In the novel, I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak, Ed Kennedy is just an ordinary bloke who’s grown up at the far north of town, also known as “everyone’s dirty little secret” (page 17). As the story progresses, Ed receives four playing cards that require him to do three challenges each. According to Ed, these challenges are like “missions” with harsh consequences if not completed. While progressing through each mission, Ed produces changes to the lives of many people. In the first part of the novel Ed receives his first playing card, the ace of diamonds, and the first life Ed changes is Milla Johnson’s. Milla Johnson is an elderly woman who has been waiting for her husband to return from war for sixty years. Milla Johnson has been lonely …show more content…
all these years without her husband. When Ed decided to visit Milla for the first time, she believes that Ed is her husband and begins to call him “Jimmy”. As the day goes by, Ed realizes that “the message this time is to sooth this old lady’s loneliness.” (Page 53). Ed decides to keep visiting Milla while pretending to be Jimmy in order to comfort her loneliness. This changes Milla’s life by replacing the loneliness that she’s been dealing with for the past sixty years with happiness. The second life that Ed changes is Sophie’s, the third address on the card. Before Ed, Sophie was a shy girl who ran with shoes. When she met Ed, he helped her realize that she didn’t need to be so shy around people and she could run without her shoes. In her race, she ran the best she’s ever ran because she wasn’t wearing shoes. Ed helped change her life by showing her that if she had more confidence in herself, she’d be able to achieve much more. Without Ed, she would still be self-conscious and insecure about herself. In the second part of the novel, Ed receives the second card, the ace of clubs.
One of the names he uncovers is Thomas O’Reilly. When Ed tries to find Thomas, he instead finds his brother, Tony, who tells him where Thomas is. When Ed goes to see Thomas, he finds out that he is a priest with a not so successful church. Ed figures out that the challenge he’s facing is to try to get more people to attend Father O’Reilly’s church. In order to do so, Ed comes up with the idea of throwing a party with free beer. According to the cops that visited Father O’Reilly to question him about the graffiti, “Can’t say no to that.” (Page 156). Ed and Marv spray painted buildings throughout town with information in order to publicize the party. By throwing this party at the church, Ed makes a major change in Father O’Reilly’s life. The party allowed him to be able to see his brother, Tony, after years of not seeing each other and gain more members of the church. During Father O’Reilly’s prayer, he states “Most of all, Lord, I thank you that my brother could be here today, and I thanks you for certain people in the world who have awful taste in jackets… Amen.” (Page 163). This indicates that if Ed never came to see Father O’Reilly, Father O’Reilly wouldn’t have seen his brother or gained any members of his …show more content…
church. Ed then receives the third card, the ace of clubs, in the third part of the novel.
He changes the lives of the Tatupu family. Before Ed met them, the Tatupu family always had to use the same worn out Christmas decorations every year because they weren’t able to afford new ones. One being a set of old-style Christmas lights that are very old and faded with missing lights. Ed realizes that “Something has to be done about those lights” (Page 221) that they set up. Ed obtains a new set of lights and leaves it in front of the Tatupu family’s house. By offering this kind gesture, Ed changes the way the Tatupu family thinks about others. Lua Tatupu says, “You know, Ed, we’ve been living here close to a year now, and nobody – absolutely nobody – has ever lifted a finger to help us or make us feel welcome.” (Page 225). Ed’s actions had led the Tatupu family to believe that there are actually people who are willing to offer kind gestures and help others. If Ed never bought them the new lights, the Tatupu family would still believe that everyone in the world is selfish and doesn’t care for anyone else but
themselves. In the fourth part of the novel, Ed receives the ace of hearts. Ed helps Marv in a huge way. Ed asks Marv for money and finds out that Marv is saving the money for his the child he has with his ex-girlfriend, Suzanne. Marv feels that giving the child fifty thousand dollars would be enough for him to be able to help out. Ed and Marv go to see Suzanne so Marv could try to see his kid. Suzanne’s father kicks him and Ed out but later on we find out that Suzanne doesn’t really like her life. She wants to try to repair the damage she did by running away. If Ed never asked Marv what he was going to do with the untouchable money, no one would’ve known that Marv had a child. Marv also wouldn’t have been able to right the wrong that became when Suzanne ran away with his daughter. Without Ed, the situation between Marv and Suzanne wouldn’t have been fixed. In the novel, Ed Kennedy is able to complete these challenges while changing peoples’ lives. Ed makes major changes to these peoples’ lives because of these challenges. Without the actions Ed committed, the characters in the book wouldn’t have changed at all. These events that have taken place in I Am the Messenger have molded the characters to act, think, and perceive ideas in certain ways.
