Analysis Essay: Revised Draft

Rujian, Zhou

2/14/2016

True Strength

What is true strength? I think that the true strength is not just simple as a great power, but the wise and intellect to use the great power. Both of Lorenzo in Me And You and Hank Palmer in The Judge are the people who has great ability in someway, but they are antisocial and ruthless people who never shows their real feelings. Fortunately, the people around them changes them. Lorenzo is changed by his step sister Olivia and Hank is changed by his family members. As a result, both of them becomes grown men who learn that the true strength comes from firm mind in improving themselves, challenging themselves, as well as protect those people they love. The power of love is always the strongest that can not be broken.

Even though there are many differences between a movie and a novel, the story and the main points of them can be similar. The novel Me And You and the movie The Judge have a lot common in their main character as well as ideas.

Firstly, the novel Me And You is about an Italian boy Lorenzo who is an empathetic person who only thinking about himself, because the other people are irrelevant of him. In Lorenzo’s mind, people around him are all “Others”, which “The others were anyone who wasn't my mum, my father and grandma Laura” (Ammaniti 24). As a result, Lorenzo does not have true friends in school and he never opens his heart to any people. In spite of this, Lorenzo is actually a talented kid. For example, Lorenzo lied to his mother about he will go to a ski week with his classmate Alessia Roncato who is very popular in class. To continue this lie, Lorenzo makes a very detailed and thoughtful plan, he hides in the basement under for his “ski week”. He stores foods, water and games that he can play in the cellar. Furthermore, he tricks his mother that let him go to Alessia’ house alone, and finally he returns in the basement without anybody know. Since Lorenzo has the ability to design such a precise and successful plan, it clearly determines that Lorenzo is actually a brilliant kid and an excellent actors. Moreover, when he tries to trick his mother, he thinks “I had one last card to play” (Ammaniti 17). It proves that Lorenzo also has deep and scheming thinking in his mind. Even though Lorenzo has many great talents, he never thinks about other people.

After that, Lorenzo meets Olivia, who is his “half-sister” and the person who makes him change and inspires him the right way to use his talent. Olivia was a very beautiful girl when Lorenzo met her two years ago, Lorenzo thinks that “Instead she was incredibly beautiful, one of those girls that as soon as you look at them your face burns red and everybody knows you think she is beautiful”(Ammaniti 70). However, she loses a lot weights and seems to have heavy illness now. This is because Olivia is a heroin addict and she is suffered by the withdrawal of the drugs. Olivia seems to be the girl who also does not not how to deal with other people like Lorenzo.

Lorenzo changes a lot during the time he stays with Olivia, it is not only about his attitude towards Olivia, but also Lorenzo as a person becomes aware of the true strength. At the beginning, Lorenzo thinks Olivia is very annoyed person and a block, because she vomits, scratches herself which is noisy as well as Olivia breaks his “perfect plan”. However, after staying with Olivia for a few days, Lorenzo feels pity to Olivia. Lorenzo finds out that he and Olivia share many things in common, such as both of them can not disagree with their parents. When Olivia keeps in poor health and she is dying. Lorenzo sees her grandmother Laura who is dying in hospital from Olivia. Lorenzo feels helpless and powerless because he can not do anything for grandma Laura. Lorenzo thinks this is his chance to show his strength, and to prove his ability. Therefore he decides to find medicine for Olivia to refill his helpless and powerless. This is the first time that Lorenzo cares about others. Lorenzo comes out from his comfort zone - his little world in the basement and tries to do something great - to save his sister’s life, even though his “perfect plan” about ski week maybe explode. At this time, Lorenzo clearly shows his brave and warm heart to the readers. Lorenzo is not wearing the invisible mask anymore, he shows his true feeling - his love towards Olivia. He sounds like a superhero who is going to save the heroine when he says “I’ll take care of everything. You stay here, I’ll be back soon”(Ammaniti 112) to Olivia. In addition to this, Lorenzo also shows his braves and intelligence in the process of finding medicines. Such as sneaking into hospital and going back to basement without let Silver Monkey know. After Olivia gets medicine from Lorenzo, she becomes much better. Because of this, Lorenzo feels very proud of himself and gains confidence. Lorenzo knows that he has the ability save someone’s life, and this is the right way to use his strength. Therefore, Lorenzo’s change deeply related with his step sister irrefutably.

Ten years after that, Lorenzo becomes much more talkative and mature. When he meets with Olivia in Cividale del Friuli, he talks and treats to other people elegantly and politely, like a gentleman. Lorenzo says to the waitress very politely, like “Thank you” (Ammaniti 5), as well as to the man at the last “Can I stay with her” (Ammaniti 152). These significant changes determines that Lorenzo is not the merciless wired boy anymore, he is a responsible grown up man now. As a grown man Lorenzo knows the true strength is not used to fool his mother, it is used to take cave his family, the people who he loves.  In my opinion, Lorenzo’s courage and passion on save the person he love in the story is the true strength, and it is very brave of him to save his sister.

People can change because one person as well as many people, it is not important about the number of the people, but how they change. The movie The Judge’s main character Hank Palmer also has revolutionary changes that infect his whole life, but he changes not only because one person like Lorenzo does, he changes because many people, specifically, his family members.

The main character in movie The Judge Hank Palmer is a gifted lawyer in Chicago, but he is also very solitary. He helps those scums of a community get away from the punishment of law, because of “Innocent people can’t afford me”. In addition to this, he thinks it fine about knowing every person he represents is guilty. Hank feels not shameful about being against to the law, and he seems to be very narcissism about himself because he has the ability to confound black and white. Moreover, Hank and his father Joseph Palmer, who is the judge of Hank’s small hometown Carlinville alienated each other for over 20 years. This traces back to an accident happened when Hank was 17 years old, which makes Hank’s elder brother Glen Palmer lose his bright future in baseball. As these plots show, Hank is a person that has powerful skills in his life, but he is too arrogant and do not show solicitude for other people. Hank has a very successful life in normal people’s eyes, he says “I do it in a Tempur-Pedic bed, in a Highland Park home with a Ferrari, next to a lovely wife” to his co-worker. Despite of these shinny outlooks of Hank, Hank is very similar to Lorenzo, which both of them are clever, but they are stupid in some ways.