Stones: Essay

How Garnet Changed throughout the Book

Throughout the book, Stones by William Bell, the protagonist changed throughout the story. People all change gradually in our lives for many kinds of reasons. Garnet from Stones used to hate school for eleven years, but in the last year of high school, he started to put effort into it, because he wanted to make his mother happy by graduating high school properly.

      In the beginning of Stones, Garnet was always described a school-hater. He was labeled to be “auditory differently enabled” (p4), “attention deficit disorder” (p5) and “non-compliant” (6). He disobeyed the teacher (p5, 7) or ignores the teacher (p3). In high school didn’t “turn out to be anything [exciting]” to Garnet (p8). The “older students treated him with contempt” and he “sailed across an endless sea of homework” (p9). At the end, he just wanted high school to end and waited to leave (p10). “[Garnet’s] love life went pretty much downhill” (p12) after seeing his first crush scream in pain. Garnet did not enjoy school at all.

      However, later in the book when Garnet was in Grade 12, he started putting in effort into school. “[Garnet] decided to go to school regularly, get [his] credits, finish the year properly, and graduate” (p206). Garnet tried his best to catch up in school and shocked all of his teachers (p215). He also got an A+ for an English essay on an argument about “What is Knowledge?” based on a book (p215~220). He really started to put effort into his school assignments.

      The reason that Garnet tried to catch up in school and graduate high school was that he wanted his mother to be happy. He really missed his mother who was in East Timor journalizing the war. He then wanted to make his mom happy when she comes back (p206).

In conclusion, Garnet hated school for almost all his life, but at the end of the book, because he wanted to make his mother happy, he started to work hard in school.