In
the beginning of Elephant
Run by
Roland Smith, Nick the main character in the story is a thirteen year
old, who is treated like he is an adult. Most teens feel like they are treated
like either adults or three year-olds and are never treated the way they would
like to be, but Nick really was treated as an adult. He lived with his mom in
London, England and his dad owned a elephant plantation in the middle of a
Burmese jungle, after the Japanese attacked London, his mom thought he would be
safer with his dad... she was wrong. Nick
was very different in the beginning of the book from the end, he didn't only
change as an individual but he also changed the lives of everyone
else on that plantation.
Giving
that everyone always said that he couldn't handle living on the plantation and
actually working for what he got, was hard enough for him to take. But when he
got there he was almost crushed by a large timber elephant, and didn't tell
anyone. Until close to the end of the book I didn't understand quite why. He
didn't want anyone to
think that he couldn't handle it out in the middle of the jungle. This reminds
me of a time when I was out on a four-wheeler with one of my cousin and got my
leg cut on a tree, I had deep cuts in three places on my leg. I didn't want to
tell anyone because I thought they were going to tell me that I was to hurt
to continue to help with whatever we were doing that day, even though
I knew I was hurt and that I shouldn't be helping. That was a bad mistake on my
part but I was only seven how was I supposed to know my leg could get infected,
and Nick even though he was thirteen didn't know that he had three broken ribs
and that riding on the back of an elephant for three days afterwards would make
him almost unable to move. His dad told him the first night he got to Burma to
watch out for the elephants because they can kill you in many different ways.
"...impale you with a tusk, stomp on you with their feet, throw you, bash you
against a tree, crush your head in their mouths, do a headstand on your
chest..." (40) Nick didn't know what to do, as children and as teens both
make bad judgments on what you are and are not supposed to tell
someone, when they tell you things not to do and you do them anyway.
Also
in the beginning of Elephant
Run Nick was just a kid, pale, chubby not much to him.
Everyone could tell he wasn't going to last very long on the plantation if he
didn't "man up." Japanese soldiers found him in the woods and were going
to take over his fathers plantation. They dragged Nick back to the house. He
was locked in a room with no food or water and was not aloud to talk to anyone.
So he broke out, has any teenager ever not disobeyed their parents
or guardians? I know I have and it's not a great feeling to feel on your
own. Nick on the other hand was trying to save his father, when he broke out of
the house and he also needed food and water. No one understood him and what he
was going through in life, no one wanted to help him because they were to
afraid but they still thought he wasn't going to survive in the wilderness on
his own because he was still a "little kid."
Towards the end of the book Nick changed a lot, he was changing
slowly throughout the book but towards the end he turned into a real man. As he
was on a quest to save his dad he realized that to save him he would have to
risk his own life to save his. He went into the "jail" that his
father was in and found out they put him on burial duty because he was sick and
if he died hopefully he would just die in one of the holes he was digging. He
got help from Japanese soldiers who didn't want to be imprisoning
these people who did nothing wrong. They buried his dad alive and left to give
Nick just enough time to dig him up and get out of the "jail" before
the other soldiers realized what was going on. He grew up a lot after that and
figured out that family and friends is really all you need. I don't think a lot
of people have realized that yet. Sometimes I think I haven't either and then I
realize that people have it a lot worse than me, to the point were they don't
even have family. I think every one takes that for granted because when it is
just something you have always had once it's gone you realize sometimes you
don't always get what you want, and that's what helped Nick grow up so much in
the middle of that Burmese jungle.
Along the way to the end of
the book he influenced a lot of people, more than I probably even remember.
There was a girl, Mya, she was to afraid to live her own life after the
Japanese came. She was treated like a puppet on strings, and it wasn't her
fault but she let them. Nick helped her cut those strings he told her that she
deserved more than this and that she should come with him and her great great
grandfather to help save his dad and her brother. She cut those strings
and disappeared with Hilltop (great great grandfather) and Nick to
save her brother. Another person that he had a lot of influence on was his own
father, who acted as if when you are working you can't have any fun. Which was
okay with Nick because he got a lot of stuff done. But it was more like a chore
to him than actually doing something fun because he made it that way. Nick got
him to lighten up and have more fun when he was doing things so that it didn't
seem like such a chore. Nick influenced a lot more people in this book in good
ways and maybe sometimes bad but he always seemed to have an answer for
everything they may not have been logical but they were still answers, and most
importantly to the people on the plantation they were the right answers which
they hadn't had many of.
All of these things that he did remind me of a character in a
different book. Someone whose parents died and moved over 8 times. Someone
whose journey influenced a lot of people that maybe their life wasn't so bad.
Someone whose journey changed her more than anyone could ever imagine. Violet
Baudelaire, from A
Series of Unfortunate Events is a character much like Nick. As
in Elephant Run Violet
got moved when her parents died even though Nick's mom didn't die it was kid of
the same situation, it was better for them somewhere else. As Nick wanted to
save his dad, Violet wanted to make sure her two younger siblings were safe
throughout the whole thing. Also Nick was being chased and was also captured by
the Japanese, Violet was being chased by an evil villain, Count Olaf, even
though she was not captured they were close to being multiple times throughout
their lives. In many ways Nick and Violet are similar and in many ways they are
different, but they both shared their wisdom and bravery in life with many
people who needed their help.
Nick didn't only change from the beginning to the end of the book
on his own, but he also changed many other people's lives along the way. He
realized many things, and didn't care what others thought about him. He knew he
could make it in the Burmese jungle and he was determined to, and he did once
he grew up and recognized that he needed his family and friends to
help him along the way. He needed their support and even though he changed
their lives, I don't think he would ever admit that they changed his too.
