In Robert Lipsyte’s book, The Contender, and in Ring Lardner’s short story, Champion, the two main characters, Alfred Brooks and Midge Kelly, pursue the same career, yet their journeys through it could never be more different. Their motives, their journeys, and how they treat women heavily define who they are. While Alfred takes the hard and honest route to fame, Midge goes straight for the win. As a result, Alfred’s life of a contender makes him more of a champion than Midge ever is. To begin with, the two characters’ motivations to get into boxing define who they are and what they stand for. Alfred enters the world of boxing for the experience and self growth involved, while Midge only enters for the fame, fortune, and women. As a result, …show more content…
their mindsets are very different throughout the two stories. Although he fights hard and learns from his mistakes, Alfred is much more kind and gentle. Midge, on the other hand, is aggressive from the very start and wins every match that he doesn't shamelessly forfeit. There is no learning process for Midge; he just fights and moves on. Alfred’s motivations are to try, while Midge’s are to win. What Midge doesn't learn is that there is more honor to trying than there is to winning. Throughout both stories, the two characters follow very different career paths. This later becomes a big deciding factor as to how the stories conclude and who the two characters become. While Alfred has to work hard for his fame, Midge has it granted to him almost instantly. While the time periods and environments around the characters do play a role, the biggest deciding factor is how their personalities and attitudes towards boxing differ. Alfred starts out weak and gentle, and while he does get better, he never quite gets the "killer instinct," (The Contender, pg. 202) as Mr. Donatelli, his mentor, puts it. On the other hand, when Midge fights, he has nothing to hold back. No thought, no strategy. While in a fight, the only thing he can think about his how hard to make his next punch. This is why The Contender puts so much more weight on Alfred's victories, while Champion simply bushes off those of Midge. Strength, effort, and perseverance are all put into one of Alfred's wins, while all Midge does is land a few punches and win. Alfred’s story has a definite beginning, middle, and end, while Midge’s has no clear beginning and no clear end. Alfred’s is about self-growth and perseverance, while Midge’s is simply a series of fights and women, that ends with an “inaccurate” news article glorifying him for his actions. In conclusion, Alfred lives the hard life of a contender, while Midge lives the easy, consequence-free life of a champion. As a result, Alfred gains so much more experience and grows so much more than Midge ever could. As a consequence of their personalities and career paths, both of them end up treating the women they meet very differently.
Both characters are susceptible and get distracted at least once throughout their careers, though the amount of times they get distracted and how they get back on track separates them. Chapters 11 & 12 of The Contender recount the only time Alfred gets lured into bad things by the women around him. In these chapters, Alfred revisits The Club to meet Arlene. She causes him to drink and get high during the party, and then she indirectly causes him to forget about boxing and go to Coney Island with Major, the neighborhood thug. After a long ensemble of just barely avoiding trouble, he decides to atone for his sins and continue boxing. For Midge, the story is completely different. Midge meets his first girlfriend, Emma Hersch, on a blind date. They eventually get married, though Midge is quick to abandon her, along with his previous master, Lou Hersch. The cycle continues with Grace, and later Palmer. All three of these women distract Midge from what really matters, and cause him to do unwise things, such as when he gives Grace a full 100% of his winnings (Champion, pg. 87). He never learns from his mistakes; he just forgets and moves on. The end result is multiple broken hearts and a starving wife, while all Midge does is continue on with his life, as if nothing ever happened. Does this really make someone a
champion? In short, Alfred lives the life of an honest fighter who learns from his mistakes while Midge indulges in his vices and only fights for his next paycheck. Alfred's story is of personal growth and perseverance, and as a result, he emerges as a much better person. Midge remains unchanged throughout the entire story, only moving from one woman to the next. Despite the fact that Alfred spends nearly his entire boxing career as a contender, he emerges as a bigger champion than Midge ever becomes.
A prominent theme in the book Seabiscuit is the existence of generational rivals. During The Great Depression many people focused their attention on the horse racing business. With this booming trend making many rich during a time of immense poverty, I find it no surprise that there is a father son rivalry. Often in competition there will always be a struggle between the older, more experienced competitor and the young up and coming superstars, this is brought on by a constant need for dominance which is created by human nature.
