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Pages:
3 pages/≈825 words
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No Sources
Style:
MLA
Subject:
Literature & Language
Type:
Essay
Language:
English (U.S.)
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MS Word
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Topic:

Fear Can Make You Stronger

Essay Instructions:

I need a thesis statement put at the end of introduction please.
1 Example from the short story (like for example....) has to be included in each body paragraph.
please email me with any questions
HERE IS THE Short story because you'll have to pull out an example for each body paragraph that relates to the question you decide to answer in the prompt is for the terror is:
“The Terror” by Junot Diaz :
I got jumped at a pretty bad time in my life. Not that there’s ever a good time.
What I mean is that I was already deep in the vulnerability matrix. I had just entered seventh grade, was at peak adolescent craziness and, to make matters worse, was dealing with a new middle school whose dreary white middle-­class bigotry was cutting the heart out of me. I wasn’t two periods into my first day before a classmate called me a ‘‘sand nigger,’’ as if it were no big deal. Someone else asked me if my family ate dogs every day or only once in a while. By my third month, that school had me feeling like the poorest, ugliest immigrant freak in the universe.
My home life was equally trying. My father abandoned the family the year before, plunging our household into poverty. No sooner than that happened, my brother, who was one year older and my best friend and protector, was found to have leukemia, the kind that in those days had a real nasty habit of killing you. One day he was sprawled on our front stoop in London Terrace holding court, and the next he was up in Newark, 40 pounds lighter and barely able to piss under his own power, looking as if he were one bad cold away from the grave.
I didn’t know what to do with myself. I tried to be agreeable, to make friends, but that didn’t work so hot; mostly I just slouched in my seat, hating my clothes and my glasses and my face. Sometimes I wrote my brother letters. Made it sound as though I were having a great time at school — a ball.
And then came the beat-down. Not at school, as I would have expected, but on the other side of the neighborhood. At the hands and feet of these three brothers I dimly knew. The youngest was my age, and on the day in question we had a spat over something — I can’t remember what. I do remember pushing him down hard onto the sidewalk and laughing about it, and the kid running off in tears, swearing he was going to kill me. Then the scene in my head jumps, and the next thing I know, the kid comes back with his two older brothers, and I’m getting my face punched in. The older brothers held me down and let the younger brother punch me all he wanted. I cried out for my brother, but he was in Beth Israel Hospital, saving no one. I remember one of the older ones saying, ‘‘Hit him in the teeth.’’
As these things go, it wasn’t too bad. I didn’t actually lose any teeth or break any limbs or misplace an eye. Afterward, I even managed to limp home. My mother was at the hospital, so no one noticed that I had gotten stomped. Even took my blackened eye to classes the next day, but because my assailants attended another school, I didn’t have to tell the truth. I said, ‘‘It happened in karate.’’
My first real beat-down, and I was furious and ashamed, but above all else I was afraid. Afraid of my assailants. Afraid they would corner me again. Afraid of a second beat-down. Afraid and afraid and afraid. Eventually the bruises and the rage faded, but not the fear. The fear remained. An awful withering dread that coiled around my bowels — that followed me into my dreams. (‘‘Hit him in the teeth.’’) I guess I should have told someone, but I was too humiliated. And besides, my No.1 confidant, my brother, wasn’t available.
So I locked up the whole miserable affair deep inside. I thought that would help, but avoidance only seemed to give it more strength.
Without even thinking about it, I started doing everything I could to duck the brothers. I shunned their part of the neighborhood. I started looking around buildings to make sure the coast was clear. I stayed in the apartment a lot more, reading three, four books a week. And whenever I saw the brothers, together or individually — in a car, on a bike, on foot — the fear would spike through me so powerfully that I felt as though I was going to lose my mind. In ‘‘Dune,’’ a novel I adored in those days, Frank Herbert observed that ‘‘Fear is the mind-­killer,’’ and let me tell you, my man knows of what he speaks. When the brothers appeared, I couldn’t think for nothing. I would drop whatever I was doing and get away, and it was only later, after I calmed down, that I would realize what I had done
The brothers didn’t pursue me. They would jeer at me and occasionally throw rocks, but even if they weren’t chasing me in the flesh, they sure were chasing me in spirit. After these encounters, I would be a mess for days: depressed, irritable, hypervigilant, ashamed. I hated these brothers from the bottom of my heart, but even more than them, I hated myself for my cowardice.
Before that attack, I had felt fear plenty of times — which poor immigrant kid hasn’t? — but after my beating, I became afraid. And at any age, that is a dismal place to be.
Given all the other crap I was facing, my adolescence was never going to win any awards. But sometimes I like to think that if that beat-down didn’t happen, I might have had an easier time of it. Maybe a whole bunch of other awfulness would not have happened. But who can really know? In the end, the fear become another burden I had to shoulder — like having a sick brother or brown skin in a white school.
Took me until I was a sophomore in high school — yes, that long — before I finally found it in me to start facing my terror. By then, my older brother was in remission and wearing a wig to hide his baldness. Maybe his improbable survival was what gave me courage, or maybe it was all the Robert Cormier I was reading — his young heroes were always asking themselves, ‘‘Do I dare disturb the universe?’’ before ultimately deciding that yes, they did dare. Whatever it was, one day I found myself fleeing from a sighting of the brothers, and suddenly I was brought up short by an appalling vision: me running away forever.
I forced myself to stop. I forced myself to turn toward them, and it felt as if the whole world was turning with me. I couldn’t make myself walk toward them, I could barely even look at them, so I settled for standing still. As the brothers approached, the ground started tilting out from under me. One of them scowled.
And then, without a word, they walked past.

