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  Spoiler alert for the book Life of Pi    Life of Pi written by Yann Martel is a book about a man stranded at sea with a bengal tiger. The story follows Piscine Molitor Patel as he struggles to survive on the Pacific Ocean with barely any resources. The main story follows 227 days of Pi’s journey before he is eventually found on a Mexican beach. However, the book is split up into three significant parts, and the main storyline of being stranded in the ocean is just a third of the whole book. The first third consists of a buildup to the actual story: Piscine’s childhood growing up in Canada and India. Only 37 chapters into the book does Pi start his hero’s journey. Before this section, the known world is not left (although it could be argued that it is), and instead summarizes childhood anecdotes. Pi grew up in India and his father owned a zoo. He was raised as a Hindu, but later discovers Christianity and Islam. He was named after an olympic swimming pool, was bullied ...

  How Civil War Aligns with Schmidtt’s Journey Outline Spoiler Alert on Civil War (2024), Warning for gruesome details In a world where a civil war has destroyed the US, the movie Civil War follows a group of war photographers in their journey East to find the president before he is assassinated by western forces. The movie doesn’t focus on the background of the world-building as much as it does on the development of characters throughout their journey. Specifically veteran wartime photographer Lee Smith and aspiring photographer Jessie. As these two characters travel with some other reporters, both of their personalities swap as the gruesome experiences shape their opinions on the war and photography. Although Lee is originally introduced as the main protagonist, the movie takes a surprising plot twist when it’s revealed subjectively that Jessie is the true main character. This blog will follow Jessie as she takes a journey through Victoria Lynn Schmidtt’s Heroine’s Journey outl...

Star Wars: A New Hope’s opening scene begins not by introducing a hero, but on a rebel ship in space. George Lucas makes a bold decision by bringing the viewers into an unknown world right away with a chaotic scene full of many unfamiliar characters. What movie doesn’t start with the main character? Instead we find ourselves watching 2-3 side characters navigate a battle scene with only miniscule context. 15 minutes pass before Luke Skywalker even shows up on screen. George Lucas’ method of beginning the hero’s journey makes the call to adventure much more thrilling and gives perspective on the world of Star Wars. First of all, George Lucas has a great task of explaining the vast world of Star Wars to the audience. This can’t all be done with yellow text in the beginning. This is why George Lucas starts the movie with a disorderly fight scene rather than a calm setting on Tatooine. It gives more context to the ongoing war between the rebels and the Galactic Empire. When we finally see ...

  Through his work “The New Negro”, Alain Locke analyzes and defines this representation of the ‘New Negro’ as he connects together the transformation that African Americans underwent throughout the Harlem Renaissance. Locke dives into the specifics, analyzing social, political, and artistic changes. Ultimately Locke claims that the ‘New Negro’ is an African American that now has a new understanding of oneself and of it’s worth, racially and humanly. No longer do African Americans lack self respect or belittle themselves in comparison to other races. A vision of the ‘New Negro’ can be seen in works of art across Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance. Black poetry and texts elaborate on this new mindset that black people in America should hold. The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural revival of African American culture based in Harlem, New York City. It was also known as ‘The New Negro Movement’, relating back to, and exactly quoting Alain Locke’s “The New Negro”. The movement ...

Compare and contrast one element of Black autobiography between Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Washington's Up from Slavery. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs vividly recapitulates the story of her life, starting when she was born into slavery, and continuing into her journey to freedom. Throughout her story, Jacobs goes into great detail concerning lots of gruesome and horrible events that happened to her. She describes experiences like sexual assault, abuse, and loss of family. She tells these traumatic anecdotes through a first-person perspective which uniquely touches with the reader in a way that humanizes herself and helps the reader understand what she personally went through first hand. Humanization is an important aspect that Jacobs makes sure to prioritize within Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and this is evident from the very beginning, where Jacobs starts chapter 1 with the sentence “I was born a slave; but I never k...

  The Book Cover of Algal Bloom The story of Algal Bloom covers one particular summer of two girls when the lake near the summer home that they visit annually gets overtaken by algae. Throughout the story it’s reinforced to the girls how dangerous the algae is and how they shouldn’t go near it, but of course, by the end of the story the girls end up going swimming in the lake regardless and implicitly get sick. The story mainly focuses around this lake and the summer house for the setting and the two girls as the main characters instead of the parents or the third girl. Throughout the story the girls are always thinking about the lake and talking about it and it stays consistently prominent.  I drew this cover in colored pencil because the story is recited from a kid’s perspective and it looks like something a kid would draw. It also looks like a kid drawing because I drew it and I am not very good at drawing. The cover consists of one of the summer homes with the lake right b...