Imagine a completely made-up world for escaping reality, and that fantasy world becomes the actuality of life. Now, the fantasy world starts consuming the mind and it is all one can think about. Nothing one does seems competent anymore and balancing reality and fantasy becomes a great burden on oneself. The situation starts to become severe when one takes escapism too far. In The Ascent by Ron Rash, a twelve-year-old boy named Jared is exposed to the harsh realities of living. Using his mind, he produces imaginative scenarios in order to escape reality. However, the weight of actuality and fantasy becomes too much for Jared to handle and eventually leads to a permanent consequence. Through the use of organic imagery, the author characterizes …show more content…
Jared as an isolated boy in order to argue the detrimental effects on the human psyche caused by taking escapism too far from reality. By using organic imagery, the author appeals to the reader’s emotional senses. Jared does not have the best of lives; his parents are fairly neglectful, and he essentially feels lonely. To fill up his desolation, he creates highly inventive storylines. Readers can not help but to feel pity for the young man whose fantasy daydreams become his escape from the cruel reality. Even Jared’s parents are trying to separate themselves from actuality by being on a constant high from drugs and alcohol. When Jared finds a ring from a lost plane, his father takes it from him and sells it for drugs. Although his father claims that the ring belongs to someone else, Jared knows better. He has seen “The glass pipe [that] lay on the coffee table beside four baggies, two with powder still inside them” (Rash 283). It is painfully obvious to the readers and Jared that the bags are full of drugs for celebrating later. Jared is aware that the parents’ irresponsible spending of drugs is leading to a poverty-stricken state. Moreover, Jared gives a Rolex to his dad to feed his addiction so he can guide his parents to their demise. Even Jared has given up in this world to the point of him walking into the cold, heavy night, “waiting for the clouds to clear so he might look for the blue pickup, making its way through the snow, toward the place they were all headed” (Rash 287). While the author does not explicitly state that Jared dies, readers can infer that he dies when the clouds enveloped around him. The clouds essentially resemble the afterlife where Jared and his parents are all going to. Escapism has become the source of deadly toxin in which led Jared to an mentally ill state-of-mind. Furthermore, this causes an innocent soul to deteriorate into a lifeless body. Through organic imagery, readers feel the pain and loneliness that Jared goes through throughout the short story. Readers can sense the damaging effects of taking a high dosage of escapism from Jared’s and even his parents’ perspective. Additionally, Jared is characterized as a solitary boy with nothing to turn to except for his daydreams.
As stated before, his isolation and method of escapism ultimately leads to deleterious effects on his mind. Jared becomes more involved in his daydreams, even to the point where his daydreams grow to be an addiction. His mind is now consumed of thoughts about the airplane that he imaginatively visited with Lyndee, his classmate. For Jared, “the high of discovering the plane is no longer a high; it’s now his only means of escape” from his situation with his parents (Martin). The thoughts of the plane enthralls Jared, however they are now poisoning his psyche. It is something that he has been accustomed to, like the way his parents have been accustomed to drugs and alcohol. More importantly, for his last mission to the plane, Jared imaginatively informs Lyndee that it is too dangerous for her to go with him. He packs his tools together in his backpack and sets off to fix the plane. The narrator states, “More weight to carry, [Jared] thought, but at least he wouldn’t have to carry them back” (Rash 287). Readers can infer that Jared’s mindset is now full of misery and depressing thoughts. They realize that Jared will never come back to his home and is going to disappear into the snowy night forever. It is human nature for one to try and escape from reality when hardships happen. Everyone does it, however sometimes humans tend take escapism too far from reality. Like Jared, when this circumstance occurs, one’s mind is usually affected immensely. Moreover, the person is filled with numbness; their human behaviour is changing and everything they do seem to be robotic. The fantasy world in which they have created to escape reality becomes their whole life. All in all, taking a high dosage escapism can create pernicious ideas in one’s mind and lead to crucial
consequences.
