Nowadays, everyone is looking for their ideal life, we have different pursuits in our life, and we reach for it. There are two stories that were about the pursuit of people looking for a better life. The story ‘Barrio Boy’ was written by Ernesto Galarza, it was mainly about a Mexican American boy named Ernesto who went to a new immigrant school in America. He met a lot of students who came from other countries and other cultures. Even though it was hard to learn English for some kids, the teacher Ms. Ryan was still showing her patience and kindness to the kids. The school taught the children how to become good Americans, but also remembering and respecting where they were originally from. The story “The Other Side of the Sky” was about a girl from Afghanistan named Farah and her mother. They were refugees who wanted to escape to Pakistan. They met difficulties, but then they met a friendly family, the woman's husband Ghulam Ali found a way to escape, they were willing to take Farah and her mother with them. They then cross the border successfully with the help of Ghulam Ali. The similarity of both stories was that they have the same perspective, first person’s perspective. From the first person’s perspective, we can understand what the author felt in the specific situation intuitively. Ernesto was telling us that from his viewpoint, everything in the new school seemed unfamiliar to him as an immigrant from Mexico, and the new English culture was challenging for him. Farah was telling us how they specifically felt when she and her mom were almost separated by the crowd in the chaotic situation. Sometimes, the thoughts and feelings of the author might be obscure when we are looking from a third person’s perspective. If we were using the third person’s viewpoint to think about those stories, then the details of the main characters’ thoughts might be hidden. Also, the genre of both stories was fiction, but they can be substitutes to our modern world. The genre indicated the events that happened in the story have or might happen in the real world. Just like Ernesto, a legal immigrant from Mexico to America, or Farah and her mom, illegal immigrants who wanted to escape from wars. It conveyed to readers what was happening now in our realistic world, and the link between the fictional events in the story to the real events that influenced people’s life.
Although the two stories have the same perspective and genre, they still have a lot of inner differences. First of all, their setting was different. Ernesto was a new student in an immigrant school in America, and Farah was a refugee who could only be waiting in front of the border line of Pakistan trying to get through, or secretly cross the border. To be an immigrant, they have different purposes and pursuit of going to another country. For example, Ernesto was looking for a higher quality of education, and Farah was looking for a peaceful life without suffering from wars. Their purpose of being an immigrant led to the conflicts they met. Because Ernesto was originally speaking Spanish, it was hard for him to fully accommodate English and to learn English. Farah was suffering from the war in Afghanistan, she had lost one leg, and it might be because of the war. In general, they were both looking for a better life in the other country, but their situation had a lot of differences, Farah’s situation was more severe compared to Ernesto. The difference between Ernesto and Farah showed two situations on their way of looking for a better life.
Everyone was looking for our ideal life and managing to achieve our pursuit, persistence is the way that gets us to success. The conflicts will definitely be troubling us on the path to a better life, they are unavoidable, but we can overcome them by persisting and never give up. In ‘Barrio Boy’, Ernesto had problems at learning English at first, but after his persistence of learning, his English had improved significantly. In ‘The Other Side of the Sky’, Farah and her mother never think of giving up either when they meet the chaotic crowd or climbing the steep mountain, because they know if they give up, they will never be able to live in peace. The desire to have a better life was enough to keep them persisting. To live a better life needed our improvements and persistence. If we persist in getting through the difficulties, then we can overcome them and reach our goal of success and a better life.
In conclusion, everyone was looking for their ideal life, we have different pursuits in our life, and we reach for it. There are two stories that were about the pursuit of people looking for a better life. The similarity of both stories was that they have the same perspective, first person’s perspective. From the first person’s perspective, we can understand what the author felt in the specific situation intuitively. The genre indicated the events that happened in the story have or might happen in the real world. It conveyed to readers what was happening now in our realistic world, and the link between the fictional events in the story to the real events that influenced people’s life. Although the two stories have the same perspective and genre, they still have a lot of inner differences. The difference between Ernesto and Farah showed two situations on their way of looking for a better life. To live a better life needed our improvements and persistence. If we persist in getting through the difficulties, then we can overcome them and reach our goal of success and a better life.
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