Essay Sample Content Preview:
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Fear Can Make You Stronger
Fear is a strong emotion. It can either break or build someone. If one gets overpowered by fear, that person will probably tremble and fall. However, if one overcomes fear, then that person will be able to grow and go on with life. Fear is an emotion that everyone feels. And everyone is undoubtedly scared of something or someone, or they have had a frightening experience. No doubt, in Junot Diaz’s story (The Terror), he was dealing with much fear. His dad abandoned the home, his brother had leukemia, and he was getting picked on in school. There was a time when I was dealing with a fear that almost broke me. I did not want to experience that anymore, so I decided to face my fear. Therefore, no matter how frightening a person or situation is, it is necessary to learn how to deal with fear.
The threat of harm causes fear, and dealing with fear can be frightening. According to Junot Diaz’s short story, he mentions, “In Dune, a novel I adored in those days, Frank Herbert observed that, “Fear is a mind-killer” and let me tell you, my man knows what he speaks” (104). This statement defines fear in a word, which is mind-killer. Junot emphasizes how mentally deteriorating fear is, and I am proof of this statement. I once lived a life with constant fear, which affected me in every way. It has influenced how I think, act, and socialize. It had left me in a constant state of thinking about how to avoid the fear. This fear began when I was a child. Everyone in the neighborhood was living their best lives, while I tried to find my purpose and belonging by trying to fit in with groups. My fear of being alone had grown and consumed me. I used to be scared of being alone, believing that being alone indicated loneliness. I envied teenagers who hung out with their peers and students who were always in groups in the cafeterias or libraries. Because I was afraid of being alone, I tried to join various social circles, but I always found myself alone. There are several reasons why people end up alone; we may have different interests and statuses, I may dislike them, or they dislike me. Regardless of how hard I tried to avoid my fear, it seemed to follow me everywhere. It haunted me.
There is no other way to overcome fear than to confront it. The effects of my actions had taken their toll on me, leading me to take the necessary steps. Since I was afraid of being alone and wanted to fit in, I had made an awful decision by surrounding myself with the wrong people who harmed me rather than loving and caring for me. However, I a...
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