Essay

ENG2d

December 16^th 2012

The Essay

We often think of Growing up as simply leaving behind our blankie, teddy bear and carefree life behind for our jobs, school and possibly Boyfriend/girlfriend, but there is more to it than that. Take the books Feed by M.T Anderson & Lucas by Kevin Brooks for example. There are the challenges faced, growing up that make the changes,          In Feed Titus shows some of the possible challenges faced, growing up First when he finally uses his own brain rather than using the Feed “someone left a message in my head which I found…which said that I was currently disconnected from feed net…I tried to chat my parents…but there was no transmission etc., I was currently etc. so I opened my eyes.” (Pg. 43 Anderson) After years of using the Feed for everything rather than using his own brain he had to finally use his own brain to function. After being disconnected from the Feed net this shows how he had grown up from being a Constant feed user like everyone else to finally independent, in our world it’s and example of going from constantly rely on our parents to starting to do things ourselves.   The next example Is when Titus starts to realize how he is used by his feed net and started to ignore everything it tried to tell him “Everything we do gets thrown into a big calculation, Like they’re watching us right now. They can tell where you’re looking, they to know what you want.” (pg. 97 Anderson) This shows him learning how the world around him and the feed net are really working for him. In our world this is when we learn how what the media wants us to think and what we really should be thinking are two majorly different things.                        In Lucas Cati shows some of the more personal challenges we might face when growing up example the death of Lucas. “I didn’t stop crying for a long time Days, Weeks, Months…time didn’t have any meaning.” (Pg.349-350 Brooks) When we lose someone or something we loved forever we tend to give up on life in our sadness; time doesn’t seem to matter to use when we are grieving Cati has this feeling when her best friend/crush dies this is a part of growing up it teaches us that these things happen and we learn to cope with it.    The next example is when Cati saves her worst enemy from being killed by Lucas for trying to rape her. “LUCAS!” I yelled. “PUT THE KNIFE DOWN! PUT IT DOWN!”….“Don’t do it, Lucas” I said breathing hard. “Please-put the knife away.” (Pg.222 Brooks) This shows that Cati has grown up by not letting Lucas kill Jaime she has got over her hate for Jaime. In our world we’d call this looking past your anger.           Finally when Cati encounters Jaime again after the attack on her a fewer days after “Well, this is nice,” Jamie said with a slight lisp…. “At least I’ll have a face worth remembering when it heals” He looked at me. “You won’t forget will you, Caity?” “No” I said…. “But at least I haven’t wet myself lately.” (Pg. 263-265 Brooks) She had lost some of the fear she had of her worst enemy Jaime see as how she goes as far to remind him of what happened when he was attacked by Lucas. We’d call this facing bully another part of growing up.             With all these examples becoming independent, ignoring the media, heartbreak & coping, looking past your anger and finally facing the bully are some of the many challenges we may face while growing up wouldn’t you agree?