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Personal narrative travel essays
Personal narrative travel essays
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Step after step after step. After step. The heat is barren and the weight of this backpack is too much for these shoulders. Giving up is the only thing on this hiker’s mind. However, change is at the end of the journey, and a chance to start over and become someone new. While hiking, Cheryl Strayed said that, “It is impossible for you to go on as you were before, so you must go on as you never have.” Hair, clothes, personality, and people all change. Without it identity would be impossible to discover and talent would never be found. There have been many inspirational figures that have shown their hard journeys to become what they are. The most interesting one is about Cheryl Strayed. “Her mother’s death from cancer devastated Strayed, and …show more content…
Cheryl took all the money she had and invested it into hiking supplies and gear. Strayed had not been backpacking once (Shapiro, D). Sooner than later, she was ready to hike one of the longest trails in North America, the Pacific Crest Trail or PCT. Every step of the way Cheryl was, “riding her horse into battle”. When something went wrong, she learned from it. And that is exactly what “deep practice” is- messing up to master something. At the start of Cheryl’s 1,100 mile- long backbreaking endeavor, Cheryl moved slow and tedious. Her feet blistered and legs wobbled. By the end of it, she learned how to move efficiently; “I’d hiked only 170 so far, but my pace was picking up,” (Wild, 2012, p. 136). In The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle explains that these errors were allowing people like Cheryl Strayed to succeed through these challenges (Coyle, …show more content…
Even her last name switched from Nyland to Strayed, something she thought fit her better (Cheryl Strayed). After her crazy, three- month expedition, Cheryl learned: tolerance, patience, and that, as Coyle would put it, “Making progress became a matter of small failures,” (Coyle, 2009, p. 13). As soon as Cheryl was off the PCT, her civil life took a 360. Strayed got re-married, earned a degree in fiction writing, and even had a child! Today, Cheryl has written multiple books about her achievement. And, more recently, her New York Times best seller, Wild, is being made into a movie (Cheryl
Strayed portrayed the negative figure of herself representing things she did not like and would like to eliminate. Being with a large amount of men affected her, she wanted to supposedly not sleep with men, but she still did. There were countless occasions she had sexual relationships with men she met on the Pacific Crest Trail. Strayed says, “We spent most of the summer having adventurous sex and doing heroin” (Strayed 53). Although she finally got over her shadow. Cheryl states, “For once I didn’t ache for a companion. For once the phrase, it didn't even live for me anymore” (Strayed 299). She was heartbroken with the divorce of Paul and still liking him, but she eventually gained maturity to be a better person. Sometimes when you are becoming dangerous to one’s self there are people than can see it and change for the
The fourth Chapter of Estella Blackburn’s non fiction novel Broken lives “A Fathers Influence”, exposes readers to Eric Edgar Cooke and John Button’s time of adolescence. The chapter juxtaposes the two main characters too provide the reader with character analyses so later they may make judgment on the verdict. The chapter includes accounts of the crimes and punishments that Cooke contended with from 1948 to 1958. Cooke’s psychiatric assessment that he received during one of his first convictions and his life after conviction, marring Sally Lavin. It also exposes John Button’s crime of truancy, and his move from the UK to Australia.
Plain Truth and Sing You Home are novels both written by Jodi Picoult. They both have plots involving religion and how it strongly affects characters and the court cases they are subjected to. Religion is a topic addressed in the book in both positive and negative light, the religions exposed; Amish and Evangelical are shown to be extremist. The positive lighting can be seen in some of the characters and their innocence such a Katie (Plain Truth) and Liddy (Sing You Home). The negative is spread across the pages, with murder trials and anti-homosexual preaching’s.
Homesick is a novel that exposes many different relationships, the strength of relationships, and how they can endure tremendous pain. The various relationships between Alec and Vera, Alec and Daniel, and Vera and Daniel are considerably different because of the variation in generation represented by each character. Each relationship in this family has its strengths and weaknesses depending on the past of the relationships. The relationships in the novel Homesick are seen through all of the character's eyes, so we can see how each character felt about the other characters. These characters do not tend to say what they think, we can see this many times throughout the novel. These relationships can be observed by seeing how they act, speak, and treat one another.
Flannery O’Connor was born on March 25, 1925, in Savannah, Georgia. She was an American writer. O’Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories in her life time. She was a southern writer who wrote in Southern Gothic style. In the Article, Female Gothic Fiction Carolyn E. Megan asks Dorothy Allison what Southern Gothic is to her and she responded with, “It’s a lyrical tradition. Language. Iconoclastic, outrageous as hell, leveled with humor. Yankees do it, but Southerners do it more. It’s the grotesque.”(Bailey 1) Later she was asked who one of her role models was and she stated that Flannery O’Connor was one she could relate to. One of O’Connor’s stronger works was “Good Country People” which was published in 1955.
Country music singer, Reba McIntire, recorded a song called "The Greatest Man I Never Knew." In the song, she speaks of how she never really knew her father. It exemplifies the way I feel about my own father. Everyone has a person who has made a deep impact on his or her life. For me, it was my father Donald Alexander. He was a great man with a wonderful sense of humor. He was the reason I wanted to become an attorney. He said I never lost an argument. I feel tormented that I was unable to know what a great person he really was.
