Character Analysis: You Have To Join The Herd

The book The 5th Wave is a fictional story that leads the reader through the struggles of the main character, Cassie who strived while surviving a disastrous alien invasion; which is not so much little creatures, as a disease that attacks a persons brain. The world is coming to a collapse and the only way to get rid of this chaos, is to kill off the power source. In the novel The 5th Wave, Rick Yancey centralizes around the idea that courage is key to survival; this is revealed through trusting one's instincts, trusting strangers and believing in oneself.

I was pleased to have attended a lecture cosponsored by the Ethics Center, the Fresno State office of the president, the Fresno Bee and Valley PBS. The lecture began with Dr. Castro recognizing a few leaders on campus, including a past Fresno State president, Dr. John D. Welty and campus volunteer Mary Castro. Dr. Castro then mentioned a few things about Mr. Brooks stating that he is a columnist for the New York Times and an analyst for the PBS “News Hour” and NPR’s “All Things Considered.” Dr. Brooks also teaches at Yale University, one the finest university in the country. Dr. Castro continued by saying that he learned that Mr. Brooks office hours are from 9am to 1pm and how “cool” it sounded to him. I was surprised how many people attended the event. I was fortunate to find a seat. David Brooks mentioned how he has some remote roots in the Central Valley because his father grew in Chowchilla, CA but Mr. Brooks grew in New York.

Jimmy knows too well the agonies of abandonment. First, when his mother, Cecilia, ran away with Richard to pursue a better lifestyle. Then, due to his father’s, Damacio Baca, alcoholisms and violent behavior; he also had to leave Jimmy behind. In spite of the drawbacks from abandonment to being a maximum security prisoner in Arizona State Prison, Jimmy preserver’s the darkness of prison by overcoming his illiteracy. However Cecilia and Damacio is not as fortunate as their child; Cecilia is shot by Richard after confronting him for a divorce and Damacio chokes to death after he is released from the detox center(Baca 263). Therefore the most significant event in this section of the memoir, A Place to Stand by Jimmy Santiago Baca is the death of Jimmy’s parents.

Grace has been told for more than half her life that she was crazy. Her mother’s death that she witnesses was an accident, there was no scarred man, and there was nothing she could do to change what had happened. But Grace knew they were wrong. With the help of her friends Noah, Megan and Rosie, she managed to discover that the scarred man was Dominic, the first love of her mother, who was there to kill her mother, but chose instead to stage her death. Grace came down just as Dominic was taking the picture, and picked up the gun that was lying on the floor. Firing blinding, she missed Dominic and shot her mother instead. The traumatic moment of shooting her mother was blocked from Grace’s mind as it was unable to handle what she did. Her family tries to protect her from this, saying it was an accident, trying to get Grace to stop pushing. When pushing too hard, Grace discovers the truth of what happened that night, and what she did, and with the

A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines takes place in 1940’s, a time period of segregation. This was a time when blacks were often at fault for a crime they did not commit, such as what transpired in this book. A man named Jefferson was convicted of a crime he did not commit and was insulted during court. Now his family, friends, and even Jefferson himself were trying to prove the white community wrong about their beliefs that a black man is unequal and lacks dignity against Jefferson and the black community. Not only is Jefferson going through a period of suffering on death row, but others, like Grant Wiggins and Miss Emma, are also facing their struggles and they will try to prove others wrong and redeem themselves through knowledge,

All refugees, the circumstances notwithstanding, face immense hardship throughout their lives. In time, these hardships give way to new opportunities, dreams, and perspectives, as even in the face of suffering, one always retains their intrinsic self. Kim Ha, the protagonist in Thanhha Lai’s Inside Out and Back Again, experienced this through her family’s daring escape from war-torn South Vietnam. Consequently, Inside Out and Back Again serves as a fitting title for her story.

The Laramie Project is a story that has a variety of characters with many differing viewpoints on a multitude of issues throughout the entire book. Issues such as the death penalty, LGBTQ rights, what type of a person Matthew Shepard was, and a massive amount of others are present throughout the entire book. The character Matthew Shepard, a gay, black student at the University of Wyoming was murdered by two white, heterosexual males, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson. With the mass amount of characters within The Laramie Project, there were bound to be differing viewpoints on what type of person Matthew Shepard was. Some people thought he was a good kid and a martyr, dying at the hands of homophobic males within their town, some thought he didn't really matter just because he was gay, and murders happened all the time. A third view is that he deserved what he got.

Spending time in jail can really change a man. In the novel A Lesson Before Dying by award-winning author Ernest J Gaines, the story is about a young man with a challenge of a lifetime. Grant one of the main characters is given a task of changing a man. The novel takes place in Bayonne Louisiana, where the Civil Rights Act has not yet taken place. Segregation was still an issue at this time, and many of the characters throughout the novel face segregation head-on.

“To a man utterly without a sense of belonging, mere life is all that matters. It is the only reality in an eternity of nothingness, and he clings to it with shameless despair.”

Violet Duran being a protagonist of the novel “Feed” by M.T Anderson stood out the most. To me she wasn't just some girl, she was different. titus was drawn to her and from the minute him and his friends started talking to her at the moon, they noticed she wasn't like them. Violet had her feed implanted in her brain when she was seven years old due to her parent’s financial situation. She is also home schooled by her father who is a professor who teaches the dead language. Both her parents didn't have the feed and were even hesitated about getting it for Violet. Until Violets father figured it was necessary for his daughter due to the generation she was going to grow up in and because of the job interview. He stated “Then one day, when

Frank is denied originally going to his first opportunity with a client and is shoed away until he finds the case of the vegetative girl.

"We attract who we are and repel what we are not, which is who you are, what you love, and why it has your attention with attraction." ~ Jon Barnes

Identity has become a big factor throughout the history of the United States. The novel “Ask The Dust” and the textbook “Give Me Liberty” has a big focus on how individuals have different values and opinions because of where they come from and character itself. According to the novel, “… I stood and smoked them all, and saw myself a great author with that natty Italian briar, and a cane, stepping out of a big black car, and she was there too.” Arturo the main character of the novel focus on his character throughout the book because he believes that being himself in a place where he went looking for opportunities to be successful can benefit his overall career as a writer. He is an Italian American who meets a Mexican American women where he

School shootings are normally unexpected and they drastically impact life. The effects of an unexpected school shooting are displayed in Jodi Picoult’s novel, Nineteen Minutes. In the novel, Peter Houghton has endured bullying throughout his entire life. One day he snaps and he goes to his school, Sterling High, where he kills ten people and wounds many others emotionally and physically. Peter is then put on trial, where he is sent to prison for life. Josie Cormier, the girl Peter has been in love with since kindergarten, admits to shooting her boyfriend, Matt, and is sentenced to five years in prison. Many changes occurred in everyone’s lives after the shooting. School life and daily life changed majorly after the shooting. The shooter’s family,

" Studies in the Novel, vol. 36, no. 2, 2004, p. 147+. Literature Resource Center,