Rash uses Jared's character to show why he cannot give a trustworthy, objective truth. In the story, Jared's actions show that he does not understand death when entering the plane after discovering the dead bodies of a pilot and passenger. Rash writes, “Jared placed the knife in his pocket and climbed into the back seat and closed the passenger door” (281). He does not fully understand the seriousness of death and it does not frighten him. Jared has a big imagination and tries to help by bringing tools and repairing the plane. After he meddles around with the tools, Jared says, “I fixed it so it’ll fly now” (287). He sees what he wants to because he ca...
“Black Awakening in Capitalist America”, Robert Allen’s critical analysis of the structure of the U.S.’s capitalist system, and his views of the manner in which it exploits and feeds on the cultures, societies, and economies of less influential peoples to satiate its ever growing series of needs and base desires. From a rhetorical analysis perspective, Allen describes and supports the evidence he sees for the theory of neocolonialism, and what he sees as the black people’s place within an imperial society where the power of white influence reigns supreme. Placing the gains and losses of the black people under his magnifying glass, Allen describes how he sees the ongoing condition of black people as an inevitable occurrence in the spinning cogs of the capitalist machine.
Title and Author: The book that I read was "The Red Pyramid" by Rick Riordan. He called it this because the antagonist, Set, is an Egyptian god and the color he is associated with is red. He builds a pyramid as a power source and it's made of reddish stones , and the main characters try to destroy it, so thus it's called "The Red Pyramid".
Often, individuals reflect upon their lives, remembering all of the accomplishments, stories and struggles; Roland Johnson takes the opportunity to reflect on his life in his Autobiography Roland Johnson’s Lost in a Desert World. In addition to his reflection, Johnson shares his life experiences, which no one is compelled to experience again, thanks to his efforts. Also, an abundance of lessons are present in Johnson’s book, which are applicable to daily life, additionally advocating for others with disabilities. With the perspective of a future educator an abundance of knowledge applicable in several ways after gaining a better understanding through the book as well.
We all are heroes of our own story, and it is a quality seen in many movies and books. The hero's journey is about progress and passage. This journey involves a separation from the unknown, known world, and a series of phases the hero must go through . Each stage of the journey must be passed successfully if the person is to become a hero. In “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, the main character Amir faces a series of trials and goes through obstacles where the concept of his childhood dies.
Life changes. Everybody goes through experiences in their life that changes them and sculpts them into the person they are today. Roland Smith’s novel Peak tells the adventure of fourteen year old Peak who rebels against modern society in order to fulfill what he was “born” to do. Being the son of two of the ‘arguably’ best rock climbers in the world. The Novel opens to Peak committing a felony by vandalising a skyscraper in the city of New York with his signature blue mountains. Later he finds out because of him another boy was killed trying to climb the same skyscraper but falling to his death instead. After sending him to court his father took custody over him and moved back to Thailand, at least that was his intentions. Later Peak finds
... growth where a child is forced to start looking for solutions for everything that is wrong instead of simply being a child. This analysis prove that children have their own way of seeing things and interpreting them. Their defense mechanisms allow them to live through hard and difficult times by creating jokes and games out of the real situation. This enables then to escape the difficulties of the real world.
There are still many ways to fabricate one’s escape from one’s reality. As one ages, will his ways change? Will he abandon the mind of a child and use more sensible ways to cope with a difficult time or struggle? Or would he keep his peculiar childish way of thinking to elude from the strife of
Character - Brian Robeson is a 13 year old boy from New York City who is flying to see his dad after his parents get divorced. During his “survival” time in the woods after the plane crash, we learn many traits about him. From the minute he is in the plane, you can already tell he is a smart kid. He tries to use the radio, ways out his options on whether to try the land the plane or keep flying, and even wanting to land in a lake because the woods were too dangerous. While stuck in the woods, he teaches himself to start a fire, catch fish and birds, build a shelter, and ways out his options throughout the novel. You can also see his character change as in the beginning, even the slightest misfortune occurrence who have him wishing for death, but as the story continues on, events like a moose attack or a tornado don’t even faze him and he doesn’t think twice before bettering his circumstances.
