Man Who Had No Eyes By Mackinlay Kantor

When people go through something difficult it can change them. Making them who they are, it can change them for the bad or good. Therefore, hardships can greatly influence a person’s life by making them appreciate all the things that make life enjoyable.

According to Marian Erickson, “Most of life is choices, and the rest is pure dumb luck.” Real people’s lives depend on this quote everyday, which leads to the outcome of each problem individuals face. In the passages, characterization of the main personas helps one understand the theme. Conflict and symbolism also help lead to the overall idea that life is not always guaranteed to be full of success. The book The Other Wes Moore, the poem “If,” and the informational text “The Art of Resilience” all share a common theme of how choices and luck contribute to the success of life.

In the book Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies, by Seth Holmes he mentioned the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and his philosophy “Bad Faith”. Holmes explains “The phrase “bad faith” was introduced by Jean-Paul Sartre to describe the ways in which individuals knowingly deceive themselves to avoid acknowledging realities disturbing to them(Holmes86). The phrase explains us, when something bad is happening in our lives, we lie to ourselves to escape the truth that we don’t have to face them. This happens to everyone when we commit a really bad mistake and we don’t want to accept it. Another way this may happen is when you’re in a bad situation and you try to replace it with something else to get your mind off of it. Basically it’s a distraction, so we don’t think about what’s actually going on.

Hardships have the power to make a break a person, as Roman poet, Horace, once said, “Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant”. Everyone has or will have to face adversity at some point in their lives, it is a universal truth. Although misfortunes usually have a negative connotation, depending on the struggle and how one deals with it, it is likely the person will come out of misfortune better prepared for the world. Contrastly, if a person never experienced any hardships, they would lack a sophisticated understanding of the world and lack the ability to handle difficult situations. Adversity gives people strength they can not obtain with success.

When thinking of Mexican American immigrants what comes to mind? The American public consistently listens to the media telling stories of how these people cross the border illegally, which is deemed as a crime. Immigrants are portrayed just as stealing American jobs and benefiting from government programs such as welfare. Countless people think it was a voluntary action for them to come to the United State, therefore whatever comes their way is what they deserve regardless if it is health problems, racism or low paying jobs. However, what most of American people don’t realize is that the majority of Mexican migrants are forced to migrate to the United State in order to survive. They constantly risk their lives to cross a dangerous border in order to find the jobs that the American people don’t want to endure. In the book called “Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies”, the author, Seth Holmes focuses on the lives of an indigenous Mexican group called the Triquis. Throughout the book, he focuses on the journey of the group from their hometown of Oaxaca to farms in California and Washington. The book also emphasizes how racism and health problems of migrant workers have become invisible to the American people. It is commonly seen that their personal damage such as health problems and placement on the social hierarchy system is only to be blamed on their sole decision to come to a country where they are considered illegal. Instead of blaming the Triqui people for their sickness,

In life there will always be those moments that we most value and those that we wish to avoid. Misfortunes are the situations or events that we wish to vanish from our lives because we view them in a negative way. However, what many choose to avoid is actually something that defines who we are. Misfortunes develop one’s character and it identifies us as a person. Everyone goes through different situations and because of that each and every person develops their own unique character based on those misfortunes. The essays “Flavio’s Home” by Gordon Parks, “What I’ve Learned From Men” by Barbara Ehrenreich, and “Common Decency” by Susan Jacoby all explain to us in detail the situation that a particular person is going through which in the end reveals how the person’s character was developed by that misfortune.

Masks portray a sense of mystery. “No one could see me clearly. No one could see my face.” Lucy, Grealy. Masks. Print. The unknown is often intriguing. Generally their worn to portray a character or someone other than yourself and symbolize an imaginary life. For Lucy, it portrayed a sense of freedom. The freedom from being stared at, teased, lonely, and occasionally envious of others. Halloween is the only day that Lucy experience’s an ordinary life. Unlike the majority of other days’ mask are customary and her disability is masked. Providing her with the confidence to express herself freely by asking questions and making comments. “Studies show children with disabilities are two to three times more likely to be bullied than their non-disabled

Author Jay Henrichs proves that persuasion is a great key in arguing and uses an example of him and his son in an argument to show how both came out triumphant through his persuasion. Hendrichs describes this persuasion as “manipulation” or “instruction,” all which are both included in rhetoric. Rhetoric is the “art of argument” (4) and should be used in every argument to benefit each side. Most ancients also used the tool of rhetoric to persuade, in fact it was used to create the first democracies. Henrichs once went a whole day without persuasion and he found that it was very hard to go through his normal functions. In this chapter, the author also states that seduction is an effective tool in winning an argument.

The best book to read is Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper because it’s written by an excellent author, it gives an outlook on a disabled individuals life, and I can connect to it on a personal level.

People are becoming busier as the technology developed, they use technology to work and live. As they access the technology, they would like to use imagination to create a virtual world and stay away from the real world. In the article “ Alone Together” written by Sherry Turkle, she argues that technology create imagination would affect the whole society in the virtual world and authenticity. She talks that technology developed makes human doute about intimacy, connectivity, authenticity and solitude. However, which is also happened on busyness. As human are busier than before, they begin to think about their imaginary playmate. In the article” Bumping Into Mr. Ravioli” by Adam Gopnik, he talks about his daughter’s imaginary friend Charlie

Hardships can influence a person's way of living negatively or positively, just depending on your perception of things. The ability to value your life and the people surrounding you is not taught by any teacher, but learned through the daily obstacles one usually goes through.

Personal experiences can affect one to seize every opportunity and work hard for the future, or become broken, and not be able to let go of the

At some point in everyone’s life they will face a hardship; it is merely a matter of when not if. Struggles can influence someone's life by forcing them to power through a hard time.

Throughout life people are put into difficult situations. Whether it is for work, school or just simply on a day-to-day basis. People can even find themselves in difficult situations they do not necessarily want to be in. For some, it is easy to dismiss the situation that they are in, but for others in nearly impossible. Dracula, The Maze Runner, and The Hunger Games all show that people can be put into difficult situations, but sometimes not by their own free will.

Today in modern society, the population deals with a wide variety of hardships throughout all walks of life; these issues may range from poverty, losing a job, a lawsuit, or dealing with personal issues. No one can truly judge a person until they’ve been in someone’s shoes, and they have experienced what that person has gone through. It all depends on the perspective of a person.