Essay Write Up

Essay Write-Up

Prejudice sweeps through Haroon and Jay’s School in Bifocal, while Josh ‘corrupts’ the mind of innocents as he hides behind his pseudonym Larry in The Gospel According to Larry. Could the two books be related in the slightest? Prejudice and manipulation, two traits with seemingly nothing in common, or is there? Bifocal and The Gospel According to Larry, although different books, both explore prejudice and manipulation. In Bifocal the main theme is prejudice and how this is achieved through the manipulation of facts by the characters of the novel and the media. In the Gospel According to Larry the main theme is the power of the media and how it can be used to manipulate people’s ideas and opinions about a subject. These opinions can lead to a prejudice being formed about the creators of the media.

In Bifocal the white students were prejudiced against the Muslim kids just because of the actions of a few members of their religion. When Azeem gets arrested on suspected terrorist charges, the white students presume that all Muslim kids are suspected terrorists. The quote “Get moving, unless your planning a suicide bombing”- Kevin pg 91, proves this fact and shows that he doesn’t understand much about that culture. In fact most Muslims are opposed to suicide bombing as they say that it is against their religious law and that the teachings are being misinterpreted by extremists. If Kevin really understood about that religion then he would not have made such an unprovoked, racist statement. Prejudiced statements like the one made by Kevin, can manipulate and influence people’s opinion about a cultural group.

In The Gospel According to Larry, the type of prejudice and manipulation is very different. Instead of a group of people judging each other based on one or a few of the group members actions, it is based on curiosity and what they don’t know about Josh. As a result of this prejudice, Josh has to manipulate the facts and clues to his identity to protect his pseudonym. This means that his followers make judgment about a person that they don’t know, such as the identity of Larry. They are assuming that ‘Larry’ has a secret reason for hiding his identity, such as that if people knew who he was, then they would no longer listen to his sermons. The media also manipulates their readers and builds up the prejudice against Larry by inventing reasons why he would keep his identity secret. As a result of this prejudice people begin to think that he really isn’t that smart and that that is the reason why he hid his identity.

Another example of prejudice in Bifocal is when Kevin states: “Why don’t you shut up, you stupid sand monkey!”- Kevin pg 191. This quote is important because it shows that, even though Kevin had little reason to be mad, he still said these terrible things. He said these things based on what he had never learned and on ignorance, which is the same type of prejudice as in Larry. What he meant when he called Zana a “stupid sand monkey” was that she was poor and uneducated just because she had brown skin and was Middle Eastern. Kevin said these extremely racist comments even though he barely knew Zana and didn’t know about her culture.

There is a similar prejudice in The Gospel According to Larry aimed at Josh because of his age. This prejudice is because the people who follow his sermons don’t know that he is actually smarter than most adults. Once his identity is released, no one listens to the sermons because they are too engrossed with the story unfolding about the real Josh. The quote “I thought you’d be older”, she said. “Thirty, at least.” Her grimace indicated that my cow licked morning hair and pajama-lifejacket combo did not meet with her approval. – Betagold, proves that people made prejudices about what they don’t know instead of the facts. It shows that Betagold, who discovered Larry’s true identity, had built up the prejudice that Larry was a middle aged genius who had a vast experience on life. When Betagold actually meets Josh however, it describes how she is disappointed and that his look does not match the image that she has come up with. “Get this- a teenager telling someone with almost fifty years of experience, what the story is.”- Producer pg 150. This quote is important because it shows that even though Josh is extremely smart, and knows the story better then anyone the producer and the rest of the media suddenly don’t care about the sermons and only want the parts that will sell well. They believe that just because he is only seventeen that he is not smart and that the adults are much smarter and know more even though that is not the case.

In The Gospel According to Larry, Josh manipulated thousands of people and educated them about anti-consumerism, yet he used only a website. His father manipulated thousands of people using several types of media, trying to sell products. Although Peter was funded and used several different types of media Larry was still more popular even though he only used his website. This shows the power of the web compared to other types of media. This quote:. “An ad for a major designer company deflected criticism of paying Asian workers a dollar a day”, is important because it shows that the stuff which Peter is marketing, Larry is trashing on his website. This means that it’s up to whatever type of media is the strongest to see who will have the most influence. This is because the strongest type of media will catch the reader’s attention and then win them over.

While the manipulation in The Gospel According to Larry is all about the more powerful type of media, the type of manipulation in Bifocal is more of a mix of two types: physical and the news. The quote “It seemed like we were walking faster, that we had more power, more strength. Kids in the hall just flattened themselves against the lockers and got out of our way”. Is important because it shows how the football team used their strength and status to manipulate others and to get what they want. This could also be considered bullying as they are using threatening or forceful means. The other form of manipulation in Bifocal was the news. The news reported on the events happening in the school, but it only reported the bad and desolate stuff because that is the type of reports that sell even if it was an exaggeration.

In Bifocal and The Gospel According to Larry, there are many similarities and differences with regard to prejudice and manipulation. These were the prejudice against Muslims just because of their religion as well as the prejudice against Josh based on what people didn’t know about him because of what he concealed, which led to unfair judgment. It also included the manipulation from Josh and Peter and the way that they manipulated the country using varied types of media. In Bifocal there was the way that the football team manipulated the students using force. The last form of manipulation included in both books was the manipulation from the news and how they only reported what would sell the best and not always the true story.

As a lasting thought, there are many ways of manipulation, but only the most powerful will leave a lasting impression and memory and none of the others.

Essay Reflection

Essay study Reflection

To study for the essay I created and reviewed notes that I had made on the two books as well as scanned the books for the themes and some of the most important quotes. Although I tried to make a mind map of my thoughts I was not sure of the topic so I couldn’t create one. I think that I should have used better study habits for the essay.

If I had the option of completely redoing the essay I would bring my notes to the essay as well as study how to create the proper essay format. If I was to review my essay structure handouts better then I would be able to know the proper structure and be better able to organize my thoughts. Along with these improvements I would also review my grammar and spelling after I had created my essay.

I think that my main problem was how to organize my thoughts. I think this because as you can see from the mind map that I created during the essay, I had many ideas, but I didn’t know how to get them on to the paper. Another problem that I had was that not all of my quotes had a very big importance to the topic that I was discussing and instead they could have been replaced by much more meaningful quotes.

As a recommendation to the teacher I think that for the essay next year you should go into more depth on how to put your thoughts on a page. Another improvement that you could make is to give us the topics before the essay so that we have time to study them and analyze them. Those topics were really hard and I think that at a grade 8 level we should not be able to come up with a decent essay on the spot. This is shown by how low the class average was this year and other years.

P.S this post is 336 words long.