Reflective Essay: Reminisce

Here I am, at the end of the line looking back at what I have gone through. All those times of struggle and all those times of panic all come down to this moment. The improvement of my skills in writing and reading has really depended on those times. Those nights with no sleep and those deep books that made me dread the class all not brings this glory and feeling and accomplishment. I feel that I have improved very much in my explication, discussion, and writing skills.

I remember the first day of English as if it were yesterday. We, the class were told what was expected of us and the magnitude of the work we were going to do and that just left me scared and fearful of the class itself. Everyday I would come in barely getting my work done or even not completing my work on time. Explications were like a wound to my grade every time one was graded. I never really got the concept of an explication until just recently. I thought that if you just expanded upon your very own thoughts that it would explain itself and give me a good grade but I was wrong. The problem with what I was writing was that I did not explicate the text but my own thoughts which made my papers so low scoring. It took me the full year to figure it out after I started to compare papers with my peers. Noticed the element that everyone else had that I did not and suddenly when I attempted to put it in my paper, it actually made my papers better. The eight page paper on James Joyce’s The Portrait of the Artist was what it took to improve my writing. This challenging paper forced me to look at other explications and realize what I was missing. When I incorporated in my paper what I lacked from before, my grade shot up and the teacher even made a remark that it was one of my best papers all year. This taught me how to help myself improve on my own. Peers are an excellent place to start when I needed aid in my work but in most cases, they came up to be no help. I learned to compare work and seek out I was doing wrong compared to other people and that improve my writing altogether.

This class was thought intensive through out the whole year. Our class discussions in my opinion are deeper and crazier than anything I have ever seen. The way a human mind can connect so many different items is so intriguing. Mr. Gallagher could connect the whole world to things at times and it would just blow me away at how a person can do that. This experience taught me of how to think and how to extract significance out of a book. For example, Hamlet was a book there the protagonist, Hamlet goes mad and speaks of such deep and loaded words that is hard to understand. Then Mr. Gallagher could just rip the words apart and just feed us piece by piece where we could understand and even expand upon the words. The word “nothing” to the average person would mean nothing, as in lack of anything. Then all of a sudden it can mean a woman’s sexual organ. These out of the box thoughts just blew me away. To think out of the box is not usually what most people do but this class really taught me how to do exactly that. With this skill now, I could make a discussion definitely more worth while and interesting.

English 12 Honors helped me mature as well as improve upon my skills. The topics that we dealt within the books in the class were beyond most things a teenager would think about and I think that helps kids get a feel of what live is really like out there in the cold and dark world. People are not as nice as one thinks in and around one’s neighborhood. The topics in the books are like a punch in the face of reality. It taught me how to deal and how to just look at certain things that go on in this world. This class is a great class for seniors who are about to be sent into the world because for me, it helped me gain so much knowledge about the world and the psychological side of people. Even though this class is so very challenging, I am confident to say that I enjoyed this class and thankful of what it had to offer me.

Albert Camus' The Stranger Thesis

Albert Camus conveys the idea that society discriminates on any level whether it be on a physical level or mental level, as long as you’re different than the rest of the society, discrimination will be present. The Arabs are a prime victim of the physical aspect of this discrimination. The jails are filled with Arabs and the antagonist roles are Arabs which directs the reader to only view them as that. On the other hand Mersault is a victim himself. He is discriminated for how his mind works different. Emotions come hard for Mersault. The both of the Arabs and Mersault are bombarded with discrimination in the novel.

Camus demonstrates discrimination towards Arabs by making the Arabs take the antagonist role in the story. Camus demonstrates them as people who have a problem with Raymond and take the offensive in making the first move to change lives. When Raymond is talking to Mersault about hitting his former mistress, Camus writes “He’s been followed all day by a group of Arabs, one of whom was the brother of his former mistress(40). Camus justifies a reason for the Arabs to follow Raymond so the situation seems more realistic but Camus makes Raymond one of the protagonists’ friends so we view him as on the protagonist’s side which is Mersault’s side. Since the Arabs are Raymond’s enemies, the reader seeing that Raymond is good, would see the Arabs as the bad guys and by doing this he conveys the idea that Arabs are dangerous people and are out to hurt people.

Camus makes the Arabs follow Mersault and Raymond by placing them on the scene at random places just to create an idea that they are always watching to portray the idea that Arabs all Arabs are to be feared. When Raymond, Marie, and Mersault exit the police station, Camus writes “The beach wasn’t very far but we’d get there sooner that way… I saw a group of Arabs leaning against the front of a tobacconist’s shop. They were staring at us in silence, but in that way of theirs, as if they were nothing but stones or dead trees(48).” Camus changes up the tone in this quote to show a tense moment when it is unexpected to create an effect that the reader will see that the Arabs are serious and are to be feared. Mersualt is talking about fun at the beach when suddenly he sees a group of Arabs and his happy tone of voice stops and he begins to describe the Arabs in a serious manner. The author makes the Arabs perform a suspicious activity to draw the reader’s attention to make note that the Arabs are up top no good since the action is directed to the protagonist and his party.

The Arabs are intimidating and even though they are a minority in the story they are certainly used as the antagonist as a whole nationality of people. The judgment Camus credits is that all Arabs are seen as people up to no good and that they are discriminated by society. After the police station and the sight of the arabs, Albert Camus writes “Raymond told me that the second one to the left was his man, and he seemed worried…She wanted to get going right away(48).” Clearly the characters are struck with disturbance just by the sight of the Arabs. Camus uses diction to convey this. The fact that Marie wanted to leave “right away” shows that she is feeling intimidated by the arabs just by sight of them and wants to leave as soon as possible to avoid what she feels would be confrontation since she thinks the arabs are evil. Discrimination toward the Arabs is conveyed by Albert Camus.

