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A review of “That’s what I am”
By Kristina

Yesterday, I watched “That’s what I am”. It’s a drama that is based on true events. The film stars Chase Ellison and Alexander Walters.
It’s the story of two students, Nichol and Stanly, who is nicknamed Big G. They’re tasked to do a project and they decide to do one about tolerance. However, tolerance is the one thing their school lacks. From students, like Stanly and Karen, being bullied because of their appearances, to Mr. Simon, the schools best teacher, being rumored about a homosexual relationship. Some situations happen, that show it. That is, until Stanly enters the schools talent show. Nichol is concerned, that people will laugh at him, but Stanly still gives it a try, so, Nichol is supporting him.
Nichol is the main character of this film and he’s also the narrator. He’s one of the most relatable characters of the movie, mostly because he often reflects the audiences’ reactions. Nichol experiences a lot of things during the film, which inspire him to become a better person and follow his dreams. However, his biggest inspiration is Stanly. Stanly, or Big G, is also an important character. He’s a tall, redheaded guy, who appears to be shy and quiet. But later he’s slowly showing more personality and wisdom. At the talent show, he’s displaying a lot of bravery. This movie features a lot of secondary characters, like Mr. Simon, Mary, Ed, Norman, and, my personal favorite, Karen. Although they don’t get enough character development, they’re still pretty likable and interesting to watch.
In my opinion, this is a serious, but still entertaining film. It has a great concept, but not that great of an execution. The plot was really complicated and it was hard for me to understand what’s going on. However, the movie addresses some real life problems, has a great moral and it really made me think. The special effects are poor quality, because there’re too many shadows and quiet sounds, although I like this old look. Overall, it isn’t a perfect movie, but still worth watching!

immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” “The Picture of Dorian Gray” – a story of a fashionable, evil and scandalous young man named Dorian Gray. He was a beautiful man, but very corrupt and looking only for beauty and material things in his life. This story shows us how young man’s desires can ruin whole his life and what the desires make Dorian Gray to give up for eternal youth and beauty – his soul. The story of Dorian Gray is the most popular Oscar Wilde’s book sold all over the world. In 1890 the tale of Dorian Gray and his immorality caused a big scandal back then. As the author of the novel said, Dorian Gray had a very big moral in himself, but did not explain what exactly he meant. A few years later, Oscar Wilde appeared in trial because of his homosexual liaisons. Everybody started wondering if author portrayed himself as Dorian Gray, O. Wilde had only one answer to that: “Basil Hallward is what I think I am; Lord Henry – what the world thinks of me; Dorian what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps.”

“She is all the great heroines of the world in one. She is more than an individual. I love her, and I must make her love me. I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter, and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain. ”

In my opinion, this books is a marvelous piece of art. When I read this book I couldn’t do anything else until I finished it. The story is engaging, has a certain dark and supernatural Gothic period feeling. All in all, this story of Dorian Gray shows people what most people seek more in life – beauty, fame and materialism. But within the lines you can see a lot of beautiful and strong lines about our lives, strong ideas and quotes.

becoming colder and colder, when one evening, the missing body of Rebecca is finally found. After this revelation Maxim has no other choice but to admit to his new wife the truth. Rebecca was a horrid person, who cheated on him constantly and disrespected him through out their whole marriage, so Mr.de Winter lost his patience and shot his wife. After this revelation, a lot of troubles has yet to come to the heroine and her husband, but at least she finally finds peace with herself and shakes off the long stuck Rebeccas image. She once again starts to believe in her husbands love and finds the strength to help him overcome the problems that await.

This book shows us how strongly people love and how love changes them, sometimes for the better,and sometimes for the worse. Our heroine presents us how far one can go for a person they love, how many things they can refuse and leave behind only to have the warmth of a loved person, as well as if you find the right person , many frightening things and situations can become a little less scary with them by your side.

