American track and field athlete as well as a four-time Olympic gold-medalist, Jesse Owens, said “We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort”. Stephen Chobosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower displays the life of a socially awkward teen who struggles to get through life. The author has such a way of presenting Charlie’s, main focal character, amazingly talented writing skills, as well as the new challenges he takes on with his best friends. Of Mice and Men is a fable about what it’s like to endure hardships in life. John Steinbeck’s story of George and Lennie’s vast determination to have a ranch of their own, along with all the complications …show more content…
Going back to the dream of working on their own ranch shared by George and Lennie brings me to the thought that dreams don’t die unless you stop working for them. The image of “George raising the gun and steading it, as he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head. As his hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger” (Steinbeck Page 104). When George tells Lennie to look across the river and imagine their farm, he lets Lennie die with hope that they will reach their dream, and attain it soon. George, who must kill Lennie, is not allowed such comfort. He must go on living knowing the letdown of the dream, as well as deal with the guilt of having killed his only best friend. Football jocks, nerds, goths, hippies, junkies. These are all stereotypes heard around school that “classify” one group of people from the other. “You ever think, Charlie, that our group is the same as any other group like the football team? And the only real difference between us is what we wear and why we wear it?” (Chbosky Page 155). This is one of the most beautiful parts in the entire novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. People from very different backgrounds and age groups can relate to its story. Even though it addresses very specific sets of matters, this novel is able to strike a chord with a massive group of readers.
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is a novel about loneliness and the American Dream. This book takes place during the Great Depression. It was very difficult for people to survive during this time period. A lot of people hardly survived let alone had the necessities they needed to keep relationships healthy. Of Mice of Men has a common theme of disappointment. All the characters struggle with their unaccomplished dreams. The migrant workers, stable buck, swamper, and the other men on the ranch had an unsettled disappointment of where they were at in their lives. George and Lennie, two newcomers to the ranch, aren’t like the other guys. They have each other and they are the not loneliest people in the world. Lennie has a dream though he wants to own a farm with plenty of crops and animals one day. The only problem is his blind curiosity of people and things around him. George wasn’t justified for killing Lennie because Lennie was innocent and never got the chance to find out what he did wrong.
Novels that exhibit what the life is like for the people at ranch can help readers reflect on how they might react in comparable situation. George and Lennie who struggle to transcend the plight of inerrant farmworkers are followed by the novel Of Mice and Men written by John Steinbeck. Readers are positioned to respond to themes through Steinbeck’s use of conventions that are dispirit. Themes such as Freedom and confinement, loneliness, and racism are pivotal in the novel and draw out a range of responses from the readers.
George is almost certain is will happen, as he wishes for 'a little house' with a 'few acres' of land to grow their own food. This is also important as it shows that in 1930s America, the main goal was to achieve stability, to be able to rely on yourself and not be worried about getting 'canned' everyday and to live, not only survive on the bare minimum. However, even George's simple dreams seem incredibly unrealistic and Crooks sums this up the best as he says 'nobody never gets to heaven and nobody never gets no land' which shows how many people attempted to acheive the same thing, to achieve stability, however no one ever did. At the end of the novel, George's dream comes to an abrupt stop as he has to kill Lennie. These final moments show how short life in 1930s America was, and how unfair situations were. Even though Candy still offered to give George his savings, George chose the solitude life of a ranch worker as Lennie was part of his dream, and how he couldn't even seem to reconsider living the American dream without him shows the reader how much Lennie meant to him.
The biggest dream throughout the story is for George and Lennie to have enough money to go and buy a farm of their own. But then Lennie does something that he can’t change back or hide from, and all hope is lost for him and George to have a farm when George does what he never thought he’d do. “And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger… Lennie jarred, and then settled slowly forward to the sand, and he lay without quivering.” (page 106) This one final scene symbolized all of George’s aspirations, hopes, dreams, ambitions, anything he had, diminishing before his eyes. He made a point earlier in the book, “ I was feelin’ pretty smart. I turns to Lennie and says, ‘jump in.’... well I ain’t done nothin like that no more” (40). He promised himself he wouldn’t hurt Lennie again, he took it upon himself to keep Lennie safe. But George fired that last bullet and killed Lennie, stripping himself of all his hope and ambitions. The other main ambition that was crushed in this story has to do with Lennie and his rabbits. “We’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs… An’ have rabbits!...” (14) This is a recurring event throughout the book; they talk about their future dreams, and Lennie tells everyone he meets about the rabbits he's gonna have, but again that all changes when Lennie messes up badly and kills Curley’s wife. The story displays the reader the visual of, “She struggled violently under his hands… “Don’t you go yellin’,” he said, and he shook her; and her body flopped like a fish. And then she was still, for Lennie had broken her neck.” (91) This visual can help you see where Lennie’s dream of ever handling another living being again diminishes because if he can’t keep an
To paraphrase Robert Burns-"The best laid plans of mice and men go awry". This is a bleak statement and it is at the centre of the novel's action. George and Lennie have the dream of owning their own ranch and living a free independent life; they would be self-reliant and most of all they would be safe from a harsh and hostile world. Other characters in the book also try to buy into their dream ie, Candy and Crooks. Ultimately, the dream unravels and like a Greek Tragedy, the ending is terrible but also predictable.