A movie, “The Other Sister,” is about two mentally challenged people name Carla Tate and Daniel. Carla Tate, a 24-year old woman, return to San Francisco from a sheltered boarding school after long years. After rejoining with her overprotective mother Elizabeth, a gentle and thoughtful father Radley, and two young and older sisters, Carla announces that she wants to attend a local school called Bay Area Polytech, a normal vocational school. Nevertheless of her mother Elizabeth’s disapproval, Radley supports her to pursue her dream. On the first day, Carla meets a boy named Danny and helps him when someone calls him “retarded.” They both get close to each other and fall in love quickly. Carla envied Danny for living on his own, so
In The Scarlet Letter, author Nathaniel Hawthorne efficiently conveys his purpose to the audience through the use of numerous rhetorical devices in his novel. Two such rhetorical strategies Hawthorne establishes to convey his purpose of informing the audience of valuable life lessons in The Scarlet Letter are characterization and the theme of duality.
Tim Burton used a lot of symbolism throughout the story to show theme and as a result, we can know a lot more about Edward’s personality and about what he wants most. One thing that exhibits Ed’s childish side was the bushes; for example, the dinosaurs and the dolphins he created. The bush shaped hand that was in the dark mansion’s yard encapsulates Ed’s want for hands. Through these examples we can see the theme, sometimes your wants in life can shape what you do in your life because Ed’s wants showed through his actions.
Ed learns to face all of his fears, and he was able to rise above his feelings of incompetence as he helps others in areas where they need the most help in. Some of the messages that Ed receive are as simple, for example, buying an ice cream cone for a single mother, a church that needs congregation, but others put Ed in real danger. Ed’s last message, delivered on the joker card, it's for Ed himself. During the delivery of this message, Ed realized that “he was not the messenger, but rather he was the message itself.”( Zusak, p. 357). This quote shows that even ordinary ones, can rise about their perceived ability to make a difference in the world. Through his journey, Ed discovers that he has now become “full of purpose rather than incompetence, he also becomes more confident, and also improved him as a human
“Geronimo: an American legend” is a story of an apache warrior who fought against the United States in order to preserve his peoples culture. The film starts off, ironically, with the first surrender of Geronimo. His people are sent to a reservation called turkey creek. On this reservation they were expected to become farmers that would produce mostly corn. However the apache where not harvesting enough to sustain their community and had to rely on government checks.
Before 1975, Vietnam was divided into a North and South. The North was ruled by communism while the south was under United States protection. On April 30th 1975, communists attacked South Vietnam with the intentions of ruling both north and south in which succeeded. The Unwanted is a self-written narrative that takes place in Vietnam, 1975. At this time the United States had just pulled out of Vietnam as a result of the communist’s takeover. In effect of the flee, the U.S. left behind over fifty-thousand Amerasian children including Kien Nguyen. Kien was one of the half-American children that endured the hardships of communist’s takeover. Born in 1967 to a Vietnamese mother and unknown American father who fled to the U.S.
...re positive attitude to live life to its fullest. Also, he has successfully changed his destiny by unintentionally moving Karen Eiffel with his self-sacrifice spirit, causing her to keep him alive.
After finished the journey with Tilly and her team Agnes felt like a burden of regret for not getting to know her sister while she was alive. This made me think about how strong of an emotion regret can be in changing a person. The play made me reflect on how regret in my life has changed me and my future actions. You can also see the change in Agnes as a person after her journey. This makes me think how we all might have some Agnes in all of us.
