Allusions In The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind

Mythological allusions can be found in almost every form of publication, even in songs. One example of an allusion being in a song is from the song Burn by Lin-Manuel Miranda as a part of the musical Hamilton. Hamilton is a hip hop musical telling the story of one of the United States founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton. The story goes from his marriage to his wife to his death. This song in particular expresses Hamilton’s wife’s, Eliza, reaction to the release of Hamilton’s affair with another woman.

In The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, William Kamkwamba is a truly remarkable person. He was able to teach himself how to do something that would have taken most people multiple classes and many well educated teachers. Furthermore, William was determined enough to continue building his windmill despite all the setbacks he faced. William was creative enough to be able to build his windmill without any proper supplies. All through his life, William was extremely curious. He uses his thirst for knowledge to help his family and his community.

In The Kite Runner, and in numerous other stories as well, there are examples of both allusion and

In the beginning, the island has a happy, holiday feel, like a trip to the Bahamas. The boys explore the island feeling like adventurers and trailblazers instead of lost children. When scouting the island for the first time, Ralph, Simon, and Jack talked of making maps and a“kind of glamour was spread over them and the scene and they were conscious of the glamour and made happy by it” (Golding 25). But the island does not retain its pleasant and benign atmosphere for long- soon an aura of fear steals over the jungle. Hunting goes from an adrenaline fueled excursion to source a mild anxiety for all but Jack, and when he tells his hunters to follow him, they “spread out, nervously, in the forest” (Golding 133). The jungle has changed from a place full of fruit and joyous exploration, to one full of shadows and beasts. It is easier to revert back to savagery when lost within its trees. As early as the third chapter, Jack gets startled and “for a minute became less a hunter than a furtive thing, ape-like among the tangle of trees” (Golding 49). When one is alone or afraid, the jungle starts to feel like a hunt-or-be-hunted scenario. Jack, the character perhaps most acclimated to the jungle through his long hunting trips, describes being afraid and feeling vulnerable in the jungle, as if something is always behind him. When everything has deteriorated into chaos, perhaps the most telling

Ralph starts out making the island seem fun, that this is a grand adventure they’re on. But he also believes that they need rules and order, so they don’t become savages and forget who they are. This is why he uses the conch to create order and a system of rules. Ralph becomes leader and starts giving people jobs and making a fire become the most important thing. He wants to be rescued and is trying to get them off the island as fast as possible. “While we’re waiting we can have a good time on this island… It’s like a book.” Ralph is trying to make light of a bad situation and making the island seem like a utopia that the boys can explore. In life people do this all the time, they sugar coat the truth to make it seem like it’s better that it is or fun when in

In the end, all the boys learn a lesson. They had many struggles and troubles of staying together as a group. Jack and his hunting group ended up setting the whole island on fire. “ The fire was a big one and the drum-roll that he has thought was left so far behind was nearer. Couldn't a fire outrun a galloping horse?” ( Chapter 12, Page 278) The horrific fire caught the attention of a naval vessel passing by the island. Ralph collapses in exhaustion, but when he wakes up, he sees a British naval officer right over him.

Kamkwamba was born in a family of relative poverty and relied primarily on farming to survive. According to his biography, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, his father had been a rough fighting man who changed after discovering the Christian God. A crippling famine forced Kamkwamba to drop out of school, and he was not able to return to school because his family was unable to afford the tuition fees. In a desperate attempt to retain his education, Kamkwamba began to frequent the library. It was at the local library where Kamkwamba discovered his true love for electronics. Before, he had once set up a small business repairing his village's radios, but his work with the radios had been cheap.

The idea of the beast started off as nothing more than a figment of a child’s imagination and Jack even said himself that “‘I’ve been all over this island...there is no beast in the forest’” (Golding 83). He’s denying the idea that there is any type of beast on the island and uses his position of “hunter” to justify it. Later in the novel, Jack starts to support the idea of the beast when he realize the boys’ fear gives him power. He mentions that the “‘the beast is a hunter’” (Golding 126) and how “‘[Ralph] is a coward himself’” (Golding 127). Jack is clearly talking Ralph down and wants the boys to view Ralph as a unifit

1. Ralph's contemplation's at the beginning of the chapter are about how he feels about the boys on the island. He just talks and walks around the beach by the lagoon about how he feels about everything that has happened and perhaps a little bit about how much respect he's getting. One of the things Ralph is most bothered by is the fact that the littluns are not working and doing whatever they please. Another thing he might be annoyed by is the fact that Jack is getting a little too focused on hunting.

Allusions are widely used in many famous pieces of literature. To Kill a Mockingbird, Old Man in the Sea, and Frankenstein are just some of the many books in which allusions play a substantial role. By analyzing allusions and symbolism in these books, the reader can connect fiction with real life. Although numerous people are oblivious to allusions, they play a large role in establishing the bigger picture of a story. Allusions within literature give the reader insight to what the author is really trying to get across because every story has a deeper meaning.

In the Novel Ralph is changed by his experiences on the island through the savagery of the other boys and lost his innocence when he goes from the sweet little boy who is excited they're alone on the island to being an accomplice in a murder.

In the earlier chapters of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, William finds books in his library to keep him educated after he can’t afford school. The books he finds are science and technology based. After learning different techniques and information about technology, he decides to construct his own windmill. “Standing there looking at this book, I decided I would build my own windmill. I’d never built anything like it before, but I knew if windmills existed on the cover of that book, it meant another person had built them. After looking at it that way, I felt confident I could build one, too.” (Kamkwamba, 169). After William saw an example of a windmill, he decided to be creative and give it a shot himself.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind was a very inspiring story. A boy that came from such beginnings would have never been expected to do what William Kamkwamba did, especially in a third world country. Although some of the book wandered off into what seemed like random information, it all was Kamkwamba’s life and described what he did in his childhood and up. Also, this random information gave detail to what his surroundings were like. For example, the gumball story in the beginning showed how much his village believed in magic, making it that much more spectacular of him to do something like create a renewable energy source in a place that knew more about magic and less about science. The book motivated me to do something great, even though I

The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, is an inspirational novel which moves the reader to make a change in the world. William grew up in Malawi, Africa where magic ruled and modern science was a total mystery, along with his mother, father, and sisters. They family grew maize on their farm and always had enough to sell and to eat throughout the winter, until one dreadful season. The country fell into a drought which lead to a famine, resulting in a myriad of deaths, some personal to William. William was then forced to drop out of school, which he adored, because his family could not afford it. Throughout all of this darkness, there was light. There was still a dream. William aspired to be educated, and when he

Using only the diagrams from his most cherished book, “Using Energy”, William built his own windmill from junk yard scraps and eventually supplied his entire family with electricity and water. Inspired by the despair of his countries' situation, William heroically brought hope and opportunity to the entire nation.