Odd
What does it take to make a human who they are? What influences affect each person in this spinning world of ours? Is it the parents and how much love each applies to raising an individual? Is it the environment to which they are born into? Humans are unpredictable at best, and when someone says they have humans figured out, they are proven wrong. We are creatures of habit who are never the same because of the very influences around us.
In Dean Koontz’s book Odd Thomas a young man’s life is laid bare before us. The book’s protagonist is a 20 year old named Odd Thomas. Odd is fry cook at a diner, in a small town in California called Pico Mundo. His life is described as pretty normal except Odd has the ability to see dead people. More importantly he not only sees dead people but he is given this ability to seemingly help dead people right the wrongs in their lives. The book is written in first person and it gives Odd’s account of a major event that happened in August, in the sleepy town of Pico Mundo. Through his recount and back story, we see not only what happens but the protagonist’s thoughts and feelings. Koontz’s book, Odd Thomas, uses in story influences to provide convincing characterization for a well-rounded main character that has had an interesting life.
Let’s start by looking to Odd’s past. His mother raised him with the help of his Grandmother, Pearl Sugars, who was gone most of the time on the gambling circuit. Odd’s mother was helpless to raise him; her inability to deal with any sort of problem is evident. This is personified on page 376 when Odd relates a story about when he was a child. While dealing with a bout of flu when he was about five years old, he cried and suffered for his mother to come...
... middle of paper ...
...eeps through the pages as Odd relays his thoughts for the book. This gives us a glimpse at Odd and the influences in his life. While not all of them are listed here, the ones that are, play a pivotal role in his life; something he seems to become more and more aware as this story goes on. It’s as if Koontz is trying to tell us a little about ourselves, that while we have known influences like our family, there are many more out there that help shape us into the beings that we are. Humans are a product of influences, but since no one human is influenced by exactly the same things then how are we to know what others want, need or feel. This story is a beautiful adaptation of that very concept with a little bit of mystical tossed in to keep it and the story interesting.
Works Cited
Koontz, Dean R. Odd Thomas: An Odd Thomas Novel. New York: Bantam, 2012. Print.
This novel allows the reader to gain many different point of views from narrators within the 34 items in the book. Strange Objects depicts a variety of issues in a perceptive manner, promptly delivering Steven Messenger’s and other characters’ mental states, their character traits and the links between them. In Strange Objects it is clear to see that this novel deserves the awards that it has won, as it is a novel that has an effective way of combining different elements, summoning discussion and analysis of the many aspects within it, and engaging the audience by doing
The author skillfully uses literary techniques to convey his purpose of giving life to a man on an extraordinary path that led to his eventual demise and truthfully telling the somber story of Christopher McCandless. Krakauer enhances the story by using irony to establish Chris’s unique personality. The author also uses Characterization the give details about Chris’s lifestyle and his choices that affect his journey. Another literary element Krakauer uses is theme. The many themes in the story attract a diverse audience. Krakauer’s telling is world famous for being the truest, and most heart-felt account of Christopher McCandless’s life. The use of literary techniques including irony, characterization and theme help convey the authors purpose and enhance Into The Wild.
The author wrote this story in response to a magazine company, and eventually published it into a book. He used many styles and techniques to describe the life and death of McCandless. The mood throughout the novel constantly varies with the excitement of McCandless’s adventures and the emotions caused by his disappearance. Krakauer’s ability to engage multiple senses of a reader truly makes his novel special.
Inheritance, by Sharon Moalem, is a nonfiction novel that elaborates on what makes us who we are and why. Moalem states that even before we are born, our genes set up determines our lives. Our genes are adaptable sequences that can be altered by instances of trauma, simple dietary change, or just a small indiscretion. Through our experiences, our genes are changing and consequently limiting us. We have an unwavering predictable matter of the genes we have inherited from previous generations. Our future children could inherit many of our specific genes, good or bad. Even if our inherited
It is a common argument about whether humans are simply who they are because of genes, the nature of who someone is, or if it’s more due to interactions with outside ideas and actions, the nurture one receives. Different research has claimed both sides,
At the end of the novel, the narrator has finally recognized his own invisibility; therefore finally able to redesign himself completely into a person able make a change in society. His experiences will aid him in his fight for power and acceptance in society. The narrator’s previous choices had been those of people around him urging him to define himself based on their standards. By rising above the assigned definitions of himself, the narrator is able to gain a new insight and new persona on and ultimately recreate his fate.
