Clang! The last Hydra soldier falls, broken, to the red, white, and blue colors of Captain America. His shield is seen from afar leading the captured allies home. Just like Captain America, leaders possess important qualities that are instrumental in their success. A great leader is made with the courage to always do the right action, and the endurance to keep on leading, no matter the temptation.
A great leader is made with the courage to always make just decisions. For example, in the award winning movie, The Hobbit, the protagonist Bilbo Baggins, faces the challenging dangers of traveling in Middle Earth. During the long journey one of the leaders, Gandalf, shares a proverb about courage,” Courage is not knowing when to take a life, but when to save one.” For many of us, this proverb would prove difficult to live by, yet a leader has to have the courage to save a life from being mocked, made fun of, or in extreme cases, killed. Therefore, a great leader has the courage to resist the main stream and do what is right.
A great leader also has the quality of perseverance, or endurance. For example, the famous rap star Eminem, or Marshall Mathers shows the quality of perseverance. At an early age Marshall experienced pain, his mother did drugs, his father left him, his girlfriend was not faithful, and he faced extreme poverty. However, he persevered and did not give up on his dream. Marshall used his life as an example in his songs and ended up making millions of dollars. A great leader has to be able to endure through hardships, and be a role model for his followers. Thus, a great leader possesses perseverance.
Overall, a great leader like Captain America has the courage to resist temptation and the main stream, and has the perseverance to be consistent in all his actions.

In the novel Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury and “Sonnet 73” by William Shakespeare, they both explore the topic of aging by giving examples of characters like Mrs. Loomis and Mrs. Bentley, and by giving metaphors showing the process of our decline or diminishing. Whether the experience occurs in a small town or is likened to aspects of nature, both involve the theme of when one’s life is fading away they might expire with the knowledge that they lived, loved,and lavished life. This theme of living life to the fullest is seen through old age, youth’s perspective, and the want to be valued.
In Dandelion Wine Bradbury presents us with characters who struggle with old age. For example, Mrs. Loomis struggles with old age and describes, “ a body like this is a dragon, all scales and folds. So the dragon ate the white swan.” Mrs. Loomis feels a gap between her and William Forester because of the age difference between the two of them. Similarly, In “Sonnet 73” Shakespeare describes in his opening stanza , “When yellow leaves , or none, or few, do hang upon those boughs which shake against the cold.” Shakespeare presents us with a comparison of a dying tree to a fading person. Thus, both of the authors share the particular view that death is inevitable, and no matter how hard one might fight and struggle against old age that person will still fatigue and retire from their present world.
Mrs. Bentley is an elderly woman who is insecure about her age and past. Bradbury exploits Mrs. Bentley’s insecurities through a group of ignorant ten-year-olds who don’t understand the concept of aging due to their lack of experience on the matter. For example, when Tom, Alice, and Jane confront Mrs. Bentley they ask questions like “How old are you?”, yet afterwards they refuse to believe what Mrs. Bentley offers to them, “My mother says it isn’t nice to fib”,said jane “Of course it isn’t. It’s very bad,” agreed Mrs.Bentley “And not to listen to fibs.” The youths perspective of Mrs. Bentley is that she is old and always will be old. Similarly, Shakespeare depicts a contrast of a glowing fire to old ashes, “In me thou seest the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie.” Mrs. Bentley still carries around the ashes of her youth and when a group of kids tease don’t oblige to her, her insecurities grow and grow. Therefore, Both authors depict a scene of old-to-new, and they believe that youth may not yet understand life and its processes, however they should try to seek knowledge from the elderly.
Throughout Dandelion Wine and “Sonnet 73”, Bradbury and Shakespeare convey to us a similar theme of wanting to be valued and remembered as an elderly person. For example, Colonel Freeleigh is an old man who has been around the block, and more importantly he remembers most of it. When Doug and his friends find the Colonel they quickly bestow the title of “Time Machine” upon him. Colonel Freeleigh realizes his importance soon afterwards, “and-you’re right! Why didn’t I think of it before! A Time Machine, by God, a Time Machine!”. As a keeper of knowledge and wisdom Colonel Freeleigh discovers that he should share it to the youth and their generation. Similarly, In “Sonnet 73” Shakespeare explores the topic of death and remembrance. For example, he depicts a scene of death as a being, “Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.” It is interpreted that death first takes a person’s physical body and then later on it takes the memory of that person so he is forgotten. However, Colonel Freeleigh found away to fend off “Death’s second Self”. His Shared knowledge put value into his life and prolonged his memory as the boys conversed and thought of him. Thus, both of the authors believe that it is important to share our information to youth so that we may be remembered.
Overall, Bradbury and Shakespeare share similar themes in their works. Whether one is old or young, that person should try to learn and find their importance to the world so that they might be remembered and be at ease with their old age, and eventually fade away with the knowledge that they lived, loved, and lavished life.

Mason Hill
Pre-AP English 1
5/4/15

Good plus Evil movie Review

The book and the movie are very similar, yet there are drastic differences portrayed in the movie for a better watching experience.
Negatives of the movie:
– The director inserted a love life into the story to add a romantic twist on the original book. This love interest, however, makes the audience have to endure through awkward, corny acts of fondness that Dr.Jekyll portrays to Beatrice. Normally these scenes would be tolerable and maybe even cute, but they appear so frequently that one may expect that every encounter that Dr.Jekyll has with Beatrice will include a make-out-session.
– The movie dissolves the mystery in finding the connection between the good Dr. Jekyll and the evil Mr. Hyde by giving a first person view of Dr.Jekyll and his transformations early in the movie . The book would be classified as a suspenseful mystery; however, the movie strays from the original genre and turns into a tragic, almost horror film.

Positives of the movie:
– Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is not an easy book to comprehend, especially for a young reader. But, the movie creates an easy image for most viewers to understand and enjoy. The director did this by changing most abstract ideas, descriptions,or thoughts from the book into a concrete, physical action.
– The director implemented more action into the movie. This included a second murder, more overall violent fights, and police chases. These changes from the book keeps the audience on their toes, and off their friend’s shoulder, catching Z’s.

Overall:
– I enjoyed the movie, but I wouldn’t watch it over and over again. However, if a person can get over “ nibbling knuckles,” and the multiple kisses, then this movie is completely worth watching.

Stylistic Analysis

In the award winning memoir Night, Eliezer Wiesel describes the horrifying truths about concentration camp life and how he survived his experience in the infamous Birkenau/Auschwitz. Wiesel’s purpose is to instill the dreadful knowledge about the Jewish holocaust in hopes that it won’t repeat, as history tends to do time-to-time. Wiesel changes from a calm like tone with a repetitive structure during chapters 1-5 to the more morbid and disturbing word choice, and a choppy fragment style of chapters 6-9. Wiesel uses this strategy of word choice and tone to emphasize to us just how bad the Jewish holocaust really was.
Wiesel begins his memoir with a calm diction and a repetitive sentence structure that sets the current mood. For example, in the beginning chapters of 1-5 Wiesel uses tranquil words like: “calm”, “reassuring”, “peaceful”, and “smile”(6). to describe his home-town Sighet. Wiesel uses those words to soften up the reader before laying down the cold-hard-truth which improves his message. For instance, Wiesel uses repetition such as: “ Never shall I forget that smoke… Never shall I forget the faces of small children… Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.”(34) He uses this to emphasis the difference between the comely Sighet to the first frightening frantic sight of Birkenau. Also it builds a crescendo to how much worse his experience gets starting from a regular day with a regular boy to a “skeleton starring in the mirror.”
Throughout chapters 6-9 Wiesel starts to shift from a calm word choice and repetitive sentence beginning to a morbid diction and choppy fragmented sentence type. For example, the reassuring diction from paragraphs 1-5 has changed to a horrifying and morbid diction like: “stiffened corpses ”, “death”, “suffocated”(89). Wiesel’s change from a calm diction to a horrific diction really emphasizes his point that camp life was deadly. Also, the structure changes to a more choppy but dramatic style by using fragments like “We came to an abandoned village. Not a living soul. Not a single bark. Houses with gaping windows”. (69) Wiesel uses this choppy fragmented style to show how simple the situation had become to him at this point. He was on his way to another concentration camp, he was surrounded by death, and he himself was dying.
Overall, Wiesel uses chapters 1-5 to set up for his main point, the Jewish holocaust was death, and he definitely shows us this in chapters 6-9 with the change in word choice and sentence structure.

The Sky Isn’t the Limit

You might think I’m just a fifth-teen-year-old boy
With blonde hair
and blue eyes
But I know I am more
way more than that
I am not a helicopter
nor a U.F.O
But a Jet Plane
Soaring to my potential
when I am excited and ecstatic
I fly faster and faster
among fluffy, white clouds, and migrating birds in a arrow-like formation
I create awe in all who see
But, I run out of creative juices needed to run my engine
I begin my sorrowful decent back
to the dark and dreary
the wretched and wrong
and I sit stranded
With sadness creeping up my cockpit
clawing to get in
Until I take a deep breath and fire-up my engines to start again
The blonde haired, blue eyed boy is a Jet Plane
and the sky isn’t the limit for him.