The Waste Land By. Elliot

In Larry Lankton’s text, “Beyond the Boundaries” we gradually enter an unknown world that is frightening yet filled with immense beauty for miles. Due to the copper mining industry, a gradual increase of working class men and their families start to migrate to the unknown world with unsteady emotion, yet hope for a prosperous new life. In “Beyond the Boundaries”, Lankton takes us on a journey on how the “world below” transformed the upper peninsula into a functional and accepted new part of the world.

In Robert Cormier’s novel, We All Fall Down, is a young-adult thriller that explores the evil side of humanity through a number of corrupt characters. Cormier, to a large extent, accurately depicts manipulative and dishonest behaviour whilst also showing the evil lurking within the prominent characters of Harry Flowers, Buddy Walker and Mickey Stallings who showcase the dark side of humanity. Cormier explores this through Harry Flower’s manipulative actions that result in the suffering of others. Additionally, the constant dishonest behaviour is shown predominantly through the main protagonist of Buddy Walker, who deceives the one he loves. Cormier continues to depict the evil lurking in society through the theme of appearance

There are an infinite amount of unique responses to the question “What is the meaning of life?”. However, the majority of people will agree that the true meaning of life is to find happiness and what is really important to one’s self. In Jon Krakauer’s, Into The Wild, Chris McCandless conveys this idealism through his life’s journey as he bravely defies all limitations. Chris McCandless isolates himself from society in his Alaskan Odyssey as a way to defy accepted expectations and to begin discovering the meanings of life without any corrupted influences.

In the chapter, the gray zone, the author Primo Levi describes the human relationships inside the Lager. In describing the gray zone, Levi discusses the different roles of prisoners assigned by the Nazi. The prisoners that did the work were seen as being more privileged which at the end of the day helped them get more food and live better. Therefore, the concept of the gray zone is analyzing the difference between the privileged and the non-privileged in the Lager. The difference can be seen by the tasks that the prisoners carried out, for example, one of the groups were seen as, “Low ranking functionaries... sweepers, kettle washers, night watchmen, bed smoothers... checkers of lice and scabies,

The poem “Between the World and Me” by Richard Wright reanimates the horrible scene of a racial lynching and forces the reader to endure the victim's pain through the first person’s narrative voice. The poem contains structured lines and visual division into three stanzas. Moreover, there is one more type of division in the poem. The author uses an ellipsis four times throughout the poem. This punctuation mark frames the poem into the timeline, where the historical past of the African American poet becomes the present experience of any human, despite the race. The climax of the poem is presented in the middle of stanza two. The animated moment, which starts from the sentence “the ground gripped my feet”, dramatically shifts the

The threat of nuclear warfare has been a fear tactic used multiple times to settle issues between countries. In Pat Frank’s Alas Babylon, Frank focuses on Fort Repose, a small community in rural Florida. Frank centers the time frame on the height of the Cold War between Soviet Russia and the United States. Opening on how connections can save lives and change lives. Randy Bragg and the town of Fort Repose is dealt a lucky hand when Randy’s brother, Mark, a military man tips Randy off to the threat of a nuclear strike. Mark disguises the warning through a telegram telling Randy that Mark’s wife, Helen, and two children, Peyton and Ben Franklin, will be coming down to visit also asking Randy to meet him at the Base Ops McCoy in Orlando at

The line ‘driven like stakes into the earth’ is a simile and can be interpreted in two different ways. It can be seen as the fact that man is trying to build a city of impermanence, and the other is the literal meaning of mans crucification of the earth with buildings. Robert Gray also uses contrasting juxtaposition of imagery extensively in the poem. ‘On a highway over the marshland...cars like skulls, that is rolling in its sand dunes.’ This not only emphasises humankind’s assault on nature and the urbanisation that is contaminating natural spaces, but also compares the two landscapes as existing together. It once again forces the responder to visualise the situation, one of which they may be able to relate too and question life’s morals. The poem shows the destructive nature of mans actions, which is an issue in society that is prevalent.

The story begins with Daniel Quinn writing about a day in his life, until he comes upon an absurd advertisement in the personals section of the newspaper: TEACHER seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person. Suspicious, Quinn investigates this advertisement with intentions of exposing fraud. Instead, he discovers Ishmael in Room 105 of a undistinguished office building. Sitting calmly, Ishmael gently nibbled on a slender branch. Appalled, Quinn stumbled towards the chair. Ishmael and Quinn gazed into each other’s eyes, and much to his disgruntlement, the glowing eyes spoke to him. Nodding his head to the unspoken question, Ishmael quietly said, “I am the teacher.” Ishmael explains that Quinn is part of a culture, that results in him being taught certain stories between the relationships of man, the world, and the Gods. These explanations will be made clearer to the pupil by being assisted in recognizing why the stories are misleading. Ishmael’s goal will show the narrator that human history comes from two groups, the Takers and the Leavers. These groups legislate two completely different stories about man, the world, and the Gods. Takers are the humans who developed agriculture and civilization, who still dominate on Earth today. The Leavers, in contradiction, are those who don’t adopt agricultural practices and disregard the benefits of civilization.

