Analysis Of ' Goodbye Earl '

Have you ever felt that you knew you your home but then realized that it actually wasn’t what you thought it really was? Well, that’s how Jacqueline Woodson felt. As we grow and change, so do our perspectives on a variety of things that we experience in life. In, When a Southern Town Broke a Heart, Woodson introduces ideas changing as you get older as a central idea of the story.

Have you ever felt overwhelmed or frustrated because of a paper? Many people struggle with writing. In Late Nights, Last Rites, Thomas Osborne talks about his difficulty with writing. I agree with Osborne that it takes a lot of time and thought to write a paper. However, many other people find it natural and easy to write a paper on their first try.

On September 11th 2001, 70 years old Rita Laser lost her brother. Along with Kelly, Colleen, David, Eva, and Amber who as well lost someone special to them in the attack. Many of the victims families hid in silence after the attack, full of sadness, the government was trying to get revenge for the victims that were lost in the attack. However Rita Laser had a different outlook, she and others did not want revenge by killing other, her, Kelly, Colleen, David, Eva, and Amber were all trying to install peace into the world not start a war. In Sue Halpern’s “A Peaceful Mourning” describes that in the aftermath of the attack they have all devoted their lives into advocating peace throughout the world, in their lost one’s name.

Ballad of Birmingham, written by the poet Dudley Randall relives a tragic moment in time in which four little girls died when a church was purposefully exploded. This poem is based on the incident that occurred in Birmingham, Alabama. This poem vividly shows the perspective of a mother losing her child. Most of the poem includes a mother daughter discussion regarding the participation of the freedom march. The mother explains to her daughter that it is far too dangerous for her to be participate, therefore she sends her daughter to church, where she believes that she would be safe. The mother later hears of the explosion and runs over to find out that her daughter had been killed by noticing her daughter’s shoe on the ground. In Ballad of Birmingham, Dudley Randall uses voice, imagery, and sound to show how the tragic event revolves around a theme of racism/mother’s love, which most readers can empathize to.

We all went to Dally and Johnny’s funeral. It was a very sad time for all of us. As greasers we aren’t supposed to cry, we are supposed to be tough and cool, to show the greasers we aren’t scared of them. But Dallas and Johnny were our family, we did a lot together. Johnny never really had a family after he told us what he went through at home when his parents always fought and beat him. Right after the funeral ended we all went to our place and just hung out watching Mickey Mouse on Disney. No one said a word about Johnny or Dally. We were to used to having Dally around to make us laugh, or Johnny around just to know we helped him have an actual family.

Me Earl and the Dying Girl, a novel written by Jesse Andrews, introduces Greg Gaines, a 17 year old loner, has miraculously passed through high school under the radar and without a scratch. Greg is clumsy, awkward and he sticks to his method of not being included in any social group at school, but knowing at least one person from each group. The only person Greg spends most of his time with is Earl whom he makes “really bad” films with. Earl, who comes from a wild and broken family speaks more wisdom throughout the novel than Greg who remains cynical. Greg refuses to call Earl his friend but rather his “co-worker” in respect that Greg stands by the fact that he doesn’t have any friends because he isn’t worthy of them. In a way, Greg seems very self concerned and doesn’t really pay attention to the issues of others.

In Mary Wilkin's short story "Old Woman Magoun" The grandmother Magoun made the decision to let her granddaughter Lily eat poisonous berries to avoid leaving with her father. Therefore, playing a huge part in the death of her granddaughter Lily. For this rhetorical Analysis Essay, I plan on using Burke's rhetorical method of "Dramatistic Pentad" to go over Magoun's reason behind letting Lily die to poisonous berries. When studying someone's motive for doing what they have done, we have to factor in the reasoning behind it. That is why I plan on using two terms from the five terms that constitute the Dramatistic Pentad. This would help me explain Magoun's reason, and help the reader choose is what she did was right or wrong. The two terms that I plan on using are agency and purpose.

Burke's Pentad includes five categories, which help classifying arguments as dramatic actions. The first part is the "act"; What is done by the unit? The second part of his evaluation is the "scene"; What is the history behind the "act"? The third category of Burke's Pentad is the "agent"; Who is the source of the message? How the "agent" accomplishes its "act" is defined as the "agency" in the fourth term of the Pentad. The final piece to Burke's analysis is to the define the "purpose" of the action.

A book about friendship, illness, and adolescents told from a very relatable and interesting perspective, but have we seen it before? Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews is a YA novel that although has a similar plot to many, brings a new perspective through a comedic writing style. As all books are, it is flawed but captivates the audience through cries and laughs, earning it a thumbs up.