Joseph Campbell calls the initial phase of a hero’s development the “Call to Adventure.” The call is the in...
All young people dream of breaking away from their parents and building their own lives. They yearn to follow their dreams, no matter how wild and crazy, and eventually hope to piece together their true selves. When Christopher McCandless graduated from college and took to the road with no word to his family, he might have appeared to be just another regular kid with overly strong ambitions and an uncontrolled, insatiable thirst for freedom. However, McCandless was more than an average young man who was trying to escape his parents’ control and live recklessly on his own devices. When Chris left his established life to journey across the continent and live off the land, he was actually following the wise and spiritual ways set forth by the first Transcendentalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman. Chris McCandless changed his identity to Alexander Supertramp, a character who was true, pure, and cleansed of the artificial grime of the modern world. He travelled the country not on a whim, but rather on a quest for knowledge and fulfillment. His voyage eventually led him to his ultimate challenge on the Alaskan frontier, where he passed away. Despite his death, Alex was not a failure. He successfully crafted a lifestyle that applied both his strongest beliefs and the beliefs of others before him. Christopher McCandless’s self-forged identity, Alexander Supertramp, was a true, honorable Transcendentalist because his journey encompassed the ideas and beliefs concerning society, the self, higher truths, nature, life, and death that were established by the original Transcendentalist writers.
And when a child is intellectually advanced, his imagination is even further developed and free-ranged than the average child’s mind. Children’s little minds can process something extremely simple and turn it into something intensely complex. For example, at night when the youngsters are lying down trying to sleep their adolescent minds can wander to the point that they believe there is a monster living under their bed. Equivalent to everything else, there are superior elements and poor elements of imagination. Conradin is the protagonist in the short story “Sredni Vashtar”.
In James Joyce’s Dubliners, the theme of escape tends to be a trend when characters are faced with critical decisions. Joyce’s novel presents a bleak and dark view of Ireland; his intentions by writing this novel are to illustrate people’s reasons to flee Ireland. In the stories “Eveline, “Counterparts”, and the “Dead”, characters are faced with autonomous decisions that shape their lives. This forlorn world casts a gloomy shadow over the characters of these stories. These stories are connected by their similar portrayal of Ireland. They clearly represent Joyce’s views on people’s discontent with Ireland.
Why do we escape? Us human beings all belong in a place called reality. Reality seems to be a very neat thing to be in, but sometimes people need to escape. Reality can be a cold world, a scary place; this emotion filled consciousness of actuality can be very difficult to withstand and encompass in. Life is a constant pattern or ritual performed throughout each day. Starting from childhood we begin with school, wake up, go to school, and then back home for homework and dinner. No matter how old we get we receive more rituals and tasks to perform in repetition each day. Never growing out of it, once someone becomes an adult a new routine begins by having constant work. Work not only comes out to be one of the most dreadful things in ones mind, but it is controlsyour whole life. By controlling your whole life, things like fun do not exist. People enjoy escaping because there is a difference between reality and escape; escape is a wonderful state of ecstasy. Instead of being at your routinely job, escape gives you a feel that nothing else can, it makes you feel like you are flying out o...
Experiences influence the way we see ourselves and our lives. While some people perceive their world in a different way, others accept the world presented to them. There are people who dream and see the world as fantasy; while the realists do not sugarcoat the truth, they do not experience the world like dreamers do. The dreamers are the people who bring the world to life. Everyone has different personality traits because of experience; thus, this makes it difficult to understand whether being a realist is better than a dreamer, or vice versa. Within each story, the author exposes the difference between reality and fantasy through the experiences or settings presented. Thus, the stories A Shark in the Mind of One Contemplating Wilderness, A