Dedication is the act of being committed to a task or purpose because nothing in life comes easily. Roger Bannister once said, “The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.” In both essays, “The Dreamer” by Junot Diaz and “Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie, dedication was recognized in the Dominican Republic and American Indian cultures. The main characters from each essay experienced many problems and achieved to overcome those problems with dedication. The many times Diaz’s mother and Alexie strived for a better life shows how dedication was an essential part in both novels. However, both characters took different paths to dedicate themselves to a good future. Diaz’s mother and Alexie went through drastic measures to get where they wanted to be in life. In “The Dreamer”, Diaz’s mother does not want to live the stereotypical life her family has planned for her. Instead she wants to dedicate herself to school and become the best she can be. After being …show more content…
forced into working in the fields, Diaz’s mother decides to break out of her shell and achieve something better. Junot Diaz explains to readers how dedicated his mother was and all the sacrifices she accomplished for an education,“She got down on her knees beside a stagnant puddle of water, put her mouth in it and drank it deeply”(121). She not only risked her life, but betrayed her mother after she constantly told her she wouldn’t like her to attend school. By doing these actions, readers can understand how committed Diaz’s mother was to go to school and become a nurse. The dedication shown in the essay “Superman and Me” was how much Alexie read to obtain knowledge that wasn’t given to him like other kids.
Instead of having the same knowledge as every kid his age, Alexie reads Grapes of Wrath in kindergarten when other children are struggling through Dick and Jane” (496). Alexie dedicates himself to learning how to understand sentences and read at a really high level. Instead of being like other Indian children, Alexie teaches himself information that will lead him to be the best he can be. He was dedicated to learning and said, “I read books late into the night, and I can barely keep my eyes open” (496). The dedication he had was amazing because not many children at his age stayed up all night long just to read. Many children now stay up texting or watching their favorite TV shows. Alexie shows another point of view. By the information given in the essay, he is a boy who is dedicated to learning and increasing his
knowledge. In both novels, readers grasp how dedication was inspired by family members both negatively and positively. Diaz’s mother was inspired by her own mother because she didn’t want to live the traditional life a Dominican girl was expected to live. Diaz’s grandmother encouraged her to be educated by constantly telling her how she will be a mule and in the fields in the future. She didn’t want that life, so she pushed herself to pursue a better future. No matter what consequences her mother constantly threatened her with, she was determined. On the other hand, Alexie had more of a positive influence when it came to being dedicated to what he loved. Sherman Alexie’s dedication was inspired by his father, someone who brought positive thoughts in his household. If it wasn’t for his father bringing so many books home, Alexie wouldn’t have been so dedicated to reading all the books that he had. Indians were meant to fail, which influenced Alexie to read anything he could read. With his father constantly bringing home books, Alexie was determined to feed himself with a great deal of information. He would read all of the books, magazines, and newspapers he could find. Where did dedication leave these two characters? After Diaz’s mother purposely got herself sick, and reported her mother to the authorities, she finally got an education. Instead of becoming a nurse, she came to the United States which lead to her son getting a better future. Her son, Junot Diaz, is an author and writer. Diaz’s mother dedicated her life to getting an education and by doing so, her son received an education as well. He is where he is now, thanks to his mother overcoming all of those obstacles. Sherman Alexie also became a writer and is now trying to let others know the importance of reading books. He actually wanted to become a pediatrician. Since he was so determined of reading books and learning, he opened a new door for himself. Which is how the dedication he enforced made him the successful writer he is today. The concept I understood from both readings was that no matter how tough life is, people can always overcome that obstacle with dedication. Both of the main characters showed how life is a big obstacle and hard work and dedication pays off. Diaz’s mother and Alexie were so dedicated to their task that they both received the knowledge they’ve always desired. Alexie and Diaz’s mother strived for the best and at the end of both novels their dreams became a reality thanks to their dedication.
