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Transitions In The Simple Gift By Steven Herrick

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A transition is a process of changing from one form or circumstance to another. It can be challenging, confronting, exciting or transformative and has different outcomes or results for different people. Transitions are seen through the compilation of poems in The Simple Gift by Steven Herrick, they are evident in the picture book The Red Tree by Shaun Tan and are also in the film The Pursuit of Happyness by Gabriele Muccino.

The Simple Gift has three main characters, an old hobo named Old Bill, a young homeless teen named Billy and a wealthy, privileged girl named Caitlin. The Simple Gift has many transitions that contribute to each of the three characters. An exciting, transformative, confronting and challenging transition is seen through …show more content…

It shows her transition into happiness and recognising the blessings in her life. This book is cyclic; it begins and finishes with the girl in her bedroom with a negative view on how the day begins and ends. But then there is a tonal shift on page 23 when she says, “But suddenly there it is right in front of you bright and vivid quietly waiting”. The use of symbolism is used through a bright red leaf. The leaf is a constant motif throughout the book representing her blessings and the good things in her life, but she hadn’t taken the time to notice it. Through her noticing this ‘bright and vivid’ leaf, it shows her exciting and transformative transition of finally noticing all the good things she has. The significance of this transition is also seen on page 5. The image shows the girl with her head down and she seems to be hiding something. The use of costuming shows the conformity to society. All the people in this image have the same clothes and the same body language. A low angle shot is used to enhance that “the world is a deaf machine”. It presents the world as threatening and overpowering and oblivious to individual’s opinions. A light bulb is used as a symbol of the girl’s ideas but through having it positioned close to her chest and hidden from others it presents the idea that she cannot express herself and feels like she must just follow the norm in society. Lighting is another technique that Shaun Tan has used to further promote the girl’s feelings of sadness and loneliness. Even through in the end her transition was exciting and transformative, these techniques used on this page show that she must overcome confronting and challenging things to ultimately reach her exiting and transformative

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