The Perks of a Wallflower, written by Stephen Chbosky, is a captivating novel that follows the transformation of a boy referred to as Charlie throughout his freshman year of high school. During the course of the book Charlie, his sister, and friends fall in and out of relationships. Each one of them is seeking the love and attention of another person, even without directly expressing their emotions. Love is a recurring theme in this book, even though it is shown in different ways.
Have you ever felt stuck? Wherever you are, it’s the absolute last place you want to be. In the book Into the Wild, Chris McCandless feels stuck just like the average everyday person may feel. Chris finds his escape plan to the situation and feels he will free himself by going off to the wild. I agree with the author that Chris McCandless wasn’t a crazy person, a sociopath, or an outcast because he got along with many people very well, but he did seem somewhat incompetent, even though he survived for quite some time.
Holden tries to preserve his own innocence, and the innocence of others by not letting go of childhood memories and through his desire to suspend time. Holden views the adult world as corrupt and full of phonies. He admires childhood because of how it is free of corruption, and untouched by the adult world. IN order to preserve his own innocence Holden often attaches himself to childhood memories. The Museum of NAtural History is one of Holden’s favourite places . He mentions that his grade one teacher Miss. Aigletinger used to take his class there every saturday. While writing about the museum he says, “The best thing, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was” (121). This shows how Holden wants to preserve his innocence because he expresses how he likes how everything stayed the
The daily struggle of the working class, fear of loneliness and the reality of putting all your energy into plans that fail are the different themes relating to John Steinbeck's novel, "Of Mice and Men". The characters depicted by the author are individuals who are constantly facing one obstacle after another. The book illustrates different conflicts such as man versus society, man versus man, man versus himself and idealism versus reality. The book's backdrop is set in the Salinas, California during the depression. The two main characters include two men, George and Lennie. Supportive characters include a few ranch hands, Candy, Crooks, Curly, Slim and Carlson.
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James has been the cause of many debates about whether or not the ghosts are real, or if this is a case of a woman with psychological disturbances causing her to fabricate the ghosts. The story is told in the first person narrative by the governess and is told only through her thoughts and perceptions, which makes it difficult to be certain that anything she says or sees is reliable. It starts out to be a simple ghost story, but as the story unfolds it becomes obvious that the governess has jumps to conclusions and makes wild assumptions without proof and that the supposed ghosts are products of her mental instability which was brought on by her love of her employer
“The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts a woman (herself) that is somewhat trapped within a room covered with yellow wall paper or trapped within the times? Is she trapped by the wall paper that symbolizes her illness or by her husband? Gilman was the protagonist of this story. She tells the story as she relates it to her own life dealing with depression and a marriage that proved to be prison within itself. Is the yellow wall paper contributing to her illness or is this something her husband uses to control her? “John is a physician and perhaps that is one of the reasons that I do not get well faster. But John, her husband who is a physician doesn’t feel that she is sick “ if a physician of high standings and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression-a slight hysterical tendency- what is one to do?” (pg. 648) You see he does not think I am sick.” John uses the fact that he is a physician to convince his wife that she
The two friends George and Lennie dream of their own piece of land with a ranch, so they can "live off the fatta the lan'" and just enjoy a their life. Steinbeck shows how not everyone can achieve the American Dream, and how everyone is not given the same opportunity and rights as everyone else. George and Lennie’s dream of owning a farm would allow them to have a better life for themselves, and it would offer them protection from an inhospitable world, aka the American Dream. Throughout the book, George realizes the impossibility of this dream, sadly proves that the bitter Crooks is right. such paradises of freedom, contentment, and safety are not to be found in this world. With saying this, Steinbeck exposes to readers that the American Dream is just an idea, and that everyone is not given the same chances in
Every person has wondered about something - whether it be a person, place, thing, law, or anything that someone can think about. They ask questions both rhetorical and actual to themselves, and usually make it a mission to answer these questions. Some of the biggest questions have something to do with culture and religion. One of the most major questions of all time - to what extent does an individual have control over the outcome of his or her life? There are many different opinions on this topic.
What makes a good person good? According to WikiHow, "We should learn to define our own morals ourselves. One of the simplest ways to do so is to love others, and treat them as you would like to be treated. Try to think of others before yourself. Even doing small things daily will greatly enrich and improve your life, and the lives of others around you." This quote shows us what we need to do in order to be what society thinks as, “good". In order to be a good person, you have to do good and moral things in your society consistently. However people might think that by doing one good thing once in a while will automatically make you a “good person”, but in reality it doesn’t.
...uring the Great Depression and I think that Steinbeck really captured what it was like to be a human-being during that time. George didn’t want to kill Lennie, but he did what he had to do. After Lennie killed Curley’s wife, George let him know he wasn’t mad; however, he knew Curley was going to get revenge on Lennie and George did not want to let him suffer through that. Slim is the only one who understands that George shot him out of love. Even George did not know how much of a danger to society Lennie was and he always thought his strength could be contained. What I learned from the book is that if you have a dream, go for it. Nothing was going to stop George and Lennie from trying to achieve their dream of being property owners. It took a lot of courage for George to physically shoot the gun, but in the end, he knew it was best for him and everybody else.