The Monster, By Henry Johnson

The novel Monster by Walter Dean Myers is the book I chose to read and do my essay on. The genre Walter chose for the book Monster is realistic fiction. The novel was published in 1999 which is a year after I was borning. The reason why I chose this Novel is because a teacher recommended the book to me a couple year ago but, I never got a chance to read it. I always assumed the book was good because it won three awards. The first award the book won was the National Book Award for young people’s literature. The second award the book won was the Michael L. Printz Awards. The third award the book won was called the Coretta Scott King Award Honor all in which the book won in the same year 2000. The book is told from the perspective of a young african american teenager named steve harmon. Steve lives in harlem where the story takes place. One night steve chose to hang with a bad group of friends and was in a robbery. During the robbery one of Steve’s friend kills the cashier. Now Steve is in jail and going back and forth to court hoping to be proven not guilty of felony murder. Steve and I lives are alike in many different ways although we come from different backgrounds.

“The loss of the creature” is a strong essay in which the writer, Walker Percy has expressed his vision of world in a different way. He makes an argument about how having prepackaged idea about something, can create a symbolic complex in individual’s mind, causing them to lose the true essence behind it. Percy presents examples after examples making them connection of how one has lost an experience through various symbolic complexes and by the means of trying to achieve that experience. Percy writes that understanding can be reached through the true experience. People can only have a true experience of something if they can get rid of all the social biases and prejudices, and experience it by ignoring everything one has already heard about

In Mary Shelly’s epistolary Frankenstein and Franz Kafka’s novella “The Metamorphosis,” the authors explore the dangerous impact of society and rejection. Both creatures are rejected and isolated by their families have been defined as monsters. But, the authors force the reader to look past physical appearance to uncover who the real monster is, society; it defines what make us human. Society defines others solely based on what they see, disregarding any humane characteristics they may possess.

The idea of what a monster is and how it pertains to modern day society has fascinated readers and writers for decades. Before taking this class, I was aware of what a monster is and the function it served in today’s society. Furthermore, after taking this class, I am now aware of what a monster truly is, and what really separates a monster from a regular person. The piece of text that I mainly chose to focus on and elaborate closely to demonstrate the aspects of a monster is appropriately named, Monster, by Walter Dean Myers. The reason I chose this piece of literature is because, Monster thoroughly elaborates what a monster is in todays society and how it functions in the modern day world. In this essay I will elaborate on

In her essay, “On Being a Cripple”, Nancy Mairs, an essayist with multiple sclerosis, writes about her experiences with her disease. She wants her audience of able-bodied people to stop pitying towards disabled people and instead show acceptance. Mairs achieves her purpose by presenting herself as similar and relatable to her able-bodied audience with many anecdotes and a blunt tone. This discussion of her condition removes the discomfort about disabilities felt by her audience and allows for them to accept disabled people. While Maris’s primary audience is an able-bodied person who supports disabled people, other readers, like someone with her condition, may be drawn towards this essay as well. Unlike an able-bodied person, a disabled person

Kurt Vonnegut’s unique story “Harrison Bergeron,” displays a theme which is a warning about the dangers of equality, which is equality is a hindrance to an individual’s success and society’s success, but this hindrance is ironically, unequal. In the story, Harrison and his bride are arrested for their unwillingness and inability to stay within the bounds of equality enforced by the Handicapper General. Equality hinders the success of an individual like the weights hinder the beauty and grace of the ballerinas in the story. Equality doesn’t promote everyone to be equally better, but to be unequally worse. Handicaps are no use in ensuring equality, because one’s strengths will always shine through, such as Harrison’s strength and wit, or the

“Fear and euphoria are dominant forces, and fear is many multiples the size of euphoria” - Alan Greenspan. New York author, Alan Greenspan, here is explaining that the threat fear presents is really no different than the state of intensity caused by euphoria. In Andrew J. Hoffman’s anthology, Monsters, there is substantial evidence that both fear and euphoria are inflicted upon men, by female monsters. The two threats men typically face against women are temptation and emasculation. Thus, in mythology and folklore, female monsters exemplify the impulse of desire (sexually) for men, and male weakness. These are creature that are lusted after and yet, still feared because of their power. Men find female monsters both fearsome and euphoric and will always threaten their dominance and control.