Mersault is definitely different than all the people around him. He gets treated differently by the people who do not know him by premature judgment of him. During Mersault’s court process, the persecutor attacks him almost relentlessly making exaggerated claims of what a monster Mersault is. Camus does this to show the treatment of not someone who looks different, but someone who is different in his mind. Camus writes “I heard him say ‘Has he so much as expressed any remorse? Never, gentle. Not once during the preliminary hearings did this man show emotion over his heinous offence(100).’” The author makes the prosecutor make exaggerated inferences about Mersault in the way he is and how he lacks common sense from the rest of society. Never is Mersault’s differences ever mentioned that it could be a medical disorder nor any offer for some help to treat him. The prosecutor goes straight to the point that Mersault has to die on the basis of the idea that Mersault lacks emotion that the rest of society has. Camus creates the events this way to show the tendencies of society to discriminate the people that are different.

Camus wants to say that people who are different are treated unfairly by society. During the closing statements of the court, Mersault says “He stated that I had no place in society whose most fundamental rules I ignored and that I could not appeal to the same human heart who elementary response I knew nothing of(102).” Camus is making the prosecutor to say that since Mersault is different and that he can not understand the normal average human heart, he can not be treated like he has a human heart. This makes the reader feel the discrimination that Mersault is facing that his fate is being judged fully by what society think he is and he should not be spared because he thinks differently in a world of people who share the common senses.

In the passage, Fumbling a little with my words…I blurted out that it was because of the sun. People laughed(103).” Camus suggests that even being honest, when you are different, is does not matter, people will still discriminate. Camus makes Mersault “blurt out that it was because of the sun” to discredit Mersault even more from the rest of society. Society already thinks he is out of his mind already since he does not have remorse, so this crushing embarrassment would just discredit Mersault even more. He is already mentally different, and with an answer like that, which was ridiculous to the rest of society where the sun does not affect them, this was just crazy talk. Camus does this to show how society treats people who are different.

Albert Camus uses society to show how discrimination works in the world. Any difference can cause society to pick up on your minorities, and/or differences to treat you differently. In the case of the Arabs, it is racism and in the case of Mersault it is his flaw of being emotionally challenged.

My First Job Experience

My parents have always told me that hard work would always be rewarded. I figured this out in the working world and that it is an important ingredient to being successful. It all began when I was sixteen and thought that it was time to be more independent from my parents so I got a job as a bus boy at an asian restaurant in Boston. It was my first job and I made all sorts of mistakes and errors. I broke plenty of cups and dropped plenty of plates but I did not give up even at times when I was discouraged. I worked harder and harder and soon I was one of the fastest bus boys in the restaurant. Within a matter of four months I was awarded a raise and a promotion to smoothie maker. In this experience, I learned that it pays off when I work hard.

Kaffir Boy: Notebook Entry

"The above message can be found written on larger than life signs... It is meant to dissuade white people from entering the black world. As a result, more than 90 percent of white South Africans go through a lifetime without seeing first hand the inhumane conditions under which blacks have to survive." (3)

Discrimination, a word discussed all over the world to end it but nothing has changed. The idea of being treated differently or unevenly because of differences of any kind plays a major role in life. Throughout time, nothing has changed and people still discriminate people based on differences no matter who they are. No one can say they do not discriminate because they all do in ways they just do not realize. In this memoir, the black people of South Africa are forced to life in horrid conditions under extremely limited and controlled lifestyles all because they have different a different skin color. The topic of study for this year is discrimination. People discriminate by other's abilities, disabilities, race, beliefs, and any other intolerable difference a person can have. The way society works is intriguing how we say we should stop this but it never happens.

Kaffir Boy: The Amazing Cover

Ronald’s Kaffir Boy cover seems to be the best cover on the market! He has incorporated symbolism and colors into the cover giving it an attractive look with items making the reader ask “Why?” when they look at the cover. Everything on the cover was mentioned in the book and can be proven.

The two characters appearing on the cover is the protagonist, Johannes Mathabane and a black police officer. The police officer represents the black people that were manipulated by the white people of South Africa to help them enforce the laws. That evening the neighborhood was gripped by the rumors that the Peri-Urban police were going to launch another raid soon…searching for people whose pass books were not in order, gangsters, prostitutes, black families living illegally in the township, shebeen owners and those persons deemed ‘undesirables’ under the Influx Control Law. (16)”

In Johannes Mathabane’s hands two items. Each item represents an important idea in the story which leads to the ending. The tennis racket is what gets Mathabane his scholarship in America to finally leave for a new education which is symbolized by the paper with the A+ grade on it. It can be found in the book when Johannes receives a letter from Limestone College. The letter read Dear Mark, … I’m offering you a full tennis scholarship, which includes tuition, room, and board, and books. (342)”

Then the backgrounds in the cover show the two worlds that are present but where the black and the white people segregated into. The wasteland with two shacks is Johannes’ home which is Alexandria. Then the nice big house on the right is the white people’s homes which have green grass. The Black people had to go over there to work. In this case the cover depicts Johannes trying to get to the white peoples’ side showing that Johannes is trying to be equal and be on the same side and have everything they have. Then the police officer holds him back with the rope around his neck. The rope in this case represents the Apartheid which can tell the setting of the story. The Apartheid was the policy in South Africa in which all races were segregated. This happened during the 1970’s.This cover suggests all the important ideas of the story all in the cover. It would make a great cover for the book and is appealing to the eye because of its uniqueness, its details and its color.