The question “What makes us who we are?” has perplexed many scholars, scientists, and theorists over the years. This is a question that we still may have not found an answer to. There are theories that people are born “good”, “evil”, and as “blank slates”, but it is hard to prove any of these theories consistently. There have been countless cases of people who have grown up in “good” homes with loving parents, yet their destiny was to inflict destruction on others. On the other hand, there have been just as many cases of people who grew up on the streets without the guidance of a parental figure, but they chose to make a bad situation into a good one by growing up to do something worthwhile for mankind. For this reason, it is nearly impossible to determine what makes a human being choose the way he/she behaves. Mary Shelley (1797-1851) published a novel in 1818 to voice her opinions about determining personality and the consequences and repercussions of alienation. Shelley uses the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau to make her point. Rousseau proposed the idea that man is essentially "good" in the beginning of life, but civilization and education can corrupt and warp a human mind and soul. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (hereafter referred to as Frankenstein), Victor Frankenstein’s creature with human characteristics shows us that people are born with loving, caring, and moral feelings, but the creature demonstrates how the influence of society can change one’s outlook of others and life itself by his reactions to adversity at “birth”, and his actions after being alienated and rejected by humans several times.
...s interesting, then, that by removing one puzzle piece, a person could unveil a new picture formed by the pieces, one that is disturbingly similar to the pictures formed in so many other lives. In one foul swoop, a man held in such majesty, with enough hopefulness to inspire readers for a hundred years, is brought to his knees and is forced to reveal himself as an average man with dreams far taller than the any redwood and failures as biting as the coldest wind. The final result of a Gatsby claimed victim by normality is simple what you would call a normal man. The contrast between the real Gatsby and our Gatsby is shocking. From his beliefs to his actions, there is no doubt that a Gatsby stricken by the hard, cold fist of real life acts more subdued than a battered spouse. It is pitiful to imagine and begs the question, does being normal really just mean giving up?
Why are we the way we are? Is it because we want to be that way or because we were made that way? The debate regarding the nature of humans is one that will never end because there is so much support for each side. It is an issue that humans have spent generations pondering. Two of those people are Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Both have made compelling arguments regarding nature versus nurture.
This novel is relatively short and is a story about the duality of human nature and how people can get caught up in their inner dark side. Mr. Utterson is a l...
What is it that makes us human? Is it our actions, our sense of purpose, or our ability to keep our mind on as well as perform complex tasks? Is it that we analyze our own mental processes, as well as the processes of others? What exactly is a mental state, and what creates it? Is it a level of attentiveness, an impulse, or an emotional state? What is it that allows us to experience these things? The answers all lie within our brains.
What makes us humans what we truly are; from our appearance to our habits; and our preferences. A list of questions that will never end. Do we born this way; nor did the environment shapes us; do we born to this world with an existing knowledge of everything is taught and learn? Those questions are one of the biggest debate in the field of developmental psychology: Nature vs, Nurture.
The writer portraits himself inside a guiltless character who believes, after reading about the freak death of a man, that all situations labeled as something odd are "a contemptible falsehood- a poor hoax- the lees of the invention of some pitiable penny-a-liner." By this sentence, the character claims that the oddest things are those which are told to be odd, and he reveals himself as a person with such a squared mind that it is impossible for him to give credibility an important space.
Whatever the conditions under which a child grows up, he will, if not mentally defective, learn to cope with others in one way or another and he will probably acquire some skills. But there are also forces in him which he cannot acquire or even develop by learning...Similarly, the human individual, given a chance, tends to develop his particular human personalities. He will develope then the unique alive human forces of his real self: the clarity and depth of his own feelings, thoughts, wishes, interests; the ability to tap into his own resources, the strengths of his will power; the special capacities or gifts he may have; the faculty to express himself, and to relate himself to others with his spontaneous feelings...In short, he will grow, substantially undiverted, toward self-realization.(17)
In today’s society, one is constantly surrounded by individuals with different behaviors. Some will sacrifice his or her life for a complete stranger. However, there is some individuals who would take advantage of the weak and poor for his or her own personal gain. Now the question arises, what makes human beings behave the way they do? Being the topic of conflict of psychology for years, one usually turns to the nature verses nurture theory for the answer to that question. Some believes that a person is born with a certain personality, others believe it is an individual’s atmosphere that determines his or her attitude, and some even trusts the idea that it is a combination of genes and environment that dictates the conduct of an individual.