Catharine Garbo
Mr. Salsich
8 English
12 May 2009


What can you find?:
An essay about the theme of a story and how it relates to my life.


Words, what does a chunk of words mean to you? It might mean that it’s a story, or that it has a theme to it. To me, I see it as a story, that has things you have to uncover, and things to learn from. A theme is like a treasure hunt, trying to find that piece of gold.



(TS) The theme of a story can present itself to the reader like a performer or hide like a shy person. (SD) The theme of the story in The Great Stone Face by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is don’t look too far for something, because it could be right in front of your eyes. (compound) (CM) Hawthorne’s main character, Ernest, has been told stories about the Great Stone Face, and how a great man would come to the valley who looked like the Great Stone Face. (CM) Ernest expects this person to be famous and obvious. (SD) In addition there could be a second theme, hope. (CM) If you hope long enough, you will find what you have been looking for. (CM) Over the years Ernest hoped and continued to search until he found the person of the Great Stone Face. (CS) Hawthorne tricks the reader into thinking that Mr. Gathergold, the General, and the poet are the noble people mentioned in the folklore about the mountain, but this great individual is hiding with in Ernest, himself.



(TS) This story reminds me of Ms. Perkins and my Assessment project, because she records history. (SD) Ernest learns the history through stories, and so does Ms. Perkins, when she rewrites the original copies. (complex) (CM) Ernest learns about the Great Stone Face, from stories only his mother knows. (CM) Ms. Perkins learns about the history of Connecticut from the 1600’s through the 1800’s by rewriting from original documents. (SD) Just like Ernest in the story, I also learned stories when Ms. Perkins showed me her bag filled with the original writing from so long ago. (CM) I learned how differently people wrote in times long ago, and the different styles of writing there were. (CM) Ernest learned a lot about the Great Stone Face from his mother, and I also learned a lot about history from Ms. Perkins. (CS) This story brings me back to my volunteering and all of the stories, and history, the residents had to tell me.



The words that I found in this passage reminded me of the people that I met this winter, and also how many themes’ there can be in a story. If you think about each individual word, and how many things each word can represent, you could analyze a story, or a poem, forever, and find out how much it could teach you.