Analysis Of The Moustache By Robert Cormier

Thesis: In the short stories The Charmer, Love Must Not Be Forgotten, and The Address, one’s past experiences have a profound effect on their development as an individual.

As the child continues to accomplish a variety of different accomplishments in the mainstream society, the people already familiar with the child from the county will perceive him entirely different than others who lack knowledge of him. The child’s “uncle will still call [him] Roy Boy” and the “corn may grow so high if you stood in the field you’d disappear, the fact aiming your eyes down the road”. This demonstrates the difficulty of altering the perception of certain people who are already familiarized with the child. These people are unable to abandon their initial perception of the boy due to their strong, ineradicable association with him; rather, they will find it more awkward and uncomfortable seeing a completely different suave gentleman due to his significant change. Regardless of how many achievements the child has accomplished, he will never be able to erase his past as a little boy in the county. Even if the boy never comes back to visit his county again, the past will linger with him for the rest of his life due to his inability to change his innate characteristics that shape him as a person today. It is because of the boy’s past that he is able to adapt and continuously achieving numerous different

Often times readers desire for works that they can relate to on a personal level. With that in mind Billy Collins wrote a poem entitled, “On Turning Ten” discusses the hardships experienced from growing up. The poem is written from the perspective of a child who has turned ten years old and is looking back at their great life as a very young kid. The child sees the world in a different way and feels sad that he has grown up. Collins, through his poem, displays the emotional hardship of growing older and causes the reader to relate to the child as they remember their own experiences growing up.

Childhood is arguably the most exciting time of a person’s life. One has few responsibilities or cares, and the smallest events can seem monumentally thrilling. Often, people reflect on the memories of their youth with fondness and appreciation for the lessons they learned. Sarah Orne Jewett captures this essence perfectly in the excerpt from “A White Heron.” Jewett uses many literary devices, including diction, imagery, narrative pace, and point of view to immerse the reader in familiar feelings of nostalgia and wonder, and dramatize the plot.

The author also effectively supports his thesis through pathos. To evoke strong emotion in his readers, Jones appeals to the audience’s feeling of vulnerability in their youth. Recognizing that during adolescence most people feel powerless, he tells engaging stories of his own and his son’s rise to power through comic books to give the audience something to connect to. As these stories are told, readers reminisce about those days, and feel joy in knowing that there was a happy ending. The feelings created make the audience look positively at the essay and relate to it.

All good things must come to an end. A common phrase we have become accustomed to hearing, and a phrase that parallels the meaning of Annie Dillard’s “The Chase”, an excerpt from her autobiography “An American Childhood.” In “The Chase” (1987), Annie Dillard recounts how childhood, no matter how enjoyable, will come to a close. Dillard conveys this by carefully detailing her childhood experience as a tomboy and that “nothing girls did could not compare” (1). Her experience during “the chase” symbolized an end of Dillard's childhood and wishing for “the glory to last forever” (19). The author recounts her story of “the chase” in order to express exuberance and love for childhood compared to the fact of mandatory growing old. The author addresses the audience in this narrative chapter of “An American Childhood” to express how short childhood is is this passing craze of life. The author uses expertly composed imagery, parallelism, diction and tone to create the impactful story in a chapter of her autobiography.

In the short stories, “Saving Sourdi,” by May-Lee Chai and “The Moths,” by Helena Maria Viramontes, the main character of each short story goes through their own coming of age experience where they are forced to mature in order to overcome an obstacle. Chai explains her main character, Nea’s, struggle as she is forced to mature and overcome the departure of her older sister, Sourdi, from her life after she gets married and moves away. Viramontes, on the other hand, depicts her narrator’s struggle as she is forced to mature and overcome the death of her Abuelita on her own. Despite their very different approaches, both Chai and Viramontes successfully convey their main character 's struggles in their journey from youth to adulthood.

Adolescence is a bumpy and unknown section of the road known as life. Both the short story “Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier and the poem “Hard on the Gas,” by Janet S. Wong relate to the theme that “the road to growing up and maturing isn’t always smooth”. “Marigolds is the story of an adolescent who is growing up in the Great Depression. Through hard experiences and tumultuous emotions, the narrator learns that growing up is full of ups and downs. “Hard on the Gas” is a poem about a grandchild driving with his or her grandfather. The grandchild realizes that the road isn’t always perfect and that there will be bumps along the way. The theme “the road growing up and maturing isn’t always smooth” is conveyed in both of these selection.

The trials and tribulations adolescents face as they shed their innocence and cross the threshold into adulthood is a universal issue facing young readers in all eras. The dazzling use of simile in Charlies’ statement “my exit from

In many cultures, coming of age is often celebrated because children become young adults who grasp self-awareness and accountability. At the same time, childhood is threatened by responsibility, which is dreaded because there is an unpredictable world of adulthood waiting with no guarantees. James Hurst demonstrates the journey of growing up through life experiences everyone goes through in the short story, “The Scarlet Ibis”. Throughout his use of mood, setting, and symbolism, Hurst shows that maturing requires reflecting on past experiences and losing innocence, which then can transform one’s outlook on life.

In Richard Wright’s “The Man Who Was Almost a Man,” Dave finds himself throughout the course of the story. Throughout the story, Dave is constantly seeking the pleasure of obtaining and then eventually shooting a gun in order to be a man and find himself. However, Dave does not expect the consequences that are to follow the pursuit of pleasure. The moral of the story pertains to the role pleasure and its consequences have in development and finding oneself. The story narrates a common, but little talked about problem, that runs rampant in today’s society. In the story “The Man Who Was Almost a Man,” Richard Wright illustrates Dave’s development, or lack thereof, through the symbols of the gun, the train, and the mule.

In life, there are many decisions that everyone must make. And with decision-making comes consequences, some that we are ready for , and some that we may not be ready for. The author of ' The Man Who Was Almost a Man,' Richard Wright, portrays a young man who wants to be a man, but shows that he is clearly unprepared for manhood and the consequences that come with that responsibility. Through decision making based on self interest, wanting to gain respect from his family, and wanting to prove his dignity, Richard Wright brings forth the main character, Dave, a seventeen year old boy, whose actions show that he is only 'almost a man.'

In Discovering Wes Moore, the author describes his “coming of age” journey. As the reader learns about Wes’s life, there are several important factors that help him grow to be a successful young man. These include role models, his family values, and his education. All of these are part of his environment (nurture), and something inside of Wes (his nature) was able to respond to these factors as he matured.

p. 82). Therefore, the adult narrator’s ability to comment and reflect on his child-self effectively emphasizes the naïve and vulnerable nature of youth, and contributes to the mood of foreboding and suspense throughout the novel, ‘now I was over confident. I expected things to go my way’ (Chapter 1. p. 28).

This coming-of-age story is narrated by Ari, thus the reader is constantly aware of his feelings and his point of view. Ari is angry at everything and everybody. His family