One of my favorite underdog stories is The Karate Kid. It’s a classic movie about a boy named Daniel that gets bullied but is taken under the wing of Mr. Miyagi. Mr. Miyagi teaches Daniel karate using unorthodox methods. In the end, Daniel wins the big karate tournament and defeats his rival despite being injured.
This is my favorite part of the movie. It really shows how he struggled through the tournament. The song is awesome too.
The Breakfast Club is a classic 1980s film about a group of kids from five different social groups that get detention for a whole Saturday. Allison is portrayed as a weirdo, and not seen as pretty because of her dress style. Even though I’d say she was the best looking out of the group, it was Claire that was the pretty and popular one. All it took was some makeup and a dress, and the weird girl totally stole the jock’s heart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqjSJU4LuW0
When I was just a kid, I read The Outsiders and my favorite character was Dally. His tough demeanor made me admire him a lot. Even after rereading the novel, I still think Dally was the coolest. Throughout the book Dally is always described as mean and cold-hearted. Ponyboy often says how he likes Dally the least out of the gang. In fact, most of Dally’s interactions with other characters would almost always turn out to be negative. However, as the story goes on the reader as well as Ponyboy get to see glimpses of Dally going out of character or doing things that he normally wouldn’t do. These moments typically happen with Johnny around.
An example would be when Dally and is driving Ponyboy and Johnny when Johnny asked “I don’t guess my parents are worried about me or anything?”(87). Dally attempted to protect Johnny by saying how the boys were all worried, but when Johnny persists, Dally gets angry. “Blast it, Johnny, what do they matter? Shoot my old man don’t give a hang whether I’m in jail or dead in a car wreck or drunk in the gutter. That don’t bother me none” (88). Here we get to learn about Dally’s family for the first time, and it’s important because we never knew anything about him before except how he was in jail, fought, stole, etc. Ponyboy always said how Johnny was the gang’s pet and that’s why Dally treated him differently. From this passage we can see that Dally avoids giving the news straight to Johnny and when he does, he tries to show him how tough he is without his father’s care and how little it means to him. This moment doesn’t just show how much Dally cares about Johnny, it also draws a comparison between them. Dally had no parents’ love and it can be assumed that it was a reason he became the “cold hoodlum” he was.
Although his attitude, looks, and actions initially give off a heartless vibe, as time went on the way he treated Johnny and Ponyboy started to contradict Ponyboy’s description of him. He even went into a flaming church to save Johnny. The final evolution of Dally’s character can be seen during Johnny’s death. Before he goes in to see Johnny, he says “I was crazy, you know that, kid? Crazy for wantin’ Johnny to stay outa trouble, for not wantin’ him to get hard. If he’d been like me he’d never have been in this mess” (147). I see this as the beginning of Dally breaking down, knowing that Johnny might not make it. Even Ponyboy was confused at how he talked because “he never talked like that”. Dally goes on, “You’d better wise up Pony… you get tough like me and you don’t get hurt. You look out for yourself and nothing can touch you”(147). Dally’s words here can be seen as a front, trying to convince himself that not caring about anything is the only way to not get hurt, yet he winds up getting attached to Johnny and the opposite happens. I feel as if Dally saw Johnny as a version of himself. A boy with no one except his gang and when that one person he cared about died, he just couldn’t deal with the feelings of grief that he had. He never truly loved anyone like he loved Johnny, and when he lost him, he decided to follow suit. Dally was a tough, cold greaser. I don’t think he was one by choice. Possibly due to neglect, abuse, or situations that were out of his control, he had to become tough to survive. He really was a tragic character. One thing he wasn’t though, was heartless.
In Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”, there are many parallels between Victor Frankenstein and his monster. One of which that really stood out to me was their shared interest in reading and learning. However, the differences between the two characters can be seen clearly from what books they are interested in. The first book to be introduced was in a sense, Victor Frankenstein’s pathway to creating the monster. “In this house I chanced to find a volume of the works of Cornelius Agrippa. I opened it with apathy; the theory which he attempts to demonstrate and the wonderful facts which he relates soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm.” This moment coupled with his father’s dismissal of the book led him to his fascination with alchemy, natural science, and the creation of life. He continued to study this type of mystical science all the way into his university years.
