Can you imagine an iron rod going through your head and surviving? Phineas Gage lived for 11 years after having the unfortunate brain injury. (chap 1, para 2)In the novel A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science by John Fleischman we learn about Phineas’s behavior changes. After the brain injury he is still alive, but he acts differently. That is similar to adolescents because their brains are still developing, and their actions are very similar to his.Phineas’s behavior is similar to an adolescent because he acts very immature just like a child/teenager. Phineas is different from adolescents because he had a brain injury. We also know that because in the other novel Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, we learn about adolescents behavior. Phineas Gage, a man who had a brain injury, is similar to adolescents. I think this because in paragraph 32 it explains how he was unreliable, and at times, downright nasty. That relates to adolescence because they also are very impulsive like him. They say in paragraph 2 adolescents are very immature, and take risks, just like Phineas. More proof is in the middle of the passage thirty three, it states that he is like a small child. They compare him to a child, and having similar character traits as …show more content…
Phineas Gage’s brain was fully developed, but a tampering iron went through the front of his brain, otherwise known as the frontal lobe. On the other hand, in paragraph 5 it says that their brain stops growing when they are 22-25, and it is not permanent damage. Their brains can still develop, but Phineas’s brain can’t. Adolescents' brains are also different because they can understand social situations better than Phineas can, for example, in paragraph 32 Phineas says dirty and inappropriate things around women. Causing him to lose jobs, and not be able to have the same friends as he did before the
Brain science is hard to understand. Very hard. However, Dr. Norman Doidge describes the current understanding of brain plasticity by using relatable examples and comprehensible diction instead of arduous textbook style writing. In The Brain that Changes Itself, Doidge challenges the age-old belief that the brain's structure is concrete by providing countless experiments that prove the brain to be malleable. Doidge shines a light on traumatic injuries and brain illnesses by providing individual cases from patients around the world.
Tobias Wolff uses an immense amount of character development in his short story “Bullet in the Brain.” Wolff begins the story by laying the foundation for Ander’s character with his temper and lack of compassion for others. The author developed the character by displaying his cynicism and mocking nature in a dangerous situation. He then builds Ander’s humanity by telling how the character’s perspective progressed from his youth and building on his love for language. Throughout the story, Ander’s character develops from an unsympathetic and unlikable man to a more complex character in his last moments that the reader can sympathize with.
“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful before you let other people spend it for you. (Carl Sandburg)” “The Bullet in the Brain” by Tobias Wolff states many points about relationships between human lives and the passage of time. This is especially shown in the life of Anders.
The article talks about the adaptive-adolescent story. The article says,” A few researchers began to view recent brain and genetic findings into a brighter, more flattering light, one distinctly colored by evolutionary theory. The resulting account of the adolescent brain–call it the adaptive-adolescent story-casts the teen less as a rough draft than as an exquisitely sensitive, highly adaptable creature wired almost perfectly for the job of moving from the safety of home into the complicated world outside.” This means that Young had a great chance at rehabilitation at such a young age. His brain had room to mature and reshape the way he thinks.
The story “Bullet in the Brain” by Tobias Wolff is a very interesting sorry about a man named Anders. Anders is a very unusual character as he always analyzes and critic mostly everything that happens in his life and all of the people that he interacts with just like what he does in the books he normally reads. The story focuses on his final memory after the situation of him being shot in the head by some robbers at a bank. The final memory that flashed back into Anders is a memory of him as a kid playing baseball with his friends in a sunny field.
However, these injuries heal eventually with time and rest. They may set an athlete on the side lines for a period of their season (or in worst case scenarios a large chunk of their career), but these injuries more often than not result in a recovery and a glorious return to the playing field. While a concussion is very similar to these physical injuries in the sense that it requires time and rest to recover and will set an athlete out for a portion of his or her season (assuming an appropriate amount of time is given for the brain to heal), it differs from most physical injuries from the stand point that it has possible long term cognitive effects if repeated concussions are obtained. Obviously, dying or paralysis is the worst case scenario for a person who has received brain trauma. However, athletes that have sustained three or more concussions over a life-time have been proven to likely have long-term cognitive impairment, emotional struggles, and a general decrease in the overall quality of life.
