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Touching Spirit Bear Analysis

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Conquering Anger In the novel Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelson, Cole overcomes his anger and problems. Cole learns to overcome these by forgiving his dad, accepting responsibility for his actions, and by doing the morning ritual that Edwin taught him. Doing these things helps him realize that anger is a memory and he has use it to grow as an individual. Cole conquers his anger by working through many detrimental internal and external conflicts, and learning to forgive those who have hurt him. Cole learns to forgive his Dad in order to unload the anger he has directed towards him. The years of abuse have led Cole to see himself as a whale because he has no home and doesn't trust his family.This is why he was so angry and always lashed out at people. He wades through information that tells him his Dad doesn’t hate him, but he was beaten as a kid to. If he grew up learning that it was okay to do bad things to people then he still thinks that it is okay now. “I just realized that I’m not a bad person. Nobody …show more content…

His morning ritual includes going to the ice pool soaking in it until he feels numb. When he is numb he will no longer be angry. Then he carries the ancestor rock up the hill where the rock becomes his anger. Everytime he pushes the his anger away he feels triumph. He feels this because he is controlling his anger, and pushing it deeper and deeper into the back of his mind. Edwin describes Cole as a person who will “only look at the left end of the left end of the stick and at the cloudy sky because your experiences have made it a habit.” The morning ritual helps Cole change his habits and look on the bright side everyday instead of always finding the bad in a situation. If you visualize your anger going away it eventually will. As Cole grows as a person this helps him heal and push through the conflicts in the book. Edwins ritual helps Cole overcome his anger by visualizing

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I believe that Cole should be given another chance. He has clearly made valuable emotional growth, and taken from his near-death experience According

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Secondly, when Cole was dancing his anger dance, he danced late into the night. He continued to dance because he still had anger inside of him and he wanted to just throw it up. Out of nowhere Cole lunges at a tree and starts hitting it and says the words he’s never been to say before, “‘I forgive you,” he cried loudly. “I forgive you’” (232).

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Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen is a novel in which the main character , Cole Matthews, finds himself struggling with his own downfall. He also finds himself fighting his own spirit. Cole is banished from Drake, Alaska because he has committed a crime. His classmate Peter Driscal had told on him for breaking into the school. Now, if someone told on Cole Matthews, they were going to have to pay the price.

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Nobody ever trusted me. I had never loved anybody, and nobody had ever really loved me.” In this moment, Cole is reflecting over what happened after he was almost killed by the Spirit Bear, and how it affected him. Cole changed during his time after the attack, by taking time and focusing on the little things, the nature around him, the sparrows in the nest as seen on page 80, and the true beauty of everything. After he looks at the little things, he realizes that he has no real power, and how there is a balance in everything.

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First of all, Cole was able to overcome his adversity because he wanted to change into a better person. At this point of the story, Cole is in Rosey’s hotel and Cole, Garvey, and Edwin are talking about what happened on the island. “Cole nodded. ‘I do, but it’s okay.

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In the novel touching spirit bear we learn all about a young boy named Cole Mathews learns how to control himself. He learns that anger is not the answer. He realizes that this is his,last chance. He learns that he was a juvenile delinquent that has no respect for others. He has three main traits that make him this way.

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Cole was beaten by him throughout his childhood. This pain and anger gave him the personality and characteristic to inflict pain on other people. The two final themes have a very strong connection. In order to heal, mentally and physically, you have to learn to forgive and receive forgiveness. This was a lesson the reader and the main character, Cole, experience throughout the book.

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Cole’s attitude, relationships, and environment develop into positive counterbalances that help him overcome adversity. For starters, Cole’s attitude was a big counterbalance for him that helped him overcome hardships. In the beginning of the book Cole acts like he doesn’t care and

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At the beginning of the novel, Cole Matthews is a vicious teenager who thinks he is superior to everyone, but is, in fact, hiding behind a shield of anger, the result of being brutally abused by his drunken father. Cole’s father, Mr. Matthews, drinks non stop until he becomes a monster, and then ruthlessly beats Cole up. When talking to Garvey, a proud, Tlingit indian, who is also his parole officer, Cole opens up about his father’s abuse saying, “‘You don’t know what it’s like being hit over and over until you’re so numb you don’t feel anything!” (Mikaelsen 28).

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(Mikaelsen 249). This is a drastic change from the beginning of the novel, where Cole hates everyone and everything and only thinks of himself. Near the very end of the story, Peter attacks Cole and Cole asks him to stop but he refuses to fight back. The old Cole would’ve fallen down and come up swinging as hard as he could. I believe he has truly changed from how he had previously acted.

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Everything will turn out right in the end, and Cole exhibits this. The whole reason that Cole ended up o the island in the first place is because he made bad choices. These choices led to more bad choices and then Cole had a traumatic experience. This changes Cole’s life forever.

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For example, when Cole purposy bothered the Spirt Bear and later on ended up getting mauld by the animal. It is obvious that Cole’s decisions and actions against banishment lead him to fail the act. Cole’s consistent negative attitude made him dislike the idea of meaning humane. Since the beginning of the book, Cole has satisfied himself with anger. Cole believes that he can concor anything with his anger.

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932 Words | 4 Pages

Has anyone ever called you an animal? Have you been compared to a sloth because you were lazy, or a mouse because you were quiet? In my Language Arts class, we read the book “Touching Spirit Bear” by Ben Mikaelsen. In this novel, a troubled teenage boy named Cole is banished to an island to find and heal his soul after he severely beats a kid. During his stay on the island, Cole realizes that he is similar to several different animals.

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He thinks of his problems like bad weather. This is childish because many of his problems are not as serious as certain weather patterns. For example, he starts to depict his own personal fights with hurricanes. Hurricanes that smash houses, flatten fields, and destroy memories. He wonders to himself if maybe changing his own personal hurricanes would be better than remembering them for what

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Cole emphasizes in his lyrics that “life can’t be no fairytale, no once upon a time; but [he’ll] be God damned if a n***a don’t be tryin’”. Despite all the shortcomings of his city, that won’t stop Cole from trying to make something out of himself. In comparison, I always had to learn things the hard way, and I always failed at what I tried to achieve. However my mistakes never stopped from moving forward and I continue to overcome any obstacles that stand in my way. Living through the hard times motivates me to continuously work hard, and never settle for

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