On the other hand, Frankenstein’s monster was learning about the world through a completely different perspective. Victor was someone that had everything in life; friends, family, education, a lover whereas his creation, and in a way, his son, had nothing. They both were finding themselves through literature, but coming from two different worlds. The monster’s favorite book was “Paradise Lost” and he felt like his situation and Adam’s were the same. In Chapter 15, the monster explains, “I often referred the several situations, as their similarity struck me, to my own. Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every other respect. He had come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the especial care of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with and acquire knowledge from beings of a superior nature, but I was wretched, helpless, and alone.”
The most interesting aspect I found about the Cornelius Agrippa volume and “Paradise Lost” is that one character took something real and tried to make it fake, and the other takes something fake and tried to make it real. Basically, Victor was a man of science, but he kept trying to apply alchemy and mystical science as fact and truth. Meanwhile, the monster does the the opposite of that, by taking “Paradise Lost” as a “true history” but it actually was a work of fiction. My analysis of this is that Victor lived a world of reality but was pursuing a fantasy of these philosophies. This ultimately leads to him going along this path of “magic” and creating the monster. The monster is the fantasy in this real world, desperately trying to validate his own existence. The irony is that he connected to a work of imagination, like he himself was.
Both Victor Frankenstein and the monster were young in their lives when finding the books that defined their characters. They were both impressionable at the time of reading the books. I feel like Mary Shelley included this parallel of reading on purpose, but made what they were reading different in order to show where the lines of similarity between the creator and creature are blurred.
Full textual moments:
Chapter 2- In this house I chanced to find a volume of the works of Cornelius Agrippa. I opened it with apathy; the theory which he attempts to demonstrate and the wonderful facts which he relates soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm. A new light seemed to dawn upon my mind, and bounding with joy, I communicated my discovery to my father. My father looked carelessly at the title page of my book and said, “Ah! Cornelius Agrippa! My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash.”
If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded and that a modern system of science had been introduced which possessed much greater powers than the ancient, because the powers of the latter were chimerical, while those of the former were real and practical, under such circumstances I should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside and have contented my imagination, warmed as it was, by returning with greater ardour to my former studies. It is even possible that the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin. But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents, and I continued to read with the greatest avidity. When I returned home my first care was to procure the whole works of this author, and afterwards of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. I read and studied the wild fancies of these writers with delight; they appeared to me treasures known to few besides myself.
Chapter 15-“But Paradise Lost excited different and far deeper emotions. I read it, as I had read the other volumes which had fallen into my hands, as a true history. It moved every feeling of wonder and awe that the picture of an omnipotent God warring with his creatures was capable of exciting. I often referred the several situations, as their similarity struck me, to my own. Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every other respect. He had come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the especial care of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with and acquire knowledge from beings of a superior nature, but I was wretched, helpless, and alone. Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition, for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me.
In the article “What is a Monster?” by Natalie Lawrence, the idea of what makes a monster is explored as well as the roles that monsters have in society. Lawrence doesn’t explain things in black in white, she writes about positive and negative attributes and leaves the reader to decide what makes a monster. Lawrence connects people that have been labeled as monsters (like ‘The Dentist’) with gothic monsters, and states that they have certain characteristics that our society has trouble acknowledging whether they be psychological or cultural. Therefore, by excluding them and treating them like scapegoats we are removing those monstrous traits that they have from ourselves. Lawrence explains that in order for something to be defined as monstrous, there has to be the definition of what’s “normal”. She goes on to show examples of when birds that didn’t fall into the definition of the term “bird” at the time were introduced and changed the norm.
Natalie Lawrence then discusses the most interesting idea to me, which was that with monsters came profit and marketing. I thought this was a unique perspective of roles that monsters have. Typically, when I think of monsters I don’t think of people getting interested in them and buying merchandise. I think of negative things like people leaving towns or being afraid. However, there is a lot of truth in what she said. Monsters generate interest and curiosity. People will pay to see rare sights or things they are different from what they’re used to. That can be proven by just looking at how popular horror is as a genre. Lawrence doesn’t just mean fictional monsters either. She points out that the story about Cecil the Lion and “The Dentist” was used by various media outlets to cash in on the story. You can even say that with all the attention that people give to monsters, real or fake, that they’re getting glorified in a way.