Summary Of The Bicycle By Hannah Horton

“If an entire nation could seek its freedom, why not a girl? And if a girl was to seek her freedom, how could she do such a fool-headed thing, Especially a girl trapped in New York? (Isabel). In the book Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson, the author uses the protagonist’s traits, actions, and dialogue to help the reader understand how the main character, Isabel, changes throughout the story. Isabel’s actions and speech reveal that she goes from feeling scared and hopeless from being sold as a slave to becoming determined to obtain her freedom, finally she becomes brave and gains enough courage to run away from her abusive owners.

In The Bicycle, by Jillian Horton, the author is demonstrating the importance of being your own person. Hannah goes through the story, listening to and following Tante Rose until she makes the choice to sacrifice her gift to have more freedom. Hannah, the main character, is a pianist who lives with her aunt, Tante Rose. In this story, Hannah is determined to become a gifted pianist, in her faith and herself as an individual. Hannah reflects on herself and tries her best to be the best pianist by sacrificing many hours to her gift. Hannah even moved in with her aunt Rose so she can use her master piano and will always be able to practice. Tante Rose says Hannah has a gift, and she says that it will take hard work and focus, but Hannah is going

Most importantly, it is a story of captivity, of failed attempts at freedom, and of one woman's partial escape from the constraints of her family, home, and past.

George Saunders tells his story “Victory Lap” in the most intriguing way. He brings to life the characters thoughts instead of having a character tell readers the story. “Victory Lap” is a story about a young girl being taken by an older man who believes he can claim her as his. The boy next door comes to her rescue at the last moment. Saunders cleverly uses a twisted point of view to alter the cognitive and emotional response of the reader towards the characters of “Victory Lap”. Readers not only get to experience the emotions of the young girl, but the boy and the kidnapper as well. This has a powerful effect on readers feelings towards the characters.

Hannah’s background as a Holocaust survivor is important for understanding the experience of the Holocaust. Her story provides unique insight on the Holocaust outside of concentration camps, dispels myths, and captivates the emotional aura of living during the Holocaust. Hannah’s story is one of resistance, danger, and the importance of family.

Without realizing it initially, each Wes Moore has been greatly affected by the life events occurring as they grew up because as they matured physically, they also matured mentally by gaining self-knowledge; the same way a hero does throughout a heroic journey. However, while both have gone through the heroic journey, their fate was not identical because of poor choices and irreversible mistakes. Wes Moore, the successful author of his book, has specifically divided his book into 8 chapters, where each shows a year that had a decisive impact for him and Wes. Similar to his book, the hero’s journey also consists of 8 parts where the hero goes through the most important stages of the journey. The correlation between the life events and the patterns of a heroic journey intertwined because both only point out the most crucial parts and have the same end results, leaving the characters to go through each event or stage only as they mature.

This instance of heroic motivation shows how motivation can be used to accomplish anything from doing well on an essay to saving a life.

Homer’s The Odyssey tells the story of young Telemachus with the task of finding his father, Odysseus while also finding himself. As the hero of this journey, Telemachus develops into a noble, brave, and strong man, through complications inflicted by others’ mental endurance. By overcoming these obstacles Telemachus develops into the universally known stereotypical hero. However, the same cannot be said for the heroes of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and Lewis Carol’s Alice in Wonderland. At the end of their journeys, Jewel and Alice become different kinds of heroes; instead of becoming a stereotypical plucky adventurer, they each develop different traits to benefit themselves along their journey.

The “hero’s journey”, coined by Joseph Campbell, is a pattern in the plot structure of literature, myths, and oral tradition in which the hero is consistently faced with similar obstacles and achieves many of the same goals. The first part of the hero’s journey is “The Call.” The hero is usually living a very comfortable and easy life, unaware of the journey ahead. The hero is then faced with a situation or dilemma which eventually causes them to seek change. The hero, at this point, tends to refuse the call to adventure in fear of the unknown. Once the hero has been given the strength to push past the unknown, they have entered the threshold. The hero will experience many challenges and temptations where the hero is tested, eventually reaching “The Abyss,” the most difficult challenge. The hero is then transformed by these trials and returns home to every-day life and begins to contribute to their society. The novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, the protagonist, Janie, experiences the hero’s journey first-hand through overcoming obstacles and transforming herself. In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, the heroine Janie overcomes many obstacles and is therefore transformed into a self reliant woman.

Many works of art including paintings and pictures in the early 1900s involve the cons of racism. A lot of these works include the topic of racism very inconspicuously. In 1912, Lyonel Feininger published a painting named The Bicycle Race. Within the painting, Feininger hid small gleams of racism that some would not notice at first glance. The painting includes multiple men all cramped together competing in a bike race. The painting is very geometrical and does not show much detail to the people or bikes. After looking closely, it could be seen that the man in first place is white. The people behind the white man have darker skin but are still not in last, riding in somewhat of a line. Trailing behind is an African American, with no one else around him, in last place. Feininger attempts to show his viewers the hardships African Americans face against all other races. By leaving the black man in last place it shows the inferiority of that

The hero’s journey cycle has to begin somewhere, and that is at the hero’s home in the ordinary world. Everything is normal and familiar. Just like for young Michael Phelps, a boy who started swimming at the age of 7 and dreamed of doing big things. He would always go to practice - even on holidays - and was always very competitive at everything. (Citing somewhere) Even at a young age there was something special about him, something that made his mentor, coach, and good friend Bob Bowman believe he was olympic material when he started coaching Michael when he was 11 (Citing). He was right, because Phelps’ call to adventure was when he went to his first Olympics in the 2000 Sydney Games at 15 years old. He was the youngest american male swimmer

Khaled Hosseini’s novels, The Kite Runner (year), and A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) both explore the idea that a significant individual can inspire a course of action, which may result in a change of self.

He focuses on the “hero’s journey” and vitality theories. The “hero’s journey” summarizes human need to go through the process of discomfort and hardship. Quinn states that we must first leave or comfort zones to feel accomplished and to experience change. However instead of supporting this theory with the usual myths and stories like Cinderella. He instead uses examples of average blue collar workers and children to help the reader imaging experiencing change through their “hero’s journey”.

The author also uses the character to show this because as she gets older she starts to notice that she doesn’t like playing piano, she wants to do something else with her life that will make her happy. “Tante Rose has said one day I would understand how choices were made. I understood as of that moment. I did not go to New York” because she was coming of age to when she was able to find out if she would like to go to New york or not she was able to make the choice. As she got older she noticed there were many things that she would like to do but couldn’t because Tante Rose told her she couldn’t, as she matured and found many more new and interesting things about the world she decided that she would like to try them instead of being

Actually, how we see ourselves does not come from who we really are, but rather from how we believe others see us.” This was true in Hannah’s case. Hannah’s low self-esteem was caused by her peers’ increasingly low opinion of her. She believed that her classmates saw her in a poor light, so she did as well. In the novel, Hannah said, “I have no excuse. I could have stopped it-end of story. But to stop it, I felt like I’d have to stop the entire world from spinning. Like things had been out of control for so long that whatever I did hardly mattered anymore”. She felt that her actions did not matter anymore because no one would see her differently at that point in time. Her reputation had been built up as someone who was “easy” and untrustworthy. Others’ perception of Hannah caused her to doubt and hate herself in the end. This caused severe changes in her self-identity.