The Odyssey is an eight century epic by Homer which depicts the journey of Odysseus as he attempts to return to his home at Ithaka after the fall of Troy. During his travels, Odysseus faced many obstacles whom he had to overcome. In order to do so, Odysseus had to prove his intellectual capacity, strength and determination. “O Brother Where Art Thou” is a 2000 adventure film which follows the journey of a man named Ulysses Everett McGill as he attempts to make his way back home with two fellow convicts after escaping prison. Although it lacks the structure and does not follow sequence of events of the odyssey, the film portrays many of the fundamental concepts and ideas explored in The Odyssey. In this paper, I will explore the themes of the power of cunning over strength, temptation and vengeance in the Odyssey, in order to depict how they are portrayed in the film “O Brother Where Art Thou” and demonstrate the similarities in both tales.

Dudley Randall’s “Ballad of Birmingham” is a look into the effects of racism on a personal level. The poem is set in Alabama during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. The tone of the title alludes to the city of Birmingham as a whole. The poem gives the reader, instead, a personal look into a tragic incident in the lives of a mother and her daughter. The denotation of the poem seems to simply tell of the sadness of a mother losing her child. The poem’s theme is one of guilt, irony, and the grief of losing a child. The mother feels responsible for the death of her child. The dramatic irony of the mother’s view of church as being a “safe haven” for her child is presented to the reader through the mother’s insistence that the young girl

The movie, Requiem for a Dream (Selby & Mansell, 2000) exposes the multiple faces of addiction. Addiction can change a person’s identity and therefore, impacts each person differently. This movie explores the life of four addicts who push the boundaries of their own lives leaving the viewer to wonder, how far will they go to use drugs? The focus of this paper is on what addiction looks like for the character, Harry Goldfarb.

Finally the last element which Burke discusses is agency which is the theoretical points, he claims that the whole lot is realised through language. From these elements Goffman then went on to develop his own ‘dramaturgical’ investigations based on six themes: the performance, the team, the region, discrepant roles, communication out of the character and impression management. Nothing of Goffman’s dramaturgical world is quite what it seems. Rather, people are all portrayed as performers enacting rehearsed lines and roles in places that are carefully constructed in order to maximise the potential of deception. He then goes on to suggest that as performers people both ‘give’ and ‘give off’ impressions. It has been suggested that Goffman’s dramaturgical world is thus one of misdirection in which general suspicion is necessary; he developed an interest in espionage practices mainly because he recognised these as extensions of everyday behaviour. Goffman then went on to identify five moves in social interaction which are the ‘unwitting’, the ‘naïve’, the ‘covering’, the ‘uncovering’ and finally the ‘counter uncovering’ move (1959: 11-27). Each of these moves is designed either to achieve some advantage directly, or to reveal the strategies of other players. These moves are used in social worlds, or as Goffman called them, ‘situated activity systems’. Each is regulated by adopted norms known by system’s members. Rather than concentrating on the production of meanings, the

Letitia Elizabeth Landon is recognized as the most read British poet of the early nineteenth century. Landon is regarded as a renaissance woman—among the first wave of women to gain individual recognition, financial independence, prestigious literary acclaim, and supporters of her unique style of poetry. Landon published an enormous amount of literature from 1820-1838; generating seven book of poetry, creating literary annuals, authoring three novels, several children’s stories, publishing translations, a number of short stories, and providing literary reviews/criticism. The quality of Landon’s work speaks for itself and is consistently reviewed in the literary society. For this paper I intended to compare and contrast the textual similarities and differences of Letitia Elizabeth Landon and George Gordon, Lord Byron—using literary devices and subject matter.

In Ben Johnson’s “To the Memory of My Beloved, The Author, Mr. William Shakespeare, and What He Hath Left Us”, Johnson dictates a dramatically sycophantic poem in honor of the late William Shakespeare. With his superficial, dramatic style, Johnson unveils his own envious attitude within the unbegotten admiration he appoints throughout the poem. By complimenting Shakespeare through this ironic voice, Johnson insincerely praises Shakespeare’s legacy in a clever attempt to highlight Shakespeare’s minute but mentionable flaws. Throughout the commemorational poem, Johnson cleverly praises Shakespeare’s seemingly incomparable success as a poet by incorporating other famous poets as a belittling contrast. While meant as a friendly coup de grâce, Johnson’s assessment of Shakespeare is Johnson’s ultimate attempt to align himself with Shakespeare, bearing praise unto himself as well. In a poem meant to highlight and enunciate Shakespeare’s unparalleled skill and talent, Johnson instead attempts to expose his faults in hopes of bringing Shakespeare closer to himself.