Analyzing Lester's 'American Beauty'

Decent Essays
In “American Beauty” We see how Lester has lost control over everything in his life; from his appearances to his job and even his love life. At first, Lester tries to fix his job problem by trying to quit by trying to convince the company firing agent that he will giving up information that will hurt his boss and the company . Furthermore, Lester ends up leaving the company and starts to work in a fast food joint . A Reason to why Lester might had started to work at a fast food joint was to feel young, relieve his adolescence. In the United States, is really common for teenagers to work at a fast food joint since it pays minimum wage and is an easy way to start earning money. Lester can be seen starting to be more happy and feel more of a

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Have you felt that your home was a beautiful and safe but then you started to realize that it was a beautiful heartbreaking and complicated place ? Well that’s how Jacqueline Woodson felt. As we grow and change, so do our perspectives on a variety of things that we experience in life. The central theme in the story When A Southern Town Broke A Heart by Jacqueline Woodson is that as you get older the way you see the world changes.…

    • 432 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Areeba Hasan Pictures of Hollis Wood A family is the most important thing in the world. However, many of us don’t realize a family’s importance. It’s the people in life that want you in theirs. It’s the people that accept you for who you are.…

    • 1752 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During the cold war tensions where high between governments with opposing theories or ideas. Communism was spreading into Asia and the USA did not want that to happen. Vietnam was one of the most controversial wars that America fought. There were protests and rallies against the Vietnam War put on by United States citizens themselves. Some people believed that we should be interfering with other countries’ governments and others did not.…

    • 1063 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Political extremes have always been a part of the American system, but when these outliers are allowed to take center stage it can cause a multitude of problems. These extremists pray upon Americans fears often prompting mass hysteria. In his book, American Hysteria, Andrew Burt explains why these hysterias occur and uses five historical examples. His thesis is that political extremism is used as a coping mechanism for Americans who have lost social status and their sense of national identity which results in a scapegoat being blamed. Overall Burt’s book does an excellent job of explaining the origins of the phenomena that is hysteria, the historical impacts of it, and how to best combat it in the future.…

    • 1071 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The book “American Jezebel” was written in 2004 by Eve LaPlante, who is from Massachusetts and has written various other books about powerful and influential women in history. The thing that makes this book unique is that Anne Hutchinson is actually an ancestor of LaPlante which allows her to have a different point of view on the situation and she is able to write the book in a different way and explain it differently than another author would. Anne Hutchinson was a woman of change who was very open minded and saw things differently than other woman in her time did which is what makes her so interesting. (LaPlante 1) Anne Hutchinson was born in Lincolnshire England on July17, 1591, she was a midwife with sixteen kids and in her late 40’s who…

    • 1853 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The south always feels like home each year that I go. The south is a part of my ethnicity history and where most of my ancestors lived. The author of the book, This Ain’t Chicago: Race, Class, and Regional Identity in the Post-Soul South, analyzes and evaluates the pulls between urban and rural areas around the Memphis city and their takes on race, class, gender, and region on black identity in today’s era. To prove this, Zandria Robinson interviews many people-what is known as her “respondents”-whom are southerners. In addition to her respondents, Robinson uses the media to prove her argument.…

    • 802 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    1. In the novel Speak, the protagonist, Melinda, has her social status change over the summer, due to the fact that she called the cops at a houseparty. By calling the cops, Melinda gets many people in trouble. ” My brother got arrested at that party.…

    • 528 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In modern society, there is no truer statement than “money is power”. Because of this, the world can be divided into subcategories based on net worth. Alternatively, society groups people by race. This compulsive categorization of society is now so deeply ingrained that society couldn’t possibly function without it. Who is the cause of this division of the classes?…

    • 1004 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Srikeerthan Annepu Mrs. Repanich LA II Period 5 30 November 2017 Deceptive Appearances vs. Reality: The Rumors and the Truths Appearances can often reveal plenty about a person, and first impressions can impact one's social status in a community. Often, individuals are quick to make judgements about each other, without considering the other person’s perspective. Frequently, appearances can turn out to be deceptive, in outstanding and unfortunate ways, and this idea is shown by Harper Lee in To Kill A Mockingbird, a fiction novel written in 1960 set in the segregated american south during the Great Depression.…

    • 1016 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    They say money that does not keep a person warm at night. Though it can buy a feathered quilt. The Talented Mr. Ripley, an ironic detective novel by Patricia Highsmith is a prefect representation of a text which undermines the 1950’s way of life. The author subverts everything from sexuality to social class to the ignorance of the judiciary system, all while having the readers sympathize with a pathological murderer and even though religion may not be central theme the author writes with each of the seven deadly sins in mind. With an abstract take on the scenes in The Talented Mr. Ripley, there is a clear divide between two cardinal sins; envy and pride with a lustful perversion attached to both.…

    • 1341 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The film American Beauty was written by Alan Ball and directed by Sam Mendes. The motion picture was released in 1999, and was distributed by DreamWorks Pictures. Although this movie was very controversial it won awards that include: best picture, actor, and screenplay. In this film, actor Kevin Spacy stars as the main character Lester Burnham, a forty-two year old man who is enduring a life transformation during his mid-life crisis years. Lester was living the typical ‘American Dream’; he had a great job, enormous house with a garden full of beautiful red roses, and a loving wife and daughter.…

    • 1540 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    To Kill a Mockingbird is a great book showing how people can grow together. We have Scout and Jem growing up together in an innocent childhood growing into adulthood. We have Tom Robinson, an African American man who, is going to court with Atticus Finch (scouts father) and is trying to defend Tom against the harming white community. Tom Robinson was accused of rape of a white female Mayella. The raping of a white woman by a black man is similar to The Scottsboro Trial in 1933, where 9 black men were falsely accused of raping two white women.…

    • 980 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ethos in Fast Food Nation is clearly indicated in chapter 3 when we meet Elisa Zamot who works for McDonald’s. Schlosser explains what her daily routine is: long hours and a low wage. Elisa is an example of many teens that are preferred by fast food restaurants because they are easily replaceable and less expensive to hire. He continues to back up his claims by citing that, “About two-thirds of the nation’s fast food workers are under the age of twenty” (P68). His purpose is to expose the side of how young workers are being underpaid for their long work hours.…

    • 1162 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Is there eternal sunshine in the spotless mind? This is the question posed by writers Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry and Pierre Bismuth in their movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This movie, directed by Gondry, explores the idea that feelings and emotions are more powerful than memories, and that if we erased all of our memories, we would still possess the feelings and emotions that were created by those memories. The movie was inspired by a male friend of Bismuth who said that he would like to have all memory of his girlfriend erased. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind tells a story about two people, Joel and Clementine, who are in a bad relationship and eventually break up.…

    • 1095 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    People always thought working at McDonald’s is lame, but it depends. For teen-agers, who go to school regularly and don’t have any working experiences, McDonald’s won’t be a bad choice. However, there are some arguments against it due to the long hours and highly structured job without any creativities. In fact, this fast-food chain has flexible schedules, teaches youngsters responsibility and can help teens develop skills which are beneficial for their future career. McDonald’s gives its staff very flexible schedules.…

    • 639 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays