The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind Dense Question

      Text:How does William’s dedication to education and the windmill, even though so many things held him back, show about his character?

     Other Lit: How is William’s hunger for education similar to Equality’s? How is it different?

     Reader: What is something that you have a passion for?

 

                The fact that William never gave up, even when facing things that I could never imagine, shows so much about his character and how strong he is internally. Being able to withstand starvation, lack of education, poverty and sickness while still having the mental and physical strength to complete his goal was absolutely remarkable. His loving non egoistic character is reflected through this. He isn’t building this windmill just so that he can get famous; he is doing to save his family, to save his community. He seems so unreal how much he cares for his family and how he always puts them first. He is the kind of person who could change the world for the better.

                Equality from Ayn Rand’s novel Anthem has a similar determination to learn, though he has a completely opposite reason for it. He also never gives up, like William, even though he isn’t provided with a proper education either. His mind and love for education is just as strong as William’s. Equality uses his education and inventions for only himself. He couldn’t care less about his community. In his mind they only destroy him. He is learning and inventing for the heck of it. It’s not saving anyone’s life, or making everyday activities either, or providing a community with a whole new world. He just wants to learn.

                 There are many things I am passionate about including writing, divine literature, art, and music of course. One thing that I am always hungry to learn about is poetry. I can never get enough of how simple words and phrases fall perfectly to create something so descriptive, so beautiful. I have always enjoyed poetry for as long as I can remember. I don’t mean stupid poems like used in standardized tests that don’t have any feeling to them. I am talking about poetry from poets like Shakespeare, Whitman, Frost, Cummings, Dickinson, Poe, and the list goes on. I can feel the words slowly flow from my mind to the rest of my body. I let the words take my soul. I let it engross me. I let the descriptions take me to a new world. I let them run through my veins and rejuvenate my mind. Poetry is my hunger, and my escape.  

Les Miserables

 

           So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation
pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the    element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems of the
century---the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through
hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light—are unsolved; so long as social
asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;—in other words, and with a still wider
significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les
Misérables cannot fail to be of use.
I find Victor Hugo's preface for Les Miserables is very powerful. His use of words and the fact that he only wrote one sentence gives it that much more of a punch. I agree with him completely especially because many of the problems he has stated are ones that we still have today. Many people are cruel and ignorant and like to discriminate and 'damn' people, as Hugo says, because they are different or are less fortunate. People don't like to face the facts that people are struggling and are what they would see as miserable. Literally doing every single thing they can just to scrape by. That's why books like Les Miserables are of use, because they open our eyes and make us face these struggling people so that we can gain the heart to help them.
Examples from Les Mis that support his preface are as follows:
the degradation of man through pauperism - Because Jean Valjean was poor he stole the bread to feed his family, which caused him to get arrested. After he got out people treated him like garbage and viewed him as a monster. He slowly became more of an animal because of the way society treated him for being less fortunate.
the corruption of woman through hunger - Fantine was broke and was trying to find money to send to the people taking 'care' of Cosette. She sold her two front teeth, her hair, and finally resorted to prositution to get the money. She had finally broken.
the crippling of children through lack of light - Cosette was neglected and abused. She wasnt loved or cared for and was forced to wear rags, sweep the streets, and eat with the dogs. All she ever knew was darkness and cruelty. She never knew what it was like to have a childhood and didnt understand that she had the right to a childhood too.


 My Rendition of the Preface.

        So long as there shall exist, by self indulgence and senseless futuristic improvements, an absence of humanity, creating corruption of the human race, and adding the element of non-appreciating to younger generations; so long as the three great problems of the century- the crippling of the human mind through technology, the corruption of the youth through greed and gluttony, the closed minds through rumors and fixated thoughts- are unsolved ; so long as humanity has disintegrated from the world; - in other words with a still wider significance, so long as arrogance and ignorance exist on earth, open eyes and open minds cannot fail to be of use.

The Great Gatsby Book Project

            I chose to depict Gatsby in a drawing. I drew him standing on the end of his dock, as he would frequently do during his elaborate parties, watching the green light at the end of Daisy Buchanan’s dock. Behind him is a hand holding a gun pointed at him. It basically sums up Gatsby's life and what ended it. 

             Gatsby is absolutely in love with Daisy, even though she is married to Tom Buchanan. He would always throw these extravagant parties to try and impress Daisy hoping that one day she would realize that she was in love with him too. He would spend nights gazing at this green light at the end of her dock just because of the fact that it was one thing that he could have an intimate feeling for without disrupting or causing trouble with the Buchanan relationship. It symbolizes how he still has hope and still dreams that she will love him too.

                The gun represents how his love for Daisy essentially killed him. He had tried to keep it discrete but even the way he looked at her sparked a fury in Tom, even though he too was cheating on Daisy with his own friend George Wilson’s wife Myrtle. Myrtle was hit and killed by Gatsby’s car, but Daisy was actually the one driving it. Due to the fact that Tom already had a grudge against Gatsby for loving Daisy, he told George that it was Gatsby who hit Myrtle. Out of anger and melancholy George sends a bullet into Gatsby, ending his life.

                My drawing represents Gatsby’s love and essentially how strong it was. He would do anything for Daisy and he died because of her. Basically everything Gatsby had done and was known for, like his parties, were all to impress Daisy. She was the light in his life.