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On July 5, 1884, four sailors were cast away from their ship in a storm 1,600 miles from the Cape of Good Hope. Their lifeboat contained neither water nor much food. On the 20th day of their ordeal, Dudley and Stevens, without the assistance or agreement of Brooks, cut the throat of the fourth sailor, a 17- or 18-year-old boy. They had not eaten since day 12. Water had been available only occasionally. At the time of the death, the men were probably about 1,000 miles from land. Prior to his death, the boy was lying helplessly in the bottom of the boat. The three surviving sailors ate the boy’s remains for four days, at which point they were rescued by a passing boat. They were in a seriously weakened condition.…
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The boy in the story, Rudi, was just a normal kid who was doing one of his favorite things, which is hiking in the mountains. Rudi discovered a man, Captain Winter, trapped in a crevasse and he immediately wanted to help him out of there before he died from being frozen to death. “A head appeared. A pair of shoulders. A face was raised for an instant and then lowered. Again one hand moved slowly up past the other.” Rudi took the risk and saved Captain Winter. This proves that risks do pay off because it turns out that Captain Winter was Rudi’s hero and Rudi’s father was Captain Winter’s hero. Captain Winter was known throughout the alps as the best mountaineer of his day. Also, Rudi’s father was considered one of the best guides ever. Rudi is in shock right now becomes his hero knows of his family and is a fan of Rudi’s father. Talk about a small world. The whole point of this chapter was that even though something may seem difficult and be hard, you shouldn’t give up and not take the risk. You should take the risk because you never know what the outcome may be. Rudi had no idea that the man trapped in the crevasse was one of his heroes but even though he didn’t know the guy at the time, he still took the risk and saved him. This chapter clearly demonstrates why risks should always be…
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Christopher McCandless decided early in the book that his ambition was to live completely off the land for a while, with only the help of ten pounds of rice for food. His adventure was not fated to end well though, for the Alaskan wilderness is perilous and he was not well prepared. Although many of the people who offered him rides had offered advice and told him how to be better prepared, Chris still “came into the country with insufficient provisions, and he lacked certain pieces of equipment deemed essential by many Alaskans … He was green and overestimated his resilience…” (180, 182). Christopher had neglected to follow much of the advice, thinking he was prepared after having survived his hitchhiking days. He showed lots of ignorance when walking into the wilderness so underprepared and with such little knowledge of the specific area. He is so overconfident he decides to throw most of his ammunition into the lake, an action he regrets later on, when hinting becomes too important for him to have disregarded it so. This lesson proves useful both two centuries ago, with Sir John Franklin, and a hundred years later, when a new lawyer neglects to gather as much evidence as was needed because he felt so confident after his first case. Hubris and arrogance were the death of Christopher McCandless, for they made him underprepared and ungrateful of what he had.…
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Simon is a secondary character. He does not influence the story directly by his decision but is importent for the cohesion.…
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Therefore, nearly a hundred years ago the passengers who were allowed onto the lifeboats largely determined who lived and who died. In turn, this was mostly based on their social class, thus it was social class that determined the passenger’s life chances.…
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Abortion is a topic that has been argued for years. Many people are for or against it. Many people do not know how they feel about it either. An abortion is when a women decides she does want to have a child anymore when already conceived. She will have a doctor at an abortion clinic help her rid of the fetus. There are many ways to do this, depending on the trimester of the baby. She will eventually go to the abortion clinic and have the procedure done to no longer have the baby in her but, it will no longer have a life.…
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The setting of the story is a key factor to make the story as good and as meaningful as it was in a sense of seeing what the kids would do on the island. The weather on the island was warm and so was the water. It had a tropical kind of feel to it. The food on the island was mainly fruit that was found and pigs that they killed and ate. All the boys on the island were healthy and well except for Piggy because he needed an inhaler. The lack of wreckage played a big role in the book because there was barely any. This made it worse for the kids because there was nothing to remind them of home. Their first instinct was both Locke and Hobbes thing to do because they both new that people would always find each other.The social part of them was another…
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In Mark Twains' books he relates himself to a characters by giving them some of his personal life and history. In the book The Adventures of Huck Finn, Mark Twain relates the most to the main character of Huck Finn. Mark Twain and the character Huck Finn have similarities in their lives, such as, Twain placing Huck on the river he grew up on, having Huck not be specific with his religious beliefs, and never staying in the same place for long.…
