Guy Vanderhaeghe 's The Last Crossing

The novel “End of Days” by Eric Walters starts off with a Soviet satellite’s travels. It first traveled to Jupiter and eventually left our solar system. The satellite reached a huge asteroid with the diameter of 500 kilometers roughly 1/6 the diameter of the moon. The satellite orbited the asteroid, just by accident the satellite’s messages were received on earth. Those messages revealed that the satellite was on its way home and the asteroid was coming with it. If it hit earth all of life on earth cease, if it missed then the earth would be pushed too close to the sun and life would never be able to survive on Earth again. An organization called the International Aerospace Research Institute planned to use the nuclear weapons of every nuclear-capable

In Larry Lankton’s text, “Beyond the Boundaries” we gradually enter an unknown world that is frightening yet filled with immense beauty for miles. Due to the copper mining industry, a gradual increase of working class men and their families start to migrate to the unknown world with unsteady emotion, yet hope for a prosperous new life. In “Beyond the Boundaries”, Lankton takes us on a journey on how the “world below” transformed the upper peninsula into a functional and accepted new part of the world.

The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy takes the reader on a journey through Mexico and South Western United States through the eyes of the protagonist Billy Parham, a young cowboy who began the story as young and naive, wishing for an adventure. He finds it when Billy captures the wolf that he and his father were hunting and, instead of killing the animal, he instead decides to take her back to the Mexican Mountains. Along the way, he began to deeply care for it and believe that it’s a “being of great order” that knew “what men do not,” willing to risk his own life to guarantee her safety (McCarthy 59-60). However, on his trip, Billy and the wolf get caught by Mexican authorities who decide to give the wolf to a circus. When Billy is released,

The Gulf Between was wrote by Andre Siegfried. It had a big purpose during the time it was written. The Gulf between was created to talk about the “new society” that America has created. Siegfried was a Frenchman who has been to America numerous times, and made the comment that the life in America has changed. The Gulf Between tells the reasons why American society has been changing and why they are now in a new society. The audience for this section of the book could be for European natives, American natives, history majors, or anyone who is wanting to learn about American and their new society.

In his essay “The Country Just over the Fence,” Paul Theroux describes his trip to Nogales, Mexico. He begins his essay by illustrating the physical appearance of the wall separating Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Mexico. He calls it “an unintentional masterpiece”. Theroux feels the wall is somewhat informal. He discovers that crossing the border into Mexico is not too difficult itself. He marvels over the appearance of the wall and also the underlying call to action it places on a person, “Do you go through, or stay home?” Theroux decided he needed to see for himself. After deciding to cross the border, he met many different people. They told him about the celebrations that used to be held between the two neighboring towns which are now divided by the wall. Theroux also met people who had attempted to cross the border illegally into America only to get sent back to Mexico. On his adventure, Theroux also learned about all the medical tourists who travel to the country for cheaper treatments, specifically dentistry. I am interested in discussing Theroux’s presentation of the his decision to cross the border, the people he met, and the medical tourism Nogales, Mexico draws in.

William Deresiewicz is a contemporary writer, reviewer, and literary critic. He taught at Yale University from 1998 to 2008. This essay, "The End of Solitude," that Deresiewicz wrote, explains with the mixture of new technology it is becoming almost unheard of for people to be alone. He also goes on explaining that newer generations have no aspiration to be alone because they are afraid to be alone. But once upon a time it used to be the situation that people extremely respected alone time. Deresiewicz also explained that technology came at a point in time where children were scared to play outside for fear of crime on their city block or in their city. Technology came at a great time to connect people, plus entertain and teach kids. He then goes on that the idea of boredom is a very negative concept. The newer generation people fear that being bored is like being alone. His main points overall can be outlined back to a fear of loneliness and solitude.

Guy Vanderhaeghe’s The Last Crossing is a Western of subtly crossed borders. Vanderhaeghe elicits a sense of blurred lines between opposites, giving the illusion that boundaries are not so statically fixed. Vanderhaeghe creates an underlying fluidity of social and cultural connotations and the essence of well-being. The Metis disestablish the distinction between Indigenous and white through appearances, languages, and relations. Addington’s syphilis, Custis’ mystery ailment, and the Indigenous peoples’ struggle with smallpox draws the conclusion that health and illness are not opposites. Madge’s death, Addington’s military massacre, and Indigenous resistance against unfair treatment prove that justice is not equivalent to the law. Lucy Stoveall’s paranormal abilities, Simon and Addington’s dreams, and the land of the dead exposes the openness of interpretation and the inconsistency of the natural world. The Last Crossing fights the illusion that concepts are resilient. Within the novel Vanderhaeghe affirms the flexibility of health, law, nature and culture with their opposites.

