I breathe in and all I can smell are the dusty pages underneath my nose. Everything seems so real. I look up and see father’s chin. His arms envelop around me holding up the large book so we both can see it. It is like I am in my own little world with only me, father, and the most beautifully written words, dancing on the pages in front of me.
“Once upon a time, there was a family of four. The father was very tall and slender, and had a kind face. His way of speaking made him seem as though he knew everything there is to know. Next to him was the mother, tightly holding arms with her husband. Her blond curls rolled down to the middle of her back, and once you looked into her eyes you couldn’t look away because you would see an entirely different world within. They had two little boys. The youngest, Oliver, had the same blond hair as his mom and would never leave her side because he was awfully shy of the wandering people passing him. William, being the complete opposite, also had the same blond hair as his mother, but had deep brown eyes drunk with power.”
Father’s voice is deep and full of emotion as he carefully reads the book spread across my legs. It is like the words popped out of the page and came to life. I could clearly see the family standing in front of us right now, as if we were floating right next to them. The family wore the finest clothing ever seen and they all started walking to this golden gate.
“There were two golden baby angels”, continued father,
The book Black Hearts opened my eyes to how leadership from a single Officer can have a grappling effect on such a wide range of soldiers from the lowest of ranks. One of the best takeaways from Black Hearts is to never do anything: illegal, unethical, or immoral. Although this is a easy statement to repeat, Black Hearts demonstrates the difficulties that lie behind these words. It has also painted a picture of how leadership can topple extremely quickly from a top down view. The Army is portrayed in a bad light throughout the book relentlessly. This is due to the concentration of poor leadership of the 1-502nd Regiment (Referred to as “First Strike”), a battalion of the 101st Airborne Division.
Perry Smith and Dick Hickock are two remarkably different characters. In the beginning of the novel, they’re known only as the murders of the Clutter family, but Truman Capote tells their life stories in such a way that they become more than that. Even though these two men are basically introduced as murderers, they quickly become relatable and interesting characters. So much is learned about their feelings and lives that one can not help but almost look past their reckless ways. Both of these men have unique character traits that amalgamate in an intriguing way. Throughout In Cold Blood, Capote includes many instances that show how Dick and Perry, when combined, make the perfect murderer.
The blazing light was shining in my face and a slight breeze blew through the arched windows. I spotted an open chest in the attic, whilst spring cleaning. The outside rim of the box was covered in dust and cobbled webs; the hinge was rusty, making a creak noise against the ghost-quiet room. Rummaging my hand around the chest there was a scratchy-substance digging against my fingers. As the sun faded from my sight I lifted up the mysterious object. It was an old rustic book; I flipped through the delicate pages, every touch made a crinkling
The narrator or older brother, whom was never named, is an algebra teacher, at a school in Harlem. On the way to work he reads a newspaper article about his brother; Sonny, who was picked up the night before in a drug raid. The narrator is stunned that his little brother, whom he considered to be “wild but not crazy” and had always been “a good boy” (Baldwin 93), got himself caught up in the world of drugs. While, the narrator is teaching he feels what he describes as a block of ice in his stomach that “melts and sends trickles up and down his veins” (93) at the thought of Sonny. Being at the school around young men reminded him of himself, his brother, and his current situation. As he teaches, he cannot help seeing the face of his little brother in the young men. He thinks to himself that Sonny probably wasn’t much older than these young men
Punished was written by Victor Rios and published in 2011. Rios wrote the book to chronicle the challenges young black and Latino boys faced within their improvised highly criminalized neighborhoods. Rios grew up in Oakland California and lived in what was considered the ghettos mainly a minority poor community; he was also a gang member with his fair share of trouble. Rios began looking for answers to the plights he and his community faced after the murder of his friend while they ran from a rival gang member. A conversation with the police whom Rios claimed told him they wanted the gangs to kill each other off made him seek answers to the prevalence of violence that plagues his community.
Published in 2008, The Forever War by Dexter Filkins compiles a series of vignettes that detail his encounters as a reporter in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Released a year after, director Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker also examines a harrowing account of the conflicts in Iraq. Both works poignantly present the unbridled violence that plague the region, and the futility of a war embedded within a vicious cycle of retaliation. Nevertheless, the portrayal of vengeance as a major motivating force of the war, as well as the war’s isolating and demoralizing effect on its witnesses, are better achieved in The Forever War. Contrary to the sole perspective of an American Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) team in The Hurt Locker, Filkins includes multiple angles to explore each of the elements portrayed, and ultimately offers a more profound, subtle, and enduring explication than the film.
Family relationships and society play fundamental roles in how a child grows and makes their own choices. How they are seen and treated by society can influence how the child acts. From how they are raised, to what values and morals they are taught will determine the child’s reactions to obstacles that come up in life. I will be discussing some major events in the book that stood out to me as to why two men who basically grew up on the same block, ended up on very different paths.
