Whitney Deininger
Winans
English 1w
5/18/23
Love and Loss Anyone can lose someone they love, but they can also love someone they lost; it’s a matter of coming of age. Coming of age means maturing and dealing with things in better ways. As a person grows up, they experience love and loss and have to make difficult choices. For example, the main character from Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, Will, experiences loss; the main character of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, Romeo, experiences love. As a person experiences loss, they realize that they are growing up and notice that not everyone will be with them forever. The character that experiences loss is Will from Long Way Down. This book is about a boy, Will, whose brother was killed. They have rules in their community that say to always get revenge and never cry. Will is sad but he can’t cry so he is going through the stages of grief. At the beginning of the story, Will was missing his brother while accepting his loss. “One of my tears bursting free. But only one so it didn’t count.” (298) This
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The character that experiences love is Romeo, from Romeo and Juliet. This book is about a boy that had unrequited love. He was depressed and he didn’t really know what true love meant. He thought he was in love with Rosaline but he was not. People tried to tell him this but he couldn’t listen because he liked her so much. “Oh she knew very well that you were acting like you were in love without really knowing what love means” (Friar Lawrence, 103) This quote shows that not only Rosaline noticed that he didn’t really love her, but Friar Lawrence did too. In the middle to end of the story, Romeo started liking Juliet. He was forbidden to see her because their families were enemies, but he was in love with her. After he fell for Juliet he realized how foolish he was being, saying he was in love with