Bridget Plate
Mrs. Sullivan
American Literature
September 22, 2015
Compare and Contrast Essay The character Elli Friedman in the book I Have Lived a Thousand Years by Livia Bitton-Jackson and the main character Peter in the book Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult endured many struggles while they were both young. Ellie, at the age of thirteen was thrown into the rath of the Holocaust. Peter was only five-years-old when he first faced the world of bullies. Although Ellie and Peter both try and overcome struggles at a young age, their situations are drastically different. Elli and Peter share many similarities as they both face harsh realities. Elli and Peter were both victimized by two different groups of people. Elli was subjected…show more content… Many suffered and lost dear loved ones, including Elli. Elli lost her aunt, father, and many of her friends and neighbors. Before Ellie and her family are ripped away from their homes and forced into concentration camps, Elli and her mother, Laura, did not have a loving relationship. Ellie's mother was a subtle woman who finds Elli's poetry gruesome and prefers her intelligent, narrow-minded older brother, Bubi. Her mother thought she looked like and should have been a boy. To wit, Elli had a stronger relationship with her father. Throughout the span of the book Elli is with her mother going back and forth from concentration camps, and helping one another in a time when they need each other the most building a stronger relationship than they ever had before. There were hard times were Elli could have left her mother and it would have been easier for her to survive, but she stayed with her. Staying with her mother made Laura realize that her daughter may not be the prettiest on the outside, but she was an altruistic and beautiful young women on the inside, and she really was the daughter that she always…show more content… Peter may be a fictional character but he struggles with same situations many kids in this century face. Peter, is in depression from a lifelong harassment by "cool kids". Josie, whose mom is a judge, was Peter’s best friend, first crush, and life saver from early preschool and beyond. She protected, and defended him. But Josie dumps Peter once high school starts, like everyone else did, because she is tired of receiving the same treatment as Peter. Josie is also evidently and undeniably pretty which automatically classified her as a "cool kid". Peter the computer geek, who wasn't good at sports and received Bs and Cs on his report card was tormented, judged and criticized everyday of his life. Even by his own brother someone who he was compared to and could never measure up with. Finally in his junior year of high school he wrote out a poem that expressed his true feelings for Josie in an email something private that was only meant for her. That emailed was forward to entire student body and the one thing Peter kept secret for so long was exposed. One morning a week later that letter came back to haunt him when it froze on his computer screen. That morning Peter went to school with two pistols, two of his dad's hunting rifles and a small homemade bomb in his backpack. First a bomb went off in the student parking lot, then gunshots were heard as Peter entered
movie through creative outlets. Specifically, in the first scene, the waiters on the boat appear to be very timid around Ellie and her father. Then, later in the opening scenes, Ellie’s father demeans his staff by calling