The thought that Sissela Bok about the “whole truth” being attained is that it is impossible that it can be attained. She believes that people are lying deceived everyone, and sometime is used to protect the person. She also thinks that people that are lying is more important than anything in all of the decision that a simple lie brings. I believe she doesn’t have any faith that everyone could tell the truth. The truth is something that is hard to say, and people at times need to lie to protect their love ones. In the beginning of the chapter of “The Noble Lie” she explains how there are different lies. She explains how the lies have different reasons to for people doing it. For some of those reasons it is impossible to be completely truth. Some have to lie to protect others, and cover up the secrets that can be told. There are plenty reasons that there are to lie to people. She states, “The lies are often seen as necessary merely at one stage in the education of the public.” (Bok 166) This is something that everyone does growing up, and no one in one time of their life cannot lie to anyone.
The best way to get a four spot on the Billboard Hot 100, is by rapping about something everyone will go through, a heartbreak. That is what Kanye West did in “Heartless,” a song about a heartbreak he went through with former fiancee Alexis Phifer. The song debuted as a single but was later put on his 808s & Heartbreaks album. The song explains nearly everything about his relationship. They both made mistakes, but she’d act as if hers were minor. That is why he states, “I’m gonna take of tonight.” He emphasizes the word tonight, to prove he is exhausted and wants to be taken seriously. But he then argues himself by asking why they always end up late night on the phone. Which proves who is the intended audience. Simply, anyone that has gone through something similar, sometimes ends up on the phone with them late night with remorse. West’s tone in is angry in this song. He was tired of his ex-fiancee, who left him at his lowest point. When his mother had passed away just months before he was finished working on this album. Both of the women that he loved the most have left his life, in an instant. Kanye just began working on his music as a way to overlook the trials set ahead of him. He released this song and it was only the second time he used auto tune. Apparently auto tune can get you a 5x platinum record, mind that’s five million sales.
A standout amongst the most fascinating advancements in nineteenth-century American writing school courses as of late has been the presentation of old well known books by ladies to the syllabus. Among works of this kind, E. D. E. N. Southworth 's The Hidden Hand is the book understudies appreciate the most.
Culture has the power of informing you of someone’s identity. It is said that culture is the way of life a group of people follow, meaning their behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that identify them as where they came from, who they are, and who they can become. On the other hand, we know that culture is always changing and adapting to the lifestyle and advances of the present day. This can happen by the adaptation groups of people have suffered in order to achieve a better way of living other than the one they’ve previously had. Examples of these changes can be seen with the “Great Migration” in the 1900s. A movement in which many African Americans moved to the North to work and settle in the steel mills in search of a better life. In Blood on the Forge by William Attaway, we are able to in fact prove that culture can change and adaptation plays a key role in our existence. The book portrays this change through the life and experiences of the Moss brothers and their lifestyle from Kentucky to Pennsylvania.
Hello, I see that you are here to view my stand point on the book Black Hearts, the book has a ton of action and excitement throughout. There are many stand points and gut wrenching moments that could only put you on the edge of your chairs, and keep you glued to the book, wondering what the next thing that could possibly happen. The enjoyment throughout not only keeps you interested but it also give you’re the different ways people think and act. And that’s what brings us here today, the assignment was to write about a picked character, that you thought had some leadership failures that lead up to an incident. Well the character that I choose to write about would be none other than LTC Tom Kunk, the book told a story so outrageous that I
The son sees his upbringing and parents in a surreal and almost grotesque way. His childhood started out a “fluffy thing”
One boy out of a school of more than three hundred boys. Wilfred, the lad’s name, was an orphan and as is often said, ‘birds of a feather flock together.’ It could not be accurately said that Wilfred shared much in common with John, but they both lacked parents. John’s lack of a nurturing father existed because Formonsus senior withheld all fatherly contact and benevolence, and was as deleterious to John’s health and development by making him through strictures a motherless child. He lacked a mother because his father forbad her to have anything to do with the boy other than she was permitted to see to his .necessities’ when he was sick. A state with which he was rarely affected. Therefore, John was without normal parental interactions and benefits, and Wilfred was a orphan whose parents had died when he was young, leaving him dependent on the charity of the town. In these circumstances, each of their situations held points of similarity that were greater than any differences between
When William arrives at the manor house he could now hear his father in another one if his bad humors and ranting on. He tries to close the door quietly. His father's mind may be going, but nothing gets past his father's ears. "William??? William you come in here this instant!! Did you hear me boy?? Now." William shakes his head and enters the room where his father is furiously pacing the floor. “Where have you been? Storming off like that when your duty to your family and people are here!! You must learn responsibility. You are so weak, I’m surprised you are part of my bloodline!! Why couldn't you be more like your brother?” William quickly turn and faced his father. His face full of rage and resentment. "I am not my brother, don't want to be like my brother, and my