On The Bridge

  Followers or leaders which one is better. To be your own person or to have your body slammed into the wind shield of a car ?Seth and Adam are two different kids. Seth is a good boy who just wants to be cool. But Adam is the opposite he’s rude, crude, careless, and very,very distrustful. I guess it is true opposites do attract. On the Bridge By Todd Strasser is about two boys Adam & Seth who hangs out on the bridge wall every day. Until one day Seth started to realize that some of the things Adam was doing were reckless. Throwing cigarette buds at cars, almost making some one run off the road. Being a follower isn’t a joke when some one gets hurt in the end.
    There were many different themes through out the story. One them was child vs adult because Seth had to face the guy who owned the car. Which was pretty weird knowing that he didn’t do it. “ Seth didn’t know what he was talking about. He tried to raise his head, but the husky guy pushed his face closer to the wind shield. Lord was he strong. “ I said, lick it.” Lick what? Seth wanted to ask. then he looked down at the glass and saw the spot of gray ash where Adam’s cigarette had hit. This relates to my thesis because if Seth did not hang out with Adam that much and left when he almost made the lady run off the road, then he would not have been in that mess. An would not have gotten hurt the way he did. Another theme would be friend vs friend through out the story because Adam said it was Seth who dropped the ash when it wasn’t. He lied and got Seth beaten up because he was to afraid to tell the guys it was him. “ Seth determined not to tell. He didn’t believe in squealing on his friends. But suddenly he noticed that all three guys were staring at him. He quickly looked at Adam and saw why. Adam was pointing at him. This relates to my thesis because it explains how if you follow your friends they can turn on you at any moment.

Characterization was a bid part of this story to because they was a lot of change in each character through out the story. Like the protagonist was Seth and the antagonist was Adam. This is true because Adam had this kind of effect on Seth to disobey his mothers orders about the jacket. “ Adam wasn’t one of those kids who kept their cool clothes in their locker and only wore them in school because their parents wouldn’t let them wear them at home. Seth had parents like that. His mother would have had a fit if she ever saw him wearing his sleeveless denim jacket, so he had to hid it in the garage.” This shows that because Adam’s parents are not strict like Seth’s mother he wants to be like Adam be free to wear what ever he wants when ever he wants. As long as she does not know about it. They were was also how each character changed from the beginning to the end. Like with Seth after he got his butt beat he couldn’t even look at Adam. “ I tried to help you,” Adam said, “ but one of them held a knife on me.” Seth glanced at him. “ It was a small knife,” Adam said. “ I guess he didn’t want anyone else to see it. The turning point : “ Seth shook his head. He didn’t believe Adam. He started to walk home. “I’ll get those guys for you, man” Adam said. Seth nodded aging. He didn’t even tun to watch Adam go.

Following people is not being your own person. It’s being the other persons shadow or their puppet. It’s getting blamed for something you never did because the other person is to afraid to admit they did it. I think this was a very interesting story because it just drills you in sentence by sentence and it is well written to. My reaction through out was just wow how each character just flipped roles in just the matter of a paragraph. I would recommend it because it teaches you in the end that following your so called “friends” can bring to things you never expected. On the bridge tells you the story of two boys one who was the follower but became a leader in the end.