Olivia's Essay

Olivia Denison
Mr. Salsich
English 9
26 February 2009

Brave New Worlds:

How Miranda’s World has Changed and What We Need to Make Our World Change

Olivia Denison
Mr. Salsich
English 9
25 February 2009

Brave New Worlds:

How Miranda’s World has Changed and What We Need to Make Our World Change

Many times, when something bad happens to me, I slowly recognize that my poor actions or decisions have brought about an unfortunate result. In the same way, the characters from “The Tempest” begin to realize what they are doing wrong and make a positive change.

In a difficult situation, you learn to accept the circumstances and begin to realize what went wrong. Both Caliban and Prospero find themselves in shameful situations, but after accepting the consequences of their bad decisions, they mend their ways. When Caliban starts drinking and hailing to the drunken man, Stephano, he realizes how foolish it is to pray to a drunken man. Also, Prospero abandons his fight to get revenge on his brother by giving up magic, and instead, forgives him. Caliban realizes that drinking is not going to solve his problems with Prospero. Caliban comes to terms with how poorly Prospero had treated him in hopes that Prospero will, as well. Caliban learns from his poor decisions and turns himself around by thinking of the possibilities of having a fresh start. Like Caliban, Prospero must resolve his bitter feelings toward his brother and start anew. Prospero finally realizes that there is no use in fighting anymore, after putting his brother and his companions under a spell. (Loose sentence) The resolution comes when Prospero gives up magic and forgives his brother. Only then, do Miranda, Prospero, Ariel and Caliban benefit from Prospero’s forgiveness and surrendering of the magical powers that he loved and used for no good. Now that Caliban and Prospero realize their mistakes, the island will return to a harmonious and tranquil place. (Periodic sentence)

Unlike the new world in “The Tempest”, our world is not realizing what we are doing wrong. In our world today, people don’t accept others for who they are. People judge on skin color, religion, and ethnicity. It is a sad thing to think that people have died and sacrificed so much of their lives in trying to suppress (100 SAT words) these actions and make a positive change, and it has not worked. If people demonstrated acceptance, tolerance and had the patience for others, the world would be a much more tranquil place than it is today. Everywhere you look on the news, in school, in work, someone is deceiving someone else. Very few people are considered loyal. For someone to be loyal, you have to trust them and know that they will stand by you. Someone who is loyal would not try to intentionally hurt another person. However, that is all that people seem to do. Being honest or telling the truth is hard for many people to do, especially if it puts them in an awkward situation. For this reason, people will choose to lie. If people were honest one hundred percent of the time, there would literally be no secrets, torturing, or any kind of deleterious (100 SAT words) problem that comes along with not telling the truth. Everybody who told the truth would have less stress in their lives, instead of worrying if anyone would find out that they didn’t tell the truth. If everybody emulated (100 SAT words) one of these virtues, then the world would be a “brave new world.”

If acceptance, loyalty and truthfulness can mend a fictional story, it certainly can mend a real world with real people. Most importantly, people must accept what they have done, tell the truth and be loyal to one another. Otherwise, the virtues do not work. We must have faith that everybody will follow the three virtues of acceptance, loyalty and truthfulness.


Self Assessment

Writing Issues I’m continuing working on.
I have noticed recently that I’m having trouble with ending and starting by essays. My openings never seem to be intriguing enough and my endings seem kind of boring.

Some strong points I see.
I definitely did a good job checking over my work. The SAT words that I used I think fit well with the sentence I used them in.

Some weak points I see.
My transitions could be smoother from chunk to chunk and transitioning in paragraphs. I think the first paragraph is written kind of messily. It is somewhat hard to follow the sentences because I switch from Caliban to Prospero frequently and it gets confusing.

Grade I would give myself.
A-