Shimmy Gezer Character Analysis

Mookie is a young black youth who works at a local pizzeria in his Brooklyn neighborhood. The pizzeria is owned by Sal, who operates the restaurant with his two sons, Vito and Pino. Sal treats Mookie as if he were his third son and the two have a friendly relationship. Pino, however, is a racist who isn’t happy with the current location of the pizzeria and often pressures his father to move the restaurant into their own neighborhood, due to his distaste for the current client base. Vito, is also friendly with Mookie and mentions to his brother that he trusts Mookie to his brother Pino, who in return openly mocks him, this behavior is common and has created a rift in the relationship between the brothers. Mookie, however, has a more casual approach with his life, job, and relationships.

Based on the homonymous manga by Kyoko Okazaki, "Helter Skelter" tells the story of Lilico, the top Japanese female idol. Lilico is stunning to perfection, kind, funny and generally, socially unblemished, she is a woman every teenage girl wants to be like and every man wants to conquer. Underneath that flawless facade though, a plethora of secrets and discrepancies are lurking.

The touching novel The Shiralee, authored by D’Arcy Niland, is the story of a rural worker named Macauley, who travels all over Australia by foot and is known as a swaggie. Following difficult circumstances, he unexpectedly finds himself having to raise his child named Buster whilst being a swaggie, which is no life for a child. As Buster becomes a more prominent character, she drives the plot to be more adventurous and heart warming. She follows her father around the outback without complaint and is quite courageous when protecting whom or what she loves. She is a very significant character as she changes Macauley’s perception on life and provides him with a love he has never received. Even though Macauley treats Buster harshly at certain points in the novel, she is resilient and remains loyal to him, which shows her strength and makes people admire her. She is necessary for the novels success because she adds a lot of drama and obstacles to overcome, which urges the reader want to continue on with the story.

In John Updike’s short story “A & P”, a dynamic and round character expresses his subjective attitude towards his views, a plot twist causes him to realize his future. Sammy an opinionated cashier at A & P grocery store does not agree with his Lengel, his manager after he reprimands a particular group of customers at the store. Sammy’s further actions cause him to face the true reality of his future.

In the San Fernando Valley during the summer of 1962, Scotty Smalls is the new boy in the neighborhood seeking desperately to fit in. He would be welcomed on the local sandlot baseball team that practices every day which only has eight players. Smalls however can't play baseball on his first visit to the sandlot he finds himself in the outfield with a fly ball descending toward him which bounces off his glove causing the other boys except “Benny the jet” Rodriguez the team's leader to burst out laughing Smalls is humiliated and leaves. Smalls asks his Step-Father to teach him how to play, and while his Step- Father agrees Smalls cannot catch or throw the ball. Benny soon teaches him what he needs to know, and with Benny's support he gets a place on the team. Meanwhile behind the wall

Brinker reared back arrogantly. “And who do you think I am!” But Finny hadn’t heard that. His face had broken into a wide and dazzled smile at what I had said, lighting up his whole face. “Enlist!” I drove on, “I wouldn’t enlist with you if you were Elliott Roosevelt.”

Grace has been told for more than half her life that she was crazy. Her mother’s death that she witnesses was an accident, there was no scarred man, and there was nothing she could do to change what had happened. But Grace knew they were wrong. With the help of her friends Noah, Megan and Rosie, she managed to discover that the scarred man was Dominic, the first love of her mother, who was there to kill her mother, but chose instead to stage her death. Grace came down just as Dominic was taking the picture, and picked up the gun that was lying on the floor. Firing blinding, she missed Dominic and shot her mother instead. The traumatic moment of shooting her mother was blocked from Grace’s mind as it was unable to handle what she did. Her family tries to protect her from this, saying it was an accident, trying to get Grace to stop pushing. When pushing too hard, Grace discovers the truth of what happened that night, and what she did, and with the

Dreams are vital to human existence. Without them, a depressing life such as the one the Youngers have in the play A Raisin In The Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, would be utterly unbearable. The Youngers were strong and faithful, continuously trying to make their dreams become reality. Even though they were a family plagued by the hardship of poverty, they pushed on through whatever obstacles they encountered. Beneatha, one of the main characters, had the American dream of becoming a doctor, which is affected by her individualism, determination, and expressiveness.

