Eleanor and Park - Post Reading

“Yesterday happens,” is a quote from Eleanor and Park. This means that you can’t go back and change the past, so you shouldn’t worry over it. Since you can’t change anything that has happened before, you have to try and change things in the future. You need to do everything you can to make the future the best that you can make it. For example, if you get a bad grade on a test, you can’t go back to change it, but you should study more so that you do better on the next one. If you made a bad decision in life, you can’t change it, but you can try to do better.

In the novel, “Eleanor and Park”, Eleanor can’t go back and change how she acted around her step-dad. She can’t go back and not argue with him, no matter how much she wanted to. She can’t go back and not accept the gifts that Park and his mom gave her, even though she wanted to after she saw that her dad had found them, and saw what he had done.

In other books that I have read, the same theme is present. In “Code Name Verity”, for example, when Julie is caught and imprisoned, she writes that she shouldn’t have gone on that mission. Similarly, Maddie regrets having flown the mission, but neither of them could change what they did, and ended up making the best of it.

Also, in “Ship Breaker”, Nailer might rescuing the girl, but he still made the best of it and things ended up turning out well, both for him and for her.

If you can’t change the past, then why is it important at all? Simple: you need to learn from it as best as you can, and use what you have learned to try and make the future better. Then, when the future becomes the past, you will have done everything you can to make it as good as possible, leaving you nothing to worry about, and knowing that there is no need to want to change it, at all. 

"To Kill a Mockingbird" and "The Help" Compare and Contrast Essay

    The two stories To Kill a Mockingbird and The Help are very similar. However, they have many differences, as well. One must look at both the similarities and the differences to get a good idea of the stories and they ideas they focus on.

    In both stories, the main characters are not raised by their mothers, but by maids. Scout is raised by Calpurnia, and Skeeter is raised by Constantine. Both stories deal with false accusations, and both have main characters who try to overcome the racism of their communities. There are many characters in each story that can be compared with each other. For example, Skeeter is like Scout, Constantine is like Calpurnia, Skeeter’s mother is like Scout’s aunt, Celia is similar to Boo, and Tilly is like Mr. Ewell, who tried to deflect blame from himself. Even the two towns, Jackson and Maycomb, seem very similar in the stereotypes and ideas that are present there.

    However, Jackson is a much larger town than Maycomb. There are many other differences, as well. While To Kill a Mockingbird is written from a child’s view, The Help is from the viewpoint of a young adult. In The Help, people seem to be richer, and the story is more lighthearted. Also, To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in the 1930’s, while The Help is set in the 1960’s. To Kill a Mockingbird is mostly about men, but most of the characters in The Help are women. In To Kill a Mockingbird, there is a rape accusation, but in The Help, thought there is a theft accusation, it is not so prominent in the story. Also, the titles of the two stories are different. The title, To Kill a Mockingbird, comes from a quote in the book, which states that it is “a sin to kill a mockingbird”, because mockingbirds don’t do any harm, they only sing. This is the title because there are at least two characters who could be called a “mockingbird” in this sense. The reason behind title of The Help is more obvious. In the story, Skeeter is trying to draw attention to the sometimes-hard life of the help.

    In conclusion, while both stories seem very different on the surface, they also have many  similarities. The morals, or ideas, present in the stories are similar. Both are good stories, and both are extremely thought-provoking.

Eleanor and Park - Pre Reading

In a dictionary, there is a very simple definition listed for the word “parent”: “a father or mother”. Today, especially in middle school, another definition is more prevalent. Most teenagers seem to think of parents as only being an inconvenience. However, I believe that there can be different definitions. A parent could simply be classified as a “guardian” or as the biological parent of a child. Another definition could say that someone has to have certain qualities to be called a  parent, and those qualities might be difficult to have. 

The way someone’s parents behave can influence their life. This is more prominently seen in books. For example, if one of the protagonist's parents die while the protagonist is young, they will probably become very close to the other parent. While this is a good discussion topic, a plot like this often tempts the author to kill off the other parent, resulting in an extremely sad book. Another type of parent often found in literature is one who is barely present in the protagonist’s life, or nearly invisible altogether. This type of parent often produces a rather independent protagonist. Since they have had little or negative influence by parents, they have a more self-governing mindset. They might have a negative view of their parents, though. 

In real life, of course, these relations are not always so obvious. However, most teens feel that their parents are either too strict, or don’t care about them enough. It is true, though, that people are influenced by the type of parents that they had. Although most teens complain about their parents, they do not usually realize how hard it is to find the balance between being too strict and too lenient.

It seems to me that this is a very fine line, and that it is extremely difficult to find. Just a slight bit to one side or the other, and a parent becomes one of the stereotypes previously mentioned.

In about ten years or so, many of the people in our  class will be parents themselves. This leaves only one question: what kind of parent will they be?