I The Best of Me an eight because i really enjoyed it and thought it was wonderful. I loved the way the author showed the different characters. The only reason i do not rate this a ten is because I thought the author should of gave a different ending and not a tragedy with the protagonist dying. I think a lot of amazing literature ends in a tragedy, but I just do not think I was ready for the protagonist to die. The protagonist of this novel is Dawson Cole. Dawson grew up in a family that was not the best they were into alcohol, drugs, and just always wanted to find a way to get in trouble. His mom left his dad due to abuse. Eventually his dad, that truly was an awful dad, had passed due to alcohol and drug overdose; this did not happen till later in the novel. Dawson was not like the rest of his family, he tried to stay away from drugs and alcohol unlike everyone else in his family. Dawson also received good grades in school, but did not want his family to know he was not like them.
He is offend quiet. One day he ran away from home and snuck into a man’s garage to get away from his abusive family, and later this became his home. Tuck, the owner of the garage Dawson snuck into will be Dawson’s father he never had. Tuck had cared about him alot, and made a difference in his life. Soon a girl by the name of Amanda Collins will also change Dawson’s life. He was extremely caring towards her. Dawson is a round character in the novel because he is fully described I know a lot about him and all of his struggles with his family. I know he is nothing like the rest of his family and wants a good future. The reader knows how much he is still in love with Amanda after twenty one years of not being with her. I know about his future and past.
Dawson is a dynamic character in the novel because he changes throughout the story. At the beginning of the novel he is more shy and does not stand up for himself when his father beats him, but by the end of his father’s lifetime that changes. He is unsure about what he wants in the future, but after seeing Amanda for the first time in twenty one years he knows he wants to be with her. At the end of their relation as teens he thought she should not be with him anymore because he thought he would hold her back. This was not true and he will regret this when he is older. The antagonist in the novel is Dawson’s cousin Ted. He is like the rest of Dawson’s family, mean, abusive. He has been abusive to Dawson since he was young, Ted had a bad reputation, he is very sneaky, mean, and could get away with anything. Mainly the only thing the reader knows about Ted is that he despises Dawson.
Ted is a flat character because is not described very well. The reader does not everything about Ted, they only know about how his family was. The reader knows some of his thoughts, like when he is almost plotting what he is going to do to Dawson, but that is it. Ted is a static character he does not change in the literature, he stays the same throughout the whole novel. He stays almost evil the whole time. He hates Dawson from the beginning till the end when he killed Dawson. The motivations of the protagonist are that he just wants to make it through the funeral hoping not to be messed with. The motivations of the antagonist are that he hates the protagonist, and wants him gone.
The antagonist,Ted, is working against the protagonist, Dawson this happens when ted continually stalks Dawson and tries to kill him,but fails then tries again later and succeeds. All of the conflicts are resolved between the protagonist and antagonist when Ted, the antagonist, kills Dawson, the protagonist. That makes all there problems go away because Dawson is no longer alive. On a different page The exposition of the novel is showing how Dawson grew up and how his family treated him. When Dawson fell in love with Amanda as a teen when they were lab partners. Their relationship was almost forbidden. Her family, which was very rich and the complete opposite of Dawson family. Her family did not approve of the relationship.
They begged her to break up with Dawson, but then split due to college and Dawson going to jail for accidentally running over local doctor, David Bonner. The novel then goes to present day, which is twenty one years later, when Dawson is working at oil rig off the coast of Louisiana until one day it exploded. Which leaves him on edge. Months later he receives a call from Morgan Tanner, who is an attorney saying that Tuck had passed away. This was very heartbreaking to Dawson because Tuck let Dawson stay there when he had ran away from his family. He went back to his hometown in North Carolina. The point of view of this literature is third person omniscient; the narrator is the author. The setting is in his hometown in North Carolina the time is when he is seventeen and thirty nine. The main characters in this novel includes Dawson, the protagonist, Amanda, Dawson’s true love,Tuck who helped Dawson out, and Ted the antagonist with his helper Abee. Foreshadowing of the conflict is when the narrator tells the reader about his past life with his abusive family and how they were always bad to him. When Dawson has to go back to his hometown for Tuck’s funeral is when you realize that it’s foreshadowing the conflict. The inciting incident happens when Dawson sees Ted for the first time and years and Ted begins to stalk and almost harass Dawson. The rising action is when Amanda and Dawson run into each other at Tuck’s house. They begin to fall in love again after twenty one years of being apart. The internal conflict is that Amanda is falling in love with a man that is not her husband. Dawson’s internal conflict at this point is that he wants to be with Amanda again, but she is married. When Dawson goes back to his hometown he has the internal conflict of the
thought of seeing his family that hated and abused him. Amanda’s other internal conflicts is her family, yes her falling in love with another man is bad, but her kids. Amanda loves being a mom and does not want to be a bad example towards her kids. The internal conflict for both of them is that they both have lost a loved one, the person who kept Dawson and the place where they first fell in love. The external conflicts for Dawson is at the beginning of the story and the oil rig exploded and he fell a hundred feet into water. The next external conflict is when Dawson gets abused by his family this is physical hurting him. Dawson also had to go to jail for killing a doctor as a teen; that is why Dawson let Amanda go as a teen. Dawson also has to deal with getting stalked by Ted and help from Abee. The first time they try to kill Dawson they fail. Amanda during this physically cheated on her husband and has to deal with that. The climax in the story is when Dawson’s cousin, Ted, gets a gun and shoots him, Dawson later dies.The falling action is when Amanda gets back with her husband Frank after Dawson gets murdered. The resolution in the novel is when Amanda realized Dawson had saved her sons by giving him his heart for the transplant he needed. Amanda is back with her husband, and Ted can no longer stock Dawson.
In the novel,The Best of Me, Nicholas Sparks suggests that people have to give up what you love for who you love. Also, in the novel, The Best of Me, Nicholas Sparks suggests that even if you were in control and you spent your life trying to make up for it, it was never good enough. In the novel, The Best of Me, Nicholas Sparks suggests that bad things can turn into good things if you stay positive. The author’s purpose of this novel is to narrate. This is the author’s purpose because it is telling or narrating a story of a person’s life “They held each other on the porch for a long time”,(Sparks 200). This quotation from The Best of Me shows that the author uses words like they he does not use words like we. The narrator is not in the story, but knows everything about the different characters.
The intended audience for this literature is young adults. The whole novel is very dramatic and about love. It tells you an amazing love story with the twist of the protagonist’s own cousin being the antagonist, and killing him. Since the whole story is about love, the person reading the novel. I think it is for young adults because some of the writing a child probably should not read. I do not think it is geared towards adults because it is a teen love story. The story is based when they are older also, but it has so many flashbacks to when they were teens I do not think the author intended this to be for adults.
“That was 1984, and he was seventeen years old. By the time summer ended he knew he was in love with, and when the air turned crisp and autumn leaves drifted to the ground in ribbons of red and yellow, he was certain that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, as crazy as that sounded” (14). This quotation shows that the main character was a teen in love. For most children I do not think they would like a teen love story. I also think that adults would not want to like reading about a teen love story. Young adults on the other hand would like this story because it is about young adults.
Works Cited
- Sparks, Nicholas, et al. Select Editions. Reader’s Digest Partners for Sight Foundation, 2013.