The book “Ugly” by Robert Hoge it is a inspiring, true story about, Robert, a boy who grew up in Brisbane, Australia, with a tumor the size of a tennis ball on his face and two deformed legs. Robert had four other brothers and sisters, who were all older. The story is the journey of Robert Hoge and his life with artificial legs and deformed face, and all the challenges he faced along the way.

Toni Morrison’s short story, “Recitatif” is about two young girls, named Twyla and Roberta, who grow up in an Orphanage because their mothers were in no condition to properly take care of them. The main theme in the “Recitatif” is concentrating on racism. A very mind- grabbing event in the story is how the author never tells the race of the two girls. Morrison leaves class codes but not racial codes, as in the story Twyla states, “ It was one thing to be taken out of your own bed early in the mornings—it was something else to be stuck in a strange place with a girl from a whole other race” (pg 201) , even the girls do not mention which race the other is. Recitatif is a great story as it plays with the reader’s emotions and effectively makes the reader aware of the stereotypes and each races characteristics.

In Toni Morrison's short story "Recitatif", the story revolves around two girls, one white and the other black, and how their social status affects their way of life. The narrator, Twyla, has five significant instances in her life where she is in a setting with her childhood best friend, Roberta. When they first met at the orphanage, they disliked each other, but because both of them still had a parent to their name, they were seen as social outcasts to the other children of their orphanage. Through their social disgrace they became friends and helped each other out. As they grew up, their lives were distinctly different with Twyla living the life of a lower-middle class citizen while Roberta was living a lavish lifestyle, creating conflict between the two. In the end, there is a slight sense of reconcilement in that they clear up a misunderstanding of their past, but there is an open question to what had happened to an element of their past.

The author of Recitatif, Toni Morrison, is an acclaimed writer known for her fictional stories and her explorations within the black community. Receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993 was one of her most acclaimed accomplishments. Morrison’s American Midwest family had an unfathomable appreciation and love for black culture and showed this through there many traditions and storytelling. Recitatif, a fictional short story, was written in 1983.

In the movie “Grease,” John Travolta portrays the character, Danny. Danny especially struggles throughout the movie trying to figure out exactly who he is. It remains very common for teenagers to struggle with identity while going through different stages of their lives. Identity is a self-definition or sense of who one is, where one is going, and how one fits into society. As much as Danny does not want to see it when he is around certain individuals he acts much different than what he does around other individuals. Furthermore, I will cover four topics on how Danny struggles with identity throughout the movie “Grease” with the following topics: how Danny views himself, how Danny’s friends view him, how Sandy views him, and lastly how Danny changes throughout the movie.

The novel, Skellig by David Almond, is a story of a boy called Michael who discovers a strange creature in his garage. Michael is currently caring for his sick baby sister who is visited by Doctor Dan, who Michael mocks as “Doctor Death”. The reasoning for this is because of the black spots on his hands and of his pale and gray face. Michael is correspondingly upset about moving houses and about leaving his friends behind. Michael shows loneliness, unhappiness and he is worried at the beginning, because Michael of the emotions and the characters in the novel. At the beginning of the book Michael is unhappy because he had just moved into a rotten house and on the top of that Michael is worrying about his ill sister which I believe is on the edge of death. Secondly, when Michael

Throughout Derek Landy’s book “Skulduggery Pleasant: Scepter of the Ancients”, there are many conflicts presented which affect the main characters in many ways. The majority of the main conflicts in the book are external. For example; the primary conflict of “Skulduggery Pleasant: Scepter of the Ancients” concerns Nefarian Serpine’s plan to retrieve the Scepter of the Ancients and to use the Scepter to bring the Faceless Ones back and to eradicate mankind. Serpine’s intents and actions are outside of the control of Valkyrie Cain, the main character. Valkyrie Cain, however, did succeed in dealing with the conflicts presented to her as, at the end of the book, we find Serpine dead and the Scepter out of commission. Nevertheless, Valkyrie owes