Even though, a person likes to think they are in control, life will show them they are in less control than thought they were. In Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People,” the character Hulga is a person that wants to maintain control in every aspect of her life good or bad. To Hulga it seems she is in constant control of her surroundings and her life. However, she does not have control that she thinks has.
mother used to come home late at night and used to get beaten by her
After looking into the journey and obstacles he faced to scale this dangerous and intimidating mountain, I noticed with each stop at each rest area he had learned something different about himself or established a new outlook about the journey. But it was not until they were in the final leg of the journey in which he learned his greatest lesson about himself. It was during the last leg that he realized he had spent most of the day looking at “how far he had to go,” instead of relishing in “how far he had come.” After stating he normally views things as “the glass half empty” I realized, I too, have a similar outlook on life. It was in this moment that I realized perception has a large impact on how I maneuver throughout life, bringing the popular phrase “mind over matter” to my
In Cheryl Strayed's Wild, she gives readers vivid exposure to her turbulent and harsh past. She tells her journey from the beginning of what was the turning page in her life- her mother's death. Strayed goes through a roller coaster with unfortunate events both in her control and out of her control. She makes several poor choices, and she shares all her triumphs with pure honesty. Strayed speaks of her past with a distant remorse, as if she is looking at her past in a movie. She doesn't come across as ashamed of her past, but why should she? As all humans do, Cheryl Strayed makes mistakes and suffers their consequences as well. Everyone handles situations differently, and the best anyone can do is learn from the mistakes and apply it to their future, as she does. Strayed has come to terms with her past and by writing this biography she shows the courage she has gained from the unfortunate events in her life. As the saying goes, "whatever will be, will be." She took the everything, the negative and positive in her life, and made a wild decision to leave her life behind to find peace, move forward, and survive. There is no shame in the act of trying.
Straying away from life as a whole only to be alone, some may say is the strong way to heal themselves when dealing with extreme grief or a major crisis . In the book Wild, twenty-two year old Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost it all. Dealing with the loss of her mother, her family torn to pieces, and her very own marriage was being destroyed right before her very eyes. Living life with nothing more to lose, lifeless, she made the most life changing decision of her life. Strayed never seems remorseful on her decisions to up and leave everything behind while deciding to flee from it all. This being her way of dealing with life, it shows her as being strong; a woman of great strength and character. She shows personal strength, which is more than just a physical word. It is a word of very high value and can only be defined by searching deep within your very own soul.
Little Girl Lost is an autobiography written by actress Drew Barrymore. When this book was written Drew was around the age fourteen. Drew Barrymore is the grand-daughter of actor John Barrymore. Most people know Drew from the hit movie E.T where she captured the hearts of thousands of people. Sadly, during this time, all of the fame got to her, she began partying which led to drinking. Drinking led to doing drugs like marijuana, and eventually cocaine; she was only twelve years old (Barrymore 1). Drew’s parents separated when she was young, her father left and she stayed with her mother. Drew and her mother were not very close, her mother was always working trying to provide for them, and so she was stuck either with a nanny or by herself. When Drew Barrymore began to spiral down into drugs and alcohol her mother did not even notice. Her mother finally realized what was happening when the tabloids reported stories and pictures of her partying and getting out of control. Her mother decided it would be best for Drew if she went to rehab. The first time Drew Barrymore went to rehab she ended up relapsing fairly quickly and her drug addiction became worse. This happened a few times. By the end of the biography Drew had just gotten out of rehab and was doing well. She states, “I think about that every day. All addicts do. You are never without the fear of returning to your old ways and losing everything that you’ve gained. When you’re sober, you don’t forget what it was like to use. It’s hard, really hard, and you take it day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. That’s the way it’s going to be for as long as I’m alive. But at least I’m alive” (Barrymore 260).
Sanity is subjective. Every individual is insane to another; however it is the people who possess the greatest self-restraint that prosper in acting “normal”. This is achieved by thrusting the title of insanity onto others who may be unlike oneself, although in reality, are simply non-conforming, as opposed to insane. In Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, this fine line between sanity and insanity is explored to great lengths. Through the unveiling of Susanna’s past, the reasoning behind her commitment to McLean Hospital for the mentally ill, and varying definitions of the diagnosis that Susanna received, it is evident that social non-conformity is often confused with insanity.
All it took was 54 minutes for everything to change in Marieke Nijkamp’s thrilling novel, This is Where It Ends. In four harrowing perspectives, Nijkamp paints the story of a shooting within the small town high school of Opportunity. The four characters, Tomas, Sylv Claire, and Autumn, are all connected and negatively impacted by the ‘villain’ of the story, Tyler Browne. Autumn, his sister, is the only family Tyler has after their mother dies and their father turns to alcohol. After Sylv falls in love and “corrupts [his] sister,” Tyler assaults her, and is in turn attacked by her brother, Tomas (Nijkamp 52). Claire was previously Tyler’s girlfriend, until he assaults Sylv. Tyler justifies his reign of terror with how poorly his family and peers treated him. The payback, he
The novel, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other (2011) written by Sherry Turkle, presents many controversial views, and demonstrating numerous examples of how technology is replacing complex pieces and relationships in our life. The book is slightly divided into two parts with the first focused on social robots and their relationships with people. The second half is much different, focusing on the online world and it’s presence in society. Overall, Turkle makes many personally agreeable and disagreeable points in the book that bring it together as a whole.