Henry Sanderson

The Ebola outbreak that started in West Africa became a global issue as the number of people infected grew and spread to the citizens of America and Europe. In Liberia a West African country, there were 4,769 deaths from Ebola. The disease takes 21 days of incubation which means you would not know if you have it until 21 days after you contract it. The first Ebola case was reported in Guinea when researchers found a 2 year old boy that had died from it in December 2013. Nine months later, on September 30, 2014, the first Ebola case in the USA  had been reported. 

There has always been a little fear in the world of a global pandemic, but the recent Ebola outbreak really sparked it.  At the extreme, a pandemic across the world could spread and kill millions of people. This potentially disastrous event didn't effect me directly but indirectly. My aunt works for the CDC and went to Sierra Leone as a researcher and worker. When she returned, she had to be quarantined for a few weeks to make sure she didn't have Ebola. In addition, the Ebola outbreak has affected my dad's travels. Airports began to check to see if passengers had a fever to make sure they weren't carrying a disease that could infect another country. The world now has a much greater awareness of Ebola and the effects of it. Also, concerns of a potential worldwide pandemic increased.

The Ebola disease has given me a much deeper understanding of how quickly one can die after being diagnosed with the disease. In conclusion, this makes me and many others think how fragile life is and how I appreciate the amazing health care we have in America compared to other countries. Fortunately, this did not result in a global pandemic and only four USA citizens were infected and one of them ended up dying.

Henry Sanderson
11/5/14
Steinbeck Comparative Essay

The Pearl and Of Mice and Men are both parables written by John Steinbeck with many similarities. In The Pearl story there is a poor family that finds a large pearl and they have many dreams from what the pearl will give them but in the end the exquisite pearl destroys Kino's family. Then in Of Mice and Men there are two men that travel from place to place looking for a job to get enough money so they can achieve their dream of owning a little ranch. The thing that is so similar about the two stories is the characters. Each character in the two parables have similarities with a character from the other story. The three pairs of characters that are alike or have the same role are Kino and George, Coyotito and Lennie, and Juan Thomas and Slim.

The first characters who are the most similar from the two novels are Kino and George. Their role in the parables is that they are the fatherly figures. Kino actually is the father of Coyotito while George is not a father but is a fatherly figure for Lennie. Lennie is mentally ill and can not make decisions for himself. For example, when Curley attacks Lennie, Lennie does not know what to do, so Lennie says "make him leave me alone George, (pg. 63)." George has to tell him what to do and when to stop. If George had not been there, Lennie would have gotten in huge trouble. Another reason that Kino and George are alike is that they both ended up killing or getting the person that they take care of killed. For example, George, Lennie's protector shoots Lennie in the back of Lennie's head because Lennie has done many bad things inclusion murder and George knows he will be better off in Heaven. But, in Kino's case it's Kino's greed that causes His baby to be shot in head. Lastly, Kino and George are alike because the whole story is about them trying to achieve their dream and protect who they care for.

Next, Lennie and Coyotito are very similar. There are a few pieces of evidence that Lennie and Coyotito are alike. First, both are babies or act like one. Coyotito is actually a baby and his dad is Kino. Since Coyotito is a baby his parents take care of him and thats how babies are supposed to be. But, Lennie I Lennie's case he is mentally ill and acts like a baby thus he needs a protector. Secondly, they both get shot in the head because of there protector or their protector actually shots them. For example, when Kino wants too much money for the pearl, people start attempting to kill him for it. So while they are running away, one of the trackers kills Coyotito. This is Kino's fault because if he had just sold his pearl for a lower price his baby would still be alive, "Kino was in mid-leap when the gun crashed and the barrel-flash made a picture on his eyes."(pg. 86). Similarly Lennie is killed by his protector when he is shot in the head. The last piece of evidence that proves Coyotito and Lennie are alike is that they have to have a father or a fatherly figure look after them. An example of this is in the parable Of Mice and Men, George is always telling Lennie what to do. It shows this when George and Lennie are going to talk to the boss, George has to tell Lennie that he can't say anything because he will mess up the interview because he will say something stupid.

The last pair of characters that match in the two stories are Juan Thomas and Slim. They are alike because they are both brotherly figures. Both demonstrate this by helping the two main characters Kino, and George achieve their dreams. An example of this is when Kino and his family is supposed to be dead but, Juan Thomas hides Kino and his family in his house and gives them supplies to escape in the night to another city to sell Kino's pearl for more money. Another example of being brotherly is in Of Mice and Men, when Slim makes Curley not tell his dad about the fight and tells Curley to convince his dad that his hand got caught in a machine. Slim does his because he knows it wasn't Lennie's fault that the fight started and Lennie accidentally broke Curley's hand "I think you got your hand caught in a machine. If you don't tell nobody what happen, we ain't going to. But you jus' tell an' try to get this guy canned and we'll tell ever'body, an' then will get the laugh (pg. 64)." Slim can do this because Slim is the big guy on the ranch and Curley's wife has been giving Slim the eye. This means that the boss won't find out about what happened with Lennie and Curley. The reason Lennie and George would lose their jobs is because the boss is Curley's dad so he would have listened to Curley. So Slim did this so Lennie and George wouldn't lose their jobs and they will be able to earn enough money to achieve their dream of having the ranch.

There are many similarities between the characters in both novels. First, there are Kino and George. Kino and George are the fatherly figures. Next, there are Coyotito and Lennie. Coyotito and Lennie are the child figures. Lastly, Juan Thomas and Slim are the brotherly figures. In conclusion, this shows that the characters are similar in both stories because all of the characters are created by John Steinbeck and written by John Steinbeck.