In this dystopian novel entitled Little Brother, Cory Doctorow creates a chilling story in which the protagonist Marcus Yallow fights the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for his rights and freedoms. Marcus, Jose-Luis (Jolu), Vanessa (Van) and Darryl skip class one day to play their favorite game, Harajuku Fun Madness. As they are searching for clues, terrorists strike the city blowing up the Bay Bridge. Darryl is stabbed in the confusion and fear and the four friends get caught up in a huge crowd. While trying to get help for Darryl, Marcus frantically flags down a military truck. Instead of helping Darryl, the people in the truck place hoods on the heads of Marcus and his friends. They are held for questioning for nearly a week before
This book was written by Dave Cullen published on April 6th, 2009. This story is a stated form of literature due to Dave Cullen directly stating in this story his reason for writing this book. Cullen was one of the first reporters to arrive to the site of this crime committed by Dylan and Eric, and since the day of this massacre Cullen had then spent ten years to publicize this very informative and crucial information for those who wanted the truth and nothing but the truth.
Imagine a world where civil liberties have been stripped away, a bare façade of civilization left behind. This is a world that is inhabited by people who were once free-willed and strong-minded. These people have become weak and obedient, easily bent to the will of their oppressive government. The world that these words have conjured up in your mind is the same existence that the characters occupy in Edwidge Danticat’s “A Wall of Fire Rising” and Alan Moore’s “V” for Vendetta. Danticat’s story is about a small family living in present-day Haiti with their small, ambitious son. The country is a mish-mash of people amassing obscene fortune while the rest scrape at the bottom of the proverbial barrel just to make ends meet; the class gap is seemingly far apart. In Danticat’s story, the husband spends his days either working at the sugarcane mill or searching for work elsewhere. Each day the husband watches the mill owner’s son take a hot air balloon up into the sky, and each day becomes more envious of the freedom attached to that action. After complaining to his wife about his exhaustion with their current situation he claims that he wants to take the hot air balloon for himself and leave Haiti for a far-away and better place. The following day, the husband makes good on his word, abandons his family, and takes the hot air balloon up into the sky. In James McTeigue’s version of “’V’ for Vendetta”, the country is a futuristic and dystopian London. Corrupt politicians control every aspect of the country and the citizens within. The main character, a masked vigilante by the name of V, grows tired of his country’s lack of freedom and decides to destroy an historic courthouse at midnight on the morning of November the 5th. The building i...
Many believe the Dust Bowl was caused solely by bad weather, but Egan shows a multitude of factors that led to the catastrophe. In Timothy Egan’s book, The Worst Hard Time, Egan believes that the syndicate and government, overproduction of the land, and drought were all factors that caused the Dust Bowl.
A Climate of Fear “The Gang Crackdown”, provided by PBS, communicates the everyday struggles that the communities of Nassau County face every day. The video’s focus revolves around the homicidal and violent crimes that have been provided by the “MS-13” and the details of cracking down on their development. The Latin American gang from El Salvador is known for their audacity to target the young population of Long Island and their homicidal tendencies. They have targeted children and teenagers at their workplace, their home, and their school. These gang members have left the community defenseless and struck fear into the hearts of many parents along with the government itself.
Brent, a suicidal killer, is on the journey of his life to pay tribute to the victim's family. In Whirligig by Paul Fleischman, Brent Bishop is an adolescent who has traveled and moved many times, even so much that he knows the way to “fit in” all down to the choice of which ear the earring is placed. But when a socially important party goes astray, he becomes a killer of teenage Lea Zimora of Chicago. He is faced with multiple consequences when he accepts a journey to pay tribute to Lea and her family by making whirligigs and placing them at the four corners of the USA. Brent gains many new experiences and it opens his eyes up to multiple different things, however the reader is faced with a large, prominent question: How has the journey affected Brent’s past, present, and future life? Because of Brent’s suicidal actions, he has been faced with positive consequences, negative consequences, and consequences that severely change his life forever.
Tobias Wolff’s “The Rich Brother” is a story of two brothers, Donald and Pete. These brothers have very contrasting lifestyles; Pete is a successful businessman with a wife and kids. Donald, on the other hand, is an outcast. He’s unemployed and irresponsible. He lives his life as a vagabond. Despite these facts, the successful brother, Pete, still lacks the self-esteem he desperately craves. Therefore he tries to make his brother, Donald, feel foolish with every chance he gets.
