Analysis Of Quest To Mastery: Bandits In The Woods

| “This was the tree, and it seemed to me standing there to resemble those men, the giants of your childhood, whom you encounter years later and find that they are not merely smaller in relation to your growth, but that they are…shrunken by age.” Ch. 1, Pg. 14

With this circumstance the vigilantes decided that the man they were so kindly escorting didn’t deserve the rights to a fair trial. What these certain vigilantes did is not to be seen as the whole of the vigilante movement during the old west.

The din was frightful. Billie was crying as usual. Dave and Sol-leks, dripping with blood from a score of wounds, were fighting bravely side by side. Joe was snapping like a demon. Once, his teeth closed on the foreleg of a husky, and he crunched down through the bone. Pike, the malingerer, leaped upon the crippled animal, breaking its neck with a quick dash of teeth and a jerk. Buck got a frothing adversary by the throat, and was sprayed with blood when his teeth sank through the jugular. The warm taste of it in his mouth goaded him to greater fierceness. He flung himself upon another, and at the same time felt teeth sink into his own throat. It was Spitz treacherously attacking from the side.”

The unknown aggressor starts to engage in hand-on-hand combat with the three. The narrator reminds us that Digby, a friend of the narrator’s, has just finished a course in martial arts (that his parents probably helped pay). Digby stands in position with wrists cocked and ankles bent in a ‘swan like’ stance ready for the assailant, but sadly for the young ninja, the narrator tells us, “The greasy character was not impressed. He merely backed off a step, his face like a Toltec mask, and laid Digby out with a single whistling roundhouse blow (Boyle 166) . . .” Tough guys do not get knocked out in one blow, they stand and fight.

As corpses permeate the graveyard, the ability sustain life itself comes into question; Olds warps the significance of the tree to argue that life is no longer sustainable. Due to the lack of enough wood for coffins, the disposal of corpses exemplify desperation and require inhumane treatment. The sheer number of corpses necessitates that many are “Bound with rope like the tree's ball of roots / When it waits to be planted”(7-8). Literally converting poisonous carbon dioxide into oxygen, a tree preserves life on earth. Ironically, as the

The pear tree is her inspiration and her first true desire. She longs to bud and blossom, like the tree, and cannot wait to discover herself and all the wonders of the world.

The literal language used in the beginning of the free verse does not imply the tree having any symbolic meaning to the speaker and her mother. It is casually said- “My mother and I debate, we could sell the black walnut tree…[to] pay off the mortgage” - which defines that in these lines the tree has not yet been introduced with its symbolic purpose. Initially, the tree is viewed as a property they are willing to sell. They rationalize the idea by noting that there are “roots in the

As the tree is withered and no longer bears fruit, it closely parallels with Amir and Hassan’s friendship after the rape. “Hassan had said in his letter that the pomegranate tree hadn’t borne fruit in years. Looking at the wilted, leafless tree, I doubted it ever would again” (Hosseini, 276).Both boys stop living with one another and no longer keep contact with each other. The strong relationship that was present in the beginning of the book is no longer present and both boys grow into men with their own separate lives. In this final visit to the pomegranate tree we see that the two names are still carved in the wood, but the tree is dead, just like their friendship. This goes to show that even if they are not friends anymore, they will never forget one another, they will always be “the sultans of

The book opens up to an adult Gene, visiting his old school years later. He comes back after fifteen years to get closure. He visits the buildings that were once so familiar to him, and reflects on how he’s changed, and the constant state of fear that had been so familiar then. But the main reason for his visit is to see the tree. There is a tone of regret as he remembers what happened so long ago, and how it all started.

In return, he answers my questions. I ask him if he’d seen the Rebels carrying a black boy and he responds with a yes. Then, the man claims that he would be dead, by nightfall. I couldn't take his clothes, for I had to get going. I gave him one last drink of water and then I left. My mind was burning with questions about Cush because I didn’t know if he was alive. I had to believe that he still lived. Down the road, I could see Confederates sitting by the side of the road. I ask them if they’ve seen any black people, but their answers weren’t much help. I ask another soldier and he tells me that he doesn’t know about any black people, but he states that there is someone locked in a barn a couple of miles down the road. When I got there, I had to ask soldiers for permission to look in the barn, but luckily, they granted it. I called Cush’s name and he responded. All of a sudden, a guard appeared and told me that I can’t talk to him because he is a prisoner. When I told him that the prisoner is actually my slave, the soldier stated that I had to talk to Colonel Marshall in order to get him out. When I leave, I say to nobody, “ I promise I’ll get you out

The summer at Devon is completely blissful and everyone, including Gene, is happily ignorant. When Gene is at the teacher’s house, Gene thinks, “Someday the Dean would probably live entirely encased in a house of glass and be happy as a sandpiper (12)”. Because Gene and Finny’s relationship is “just friends”, they were very honest with each other, which relates to the imagery of this glass house. They had no secrets from each other, which is similar to Eve and Adam. The glass represents clear feelings that are not hidden from each other. They trusted each other, but then Eve broke their promise, in a way ‘fogging’ the glass up. In the summer, Gene was feeling innocent and happy, the book says, “The tree was tremendous, an irate, steely black steeple beside the river. I was damned if I’d climb it”. The idea of the Garden of Eden, and the tree that gives the knowledge of all things good and evil, is similar to Gene and Finny’s relationship. This tree represents the tree of knowledge, because Gene wants nothing to do with knowing all bad things that happen. But, in the end he is blind to what he is doing. Eve takes the apple, when god says ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.”. Gene ‘takes the apple’ and he ends up

In comparison, the original has a more traditional sound, while the 1964 version is more harmonized, and formed in a musical way. It was renamed “The Bandit” in The Shadow’s rendition of Mulher Rendeira. It is widely believed that the English translation is originally written by Michael Carr and John Turner. Instead of using the original text, (Hey, Lacemaker woman), “I’m the quickest on the trigger, when I shoot I shoot to kill.” is used as the first phrase.

“Scout’s Honor” by Avi is a realistic short story about three boys attempting to prove their bravery to each other. In the beginning, Horse retorts and argues and snaps about going camping. Soon, Max is left at the next station and is seen crying, but does not admit it. In the end, the main character is feeling better after Horse’s voice is jagged with panic. This story shows that the three boys want to prove their bravery.

The look of the tree is compared to the old man by the use of personification. Although the man knew that the tree had to be much stronger because if the man took the trees place he wouldnít be able to stand alone.

As the stars hang, unchanging in the nighttime sky, and as the sun moves in ceaseless circles around the earth, so the tree had endured. And even as the wind rustled in its outermost boughs, the tree looked out to the sun, as if for reassurance about its own unchanging eternity. On the horizon, no yellow eye looked back. The sun was gone.