Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Revised Essay

Yichen.Li
English II (IS)
                                    Love’s power on Lorenzo and Harry
In both the novel, Me and You by Niccolo Ammaniti and the film, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows directed by David Yates , two main characters, Lorenzo and Harry changes from antisocial and self-centered boys to outgoing and caring boys because of their friends’ love.
In the story, Me and You,  Ammaniti describes how a good friendship could influence an introvert’s personality and how could it help that person to grow up. Because of his step sister. Olivia, Lorenzo who changes from introversion and Narcissistic disorder into a positive guy who loves the world and figures out he's one part of the world. Lorenzo always describes himself as better than others. In his middle school,he was confused about his position in the class so he began to mimic others. He was not an outgoing boy due to his parents. His dad had lots of work to do, so his dad could not take care of Lorenzo. And Lorenzo’s mom did not care about him. She just cared about herself. In this story, Lorenzo was a boy who was confused about his position in the society and in his family. Lorenzo compares himself to an insect,  “He can not hurt you, he is a nice insect, but dressed up as a wasp, the birds, the lizards even human beings fear him. ….. Here’s what I had to do. Imitate the dangerous ones.”( Ammaniti 36) This is how he lives in this world. He tries to be a dangerous person in order to protect himself. But by the end of the novel, he had changed his idea and personality from a Narcissistic disorder boy into an outgoing and positive boy. In the end, he described himself again,  "I danced I felt something I’d never felt before. I knew that beyond that door the world was waiting for me and that I would be able to talk to the others like I was one of them." ( Ammaniti, 143) After he escaped from the fear. he was that boy who had Narcissistic disorder and centralized, he became positive and had his hope to the future.
Before the ski week, Lorenzo was an self-centered teenager who rejects others and he did not feel love from his parents. “ I camouflaged myself like a stick insect on dry branches….Nobody bothered me… Everyone was out of place there, they all spoke different languages and looked like they were just passing through. The girls kept to themselves and the guys played football on the big field opposite the school...But my parents weren’t satisfied. I had to have friends” (Ammaniti 32). Between hang out with friends in ski week and stays in the dark basement, he chooses to hide in the basement when his parents think he enjoys the ski week.   But for Olivia, she is a drug addict, she needs money to spend and to sleep until she recovers. So they both remembered that cellar when Lorenzo first met with Olivia. He described he did not like his half sister. At the midnight, when Olivia was standing out of the door, she asked Lorenzo to open the door and Lorenzo disagreed. Then Olivia threatened Lorenzo to open the door, now Lorenzo did not make friendship with Olivia. So the time Lorenzo began to change was after Olivia pretended she was Alessia’s mom in order to solve Lorenzo mom’s suspect. At that time, Lorenzo did not feel hatred and anger to his sister. But when he saw his sister slumped against the wall and vomited something. He began to feel sympathy for his half sister. Before we knew that Lorenzo felt sympathy for his dad when Lorenzo read the letters from Olivia to his dad. Lorenzo was a boy who was very stubborn. He pretended he did not care about anything but in fact, when his mom was called bitch by a giant man, he felt helpless. When his dad was rejected by his half-sister, he felt sympathy for his dad. Now, when his half-sister was lying on the ground and she needed him to take care of her, Lorenzo began to feel sympathy again. He could not say no to his relations. During the time when Lorenzo and Olivia stayed at the cellar, Lorenzo changed a lot, but Olivia did not teach him anything. Lorenzo just figured out that when he helped Olivia, at the same time he also helped himself to go out of the fear and hatred. There’s an evidence that showed his growth, “ He tidied up the cellar. Kill the mutant and he finished everything. Started reading Salem’s Lot again. Reading about vampiric metamorphoses” (Ammaniti 135).  This was a change for Lorenzo after he lived a long time with Olivia. I did not want to say that Olivia taught Lorenzo how to behave. Just because of Lorenzo, himself, during this Ski week, he changed a lot. Olivia was just a catalyst for Lorenzo to become independent.