This is a very interesting and gripping story, which is narrated from the author’s (Willa Cather) point of view as one of the main book character’s friend (Jim Burden). “My Antonia” is a novel about a girl (Antonia Shimerda), her hard but joyful life, boy (Jim Burden) who loved her his entire life from all of his heart and beauty of the country they are living in. Antonia is a girl who works as a farmer for half of her life because of her family’s financial situation It’s her brother’s farm and he is responsible for it, but Antonia’s brother (Ambrosch) does not even try to move his finger and find someone who would help him in farming instead of Antonia. Tony (Antonia) Shimerda is a very strong girl who experienced a lot of hard and confusing things in her life: her father’ suicide, heavy field work, boyfriend’s fraud and loneliness. But she still manages to see beauty in other people, stay happy and be thankful of what she has. Everyone should learn how to appreciate what we have and how to be happy every day because we are not doomed yet if we have something to eat or someone by our sides. The title “My Antonia” is with word “My” due to Jim’s inscriptions which were presented in the introduction. This novel is considered as Cather’s first masterpiece and I agree with that because I could nottake my eyes off the book until I finished it. I think everybody should read such an inspiring and beautiful book to find something positive in their lives. I know I did after reading this book. 💡

“I think we are just insects, we live a bit and then die and that’s the lot. There’s no mercy in things. There’s not even a Great Beyond. There’s nothing.” (J.Fowles)

Nowadays, people spend a lot of time looking for the answer who we are and what is the main aim of our life. A few years ago I have also started thinking about who I am and why I am living. I found a lot of different articles and movies, but recently I’ve realized that the best way to answer all these questions is reading books. Of course, not all books are fit for this purpose. Existential and psychological novels are the best books that can help to explain many difficult spiritual things. I have read several books which changed my way of thinking, books like “Utopia” by Thomas More, ”The Master and Margaret” by Michail Bulgakov and a few other, but one book has become a mystery to me – it is “The Collector” by John Fowles. I am still trying to understand what the main topic of this novel is, but every time I start thinking about it, I have many different questions and there’s always something that I cannot explain.

“The collector” was written by an English novelist of international stature John Robert Fowles and it was his first novel that became very popular. A few years after publishing (1963) the book, a featured film with the same title was created. On one hand, it seems that “The collector” is a tragic love story, but on the other hand, it’s something more than that. As I said before, this novel is full of various topics and perspectives. It is about love and relations, happiness and sadness, domestication and about some of us – poor people who are still looking for something good for our soul. This whole inner world is presented only by relations between the two main characters Frederick and Miranda.

The author presents two very different people. Frederick Clegg is a young lonely man who collects butterflies in his spare time. Miranda Grey is a middle-class art student at the Slade School of Fine Arts. Frederick is obsessed with Miranda, he likes her looks, but he does not realize what is happening in her mind. The lack of social skills prevents him from talking to her, but he dreams how he is going to meet her and marry one day. His dream comes true, but only partially. Frederick wins a large money prize and hopes that Miranda will love him at least for his money. He decides to buy an old isolated house in the countryside, arranges everything for his guest and kidnaps Miranda. Further, the author presents a fight between two main characters. There are a lot of external and internal conflicts. All that happens next is self-knowledge in a very uncharacteristic way even for extreme situations.

John Fowles uses two perspectives to tell his story. One part is presented from Frederick’s point of view and the other part is presented in a way of reading Miranda’s diary. This way, the author shows much more details for his readers and creates a very gloomy atmosphere. “While being a guest” Miranda analyzes her whole life. Of course, she tries to get out of her cell, but she is not strong enough to physically fight with Frederick. She understands that freedom is the most important value in life. Miranda remembers her family and friends, but a big part of her memories is occupied by a man named G.P. Finally, she realizes that she would like to get married with G.P. and continue her artworks. At the same time, Frederick hopes that one day Miranda is going to love him because she is the aim of his life. He tries to be a nice and person, but the lack of social skills and education prevents him of normal conversations with Miranda. Frederick has a very big disadvantage it is his selfishness interlaced with fear. On one hand, Frederick has reached his goal – he has Miranda very near and nobody, as it seems, can destroy his beautiful life. But on the other hand, the result did not meet his expectations. J. Fowles says “We all want things we can’t have. Being a decent human being is accepting that.” When a person, in this case Frederick, dreams about Miranda for a long time he feels happy about his dreams, but when Miranda becomes a real person – someone he can touch or talk with – Frederick loses his interest, loses his aim and now he has to look for something new. At the end of the story, after Miranda‘s death, he realizes that he has found his cruel „vocation“ – to collect not only butterflies but also young beautiful girls.