In the short story Cradle Hold by David Klass, a very young boy named Duke possesses many feminine qualities, such as preferring dolls over guns or books over the outdoors. Duke’s father Harry is very uncomfortable about this. He tries everything he can think of to change his son, But nothing works. Eventually Duke gets a girlfriend. Harry is very happy but far from pleased. One day Duke decides to try out for wrestling to make his father happy. Duke makes the team as an substitute. Harry travels to all of Duke's games even though he doesn't play most of the time. Duke makes his way up to the best wrestler in his school. He went the whole season undefeated. He was at the championships and made it to the finals. He was up against another undefeated wrestler. In the middle of his match Harry makes some unexpected decisions without thinking how they will affect Duke.
Before Henry worked at Donatelli’s Gym he would linger around aimlessly because there weren’t many jobs available to him due to his Polio disease that affected his walking ability. Many times in the novel Henry encounters life without realizing the negative influences around him. “He looked up once, and saw Henry across the street, dragging his bad leg and smiling as if being crippled was the best thing in the world.”(pg. 25) This text based detail describes how lucky Henry feels to be around the gym environment even if he is not able to participate in the actual boxing. During his work in Donatelli’s Gym Henry becomes a major influence for Alfred’s boxing career. Without Henry at his side then Alfred would have felt discouraged and would have gave up boxing before his first match. With Henry being part of the gym environment he can now feel proud and look forward to hanging with the other boxers without having the struggle of feeling left out. Henry’s change can relate to the quote “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” because the staircase symbolizes the process of how Henry gradually moved up. Each step showed Henry’s confident viewpoint during his navigation of change from the low point to being part of the boxing
Almost Famous (2000) is a dramatization of writer/director Cameron Crowe’s real-life experiences as a teenage rock reporter for Rolling Stone. Based on thinly-veiled autobiographical material from the precocious beginnings of Crowe’s early career, the screenplay shapes sentimental memories into movie magic. But how did Crowe give his own coming-of-age tale such universal appeal? A closer look reveals that Almost Famous, like most films worth their salt, is yet another incarnation of the greatest and only mythological adventure, “The Hero’s Journey.” This relationship can be explained using the framework of Joseph Campbell’s phenomenal book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, along with certain terms and interpretations from The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler.
Storytellers use the picaresque form and the quest motif as standard literary devices in film, song, and the written word. The characters in such a story encounter many trials, setbacks, and triumphs on their quest to find what they so diligently seek. There is often much adventure and drama along they way, leading to their ultimate test. The three works discussed in this essay embody these themes. Voltaire's Candide, A Narrative of a Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, and Terry Gilliam's masterpiece The Fisher King present very different journeys using vastly different characters and time periods. Each, however, examines the human spirit as each main character navigates both grizzly and joyous circumstances. End in the end, all is endured in the name of their quest.
Not over analyzing, the film may seem as though the intended audience is for ex-boxers or for those who lived through the difficult times of the Great Depression, but, analyzing the film more thoroughly, it seems as though the intent is to aim for those who have suffered or are in the midst of suffering poverty and for those who lack determination or a support system such as family or friends. This film portrays a powerful message and, in a sense, has become very important. Cinderella Man is a film in which intends to inspire and motivate people to do better, become better, be great and arise from difficult times in order to turn things around for themselves. The film demonstrates various important messages such as the importance of family. James Braddock fights and does everything in his power to provide for his family. He takes up the dangerous boxing job, putting himself at risk, in order for his family to avoid suffering. James portrays what love for others is capable of making you do.
To some, Chris is seen as a hero, a young man who succeeded in every challenge he took on. In Chris’ mind, he was his own greatest hero, “he was Alexander Supertramp, master of his own destiny” (23). In reality, McCandless was inexperienced and is not a hero nor does he deserve the wild praises he r...
The film Heavyweights, filmed in 1995, was a popular children’s movie depicting adolescents attending a summer camp for overweight kids. This film fits in perfectly with other children’s movies of its time, including Hook, 3 Ninjas, and The Mighty Ducks. The slew of children’s comedies mixed with adult humor shows what consumers were looking for in a movie. Most notably, all of these movies (and most predominantly Heavyweights) address the issue of child obesity.