In the “Bullet in the Brain” the author illustrates the plot with a chain of events that escalate from a stressful wait for service at a bank to recollecting memories of the main character right before his death. The day starts out the same as any other day, as people at a local bank are in line to deposit or withdrawal their money. The introduction to the story grabs the reader’s attention, with strong descriptive words. “Anders couldn’t get to the bank until just before it closed, so of course the line was endless and he got stuck behind two women whose loud, stupid conversation put him in a murders temper” (Wolff).
“Bullet in the Brain” Analysis Essay In the short story “Bullet in the Brain” the main character Anders, a book critic, that is very straightforward and kind of ignorant with no cares in the world, was running last minute to the bank. He gets in one of the long lines and waits. As he is waiting the line that he was in closed. The people immediately start bickering about fussing that they were trying to leave on time.
Imagine that you were Phineas Gage's coworker looking at a huge iron rod go through the pointy end of a rod enter his left cheekbone, pass behind his left eye, through the front of his brain, and out the middle of his forehead just above the hairline. Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science mentions the process of how the accident happened and the recovery after the accident, the Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of a Teenage Brain then cites the process of a teenage brain and showing the thought process of the teenage brain. Both of these texts help tie together the connection of Phineas Gage and the adolescent brain. Phineas Gage was involved in an experiment that went wrong and let's just say it ended with a tamping iron straight through his head. After the tamping iron accident, Phineas's behavior and brain begin to be more similar to an adolescent's behavior and brain because he has made some very impulsive, made risky decisions, and used lots of vulgar language towards women, coworkers, and his peers.
Bullet in the Brain The title might be misleading to anyone used to action-packed short pieces of fiction. One might imagine a gunfight occurring in a crime drama were the protagonists shoot at each other and bullet ends up in one of their brains. However, he or she would be disappointed. It is the case of Anders, a book critic who will not keep quite.
Phineas act's immaturely, rudely, impulsively, and disrespectfully, and with no self-control after his brain injury. The actions of an adolescent but something different from both of their brains. Phineas' brain is completed but stuck in one time when he was younger, but an adolescent is still growing, and their brain isn't yet not done. For example, in the text, Phineas has the passion of a man but he still acts like a "small child" or/and an adolescent, but he has a huge hole in his brain, something which an adolescent does not act off but he in fact does act of this injury. Phineas' brain structure is not like an adolescent, and the way he acts is not because of what an adolescent is going through "puberty" or a change it is because of the tampering iron piercing through a part of his brain that made his act differently from an adolescent but now he acts the same as
This can describe Phineas because of his lack of maturity. He acts upon impulse, in cases such as the spontaneous trip to the beach in chapter 5 and his denial of the war shows his innocence and lack of knowledge. Finny believes that the war is made up by “the fat old men who don’t want us crowding them out of their jobs.” Along with this, Finny talks about how “they’ve cooked up this war fake” (Knowles 107). Finny’s refusal of the war exhibits the id and his lack of knowledge and maturity.
Language is powerful, and can even mean the difference between life and death. This proves to be true in Tobias Wolff’s short story “Bullet in the Brain,” in which he makes a point about criticism and language. The main character is Anders. His profession as a book critic is essential to the story because he deals with language every day. He even ridicules bank robbers who point a gun at him because their language is stereotypical.
Then that untrue idea, or the untrue perception, grows and dwells until it becomes the honest truth in a person’s mind. Meaning that the mind can distort things and make something seem larger than it actually is, Gene quotes, “It was as though football players were really bent on crushing the life out of each other, as though boxers were in combat to the death, as though even a tennis ball might turn into a bullet.”. Gene also finds many reasons to support why he thinks of Phineas as a threat. “Phineas in those days almost always moved in groups the size of hockey teams”, as Gene said in the novel tells the reader that Phineas was very popular and many people liked to be around him. Gene has also spoken of many trophies and plaques with Phineas’s name on it that exemplified his great athletic abilities.
(Chapter 5, pg. 62) “If Phineas had been sitting here in this pool of guilt, how would he have felt, what would he have done? He would have told me the truth. ”(Chapter 5, pg 66) “Oh, you know about the tree,” I tried to let my face fall guiltily, but it felt instead as though it were being dragged downward.” (Chapter 7, pg 90) 6. There are many prophecies, foreshadowings or hints about something that will happen in the novel.