The main theme and struggles are about drinking and driving, teen suicide, death, racialism, family conflict and things of this sort. These are just common things we have to go through in life, and this is what makes the novel a popular style. We’ve all experiences some of these and it doesn’t take a black to truly understand that. Drinking and driving, for instance, lots of people die of this cause every year, and not all of them are black. Teen suicide, even though most of us survived through this period, but we definitely thought about it. I don’t believe that a teen haven’t thought about death, there must me some difficulties in life and we might want to find a way out. Although suicide is not the thing I prefer, but it’s a choice right? And every single one of us had to make a choice: suicide or keep on living? What remains must chose the latter. Racialism, maybe not all of us experienced this, but we are all equally involved. We can still feel it in the air, see it with our bear eyes. And some of us are probably the one supporting it. We know what it’s about and the consequences well enough. Family conflict is something all of us had, doesn’t necessarily have to be severe, maybe just a little pinch, but we can feel the bitterness. Over all, I think the issues this book is dealing with are common life experiences, and it doesn’t take a black to truly understand it.
Discussing teen suicide and death in a novel for young adults can be tough. Most young adults are in a situation of immature with faint understandings of death. They may understand what it means, but don’t seem to know the meaning of upper level. Talking to them about death can put them into a risk of misunderstanding. Some of them have not been exposed to death yet, and all those heavy talks came along, some of them may not be able to take it in properly. The author did a good job by putting words and ideas in vague and non- violent languages, which helped teens to understand the whole matter a lot more. There are definitely positive influence on young adults by talking about death, that we can’t neglect. It allows young adults to be exposed to death in a gentle way and take more care of their lives, as long as the languages aren’t violent and unbearable.
小荷作文网 www.zww.cn Monty is a six year old boy. He doesn’t seem to understand all those pain and deaths, all he knew was his brother was unhappy and now gone. Sure, he missed Andy, talked to Andy, but in a way different than all the others. Because he is young, he is happy, and he has no fear. His last words to Andy were “But I’ll always love you, and I’ll always miss you, and I’ll never forget that it’s okay to put dragons in the jungle and tears on a tiger.” I burst out crying as I read those lines, they truly touched me. I mean, those are common used words, but seems very affecting when they came out of a six year old boy. While all Andy’s friends were mad blaming him, all those strong motions that are shown just couldn’t exceed the affect of calm touching words. ‘tears of a tiger’ was supposed to represent Andy and his pain. And only Andy’s brother observed it, knew it, and expressed it. After I’ve read it, I pictured a crying tiger in mind, and it left me great impression ever since. In another angle, we are all concerned about Monty’s future life at the same time. Will he be ok when he grew to Andy’s age? How is he going to deal with a family like that? Same issues repeats over and over, left us imaginary spaces.
小 荷 作文网 www.zww.cn The teenagers had to speak two different ‘languages’ towards each other and their parents. Partly because teens could understand each other better, give supports to each other while parents are firm about their believes and could not accept new ideas. Teens can be completely honest and random with each other, but they are more careful towards parents.
Effects of slangs: Sounds close to real life. Show an unbending style. Display of Black people’s common way of speaking. Tally with teen’s tone of speaking.
We see exploitation though people’s attitude towards the black, shown as how Andy was treated in school, by the teachers, by the white, and by their parents. King could say America achieved its dream. But there are still quite many of exploitations going on even in a world today. Just as Draper shown in tears of a tiger, the black are still shaded by the past and the white have still got discrimination against them. This is a process of accepting, and it takes time. Right now, things are severe but they definitely exist.
King states: “Through our scientific genius we have made of this world a neighborhood; now through our moral and spiritual development we must make of it a brother hood.” How are these words more compelling than ever before? Explain.
After king listed all the injustice towards the black, the words are more compelling than ever. The word ‘must’ emphasized the importance of working together; make this world a brother hood. Or else, America will pay, the whole world will pay.
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