Throughout history we see monsters taking many different shapes and sizes. Whether it be a ghoul in the midst of a cold nightly stroll or a mass genocide, monsters are lurking everywhere and our perception of what monsters truly are, is enhancing their growth as a force with which to be reckoned. Fear of the unknown is seen throughout time, but as humans progress we are finding that things we once were afraid of we are less frightening than they once were. Monsters can evoke fear in their targeted victims rather than physically harm their victims. For instance, every year a new horror film is released with the next scary beast, but why do we call something a monster even if we know it is not real? Even certain people and creatures are

Harrison Bergeron, a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, is not written for the light reader. This story of equality shows deeply of how horrid it would be to be born special, different, smarter, faster, stronger, etc, in a world where you are forced to be equal. Despite the usual connotation of the word equality, Kurt Vonnegut looks at the cost of making everyone be the same. He has shown through his words the torture you must endure in order to make you the same as everyone else, being a radio intending to scatter your thoughts, weights to weigh you down, or even a hideous, grotesque, mask used to hide your charming face. After you’ve lived with these handicaps a man, named Harrison Bergeron, trying to change how things are interrupts your show.

The book I chose is called Monster by Walter Dean Myers. This novel won the Coretta Scott King award , the Printz award , and was also a National Book Award Finalist. Monster is the name and thing that Steve considers himself as he has gotten in a bit of trouble. This novel took place in Harlem New York in mid year of 1997. Steve harmon was in a drug store while some of the people he has been seen around the neighborhood with stuck the place up and murdered the owner of the store in cold blood now he is on trial for Felony 1 murder and this is the story of his trail. Our lives compare to each others in many ways. There are thousands of inferences that could be made

Kody Scott grew up in South Central L.A. during the nineteen-sixties and seventies, soon after the creation of the Crips. Raised in poverty without a father, and a full family raised solely by his mother, Kody Scott led the stereotypical "ghetto" life, a poor and broken home. However he does not blame this on his own personal decision to join the Crips while only eleven year's old. The allure of the respect and "glory" that "bangers" got, along with the unity of the "set"(name for the specific gang) is what drew him into the gang. Once joined, he vowed to stay in the "set" for life, and claimed that banging was his life. After many years of still believing this, he

Often in our society, people stifle their individuality in an attempt to fit in with others. This idea is taken a step further in both “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut and “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley. These texts demonstrate different ways in which one can surrender their unique traits and how when people lack individuality, they lose aspects of themselves that make them human such as thoughts and emotions. In Vonnegut’s text, people who have talents that exceed others are required to wear handicaps so that everyone is equal. In Huxley’s text, embryos are engineered and trained after birth to be the same in adulthood. In both stories, the authors use description and dialogue to show the reader how individuality is critical to humanity because if everyone is the same eventually they become less human and start acting more like machines.

Attending college was a huge accomplishment for Helen, as she was the first deaf-blind person ever to attend a college. The college's curriculum required a lot of extra work on both Helen and Annie's part. Helen was an remarkable writer and she would type papers using the Braille typewriter. Before long, Helen was a paid writer for Ladies' Home Journal, where Keller would write articles about her life. Although she loved her work, she felt overcome by all of the writing.

Everyone wants to be happy. Morals dictate on how one achieve their happiness and what that happiness means to them. Some people give the priority of their happiness over the well being of others and feel no remorse to the actions they have taken to become happy. By hurting others for one’s own gain, they become monsters rather than being men. One doesn’t need to be evil to humans to be considered a monster.

Directed by Marc Forster, the 2001 film, Monster’s Ball is an Academy Award winning film which has been extensively criticized by American Studies scholars. They critique the aspects of the social construction of masculinity, race, and the way in which women are constructed as needing men in their lives. Essentially, the film’s narrative uses hypermasculinity in a way that supports the sexulization of women.