A Land More Kind than Home by Wiley Cash definitely fits the category of “grit lit.” It is a novel about the Hall’s, a family who is wracked with grief, anxiety, and guilt after the ‘mysterious’ death of one of their sons, Christopher or Stump. The story encompasses more than just the story of the family though as it is told from the perspective of Adelaide Lyle, an old wise woman from the town, Jess Hall the youngest son of the family, and Clem Barefield, the sheriff of Marshall who also had heartache of his own that is intertwined with this families story in more ways than one. The novel incorporates most if not all of the features that is “grit lit” including: an element of crime, a focus on the bleakness of life, lyrical language, and a central character who wishes to escape their environment or get peace inside it.

America’s answer for dealing with crime prevention is locking up adult offenders in correctional facilities with little rehabilitation for reentry into society. American response for crime prevention for juvenile’s offenders is the same strategy used against adult offenders taken juvenile offenders miles away from their environment and placed in adult like prisons.

I believe that yes, art can make a difference. Artists create arts to bring people together, raise an awareness or t make a statement regarding an issue. For instance, people would create artistic posters and such to help raise awareness to issues like rape, or texting and driving. In the movie Waste Land, Muniz along with the workers of the garbage landfill used recycled materials from the garbage to create amazing portrait-like artwork that represents each of the main characters in the documentary.

In his essay “The Country Just over the Fence,” Paul Theroux describes his trip to Nogales, Mexico. He begins his essay by illustrating the physical appearance of the wall separating Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Mexico. He calls it “an unintentional masterpiece”. Theroux feels the wall is somewhat informal. He discovers that crossing the border into Mexico is not too difficult itself. He marvels over the appearance of the wall and also the underlying call to action it places on a person, “Do you go through, or stay home?” Theroux decided he needed to see for himself. After deciding to cross the border, he met many different people. They told him about the celebrations that used to be held between the two neighboring towns which are now divided by the wall. Theroux also met people who had attempted to cross the border illegally into America only to get sent back to Mexico. On his adventure, Theroux also learned about all the medical tourists who travel to the country for cheaper treatments, specifically dentistry. I am interested in discussing Theroux’s presentation of the his decision to cross the border, the people he met, and the medical tourism Nogales, Mexico draws in.

Ruta Sepetys is the author for Between the Shades of Gray, a novel that captures the truth of Siberian camps and the annexation of the Balkans by Stalin. Ruta Sepetys got the idea to write this fictional story when she visited her family in Lithuania and got the chance to discover more about her heritage. She got very fascinated about her family’s struggle to keep memories of her grandparents because of the annexation of Lithuania to the USSR. This conflict urged her to find out more about the feelings and people’s memoirs during this period in World War II so, she started interviewing the survivors from the Siberian gulags and gathered information to write her novel. The book was also inspired by her father, Jonas Sepetys, who escape

T.S Eliot’s poem, “The winter evening settles down” is a short, simple to read poem with several different examples of imagery. Eliot uses descriptive words, for instance, “withered leaves”, “broken blinds”, and “lonely cab-horse” (lines 7-10). He paints an extremely bleak image of a town that seems to be deserted of people. The tone of the poem plays hand-in-hand with the imagery used. This town is an unpleasant place where it has seemed to be neglected for some years now. Eliot’s use of imagery takes the reader to this deserted, torpid place; however, at the same time, his goal is to bring the life back into this grim town.

Upon reading the title to the reading “Camping for Their Lives” by Scott Bransford, A lot of images come to mind as they do for many people. Whether it be family outings, military experience or just plain adventure. Scott Bransford takes a good long look at camping in a different way. The author’s topic is about tent cities and their homeless populations. He argues the struggles that they have with little or no help from the government and highlights a location in Central Valley California. The author structures the article well starting off with an example of a married couple that does not have enough money to sign a lease or take out a mortgage. He then goes into the day to day life and difficulties that are accustomed with living as a homeless person. He mentions statistics and the government’s temporary remedies to deal with the homeless population and the complications when imposing restrictions. The author goes into depth about the lack of jobs within the areas but does not go deep into the addictions, the crime networks that operate out of the areas nor the filth associated with enabling these tent cities to pop up.