Junot Diaz is Dominican American, and he came from a very poor family with five other siblings. Since they were not that wealthy, they lived in a simple way. Even though his mother was basically the bread winner of the family since his father could not keep a job, she still manages to send money back home every six months or so. When they got home from their vacation, they had found out that someone has broken into their house and stole most of his mother’s money. It was easy for them to be a target because they were recent immigrant, and in their neighborhood cars and apartment were always getting jacked. His mother was very upset; she blamed her children, because she thought it was their friends who had done such a thing. “We kids knew where
On one hand we can see that she pushes back and challenges her tradition on the other hand it is difficult to not see emotion expressed by herself when she is alone. One scene that does do this is when she is buying condoms for the first time but does not know what to purchase. This small but significant scene revels that although she is strong and ready she also needs guidance through her path of adulthood. She is able to ask a pharmacist for advice but not her own mother. This lack of connection to be open up to mothers is emphasized enough to create awareness that young Mexican American women need someone to talk to and it should preferably be their
X, Malcolm. "Learning to Read." Rereading America. 9th ed. Boston/NewYork: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013. 189-97. Print.
...rest became a nightmare. Enrique’s time apart from his mother made them more like “strangers” than family. Filled with anger stemming from the years apart from one another, he refused to obey his mother’s wishes to live healthier. While lost in family chaos, he turned back to his addiction of drugs crashing his dream of a perfect family dynamic. Though his dream became a nightmare, he was able to achieve it through one core trait where his inner strength help drive him to not give up his dream of seeing his mother. This signifies that if a person is willing to work hard to achieve their dream through diligence, it can be met. Though the outcome may not be what one hoped for, being able to say you accomplished something is soul-pleasing. His success in making it to the U.S. regardless of many downfalls satisfies one missing piece in his broken puzzle of a life.
Imagine growing up in a society where a person is restricted to learn because of his or her ethnicity? This experience would be awful and very emotional for one to go through. Sherman Alexie and Fredrick Douglas are examples of prodigies who grew up in a less fortunate community. Both men experienced complications in similar and different ways; these experiences shaped them into men who wanted equal education for all. To begin, one should understand the writers background. Sherman Alexie wrote about his life as a young Spokane Indian boy and the life he experienced (page 15). He wrote to encourage people to step outside their comfort zone and be herd throughout education. Similar to Alexie’s life experience, Fredrick
He says, “This might be an interesting story all by itself. A little Indian boy teaches himself to read at an early age and advances quickly.” He says this as an understatement to tell the reader the importance, but he actually is really smart. Alexie is a man who tells important events, but does not dramatise the events in his life and make people unable to focus on the true message of his essay, which is not how smart he
Being dedicated and determined aren’t qualities that are expressed the same from every person. These two men are the extremes and most other Americans fit somewhere in-between. Many Americans have become dedicated in work or sports, such as I have. In high school I found that determination can pay
Other People’s Words proves the significance that one’s community and culture have on one’s use of language and literacy. As with many children of illiterate parents, Donny was being raised in a home without books, library cards, bedtime stories, and
How White people assumed they were better than Indians and tried to bully a young boy under the US Reservation. Alexie was bullied by his classmates, teammates, and teachers since he was young because he was an Indian. Even though Alexie didn’t come from a good background, he found the right path and didn’t let his hands down. He had two ways to go to, either become a better, educated and strong person, either be like his brother Steven that was following a bad path, where Alexie chose to become a better and educated person. I believe that Alexie learned how to get stronger, and stand up for himself in the hard moments of his life by many struggles that he passed through. He overcame all his struggles and rose above them
Adjusting to another culture is a difficult concept, especially for children in their school classrooms. In Sherman Alexie’s, “Indian Education,” he discusses the different stages of a Native Americans childhood compared to his white counterparts. He is describing the schooling of a child, Victor, in an American Indian reservation, grade by grade. He uses a few different examples of satire and irony, in which could be viewed in completely different ways, expressing different feelings to the reader. Racism and bullying are both present throughout this essay between Indians and Americans. The Indian Americans have the stereotype of being unsuccessful and always being those that are left behind. Through Alexie’s negativity and humor in his essay, it is evident that he faces many issues and is very frustrated growing up as an American Indian. Growing up, Alexie faces discrimination from white people, who he portrays as evil in every way, to show that his childhood was filled with anger, fear, and sorrow.