The good friendship can solve any negative things. Especially happened in the Harry Potter and the Death Hallows, Harry changed from a silent boy into a brave and positive partner who wants to protect his friends by his best friends Ron's help. In the film, Harry's college was conquered by the death eaters, so they ran away from there and set out on a new journey. During this journey, they faced many problems, inside problems and outside problems. The outside problem is that they faced Voldemort. But Harry was not that timid one. When he faced Voldemort, he's no longer afraid of the enemy, he figured out his mission was that defends his friends from harm. There is a word that is best description for Harry, which is warrior. Even though he had a tragic life experience, he was antisocial, now he grows up to a boy with outgoing and helpful personality. And there also are some inside problems, for example, when the Ron was influenced by the Horcrux, he did not totally believe Harry and Hermione, so after an argument, he leave alone. And another one problem is in the headmaster's office, when Harry had the memory of Snape, he found out he had some connections with Voldemort, so Voldemort can not destroy him. So he began to change his idea and was eager for protecting his friends. Despite many challenges he met when he escaped from the Death Eaters when he faced with Voldemort and he could fight with Voldemort. Even though in the end he failed, he had already shown his change to the audience, he was not that boy who was timid.
In the before, I always thought that Harry’s change was due to Voldemort. Because of Voldemort, Harry had to face anything then he became independent. However, Ron, Hermione and Harry both faced with Voldemort, but why just Harry changed? This was a question for me before. When I reviewed Harry’s life experience, I knew that he was abundant from his parents, so that’s why he did not talk a lot, always silent and don't trust others. When Harry met Ron who is a lively child. Ron’s personality deeply influenced Harry. Even though Ron always did something wrong with his passion, but if there’s no Ron who accompanied with Harry, even though Harry could get protection from his professor and his friends, he could not grow up. Ron’s optimistic was the thing that Harry does not have.He was not a loner on the way of growth, he had his friends to accompany with him. Like what I did say when Ron broke out with Harry and Hermione because of some contradictions, finally Ron figured out that he can not leave without them, so in the most dangerous time, he came back. Even Hermione said that she would not forgive Ron, but when Ron came back, she already forgave Ron. At the same time Harry also figured out that. Even though Ron was very extreme, Harry needed to learn some from Ron because growth was to complete ourselves. Ron met many friends, but finally, he understood that the most important friend for him is Harry. They both had something that each other was a lack of. Harry was the lack of passion, also, Ron was the lack of self-confidence. After this escape, their friendship became stronger. Which was the result that their professor Dumbledore wanted to see.
Briefly, it can be said that these two totally different stories created two types of plots, the similarity between them is the growth of the main characters. For Me and You, Olivia and Lorenzo, they were the sibling relationships. But for Harry and Ron, they were just friendship. And a person who helped the main characters changed and developed, they were also had different personalities, Olivia was inflated and centralized, she did not put anything on her mind. For Ron, I always described he liked a knight, selfless, brave, passion and impulsion. Lorenzo was smarter than others so when there’s a brutal girl joined into his life, he did not have any choice, the only way he could choose is to accept Olivia and also help himself. But for Harry, his life experience was not good, he was the lack of love, he did not have confidence. These reasons limited his talent, so Ron appeared, Ron influenced Harry a lot but just in the “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, the first time they cooperated with others in order to protect themselves without any protection from their professors. For these two stories, even though they have many difference, but the main topic is that the main characters become stronger due to someone.  Olivia and Ron both give Lorenzo and Harry nothing in real. But both of them give the main characters understanding. For Olivia, she talked the play time with Lorenzo in their childhood to Lorenzo, which made Lorenzo felt love. For Ron, everytime he stood in front of the Harry in order to protect him, which also made Harry feel love. Finally two main characters become mature and feel love from their friends. Even these two stories are different, both two authors wanted to tell the importance of growth, they used two different ways to tell which are very valuable for readers.

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