Essay about Bleachers by John Grisham

The inner conflict he has going on is bogging him down. During the four days in the book, he has often changed the subject if anyone mentions his previous career. “I don’t want to talk about football, okay? I don’t want to hear how great I was (71),” is what he says to Paul Curry at Renfrow’s Café one day. Football leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Coach Rake influences Neely’s hard feelings. Rake is tough and mean; he assaults Neely during halftime of a 1987 game. After the altercation, and the knee injury, Neely says things like, “I wish I’d never seen a football (14).” However, during Rake’s funeral, Neely’s attitude changes. He actually uses “the L-word” toward his old coach. Paul Curry says that maybe the reason Rake picks Neely to do the eulogy is a way for Rake to finally make peace with Neely. If that is what Rake intended, it worked. Had Neely not been so stubborn all of those post-football years, he could have made up with Rake. He could have stayed in Messina instead of running away from his past. All he needed to do was accept Rake’s apology. In the eulogy, Neely says, “With each success in life, you want Rake to know about it… And you want to thank him for teaching you that success is not an accident (222).” As hard as it is to accept the fact that he actually loves Coach Rake, Neely does it; he accepts it. Neely finally buries that hatchet that he has held on to for so

"Catcher in the Rye" written by J.D. Salinger, is a novel in which the author creates much irony in the way he presents the loss of innocence or the fall from innocence in his main character, Holden Caulfield. While Holden clearly believes in protecting the innocence of children in society, he himself cannot seem to hang onto his own innocence. Throughout the novel Holden shows his love and protection for childhood innocence, the irony that he in fact himself may be losing his own childhood innocence mainly due to the responsibilities which he has taken on, and also shows that he may be more innocent than the reader first thinks as his simplified view of a complex world is much like an innocent child would see.

The setting of the novel is in Los Angeles in a number of places, including a professional and a school football field, a school, and multiple houses. This shows that extraordinary and unusual things can happen anywhere, even in the most common places such as school and people’s homes. (Lupica) Another detail this portrays is that in LA, the football team is not very good and doesn’t win a lot of games. Throughout the story, in the setting of LA, things seem bleak for the Bulldogs, as they are every year, but the team still keep going and turns out to be a playoff caliber team.

Forgiveness can be one of the hardest things that you can do. Sometimes it will take a few days or it could take many years to get the courage to finally know what forgiveness really is. Both Neely and Coach Rake had to learn the hard way and own up to their mistakes to move on with their lives. Even if Rake had taken this to his grave, he did not want Neely to do the same because he loved his players, even if he had a hard time telling them that. They too were coach Rake’s inspiration to push

Look around at your close friends. You stick together just like a family. Your friends support and know you. Like a family, friends know each other, like each other, and relate to each other. In The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, my theme, friends are family, is very present. S.E. Hinton shows that Friends are family like when the greasers stick together because they really know each other and don’t really have family. The theme at the beginning is friends are family.

The Outsiders Essay – Describe an interesting theme from a text you have studied. Explain why this theme is interesting.

Nonfiction is easier to believe than fiction. It is likely that we find interest in what we read when the book is nonfiction rather than a fiction book. However, fiction helps you think more while processing the text you are trying to comprehend. Thoughts like, “what if this happened to me,” “How would I react,” tend to come up. I have learned more about East LA and how gang violence was, and is still a major issue. Literature influences change. If Luis didn’t encounter writing, or poetry he may still be involved in

Why does Holden continuously judge people based on their physical appearance? Could this be a projection of his insecurities or a reflection of his mental health?

There are two groups in this book, the lower income families on the east side called greasers and the higher income paid families who live on the West side of town called Socs. One night the protagonist, Ponyboy Curtis and friend Johnny Cade were making their way back from a movie, they decide to lay down and talk for a little bit before they go home. His older brother, Darry, is waiting when Pony walks in. They instantly start arguing and Darry smacks Ponyboy across the face. Ponyboy and Johnny runaway moments later and find themselves in a park with drunk Socs who attack Ponyboy. Ponyboy regains consciousness to find himself lying on the ground next to an Socs dead body. Johnny had stabbed a Soc in the back with his switchblade. They hang low at an abandon church for a long week. Then, Dally arrives to check up on them and takes them out to lunch. He

Coach Eddie Rake was a vigorous man and had a lot of determination to win any game he could. He went on to be their coach for thirty four years, with “418 wins, 62 losses, 13 state titles, and from 1964 to 1970 an undefeated streak that ended at 84” (Grisham 11). There was still one question, “Do I love Eddie Rake, or do I hate him?” (Grisham 223). A lot of the players answered differently, saying that “Coach Rake was not easy to love, and while you’re playing here you really don’t like him. But after you leave, after you’ve been kicked around a few times, you soon realize how important Coach Rake is and was” (Grisham 223-224). Rake was there for Nat when he needed him most, and it took too long for the others to realize how good of a coach he actually was. “And when the name of Eddie Rake was mentioned, he would smile and maybe laugh and tell a story of his own. One with a happy ending” (Grisham

In literature, there are genres. Two main genres are fiction and nonfiction. Fiction is a work of art that is not real or based on the facts. “‘Fiction’ refers to literature created from the imagination” (“What is the difference…?”). It can explain a story in a different point of view, maybe in a way that is out of the norm. Fiction is basically just nonfiction in an exaggerated way. Though fiction may not be based on the facts, it can still resemblance a sense of real life events. “Fiction may base on stories on actual historical events. Although fictitious characters are presented in a fictitious setting in stories and novels, yet they may have some resemblance with real life events and characters” (“Fiction”). Literature is meant to

Many people form their opinions of whether or not a book is believable solely on the book’s classification as nonfiction or fiction. Others use New Critical analysis to determine whether a book is believable or not. The use of New Critical analysis requires the reader to consider events that happen throughout the book and any conflict that may have occurred. It also requires that the reader focus on the plot of the book and the characters. Grisham sets the book to take place in a small, football crazed town, known as Messina. The book is set in present day time, but Grisham uses his characters to incorporate flashbacks from the sixties, seventies, and eighties. Grisham uses many characters throughout the entire book to tell the story

Book are magnificent things. Fiction books are created with such details, they only hold small or no real life facts or events. In contrast, nonfiction books do the complete opposite. Nonfiction books contain facts or events from the past that occurred, they are also incorporated with details to make the story more interesting, to give it more imagery, feel, and a better tone. When an author does so, they manage to make the book have a “timeless quality,” which is incredibly important to a nonfiction book. An author is capable of getting this quality in their books by incorporating the facts or events, alongside rhetorical strategies to give life and meaning to their book. Not every author can manage to do this, although, the author by the name of Erik Larson did so, in his book, The Devil in the White City: Murder,

After fifteen long years of discontent and feeling unfulfilled, Neely confronts the demons that have haunted him for so long. Cameron Lane has forgiven him and given him a sense of closure he has needed for a long time. Neely has begun to put the past behind him and allow people to see him as more than just a nineteen year old All-American quarterback leading his team to victory. He has forgiven Coach Eddie Rake and re-allowed him to occupy a special place in his heart. Neely even thinks “And when the name of Eddie Rake was mentioned, he would smile and maybe life and tell a story of his own. One with a happy ending” (Grisham 229). Most of all, Neely has forgiven himself not only for the pain he caused others, but for the pain he caused

In the book, Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caufield, the main character is a negatively charged person, doesn't want himself or others around him to grow up, and suffers from depression because of his brothers death. This is obviously Holden's way of alienating the entire world and delaying the consequences of facing reality. Alienation is a big theme in Catcher In The Rye, and something that Holden depends on most often.