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian showed all of the problems that arose in Junior’s journey. From poverty and alcoholism to bulimic semi-girlfriends, he had so many excuses to stop, but the passion of his dreams pushed him forward. Like a hero, Junior continued, determined to do well and build a greater future for himself. An example that showed Junior’s passion for education and desire to achieve his goals was when he threw an old geometry textbook at his teacher: “My school and my tribe are so poor and sad that we have to study from the same dang books our parents studied from. That is absolutely the saddest thing in the world…My hopes and dreams floated up in a mushroom cloud” (Alexie, 31). Junior clearly understood his disadvantaged education and he was very upset about it. He longed for a better education. Junior was passionate about education, because it would allow him to achieve his goals and break the depressing pattern he was trapped in. Bravery and determination are caused by passion, and heroes are very passionate about their actions. Passion clearly drove Junior when he walked to school, since he said, “Getting to school was always an adventure…Three times I had to walk all the way home. Twenty-two miles. I got blisters each time” (Alexie, 87). Putting all of this effort into simply going to school, Junior must have had
Alexie shows a strong difference between the treatment of Indian people versus the treatment of white people, and of Indian behavior in the non-Indian world versus in their own. A white kid reading classic English literature at the age of five was undeniably a "prodigy," whereas a change in skin tone would instead make that same kid an "oddity." Non-white excellence was taught to be viewed as volatile, as something incorrect. The use of this juxtaposition exemplifies and reveals the bias and racism faced by Alexie and Indian people everywhere by creating a stark and cruel contrast between perceptions of race. Indian kids were expected to stick to the background and only speak when spoken to. Those with some of the brightest, most curious minds answered in a single word at school but multiple paragraphs behind the comfort of closed doors, trained to save their energy and ideas for the privacy of home. The feistiest of the lot saw their sparks dulled when faced with a white adversary and those with the greatest potential were told that they had none. Their potential was confined to that six letter word, "Indian." This word had somehow become synonymous with failure, something which they had been taught was the only form of achievement they could ever reach. Acceptable and pitiable rejection from the
Many people think that reading more can help them to think and develop before writing something. Others might think that they don’t need to read and or write that it can really help them to brainstorm things a lot quicker and to develop their own ideas immediately (right away). The author’s purpose of Stephen King’s essay, Reading to Write, is to understand the concepts, strategies and understandings of how to always read first and then start something. The importance of this essay is to understand and comprehend our reading and writing skills by brainstorming our ideas and thoughts a lot quicker. In other words, we must always try to read first before we can brainstorm some ideas and to think before we write something. There are many reasons why I chose Stephen King’s essay, Reading to Write, by many ways that reading can help you to comprehend, writing, can help you to evaluate and summarize things after reading a passage, if you read, it can help you to write things better and as you read, it can help you to think and evaluate of what to write about.
Although the greater picture is that reading is fundamental, the two authors have a few different messages that they seek to communicate to their audiences. “The Joy of Reading and Writing” depicts how reading serves as a mechanism to escape the preconceived notions that constrain several groups of people from establishing themselves and achieving success in their lifetimes. “Reading to Write,” on the other hand, offers a valuable advice to aspiring writers. The author suggests that one has to read, read, and read before he or she can become a writer. Moreover, he holds an interesting opinion concerning mediocre writing. He says, “Every book you pick has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones” (p.221). Although these two essays differ in their contents and messages, the authors use the same rhetorical mode to write their essays. Both are process analyses, meaning that they develop their main argument and provide justification for it step by step. By employing this technique, the two authors create essays that are thoughtful, well supported, and easy to understand. In addition, Alexie and King both add a little personal touch to their writings as they include personal anecdotes. This has the effect of providing support for their arguments. Although the two essays have fairly different messages, the authors make use of anecdotes and structure their writing in a somewhat similar
The discussion of children and school also gives well meaning of an organized and well-balanced village the people have put together, one the average parent would want their children raised in. “They tended to gather together quietly for a while before they broke into boisterous play, and their talk was still of the classroom and the teacher, of books and reprimands (p.445).” The thought of children playing also illustrates of a positive outlook for the rest of the story, a sense of happiness.