The Bridge by Karen Kingsbury is an inspirational novel about second chances. The storyline is about a young couple, Ryan and Molly, who never confess their true love for each other. Seven years later, Molly and Ryan are separated by hundreds of miles, yet not a day goes by that they don’t think of one another. Meanwhile, the bookstore which houses all of Ryan and Molly’s precious memories of when they were together is at the edge of closing down because the owners, Donna and Charlie, are having financial problems. As a result, Molly and Ryan must work together to prevent The Bridge from closing forever.

People are motivated by fear. Fear for their loss of personal life and fear for the loss of life around them. People fear pain. “...[I]s much more rigorous than any experimenter could have set up to establish what is essential and what is adventitious to the conduct of the human animal in the struggle for life.” as Primo Levi stated in The Drowned and the Saved. He is talking about how the concentration camps ultimately tested that people have the innate desire to survive. They want to live, as therefore fear loss of life. When I think of war I think of death, destruction, and pain. Therefore, war could be used as a fear tactic to pursued people to do certain things. In this way, I see war as an unavoidable or necessary tactic by people of

Along the Clearwater River in the north central Idaho just off of the historic Lewis and Clark trail

Throughout our lives society shapes whom we are and how we act, through this we are forced to assume roles based on how others view and perceive us. Both through our close friends and family and the broader media and society, these stereotypes and attitudes from which we develop into can be both for good and bad. It is through these expectations and social pressures that greatness can be developed in people, but is also though these expectations great evil and cruelty can be developed within people. Throughout Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North the reader is presented with two distinct and contrasting characters of Dorrigo Evans and Nakamura. While differing in actions and beliefs, both characters highlight the societal paradigm of their respective cultures and show how through others we come to fulfil their expectations, even if these expectations are something, which oppose our own personal values and expectations. It is through Flanagan’s construction of his text and the contrast that this text structure places on both Evans and Nakamura that greater insight can be understood about both of their characters and then also the broader society from which they originate. It is from their struggle and their story that I can gain greater understanding of both people and the broader society, and the expectations and that are placed on them and how the society shapes character and attitudes.

Throughout Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North the ideas of expectation and what it means to be a hero are examined through Flanagan’s blending of history and fiction from a modern perspective that the reader can gain insight into how society and others shape and define us. Through the novel the reader is presented with two distinct and contrasting characters of Dorrigo Evans and Nakamura. While differing in actions and beliefs, both characters highlight the societal paradigm of their respective cultures and show how through others people within society come to fulfil their expectations, even if these expectations are something, which oppose our own personal values and expectations. It is through Flanagan’s construction of

Translated into 35 different languages and adapted into a 1984 Hollywood classic, Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story (1979) enjoys a cult following worldwide. The book deeply influenced young adult fantasy fiction in Germany by its story of a timid, overweight boy whose becomes a hero by being an avid reader and a maker of stories. The Neverending Story is descendent of the Romantic Movement; a protagonist as a reader who travels between reality and fantasy and awakens his inner poet. Two decades later, two critically acclaimed books took and transformed Ende’s story: Inkheart (2003) by Cornelia Funke and The City of Dreaming Books (2006) by Walter Moers. These three books describe a conflict between a reader and book-hating antagonists and

The story begins during the siege of the Jewish fortress of Metsada by the Roman’s (Deutermann 3-24). After the Jewish soldiers inside realize the fortress is doomed and that the Romans would break through the next morning, they decide to sacrifice themselves, all 980 of them. The fathers kill their children and wives before turning it on themselves, while we witness it through the eyes of “the last man”, a man selected to make sure that everyone is dead, kill them if they couldn't do the deed themselves, escape down to the caverns below and make sure the artifacts are intact, and then proceed to commit suicide to complete the ritual. This is extremely important towards the story because without this event, it wouldn't have such a massive cultural

The ultimate message of Great Expectations is that not all great expectations can be easily transformed into reality based on one’s will, and is accurately modeled by the Piccadilly Ending. As shown in the essay The Two Endings by Rupert Christiansen, the author believes that the Piccadilly ending corresponded with the overall message of the book. Christiansen makes a good point about facing reality when he says “life does not neatly deliver one’s dreams of perfect happiness...even when you have learnt lessons the hard way” (Christiansen, 2). By using the words “neatly” and “deliver”, the author is explaining that life will not cater to one’s wishes and fantasy does not become reality without effort. In addition, even when one has worked persistently