For this reader response I decided to read “World Gone Mad” by Derrick Jensen. This reading was about society and it’s sociopathic, and psychopathic tendencies. I agree with the author's point of view almost completely. In his writing he mentions how the government and the people who are in charge of society share a lot of the same traits of socio/psychopaths. He did this by siting in his work the definitions of the Sociopaths, and psychopaths with examples of them as a stereotypes and in the world of the government. For example, he starts off his work talking about how the “go green” commercials and movements make him upset because of how the world currently is, and how they have ways of “fixing it”. The way that they are fixing it though, is just like putting a rug over how we are destroying the world.
The victim is nineteen year old Khadijah Stewart. Stewart had grown up in the south side of Richmond, Virginia (a high crime area) where she met a boy named Tommie. Both were in middle school but Tommie soon got arrested for robberies and gun charges, he was sentenced to life as a juvenile. As time goes on Stewart forms a history of dating bad boys. The main on and off again boyfriend throughout her high school years was a young man named Lionel. In High school Stewart is skipping school to hang out Lionel and his gang members. Afraid how the streets could impact Stewart, the mother moves the family to Chesterfield County, a successful middle class suburbs, to create new life. As her life is changing for the better her heart longs to maintain
This movie takes place in Los Angeles and is about racial conflicts within a group of people which occur in a series of events. Since there are a wide variety of characters in this movie, it can be confusing to the viewer. In the plot, Graham is an African-American detective whose younger brother is a criminal. His mother cares more about his brother than Graham and she wants Graham to bring his brother back home, which in turn hurts Graham. Graham?s partner Ria is a Hispanic woman who comes to find that her and Graham?s ethnicities conflict when she had sex with him. Rick is the Los Angeles district attorney who is also op...
In “The Rich Brother,” Tobias Wolff describes the life of two siblings, Peter and Donald. In the beginning of this story, it is understood that the two brothers are completely different. This is shown through their different appearances, viewpoints, and ways of life. Pete is the conceited successful brother with a life people dream about, while Donald attempts to do things for others whenever he has the chance; however, he is portrayed as a lost soul, unsure of his future. Wolff unveils Donald’s kind, but careless and naive personality. Throughout this story, Wolff displays the idea that having money, can often lead to a selfish and corrupt lifestyle. Through both the rich and the poor brother, we can see how each of them are defined by the
Wright, Lawrence. (2006). The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. New York: Random House.
...niversity of Alabama who’s only contribution to the article is a statement about how he plays the game by eliminating all resistance (Bradley). The significance of this source is negligible because it only shows how one person chooses to play instead of how the game is meant to be played. Bradley’s report, however, does consider the reactions of the police force and the general public. An unnamed police officer tells Bradley that he worries that kids now have the “preconceived notions of ‘let’s kill an officer’.” This emotional appeal to the parents of children playing this game is almost a hit below the belt. The use of an officer of the law to further strengthen his argument that this game is the cause of the killings of other officers is a clever manipulation of the emotions that Bradley has crafted for the readers to feel up to this point in his article.
The book starts with Kamran’s brother being accused of being a terrorist and he takes blame for a recent terrorist attack. Then, after Kamran has been accused
This Boy's Life is the autobiographical account of teenager. Toby and his mother's search for financial stability and a peaceful life. Toby’s family was split down the middle as a child, leaving his father and older brother on the East Coast and, for the most part, uninvolved in Toby’s life. The story begins when Toby and his mother, Rosemary, leave her abusive boyfriend in Florida to take their chances at becoming rich in the uranium mines in Utah. They are short on money, a theme that continually comes up throughout the book, but full of hope and love for each other. Unfortunately, as they arrive in Utah, they discover the uranium resources have already been bled dry and they must go to Salt Lake City where Rosemary manages to get a job as a secretary. Soon afterwards, the ex-boyfriend follows the pair to Salt Lake City and rejoins their life. His abusive behavior continues and Toby and Rosemary are forced to flee again. This time fate lands them on a bus headed for Seattle. Once in Washington, Rosemary finds a group of female friends who encourage her to start dating, eventually landing her with a relationship and later marriage with yet another abusive man, Dwight. The mother and son pair is in a constant fight for a better way to live in terms of security and stability, but their love and loyalty to each other is solid.
...is also worth noticing that Black Boy is written in retrospective and thus offers the point of view of grown-up Richard Wright and reflects his thoughts on the events of his life twenty years after they actually took place.