When I have finished reading this book I tried to imagine what my reaction and behavior would be if I were in Miranda‘s place. Also, I tried to understand and even justify Frederick‘s behavior, but it was really hard. For one moment I even thought that Miranda was to blame for some of Frederic‘s actions. I cannot say that this book has revealed the purpose to my life, but I have found two main thoughts which are very useful. The first, is that we should reduce our level of selfishness and try to live as if today is the last day of our lives because one can never know what can happen next. The second, is that all our goals are like butterflies – we need a lot of time to catch them, and we can never know what the result will be. Some people are like Frederick – they collect small and large butterflies and hide them for the future so that later they could boast about the wonderful collection and have a hope that the biggest and the most beautiful butterfly that can satisfy all the expectations is captured.

Wuthering Heights, the novel that no one expected to become such a popular book, was published in 1847 and written by one of the Brontë sisters – Emily.There is an interesting story behind Brontë women that caught my eye while researching about the novel “Wuthering Heights”. In the 19th century when Emily, Anne and Charlotte were trying to publish their novels, it was really hard for women to be taken as seriously as men in writing and publishing sphere. So they had to figure out what to do. And they did – sisters wend under the male pseudonyms Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell for a while. And when it was safe enough to announce who they really were it was a shock to all those people who liked their novels. I found it quite amusing because this fact represents not only the attitude towards women at that time but also shows the reader what he or she can expect to find in the book.
The novel “Wuthering Heights” itself, according to the critics (and I agree with them), is a masterpiece of Gothic love that includes moonless nights, supernatural encounters which helps to create the atmosphere of mystery, fear and makes the reader to want to know what happens next. “Wuthering Heights”, if I may say so,represents a passionate, intense and crazy love between Catherine Earshaw and Heathcliff. Love, which seemed doomed from the beginning.
When Catherine was little, one evening her father brought home an adopted child, which he took care of as any other child of his. Catherine and the adopted child, Heathcliff, grew together as their love for each other. Catherine and Heathcliff grew their interest in each other as well. It seemed wrong to love each other while living under the same roof. But when Catherine’s father died and she could be with Heathcliff for eternity, her brother, Hindley, bullied, humiliated him and finally told Heathcliff to go away because he has nothing to offer to his beloved sister. I found it too harsh because Heathcliff only wanted good for Catherine and her real brother was so stubborn that he couldn’t understand Heathcliff’s purest interests. So Heathcliff, after all that humiliation, went away with a belief that one day he could change his status and be more suitable man for Catherine. And he did change: Heathcliff returned as a rich and polished man to Wuthering Heights years later with the plan of revenge. As we can understand, he became not only rich and powerful but also full of anger.
Even though the story is tragic, chaotic and dark we still get the feeling of love which can conquer all. At first this novel might seem a little bit shallow. Yes, that happened to me and I am not proud of it. At first I read the blurb and thought that it would be another story of two people who cannot be together for some reason. But when I read the whole novel I thought to myself “And you thought it would be lame…”. In a way it was about two people who cannot be together because of the social status. But to me it seemed much deeper later. Brontë in “Wuthering Heights” introduced us not only to the feeling of wild and passionate love but also how money and society can change people’s attitudes towards each other and themselves. Money not always brings happiness: it often makes positive feelings go away and instead of those to feel greed and anger.

Well, at the end I would like to mention one last interesting fact: “Wuthering Heights” is considered to be one of the greatest English literature pieces of all as well as Emily Brontë is considered to be one the best writers of 19th century between women and men. And now, after I read one of her books, I will totally read more because I liked everything about “Wuthering Heights”: the idea, the style of writing and etc. I hope you will enjoy reading this novel too. 😉