Travelling to a drastically different country and being positioned in some hazardous situations can open one’s eyes. Alexander Jackson is a seventeen year old boy who plays a vital role in the novel “Forbidden City” written by William Bell. Alex voyages to China with his father, Ted, who is a camera man for CBC News. They arrive at the beginning of a student protest which quickly intensifies into an unpleasant tragedy in history. Throughout the novel, Alex experiences numerous different emotions ranging from cheerful to heavyhearted. Towards the end of the book it is adoring how appreciative and emotionally mature he had become. Alex learns to depend on Beijing natives for the duration of his struggle to escape. The soldiers react violently
In the book The Lighting Thief, by Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson is a troubled, dyslexic kid who is soon to figure out he’s a demi-god. He has to return the Master Lightning Bolt back to Zeus before the summer solstice, and figure out the riddle of the Oracle which instates he will be betrayed. Also on his quest, he has to avoid monsters because he is a demi-god and monsters can sense him.
The pair soon are kidnapped by the Indians, who are portrayed by civilians as “ferocious and dangerous” and quickly have to adapt to the ancient Indians traditions to be accepted within the tribe and prevent any harm that would come their way. Alex and Nadia have to take on certain rites of passage, which can occasionally cause physical and mental pain, to be approved worthy of being accepted. This indicates that Alex is adapting to a new culture and its rituals. Another development of the theme “willingness to adapt” contains Alex’s selective taste. At the beginning of the story it displayed through the text that Alex will decline any food that contradicts with his normal picky diet. For the duration of the exhibition, Alex transforms from a critical eater to a character that is willing to experience new and frequently unappealing
War is the armed conflict between different groups of nations or groups within a nation. In Forbidden City Alex Jackson experiences the impact of war and realizes that it is not a game. Before he goes to China he is inexperienced and cocky. While in China Alex experiences things that changes how he sees war and realizes there is human consequences to war. Finally, when Alex returns home he is almost traumatized by what he’s seen in China. Therefore he is more experienced and is now aware of the effects of war when he returns home.
Alex is confused on why all of this is happening in China to innocent people. Alex wants to leave because of all the violence going on Alex says, “Embassies are telling people to leave…” (Bell 114). Alex does not know where is dad is and Alex is very concerned is his dad is killed or alive. When Alex arrived at the airport, he asked the lady at the counter if his dad had checked in yet.
Alex was taken to a boxing arena by the Snakehead and is made to fight in the arena against the best fighter and eventually beats him which causes a huge commotion and eventually a riot. He quickly escapes using his skills that he has learned in the field during previous missions. He did not realize it but someone had also help start the riot to make a diversion for him to escape. It was a member of MI6 which is the organization that normally hires Alex to spy out of London, England. They have gotten wind of the bomb “Royal Blue”, and have tied it to Winston Yu. They give him a few special gadgets that
It is very shocking to read about the journeys he goes through, traveling all over New York, just to find his parents while taking care of his siblings. I really enjoy how the author puts tension into Alex's day-to-day struggles through chilling moral dilemmas, whether to rob the dead, who to save during a food riot and how long to preserve the hope that his parents might return. Throughout the book, it was amusing to read and notice how Alex matures as he goes through each obstacle, caring more and more for his sisters and wondering if they all will ever see their parents alive again. The journeys he goes on involve several natural disasters making the novel so astounding. Just imagine seeing volcanic eruptions and tsunamis flood all the way to New York City.
While reading this book, I got most involved when the author would talk about “Alex” and all the many emotions he felt while living his new life driven on impulse.
Forbidden City Essay Nikhita Srigiriraju World History 11/14/14 Forbidden City Essay Everyone has thought of rebellion at some point. Whether it’s for something like not wanting to clean their room, wanting to drive, wanting to vote, it is still standing up for something they believe in. With some people, it may be a minor thing, but for some other people, they are rebelling for their life. In the book Forbidden City by William Bell, the main character Alex moves from Canada to China for his father’s job.
Anthony Horowitz’s dystopian novel Stormbreaker, is about a teen named Alex Rider. When Alex’s Uncle Ian, his last remaining family member, dies, Alex finds out his life was surrounded by lies, including that his Uncle was actually a spy rather than a banker. Due to this Alex ends up at MI6, the secret spy agency, instead of his uncle’s “employer,” a bank. He is thrown on a mission by way of blackmail, and doesn’t know what to do. He meets Herod Sayle, a successful businessman, that had been bullied as a young Egyptian child with a strange accent and appearance. This had led to a great deal of ridicule at the hands of his classmates, something expected of school age children. However, rather than learning from this torment and becoming a better
Life is a journey that everyone has to go through. We always start with innocent and inexperience. As we go through our journey of life, we usually meet some obstacle and challenge that we have to overcome to continue our journey of life, but we can receive help from other people along the way. We will learn experiences and become mature as we overcome the challenges and obstacles. So we can receive some important concert and abstract rewards for go through the journey and defeat our crucial struggle. Similarly, in William Bell’s novel Forbidden City, Alex goes on a dangerous journey from innocence to experience. First, Alex begins in the innocence stage as he is naive, inexperience and
In Amy Tan’s “A Pair of Tickets,” setting unfolds an important aspect of the story by positioning a ‘where’ and ‘when.’ Throughout the story, June May struggles with her internal conflict of resisting her Chinese culture. However, she begins to release this resistance as she ventures through China. The setting perpetuates the theme through the usage of transportation, the significance of the color gray amongst colors, and June May’s transition into a Chinese-American. As reflected by the setting and external places visited in “A Pair of Tickets,” June May’s interior state becomes more Chinese as she explores her native country.
According to Alexander the Great if I wanted to become a turnip right now all I would have to do, is try. There is no logic in this idea and while it is inspiring it’s not scientifically possible. Many things can be done through great effort but not anything. I’m sure Alexander the Great didn’t want to die but no matter how hard he tried he still did. Really all this quote does is give the reader false hope that anything is possible and if you try hard you can do anything but really that is not true.
Alexander the Great I once heard this quote by Alexander the Great it quote “ An army of sheep, led by a lion, is better than an army of lions, led by a sheep.” ~ Alexander the Great. Alexander is from Pella, Macedonia in 356 B.C. Alexander's parents were Queen Olympias and King Phillip the II.
However, youth like Alex cannot be caught in the expected rubric of life and hence, they retaliate. Nevertheless, one cannot justify Alex’s actions worth applauding but Burgess seems to favour their actions as the only possible outlet for suppressed angst. In the first act, fourth chapter, Alex says,
I really admire the character of Alex because he is very courageous and intelligent. At the beginning of the book, Alex wanted to find out if the story about his uncle getting in a car accident was true or not, so he went to the auto wreckage center nearest his house to search for the car. Once he had been searching a lot for the vehicle, he ended up finding it to see it in perfect condition except for bullet holes in the windshield (p. 19). He heard people coming, so he hid inside the car. Then a big crane picked the car up and starting smashing it in a machine, with Alex still inside! After all the struggling, he managed to get out of the car just before it went through the part of the machine that totally crushes the car into a cylinder (p. 24). I felt pretty bad for Alex. It must have been hard for him to have to go through a really brutal training camp for something he didn’t even want to do, especially since he had just lost his last family member. He had no idea what was going to happen to him