Ultimate Change
O. Henry’s short story, “A Retrieved Reformation,” shows a man’s journey through rehabilitation. In the story, Jimmy Valentine is in jail for robbery. He is then allowed to leave in hope he has finally learned from his past mistakes, and will stop robbing people to get what he desires. When Jimmy leaves, he robs many more banks, but does not get caught. Jimmy then goes to a small town so the cops will not be able to find him, and the town has a train station for him to make a quick getaway. When Jimmy first arrives to the town, he sees a woman named Annabel Adams and everything changes. He knows she will not like him if he keeps acting like his old self. Therefore, he decides he will finally change for the better. He changes his name to Ralph Spencer and starts acting different. This short story demonstrates change and how you affect people every day whether you realize it or not. At the beginning of the coming of age story, when Jimmy gets let out of jail, we see how Jimmy has not changed and he had went back to his old ways. To show this, the author explains multiple robberies that happened within weeks of each other. Then, Ben Price, the detective trying to find who has been robbing the banks, realized it was Jimmy Valentine who was back to his old ways. To show this, the author wrote, “Ben Price knew Jimmy’s habits. He had learned them while working on the Springfield case. Long jumps, quick get-aways, no confederates, and a taste for good society--
Paul who is in his new persona at the Kittredge’s house then talks about identity in the book Catcher in the Rye. Paul Who is asked about his thesis by Geoffrey then talks about how there are cases where people justify their wrong doings with the book
In a quest for a sense of belonging and success in life as well as a need for survival and money from a steady job, Richard attempts to conform to the social rules of those around him and the expectations of how he must behave like a second-class citizen. To feel like a part of the community and to please his family in hopes of improving his home life, Richard begins to attend a Protestant church. He consents to become a member of the church and is baptized, but he does so to please his mother and because his need for association and acceptance with a group is immense. After the church service that night, Richard reflects, “I had not felt anything except a sullen anger and a crushing sense of shame. Yet I was somehow glad that I had got it over with; no barriers now stood between me and the community”. In addition to these expectations from his family and the black community he associated with,
Do readers believe that any one person can turn their life into something beautiful, even when all they have seen in their life is ugly? Based on this non-fiction poem the narrator finally realized his life wasn’t as bad as it could be. In Baca’s “Cloudy day,” readers find a speaker very attuned to the outer world while being incarcerated. Born in New Mexico of Indio-Mexican descent, Jimmy Santiago Baca was raised first by his grandmother and later sent to an orphanage. A runaway at age 13, it was after Baca was sentenced to five years in a maximum security prison that he began to turn his life around: Jimmy learned to read and write and unearthed a voracious passion for poetry.
The tragedy is that my story could have been his” (xi). He had Draper 3 discovered what he shared with his inmate counterpart was much greater than he and his subject. The story of the two Wes Moore’s was shared similarly by a generation of men “who came
When disaster strikes, two responses exist: lose hope, or find an inner strength to rise above. “Werner” is an essay where the author, Jo Ann Beard, presents the idea of rediscovering yourself, rebuilding a life after loss, and rising above adversity. Werner, Beard’s main character, finds that the only way to truly move on after a tragedy is to take a leap into what is unfamiliar. After a fire burns down everything Werner has, he is forced to grow and become a new man, leaving his old life behind. Throughout the essay, Beard illustrates a man who faces challenges to his sense of self, and who sequentially must change and become someone new to find who he is again. Beard’s use of the third person, candid diction, and conflict resolution compose an elaborate work that focuses on the concept of becoming a new and better person after a traumatic event.
Twenty-eight-year-old Anthony Frederico was fired from his dream job as a sports reporter after making the mistake of publishing an article with a racist headline. After years filled with regret over his career-ending mistake, Frederico finds new life as a Catholic priest living by the word of god (Zauzmer 1). The world is teeming with second chances and forgiveness, which is a recurring theme in the novel, The Other Wes Moore and the classic, The Scarlet Letter. The theme of second chances is supported throughout these narratives using the literary elements of imagery and stream of consciousness.
