I Am The Messenger

“Maybe everyone can live beyond what they're capable of.” Markus Zusak. from the book I am the Messenger. Ed Kennedy, the protagonist, is a 19-year-old dropout and a cab driver who feels that there is no meaning or path in his life. Ed has to discover himself while getting caught up in vague extreme situations that normally very few adults are rarely caught up in. Even with the knowledge that they have built up through a lifetime of experience nothing truly can prepare you to make such decisions. Ed throughout this book is always behind a mystery. This shows the reader how the young impatient, child like mind might work in difficult situations. In the book I am the messenger by Markus Zusak, the impatient connotation of the language conveys

In the book “I am the messenger” by Markus Zusak, It is all best categorized as a coming of age book. Ed Kennedy starts to realize his worth and he also began to believe in himself at the end. He learned how to fight for his dreams and for himself. It surprised him that he can also succeed just like his siblings if he only put his mind onto his dreams. Ed transforms from a self-absorbed Taxi driver into a genuine hero, reaching out in a interesting, unsentimental way to the others he's bound to find on the cards he receives. Sometimes his successes are sweet and simple but others are sickeningly painful and incomplete.

Today’s world presents instances of wealth beyond one’s dreams, and on the other side, poverty where each day is solely about the survival in this harsh environment. However no story is better appreciated than those that combines these two different “worlds”, also known as Rags to Riches. Underdog stories including Henry Ford, Walt Disney, and J.K Rowling, all take a huge leap forward from where they were, and now media even make these seem commonplace. Except, these stories still give the impression to the common man, woman, or child that the secrets of how to become a part of this elite group to be as hidden as, the secret of how headphones can always get tangled in the confines of a pocket. Markus Zusak employs his book I Am the Messenger, as a messenger quite literally, to help deliver these elusive secrets through his theme, the “wealth” of the lessons taught by Ed, and the creative, and the innovative plans of Ed to overcome varied conflicts. Through his simple message, Zusak helps show that underdogs are not these divine, angelic beings who have conquered obstacles insurmountable by anyone else, they are just a simple achievable goal.

I Am the Messenger is a great book that tells of a guy named Ed, who loves to play cards, but suddenly starts getting messages in the mail that are marked on playing cards.. Ed is practically a “nobody” not having much educational success, his father died some time ago and his mother hasn’t had great success in life either. The story basically starts off with a bank robbery, Ed and his friend Marv are at the bank when the gunman arrives and demands to Marv his car keys. The gunman gets the keys and jumps into the car, in which he drops his gun, Ed then takes the gun and holds down the gunman until the cops arrive. At the trial, Ed testifies against him, and as they pass each other the Gunman tells Ed, “Every time you look in the mirror, remember you are looking at a dead man”. This starts Ed’s journey. Ed lives alone in his apartment (that is owned by his boss) with his dog named the Doorman and Ed is a cab driver. He is insanely in love with his friend, Audrey and it is clear that she loves him back but they won’t embrace their feelings. Several times a week, Ed, Marv, Audrey, and a close friend named Ritchie play cards together. Soon after Ed anonymously receives his first playing card, Ace of diamonds. Written on it are three addresses (it’s always three) Edgar street, Harrison Avenue, and Macedoni Street. The first address is at an old house where a man that gets drunk every night comes home and beats his wife, leading to their daughter coming outside to cry. At the

“All the past we leave behind, we debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world, Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march” -Walt whitman. If one cannot notice the almost eerie parallels between the stanzas of walt whitman’s invigored prose in “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” and Willa Cather’s similarly titled novel, you could be considered daft. Some of these major parallels can be seen in major and minor characters seen in willa

Authors see that teenagers are going to be the one who help change the world and it is in every decade that a teenager will do that. Writing about teenagers helps other teenagers see that they are not the only ones going through a problem. Authors captures the coming of age for teenagers and tell the readers their journey. Influences are a major part of teenagers growing up. If they do not have the correct influence then they end up going down a wrong path but that does not mean they are stuck on that path. Every teenager in literature has a choose to make decisions if they want the path that will lead to greatness or not. Authors try to capture the true stories of what teenagers are going through. Even when they were writing them in the earlier

