainstream media. In a way, its supposed to connect people together. But sometimes the effect is quite opposite. Personally, I think Facebook can either connect us to people or make us feel lonelier. It depends on how we will use it. In lines 2-3, the poet says "Welcome to the endless high-school reunion. Welcome to past friends and lovers..” On Facebook we become friends with people we lost in touch with like past friends or past lovers. Through social media, we are given another chance to reconnect with them. But in other ways, Facebook can also make us feel lonely. It gives us the illusion that we have these many friends. In the last two lines, Alexie says “Lets
A person's ability to develop is due to two factors, maturation and learning. Although maturation, or the biological development of genes, is important, it is the learning - the process through which we develop through our experiences, which make us who we are (Shaffer, 8). In pre-modern times, a child was not treated like they are today. The child was dressed like and worked along side adults, in hope that they would become them, yet more modern times the child's need to play and be treated differently than adults has become recognized. Along with these notions of pre-modern children and their developmental skills came the ideas of original sin and innate purity. These philosophical ideas about children were the views that children were either born "good" or "bad" and that these were the basis for what would come of their life.
As a country music song, “Take Me Home Country Roads” was originally created by the couple Bill and Taffy Danoff. They somehow planned to sell to another singer. Nevertheless, their friend John Denver liked it very much. Consequently, they three worked together overnight to come up with the final draft of the lyric; then they played the song together in a Washington D.C. music nightclub as the encore the next night, 22 December 1970. Surprisingly, they won a storm of five-minute unanimous ovation. As a very nostalgic country music song, it had been touching the hearts of Vietnam War soldiers and their relatives around that time frame. Rapidly since then, people in the states and even worldwide have been listening, appreciating, and singing
One of the major themes that permeates throughout John Osborne’s play Look Back in Anger is the ideology of inequality among social classes. Osborne expresses these views on social class through the character of Jimmy— a hot headed, angry young man who vents about the injustices of class struggle. Jimmy holds much contempt for his wife Alison's entire past, which reveals his utmost hatred of the classes above him. Jimmy sees class-based entitlement as the basis of all that's wrong with the world, and his struggle is portrayed through his feverous verbal rebellion against the principles ingrained in current society. Ultimately, Jimmy can be viewed as a kind of “spokesperson” for the lower class, despite the fact that he never takes any physical action to carry out the ideas he proclaims throughout the play.