Analysis of Fade To Black by Alex Flinn Essay

When people lose their dignity, they also lose a part of the very thing that makes them human. Despair, hopelessness, fear and apathy are all ways a human can lose their humanity. The eyes provide a window onto the soul, and thus a view on the person’s mental state. The eyes also function in reverse, as a symbolic gesture of control over someone. All of this is present in Night, by Elie Wiesel, an account of human tragedy, human cruelty, human dignity, and the loss thereof.

The story is about Josie Moraine, living in the French Quarter of New Orleans and wants a new life away from New Orleans. Josie dreams of going to college in the East, where nobody knows her. Josie's mom is a prostitute and has never been a good mother to Josie. Josie is very ashamed of her mother and embarrassed because she is a prostitute.

The two most obvious one’s are the music and drug symbols. Two that one might not catch are the light and darkness symbols. Light being the good, while dark being the bad. When the narrator found out that Sonny got busted and put in jail, he started to think to himself, “I didn’t want to believe that I’d ever see my brother going down, coming to nothing, all that light in his face gone out,” (Baldwin 122). He references the light to a bright and young Sonny. After hearing the news, it reminded him that there were also shadows where there was once light that shined. This vision of his younger brother makes him realize that Sonny was once like the boys he now teaches. Some of his students share and face some of the same darkness’s that Sonny does. “All they really knew were two darknesses, the darkness of their lives, which was now closing in on them, and the darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other darkness, and in which they now, vindictively, dreamed, at once more together than they were at any other time, and more alone,” (Baldwin 122) The narrator explains how the boys are immersing in darkness and they don’t even know it. Darkness here represents the chances the boys don’t take advantage of and the lack of opportunity they are presented. This darkness that casts over them doesn’t give them hope to want to attempt anything positive. Fate has brought them together but because nothing will ever come their way, they are alone in suffering. This dark reality of living in Harlem leaves no light of hope for these young boys. The narrator now begins to understand the pain and suffering that his students and Sonny go through. Between prejudices towards African American’s in Harlem during the 1950’s and living in severe poverty decreases the chances of them ever escaping the dark reality of life. This setting and darkness make is easy to turn to drugs, crime, and violence

The setting takes place in present day Texas throughout the whole novel. The main characters were Sunny Reynolds (14) who was the main detective of the novel, and the younger sister of the dead sister, who died in a fire in New York, but was deeply loved by everyone, Deborah Hallard a girl who looked and pretended to be Jasmine Reynolds (the girl who died), but knew everything about her and her family, and Dan and Lily Reynolds the parents of Sunny and Jasmine. Dan had a drinking problem, and Lily was depressed because of her beloved daughter who was dead, Jasmine. The mystery of the story was when a letter arrived to Sunny’s house from her dead sister, two months after her sister passed away. It said that Jasmine was going to come home because she ran away even though she was reported dead. When Jazz arrived at her family’s doorstep, everyone besides Lily knew that it wasn’t the real Jasmine. They weren’t sure who she was, why she was at their home pretending to be someone who she wasn’t, and how she knew everything about the Reynold’s family and their secrets. The detective in the novel was Sunny Reynolds. She was always trying to find clues about the girl pretending to be her sister, calling people to get as much information as possible, and would even look through the girl’s bags even if that risked her getting caught because unlike some people, she had nothing

The story is set in small town Saskatchewan in a police station office, on the night of August of 1957. Corporal Heasman has brought in Les Grant on the account of accused rape Tracy Tolbertson, and the play follows the questioning of Sergeant Finestad to Les, who retells his involvement with Tracy, the daughter of Mr. Tolbertson, the local crown attorney. The story has many

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.

The story takes place in a neighborhood that i estimate is quite small considering Carolee knows her neighbors are gone. The setting revolves around Carolee’s home. Her doing her chores in her home and the suspect roaming around outside. The setting influences the story a lot because it influences Carolee’s reaction to what happened. She had never seen anything like that in person and it opened her eyes to how society really is.

One of the main themes throughout the book is the title of the book “Night”. There are references from Eliezer about night during the book, which are full of symbolism. The word “night” is used repeatedly, and Eliezer recounts every dusk, night and dawn through the entire book. For instance, Night could be a metaphor for the Holocaust—submerge the family and thousands of Jewish families in the darkness and misery of the concentration camps.

In the story Dark They Were And Golden Eyed, by Ray Bradbury, a great story that he develops themes of fear, change and symbol and label. The author uses techniques of similes, metaphors and personification that explain and convey them to the reader very powerfully.

Setting is the specific or general environment where a story or event takes place. This novel is set in the 1960s in a town divided by the East and West sides. The division in the city separates characters based on social class, creating unequal treatment between gangs as characters of the West Side believe in superiority over the East. The small rivalry between classes leads to much larger problems, forming events, such as the Socs jumping Ponyboy and Johnny, that lead to the main plot of the book.

The story takes place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1973. The epidemic hits the city in the late summer months and lasts until December. Mattie lives with with her mother and grandfather above a coffeehouse her family owns. There is little medical knowledge at the time which leads to little control over the virus. They are many africans living free in Philadelphia at the time also. There are also many mentions of the Free African Society.

One of the most important elements of this story is the setting. Taking place in the drug-plagued, poverty-stricken, and frustrated streets of Harlem in the 1950s, the setting

“S*** rolls downward” an old army phrase is what exactly happened to 1st platoon of the 101st Airborne Division. Black Hearts is a fictional book on soldiers in the 101st Airborne division in the 502 Infantry Regiment during deployment to Iraq in 2005. Black Hearts is a book which gives the reader the point of views the different types of stress a soldier goes through during a deployment both physically and especially mentally. The book goes in depth and paints realistic events throughout the deployment and the impact it had one specific company.

The discovery of anthracite coal in Pennsylvania in the late 1700s led to the development of a robust coal industry in the eastern part of Pennsylvania that grew rapidly and contributed greatly to the history and the economy of Pennsylvania. The book The Face of Decline written by Thomas Dublin, Walter Licht, provides a well written historical and personal account of the discovery, growth, and finally the collapse of the anthracite coal industry in Pennsylvania in a chronological format. Half way through the book one starts to notice some changes in the authors format to cause and effect. The change occurs in order to discuss the cause and resulting effect of events in the region and the solutions. The story is one of great growth and opportunity in the early years which are highlighted by the documented economic growth experienced and supported through testimony within the eastern Pennsylvania coal region. After a period of economic prosperity and community growth from 1900 through 1940 challenges began to erode and occur that created problems for the community and the economy that the coal industry provided. Finally the region’s economy suffered horrendous losses as described by interviews of local residents and families who lived and experienced the rise of the region’s economy. Many of the scars are still evident by the blight and decaying scenes one would experience by traveling through the region’s communities that once fueled the American economy with the energy

The book opens with a squad of soldiers running a tactical control point just outside of a village called Yusufiyah. They are approached when a man Abu Muhammad had found his cousins family brutally murdered not too far off. Sgt. Tony Yribe and 3 others went to go investigate it. Although it was a terrible scene Sgt. Yribe had just assumed that it was like most other situations in Iraq in that the family was a victim of Iraqis attacking other Iraqis. The one thing that bothered him was that there was a shotgun shell and Iraqis do not normally use shotguns.