Olivia's Exam Essay

Olivia Denison
Mr. Salsich
English 9
June 4th, 2009

What Makes You “Sing?” :
An Essay about Overcoming Obstacles in Life by Relating a Poem to Two Books

What are the obstacles you have overcome? What was in you way that made it hard for you to fight your way back into control? The fictional characters, Sonny and Caliban had obstacles they had to overcome, in order to manipulate (FAST) their lives, to gain control.

In the story “Sonny’s Blues”, the main character Sonny has problems with using drugs. In the poem “The Real Work”, By Wendell Berry, he talks about how the stream that’s “impeded […] is the one that sings.” Sonny’s problem with drugs in his life is like a river having to flow through rocks. (SIMILE) At first he doesn’t know what to do about these “rocks”, but he eventually overcomes them. For Sonny, it is hard to choose between the life of drugs and a sober life, that is his “real journey”. Sonny may have wanted the drugs, but he knew that choosing a life with no drugs would be better for him and everyone he knew. He had been following the life of drugs for so long, that when it was time to choose it was a long and hard journey for him to figure out what to do next, and how it would transform (FAST) him. After his fight with drugs, he is still fighting the urge to want them, but those urges are what make him “sing.”

Caliban, from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, has a similar but different situation from Sonny. Caliban is imprisoned, on what used to be his island, and now he is a slave to the all and mighty Prospero. Just like a river, Caliban’s life was smooth before he was enslaved by Prospero. Being a slave, he has to follow Prospero’s orders, which makes his life miserable. At the end of the story, Prospero decides Caliban’s fate, to let him be a free man. Caliban is once again a big flowing “river”, now that Prospero is gone. His life or “river” sings with his misfortunes (FAST), his “rocks.” Nothing can stop him from smoothly flowing over his strained past.

Try as hard as you can to over come the obstacles in your life, big or small. Choose the path that you think is right, and fight as hard as you can against the force, of whatever is pushing back.