There are many factors that cause Jerry to act the way he does. The main reason is he forced by the vigils to refuse the chocolates. “When he returned to the school after practice, he found a letter scotch-taped to the door of his locker. A summons from the vigils. Subject: Assignment.”(Cormier 62) He is now forced to refuse the school chocolate sale. He now has to face Brother Leon and tell him no which soon gives him insight in to the teachers’ feelings. “His eyes gave him away. His face was always under control but his eyes showed his vulnerability.”(Cormier 92) Jerry realizes that Brother Leon is struggling with the candy sale and that he is trying to hide his anger for Jerry’s’ refusal. Jerry knows Brother Leon’s hate for him and his fear of failure with the chocolate sale. “He had met Brother Leon in the corridor late one afternoon after football practice and had seen hate flashing in the teachers eyes. More than hate: something sick.” (Cormier 92) Jerry knows that Leon hates him for refusing the chocolates but he doesn’t want to give into Leon and take the chocolates. This is what motivates Jerry to become a rebel
Webster’s dictionary defines a hero as any man admired for his courage, qualities or exploits, especially in war. Some people attribute the term hero mostly to war. My personal definition of a hero is someone who takes a stand against evil or an unjust cause. The term hero can be applied to anyone, it isn’t necessary to save the world from explosion to be a hero. The act of standing up for a friend can also be called a heroic act.
The character of Jerry Renault can easily be classified as a hero in my opinion. Jerry stands up for what he believes is right and says no to Brother Leon.
Sexuality and Aggression in Hamlet
Sexuality and Aggression in Hamlet
In “Man and Wife Is One Flesh”: Hamlet and the Confrontation with the Maternal Body, Janet Adelman argues that the motivating force behind the plot action in Hamlet is the collapse of boundaries between relationships of individuals, sexes, and divisions of public (state) and private (love) life. The primary cause of the breakdown results from the bodily contamination spread through overt sexuality, specifically maternal sexuality. Janet Adelman asserts her feminism into the sexist view of psychoanalysis to define the contamination as that power of women that men fear.
Adelman’s case for the collapse of boundaries is her strength and weakness. Extensive textual evidence supports her claim for the melding of the men, but her choice to ignore the women’s differentiation is a critical error. Gertrude and Ophelia define themselves through sexuality, memory retention and communication, existing as two individual beings separate from the collapsing masculine world. Adelman continues to argue that the power of women’s sexuality contaminates all life associated with it. While sexuality is women’s most potent power, it is the power to give life and sustain it through maternal fulfillment, not to promote death and further erasure of boundaries through contamination, poison and death. For madness and death follow promptly after the removal of the women’s sexuality.
Shakespeare expresses the Freudian concept of sexual and aggressive conflict by assigning the traits to female and male characters respectively. The alternating suppression, sexuality over aggression and aggression over sexuality, plays out in Hamlet ultimately proving their symbiotic relationship. The sup…
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… strips away female sexuality, life ends. Aggression does not create life. The eradication of the conflict-boundary is a self-sacrificing effort by the men, who in so doing, deny everyone sexual satisfaction to balance the aggression, thus resorting to fatal violence and ending their immortality through procreation.
Works Cited
Adelman, Janet. “Man and Wife is One Flesh”: Hamlet and the Confrontation with the Maternal Body.
William Shakespeare: Hamlet. Ed. Susanne L. Wofford. Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism. Boston: St. Martin’s, 256-282.
Calhoun, J. “Personality and Psychoanalytic Theory.” Psychology 1101. UGA. Athens, 6 Nov 1998.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. Susanne L. Wofford. Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism. Boston: St. Martin’s, 1994.
Stoppard, Tom. Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. New York: Grove, 1967