Francine Prose’s commentaries on the issues of high school students who have are apathetic toward reading hold weight for several reasons. Her love of literature stems from the fact that Prose is an avid reader herself who enjoys the art and has “preserved a lively and still evolving passion for good books.” Prose’s basis for vocalizing her concerns and frustrations about the topic of mindless readers comes from her desire for her own children to have an appreciation for the therapeutic values of a good book, in addition to the lessons that they teach. Francine’s status as an avid reader, a writer and a mother all lend themselves to establish her credibility in her essay. The reader can easily comprehend the struggle of the bookworm mother who is unamused that her sons have to dredge through the same tiered literature that has been taught for ages.

Wells, April Dawn. “Themes Found in Young Adult Literature: A Comparative Study Between 1980 and 2000”. University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill, North Carolina, April 2003. Web.

Literary merit has become a term reserved for what society would consider the classics, leaving relatively little space for any newcomers. There is no doubt that the classics are worthy of literary merit for their compelling stories, their exploration of universal themes, and their presentation, but that does ot mean that young adult novels are not worthy of literary merit. While most young adult novels are within the public’s notice and then phase out just as quickly as they come, some of them may be of the same caliber as the classics. The biggest notable difference between the two is the lack of public knowledge. Almost everyone has heard of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but fewer people would

In the field of literary criticism, particularly modern and postmodern criticism, the term intertextuality refers to the phenomenon of interconnectedness that exists specifically within literature. Just as Donne believes man to be nothing outside the context of his culture, so too does modern literary criticism

Intertextuality is the complex interrelationship between a text and other texts taken as basic to the creation or interpretation of the text. Ronald Barthes declares that no text is unique or original, and this comes clear in Leila Halay’s Once in a PromisedLand. The novel is full of intertextuality. Here we have some examples:

Thirdly, writers like to write Teen Fiction above other genres because it restates the changes that occur in our youth that shape us into who we are today. “Not every book has a Happily Ever After. For example, S.E. Hinton’s YA classics, which deal with drugs, drinking, and gang violence, don’t offer easy answers to the questions they raise in the end. Today, they’re still taught in schools. But there's almost always an underlying optimism in YA, an identifiable maturation or development that Reiss calls ‘the kernel of hope.’” (Feeney 39). That “kernel of hope” is what teenagers are fueled by; what they blindly work for the future, even though they don’t know what it holds for them, but they only hope that it’s good. Ordinarily, the transaction of making life choices, taking different roads is what is shaping them into who they are and what they will

Humans get taught to read at a small age and through their lifetime, they choose what type of genre catches their attention. It all comes down to either you are a fan of fiction or nonfiction. Both of these genres have different varieties of literature such as young adult fiction. Young adult fictions are very common in teen writing and even adults. In all the young adult fiction the reader follows the age and experiences the main character goes through. Some stories tend to focus on the struggles that happen at that age, which the main character is. This literature explores themes that are important for the reader. For example, they may put first love, friendship, bullying, rape, racism, and drug abuse. All of these are situations that young adults go through or may wonder about. Young adult books are amazing, but the one that is the best book is Eleanor and Park.

As well as other arts, literature is often told to be timeless. A classic, timeless piece of literature consists of whose themes and lessons will always remain as a standing struggle throughout human existence. Several enduring classics tend to have motifs that revolve around universal struggles such as sexuality, social acceptance, and greed. The reason these topics are so widespread is due to the fact that there will never be a human being who will never experience or see any of these things. As a matter of fact, these themes are also universal to any age because young adults can love and understand the piece of art as much as many elders. In the same way, those same motifs don’t discriminate against

YA or young adult literature is a topic of many controverses today. Everyone is speaking out about their opinion on YA. In this essay I want to compare two articles, who give a different opinion. We can make our own conclusions out of that.