When arriving at Florence State Prison Jimmy Santiago Baca’s life changed. Upon resaving a letter from a man named Harry he became interested on learning to read and write. Harry’s letter gave Jimmy some sense of belonging. He stated his feelings on the letter, “I was eager to communicate with someone to alleviate the boredom of the dungeon.” All it took was a paper with words to take someone away from that place they despised. Harry had sent Baca a dictionary so he could learn new words. To Jimmy this opened a new world to him. This gave him an opportunity on having control over something the prison couldn’t take from him.
Raymond Carver with “Cathedral” and “A&P” by John Updike are both short stories, even if in facts they are written during the same century, readers can interpret the changes that occurred to be really different. They both introduce characters that are being victim of stereotype by the protagonists, but somehow these characters made a great change into the protagonists’ view of the world and life itself. The stories differ in atmosphere and the quantity of people involve in each story which might be important to understand how changes occur. The audience can understand after analyzing these two stories that change is always possible and based on your action, a lesson is always to be learned the
The concept of transformation and self overcoming are potent topics, the likes of which, are and have been heavily debated by the best academics known to humanity. It is substantially evident that challenging events, especially when supported by others, allow an individual to grow in personality, spirit, and resilience. The latter can be achieved by turning to the right support and resources in order to vanquish one’s negative circumstances, overcome the pressures of society, and develop a unique and personal set of values. These concepts are explored in “The Story of Tom Brennan” by J. C. Burke, and Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”. The characters, Tom and Zarathustra, deal with similar ideas in their respective stories. Tom
The Baltimore Sun newspaper supplied an article about Wes Moore, a local who had just earned a Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also ran a series of stories about four men who had robbed a jewelry store and allegedly been involved in the killing of a police officer. The police were still on the hunt for two of the suspects, who were also brothers. One of the two was named Wes Moore. After the newspaper ran the stories about the robbery, the manhunt, and the trial, Wes, the scholar, wrote a letter to the other Wes, a now convicted murderer who was serving a life sentence at Jessup Correctional Institution. His letter contained a jarring question: How did their lives end up so different? That first letter led to an ongoing correspondence in which the two discovered that a teens’ success is decided by his environment, education, and the expectations held to him.
Have you ever had the courage to completely change your life?In the Novel Tangerine by Edward Bloor the protagonist Paul fisher completely changes his life by events that happen around him,getting his brother in huge trouble,and discovering the mystery behind his big glasses. ” Mike Costello is dead,Mom. ”This quote refers to when Erik Fisher explains to his mom that Mike died. Paul is horrified and deeply saddened by this event but the change to Paul is very significant.
During the teenage years, Jimmy is already the leader of the criminal group and naturally flocked into crime. Things are going well until a gang member by the name of Ray Harris decides to betray Jimmy. Jimmy is ruthless and decides the best punishment is death, and so, he kills Ray. In a surprising twist, the son of Ray coincidentally kills Jimmy’s daughter and frames it on Dave. Sean realizes what Jimmy does, and moreover, that Jimmy has never been innocent, “You killed both of them -Ray Harris and Dave Boyle.
Jimmy had been troubled throughout his life especially during his childhood. His parents didn’t love him; his teachers didn’t think much of him, and the girl of his dreams was involved in child porn. At one part of the novel Jimmy asked his mother if he could get a cat and she replied, “No, Jimmy, you cannot have a cat. We’ve been over this before. Cats might carry diseases that would be bad for the pigoons.” Jimmy did not seem to get the love that he should from his parents but seemed to get through it. Atwood never really explained what the importance was to Oryx being in child pornography and wonder why that was even put in the novel. Problems continue for Jimmy even until the end of the story where he fights to survive when he believes that he is the only one left. It seemed that Jimmy wasn’t as good as Crake and couldn’t live up to Crake’s expectations as he went to a mediocre school and Crake went to a prestigious school.
I think the authors message in the story " After Twenty Years" is that people will change in a course of time. An example of this in the story is when before Jimmy and Bob separated, they were always together but now they don't even walk together. Another example is how Bob used to be poor but is now more wealthy than he was. My last and most important reason is how Bob turned into a criminal.
If Tom heard, he made no acknowledgment. His eyes remained dull, his expression vacant. Somewhere, in the midst of the chaos that was the harshness of reality, he had managed to build a protective wall, a refuge in his mind where he was no longer a victim, no longer a weak, pathetic excuse for a man. He was Tom Hanson the cop, the loving son, the loyal friend; he was a man free