Born in 1956 in Mexico City, Juan Villoro is the author of many well known books such as “El Testigo” which was recognized and was honored with the Herralde Prize, and other books like “La Casa Pierde” and “Efectos Personales”. Juan Villoro stands out with his style of writing using impressive array of topics with insight, dark humor, irony, and the social and cultural functions of spectator sports like boxing and soccer. With his interest in sports, he enjoys writing about the deep passion that is represented in the sport, with his story “Lightweight Champ”, a short story about a professional Mexican boxer and his journalist/drug addicted childhood friend who came from poverty in the early years in Mexico. Juan becomes very interested in investigating why what happens in sports, giving people interest in what their reading, making them think about lets loose superstitions, systems of belief, hopes, disappointments and so on. The story “Lightweight Champ” talks about how guilt was the motivation to Ignacio Barrientos’s success in his career as a professional boxer, yet no one knew his past, that gave me that stride and edge in the ring other than a few people, including the speaker of the story. Guilt is a feeling where can last a moment or a lifetime, leaving an unphysical effect on yourself, and finding a way to deal with it, so it does not eat us up inside.
Many of the short stories within the collection The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien, can be compared and contrasted in regards to elements including theme, characters, and technique. In “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,” the character Mary Anne Bell appears to be apparently similar to the character Martha from “The Things They Carried,” in that both are young women who have relations with a soldier in the war. Though upon further analysis of Mary Anne, it appears she is far from alike to Martha. Rather, an unexpected parallel can be drawn between the characters Mary Anne and Elroy Berdahl, from “On the Rainy River,” in that both appear to be epitomes of masculinity. The peculiar connection between these characters developed by Tim O’Brien shines a light on the ambiguity of conventional gender roles of men and women.
“The Hero’s Journey.” Ariane Publications, 1997. Course handout. AS English I. Dept. of English, Woodside High School. 26 October 2013.
Alfred Brooks, struggles to find who he is and what he likes to do. He suddenly finds himself in the gym to learn how to box and find something different in himself.
In society, constructs of correctness have been formed on the basis of expected, gendered behavior. Individuals have traditional roles that they play which are based on the historical performance of their gender. Although very rigid, these traditional roles are frequently transferred, resulting in an altered and undefinable identity that exists beyond the boundaries of gender. These transgressions into the neuter role are characterized by a departure from the normal roles of society which, if successful, complete the gender transference and allow the individual to live within a new set of boundaries. The Female Marine, or the Adventures of Lucy Brewer is the fictional autobiography of a woman who recounts her experiences in the navy and life as a cross-dressed male. Throughout her narratives, Lucy is able to successfully leap back and forth between gender roles without repercussion. On the other hand, Hannah W. Foster's The Coquette is a sentimental seduction tale that narrates the tragic demise of a young woman who attempts to exceed acceptable behavioral boundaries by establishing herself as a virile, independent individual, a role established by Simone de Beauvoir to be associated with the male (Beauvoir 405). Because of the similarity in the situations of these women there lies a need for an examination of their narrative purpose. The differing results of success with these women are found in the author's reflection of their audience's narrative expectations that deal with the social outcome of women who attempt to move beyond gender-identified behavioral roles.
Later that evening he ran into the boys again, minus James. James had been arrested and then they beat up Alfred for not telling them about the silent alarm. Later that next evening Alfred went for a walk and pasted by "Donatelli's Boxing Gym". He thought to himself that's where Henery has a job, he was the person who carried him home. He walks up the tall creeky, wooden, stairs to find a man that goes by the name of Donatelli. He asked him what he needs to do to be a boxer, he said that he needs to be a contender. Alfred woke up that next morning at 5:30 to run through the park. Then every day from that day on till his next fight he woke up at 5:30 to run. He went to Madison Square Garden to watch his first boxing fight ever. Alfred is very susceptible to others opinions and goes to the Clubroom. He drinks alcohol and smokes marijuana. Alfred saw James and realized he was addicted to heroin. The next morning the whole squad went to the beach and Alfred decided to quit boxing. When he goes to the gym that night to clean out his locker he saw Donatelli and wanted to apologize for quitting but quickly realized he did not really want to