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My grandfather and his older children including my father spent almost a year gathering supplies and building a raft for their Travel. When they completed their raft they gathered few belongings and a week’s supply of food and traveled through the ocean. The first day was the easiest because they had very high hopes and their dream of America was coming true. They didn’t even notice the heat nor the choppy water; to them it seemed like the last bump on the road to a better life. The second day passed just as fast as the first day, but the third day was very different. The third day of their, at best, 5 day journey they woke up and realize that their food, which was on a smaller raft tied to the back of the main raft, was no longer there. To this day they do not know how it happened, they just assume that the waves forced the knot loose and the food drifted away. This was around the time that they started to become fearful for what might happen. The fourth day was when they began to feel intense hunger and fear. On the fifth day they realized that their trip wouldn’t come to an end soon. They realized that the current had slowed them down by at least two more days. At this point, hungry and hopeless,…
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Death is an instance in which all vitals of the body have shut down, when life no longer remains in the body, and when something is declared dead. But, there is always something that causes this death whether old age, illness, tragedy, accidents, or suicide. In some cases, the cause of death is known soon after the passing or even before they have passed. In other cases, it takes quite some time to figure out exactly why life was lost. Then, there are those very few occasions that no exact cause is known and many assumptions are thrown around naming phony reasons of the death, when in the end, it will always be a mystery. This is exactly what has been done with the death of Edgar Allan Poe. Many have come up with different assumptions and accusations of Poe’s death, but none have been claimed to be the absolute positive explanation of it. John S. Craig writes, “His death in Baltimore, Maryland, October 7, 1849 has been surrounded by mystery form the very moment he was found unconscious in a Baltimore tavern a few days before he died in a hospital”( ? ). A few of the hypotheses are that Poe was an alcoholic, whose drinking led to his death, had medical problems and diseases that eventually caused his passing, and the Cooping Theory, which ended in him being severely beaten which led to his death a few days later. Poe’s death is a mystery that will never be completely solved.…
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As the reading above indicates, Poe grieved continuously throughout his life for his sainted "Lenore". He wrote numerous poems before and after the death of Virginia Clemm to her. "Annabel Lee" was actually written before the death of Virginia as a token of his undying love for her.…
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When one reads the nonfiction work of Robert Louis Stevenson along with the novels and short stories, a more complete portrait emerges of the author than that of the romantic vagabond one usually associates with his best-known fiction. The Stevenson of the nonfiction prose is a writer involved in the issues of his craft, his milieu, and his soul. Moreover, one can see the record of his maturation in critical essays, political tracts, biographies, and letters to family and friends. What Stevenson lacks, especially for the tastes of this age, is specificity and expertise: he has not the depth of such writers as John Ruskin, Walter Pater, or William Morris. But he was a shrewd observer of humankind, and his essays reveal his lively and perspicacious mind. Though he lacked originality, he created a rapport with the reader, who senses his enthusiastic embrace of life and art. If Stevenson at first wrote like one who only skimmed the surface of experience, by the end of his life he was passionately committed to his adopted land of Samoa, to his own history, and to the creation of his fiction.…
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The son had loved his father dearly but does not favor his way of life. His interest in school greatly outweighed his interest or desire to work on ‘The Boat’. He still had a love for the sea and in some way felt like he should carry out his family’s tradition. After his uncle had accepted a new job he took his position on the boat and promised his father that we would continue to sail with him for as long as he lived, and when his father passed despite the desires of his mother he followed his dreams and pursued education and all of its wonders. After living his life he finds himself longing for the sea again and isn’t so satisfied with his life.…
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The story itself provides a perfect example of how to actually survive in the wilderness. The story, without stating, provides an example of human beings in the need to do what we desire no matter the consequences. If the man would have taken the time to think of his actions and not have been set out in hopes of great wealth, but in consideration of what the journey might hold for him the story wouldn't have ended the way it…
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He seems to be thankful for his accomplishments he has gained over his lifetime as a sailor. Although he missed out on a life with others, his life “flourished” (83) by being alone. He also ponders on the reasons why he chose to do the things in life that he did rather than just living a simple life like most people. He came in search of “Gold” (85) and riches as well as a new foreign land but instead found nothing but himself, a broken self but still found the man he is. The sea-man tries to regret the life he chose. He realizes instead of looking for a home he should have been focused on getting home or “heaven” (101). Even if he would have become very wealthy it still would not have helped him in the real life goal which would have been to make it to the “rises of heaven” (104). This means he must first be unhidden with “God” (102) to make it…
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