Thursday, January 23, 2020

The Rite Of Manhood Essay -- All the Pretty Horses Maturity Essays

The Rite Of Manhood At some point in childhood, most people consider running away, most for a few days but, in some cases, forever. Many causes influence a child to run away, including fights, abuse, and unhappiness. In All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, two boys run away into the Wild West to find a life you can only read about. Though they can never find this perfect place, the journey itself is extraordinary. The reader is taken on a ride that entails danger, love, and, ultimately, self discovery. This ride has rite of passage written all over it. The novel builds and destroys a surreal adventure that describes the transition from boyhood to manhood. The novel describes the transition of John Grady from a surreal, inocuous youth to a real and painful manhood. The reoccurring theme of John Grady’s rite of passage begins with a simple conversation between father and son, a relationship in which the unsophisticated, young boy looks up to a figure of superiority. The youth of this boy is first illustrated by a conversation between the two in which John Grady’s father says, â€Å"When I come around askin you what I’m supposed to do you’ll know you’re big enough to tell me.† (McCarthy, 8) The inferiority and youth of this boy in the shadow of his father is clear here. This can also be seen when John Grady asks if he can run the ranch and his mother says, â€Å"you’re sixteen years old, you can’t run a ranch.† (McCarthy, 15) This is particularly intriguing because we are introduced to his bright, ambitious character which is only marginalized by his age. These early indications of John Grady’s youth set up a motive for running away. He is not getting the respect or recognition he feels he deserves. The latter quotation is in fact... ...at last seeing the harsh reality of the world and not the fairytale he was used to. It is unfortunate that he flung himself wholeheartedly into his adulthood because he now has to face the painful realization that youth is a gift which protects those innocent ‘heart[s]’ from a world of troubles. John Grady’s heart was not that lucky. It craved the surreal adventure and got more than a spoonful of life. In All the Pretty Horses, John Grady’s passage to manhood is symbolized by a surreal adventure that is destroyed in the end by the harsh reality of this manhood. At first it does not seem possible that John Grady could mature so quickly but the reader definitely sees him shed his happy, boyish nature by the end of the novel. And though this seems sad, it doesn’t truly matter because the lessons learned on this journey were more important than the journey itself.

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Characterization of Tom in “The Great Gatsby” Essay

In the first three chapters of The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald, he characterized Tom Buchanan as violently aggressive in order to show the kind of man that had turned out from the Ivy League school and have contributed to two different social classes. For example, in the first chapter of the book, Nick introduces us couple of characters as well as Tom Buchanan and he says the following â€Å"Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward† (pg.7). We are told that Tom has a hard mouth and arrogant eyes. He is said to be always leaning forward aggressively, making up for the unmanly clothes he’s wearing at the time and very muscular with a â€Å"cruel† body. Nick describes Tom looking aggressive just by his looks without any further detail of how he acted aggressively. As a graduate from a prestigious school, Tom would be expected to be more characterized as a good, pleasant character when describing an educated man, however Tom was the opposite and Fitzgerald does this to show that the characteristic of a man does not depend on the school they had attended and graduated from. Furthermore, in chapter 2 it is proven that Tom is violent â€Å"Sometime toward midnight Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to face, discussing in impassioned voices weather Mrs. Wilson had any right to mention Daisy’s name†¦I’ll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai- Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand† (pg.37). At their little gathering party, Tom there breaks his lover, Myrtles, nose just because Myrtle had not stopped chanting Daisy’s name even if she had been warned by Tom before. Tom expresses his aggressiveness when he becomes violent when Myrtle does not stop. Fitzgerald is showing that not all man graduating from Ivy League school such as (Yale, Oxford, and Princeton) are all well-mannered, with a good characteristic as one would think.

Monday, January 6, 2020

The Public Library ( Tpl ) Essay - 1278 Words

The Library I chose the Tigard Public Library (TPL) since I have worked there for eight years. I had to go to Wikipedia to find the number of volumes, 230,000. The website focuses on the building and services available because the new building opened in 2004. The primary types of physical material collected is books, DVDs, CDs, Books on CD and Blu-ray. For the adult collections the majority of items are non-fiction. The fiction is subdivided into general, mystery, and science fiction and Fantasy. Western novels, on request by patrons, have stickers marking them but are shelved with general fiction. There are many different special collections. Graphic novels are divide between adult, young adult and juvenile. Certain non-fiction titles are separated out into a Careers and Education, others into a Parents collection that is shelved the Children’s Room. There is a collection of Large Print and Adult Foreign Language. The Foreign Language section is further divide into Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. In the children’s room they are referred to as World Languages. In addition to those previously listed, Russian and Somali represent a few of the many diverse languages offered. More of this will be found under Access. Access TPL has two floors, the first floor has the children’s room, a Bestseller books section, a New Books section, patron holds, Blu-rays, DVDs, CDs and Books on CD. Upstairs has Adult Fiction at one end of the building, divided into collections of