The literary device, author’s voice, is the individual writing style of an author. It is a combination of diction, punctuation, character development, dialogue, etc., within a given body of text. There are many examples of how author’s voice affects the meaning of a text in the classic book, Night, a book about the life and thoughts of a young Jewish boy going through the Holocaust, as well as in “A Spring Morning”, a short story about the results of having a kid while Germany is in control of Poland. These examples include: when the author is foreshadowing, when the author is writing about someone is being told to obey, and when the author is writing about a loved one dying.
After the trip, Ed returns home to his wife, to civilization. However, he is now unaffected by the feminist influences that plagued him before, he is a man and understands his place in the world. The trip pushed his limits, forcing him to overcome the emasculation granted him by society, as when he fought the gun from the would-be rapist’s hand or when he killed the other mountain man with nothing to rely on but himself. He has reclaimed his manhood, his “true, whole self” as Entzminger would say, and may return to civilization the better for it.
“When i was a child i played with my cousin outside, where the lamplight fell upon the group and the singing of the old people rose around us and carries away into the darkness.” the idea of dark and light is a motif throughout this whole story not only showing good versus evil but also knowledge and the lack of knowledge. This also encompasses the traditions of singing and dancing. The elders and the singing bring knowledge which is represented through the lamplight which is singing on the children, who will soon gain the knowledge passed down. “Still, it was early in the morning, and the birds sang out of the shadows.” this is when he is older and the birds are the elders, still singing their traditional songs. This time we is in the light because his grandmother dies, and because he is older. In a way he is coming to realizations and the truth is seeping through. His personal experiences in rainy mountain helped his discover partes of himself, both the playful, happy child, and the mourning adult. The change in setting plays a large role in both aspects of his life, the darkness is bing naive and the sunlight is finally gaining knowledge. This is representative of everyone 's oneself. Each person 's experiences shape who they are. Not only the good but also the bad experiences cause you to learn about your innerself. This causes to you to grow as a person
The novel “The Scarlet Letter” was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850 and is probably the book for which he is most famous. He was a prolific writer and wrote many short stories, a few collections, and several novels during his writing career. Nathaniel Hawthorne was injured as a child and became an avid reader and decided that he wanted to be a writer. Though he was a lackluster college student, after graduation he returned to his hometown of Salem, Massachusetts and began his writing career in earnest. Not only did Nathaniel Hawthorne have one of his ancestors who had been one of the three judges involved in the Salem witch trials (of which he was not too proud, but it probably helped his career because it was depicted in his writings), but also he had many influential friends to include President Franklin Pierce, Henry David Thoreau (Author), and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Poet), Herman Melville (Author) and he had actually rented the “Old Manse” mentioned in “The Scarlet Letter” from Ralph Waldo Emerson (Essayist). The “Scarlet Letter” is a work of non-fiction, but the preface is loosely based on Hawthorne’s actual life due to the fact that he actually did work at the Customs House in Salem and did lose his job there, which gave
In every generation there are certain rules and etiquette that play a large role in dictating the appropriate behavior for the time. An individual may choose to live his or her life according to this code of conduct and do fairly well, or in contrast live a life full of trials and hardship as a result of their transgression. This is especially true for the early inhabitants of 17th century colonial America, a period rife with the religious zeal and harsh castigation carried out on behalf of the Puritans who settled the area. During this time, as is still the case today, offenders of this societal moral code were made examples of and forced to suffer so that they may serve as a warning to the rest of the population. This is the case in The Scarlet Letter where the protagonist Hester Prynne is ostracized from her conservative community after committing the then unforgivable sin of adultery. In his novel, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses both themes of guilt and redemption to create trials that test his character Hester Prynne and in the process transforms her from a pitiable sinner, to a symbol of strength.
In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses a lengthy writing style and rhetoric to express meaning and emotions in his novel. In one specific passage in Chapter 23 of the novel, he uses pathos, homily, hyperbole, anaphora, and parallelism to connect rhetoric and meaning, and further advance the plot.
It is the story of a man named Eddie who for almost his whole life was the