The Polar Express

The image of the train appears several times; including when Big Boy heads home for the final time. “Big Boy slowed when he came to the railroad. He wondered if he ought to go through the streets or down the track. He decided on the tracks. He could dodge a train better than a mob.” In this section, the train serves as the carrier of Big Boy’s adulthood. By staying on the tracks he believes he is still innocent; still hidden from the mob that is after Big Boy because he murdered—certainly a crime not associated with youthful innocence. Because Big Boy is black, he never really has true innocence. He has to be mindful of his surroundings at all times, knowing that whites are always out to get him. But whatever

One night, Santa Clause was delivering gifts at an orphanage. One of the toddlers at the orphanage wakes up and climbs out of his crib. “BANG” he fell on the ground and started to crawl towards Santa Clause gift sack. Buddy starts his journey once he got into Santa’s gift sack. Santa did not realize that a toddler snuck into his gift sack. Santa arrives back to The North Pole, and the elves and him hear something moving in the sack. A second later a baby crawls out of the gift sack. Santa and the elves were in shock when they saw the baby. The baby’s name is on the baby’s

Children everywhere wish to follow in the footsteps of Peter Pan and never grow up. Unfortunately, this phenomenon is found only within the confines of fiction. In the short story, “To Every Thing There Is a Season”, by Alistair Macleod, the protagonist craves just that, to not grow up. He holds on to his belief in Santa Claus as tightly as he can. Alistair is on the cusp of maturity, and not quite ready to take the leap. The theme in this short story is that while some cling to childhood, there is no escaping growing up. This is revealed through the symbolism of Santa, the character Alistair, and the plot of this story.

The book and the film were both simular, and yet different in many ways. An example would be, in the film, Ponyboy was walking to the drive-in and meeting Cherri and Marcia. Although in the book, Ponyboy began his journey by telling the readers about his experience about being jumped by the Socs and being threatened. The director probably had some options to pick from to leave out from the movie, and the director chosed this to leave out. Leaving out the part where Ponyboy was jumped was an effective move because without the experience Ponyboy was lost and helpless because he did not know what to do when he and Johnny got cornered in the park by Bob and other Socs.

It can be argued that Christmas as a holiday is far removed from the way it was first envisioned. That said, there are certain element that many people share or celebrate making it an arguably complex holiday. As the preeminent children’s author of his generation, Geisel serving heavily on the minds of his young readers helped shape what Christmas means for many people with his narrative How the Grinch Stole Christmas!. Though at the surface the work is a simple morality tale that promotes unity over consumerism, it has subtle nuances that make the work interesting on several

This show can be seen on TV every Christmas season. Then Ron Howard takes this short film and draws it out to be a two and a half-hour long movie. The worst aspect of the movie is that it makes a mockery of Seuss's main message: “Christmas doesn't come from a store.” This movie is all about selling, from those furry talking Grinch dolls to endless fast-food tie-ins.

Firstly, A Christmas Story changes the style of the framed narrative. In the story, Ralph Parker is looking back on his childhood after a woman expresses her opinion on “disarming the toy industry.” However, the movie opens inside Ralph’s childhood with an adult Ralph as the narrator. This change does not take away from the story, though. It allows the audience to be put right into the action of the story rather than making the audience wait for something to happen that causes the narrator to look back on their life.

The film Elf (Berg et al., 2003) follows the adventures of Buddy, a human adopted into Elf culture, as he journeys from the North Pole to find his human father in New York City. As an orphan waiting to be adopted, Buddy was accidentally taken to the North Pole in Santa’s sack. Buddy grew up immersed in the Elf culture and way of life, and was not told of his human origins until he was well into adulthood. Upon learning this, Buddy travels to New York City to find his birth father Walter, a grinch-like publisher at a children’s book company. Unwelcomed by his father, Buddy befriends Walter’s son Michael and begins to make a life in New York, dating a shy, Elf-portraying department store employee named Jovie.

Santa says “maybe somehow we’ll make due with all of the other reindeer.” Fido hears Santa say this, but he thinks that Santa says “Olive, the other reindeer,” indicating that Olive is the other reindeer that will help him. Olive believes Fido and decides to trek to The North Pole to save Christmas. The difference between the two is that in the book, Olive hears “all of the reindeer” and thinks they are referring to her, and in the movie Olive’s friend, Fido, hears “all of the other reindeer” and thinks Santa is referring to her. Another difference between the two is that the book does not have Fido in it. I think the only reason for this is because with a movie, the writer is able to incorporate a lot more detail into the storyline because the movie is longer. Along with differences, I also found similarities between the movie and the book. Both the pictures for the movie and for the book are created by J. Otto Seibold, indicating that the movie is also created with animated characters. In both the film and the book, Olive is drawn as a cute Jack Russell Terrier with lots of colorful surroundings near her, such as Santa’s workshop and his

Santa leaped from his sleigh laughing and shouting, “Ho! Ho! Ho! It’s much quicker landing that way than on snow!” Santa and the Brownies went all over the world that Christmas Eve night, at a time when there wasn’t a snowflake in sight!

Santa Claus is the one thing children believe in unfailingly. I mean, the exact gifts they want for Christmas always appear under the tree overnight, and for a child the only explanation is magic. But in today’s world of over parenting, the

The book and the movie are also different in many ways. The book had more detail in some things but the movie has a better way of showing it. One of the ways that it is different is in the movie Scrooge sold corn to the three men at the bank but in the book that never happened at all! Another thing that was different between the movie

The director of this film, “Polar Express” is Robert Zemeckis and the screenwriters are Robert Zemeckis and William Broyles Jr. To start with, Peter Scolari plays the voice as the lonely boy, and Tom Hanks plays the voices of Hero boy,father, conductor, hobo, scrooge and santa claus. Also, Leslie Zemeckis plays the voice of sister Sarah and mother. Nona Gaye plays the voice of Hero girl. Polar Express is an animated movie and the setting is at the North Pole. Some of the awards it got was Bambi- International film and

He over exaggerates often throughout the article, however he has a few solid points. I agree that it does not do much for their imagination, although studies have shown that it helps children throughout their stages of development. When lying to your child about the story of Santa Claus, you help stimulate the cognitive development that a child needs in order to grow into a healthy human being. Santa Claus continues to be a pertinent issue in society amongst parents and their children today. It can be very challenging to know which side you agree with based on your family culture, how you cultivated and what you believe in. In today’s society, few children believe in Santa because of so many available outlets pertaining to the issue. While children can easily receive an answer to their question, there has been an abundance of parents interested in what they should tell their children. Parents who want to make sure they are doing the right thing, however they sense not having the answers to everything dealing with this controversy. Santa Claus is a part of an everlasting Family Tradition that has been a part of Christmas for numerous years and will continue to

The movie is about class conflict and economic inequality, using the train as an analogy. It has different cabins and each one represents a social class in the real world. The people at the very back are the poorest and live in inhumane conditions. As you move up the train, the quality of life gets better and better; until you reach the very front of the train, the engine, where the leader resides. The real life representation of