I’ve always had a gift for literature. I can’t get enough of it. From the time I could read, I’ve been fiendishly consuming books like a vulture to a carcass; and I loved it. Swiftly, I moved from picture books to chapter books to young adult prose and poetry to classic and contemporary prose and poetry. Through this growth, I developed an affinity not just for reading, but for analysis. I developed the belief that the fun of literature lies in its dissection: constructed from bottom-up to be analyzed top-down. It offers me a second perspective, allowing me to ameliorate deeper with myself and human nature at large. But for all of my love of literature, even being raised by a film buff, I never realized how much there was to decipher in visual literature, specifically in movies. I was in my English class when I saw the movie that would teach me how to look deeper into what I was watching, how to weigh the visual elements of a film like I do the written ones of a book. The movie that changed my life is Jurassic Park, dir. Stephen Spielberg, 1993: The movie that taught me how to analyze movies. I never realized just how much I was missing, and honestly, I felt like a complete doofus because of it. From that day forward, I vowed to train myself how to analyze films. I learned that it’s a completely different ballpark to books– the details to pay attention to are different, even if the literary tropes and elements are the same. I am no film buff, but Jurassic Park taught me the tricks of the trade. That the central argument of the film is usually stated in dialogue, that fashion often reveals subliminal character traits or archetypes. For example, Dr. Hammond and Dr. Malcolm, God and Devil archetypes respectively, wear monochromatic white and black outfits to display their roles as foils. Finally, that the external argument often feeds into the internal one. Learning how to analyze movies through Jurassic Park made me better at analyzing books. I pick up on sequences that I would never have noticed if I had never watched it in that class under my teacher’s guidance. I find Films and television series more enjoyable now that I’m able to decipher the tropes, allusions and rhetoric within them. I can find archetypes, references, and thematic structure in films now that I know what to look for, and I get the same enjoyment from analyzing a film now that I do from analyzing a book. The movie I watched all the way through most recently was Robots, a movie I loved as a kid, but growth and maturity combined with my newfound skill, I was able to identify themes, character growth and archetype, and how they all feed into the arguments of the film. And I enjoyed it so much more than I did as a kid, too! Finally, Jurassic Park gave me a newfound appreciation for arts as a whole. I learned not only how to look at films and hone my skills in analysis of written art, but how to better look at other visual arts. Marina Abramovic finally made sense to me! I can realize the role that composition of subject(s) plays in a painting, how ordinary objects can become political commentary and eulogies. Realizing all of this potential of skill was absolutely earth-shattering, there are so many questions I have left to answer about the world that would have stayed questions, if not for what I learned from Jurassic Park.

I am not Italian-American. Arguably, I’m worse. I’m Sicilian-American. A loud, dramatic, curly-haired, red-lipstick-and-black-eyeliner, proud Sicilian-American. I remember having that fact drilled into my head every time I uttered the word Italian. “You’re not Italian, you’re Sicilian,” my father would say. My parents, my father German and my mother Sicilian Americans, grew up where ethnicity mattered– companionship and discrimination among their communities was all ethnic. My mom told me stories about lying about her ethnicity to do more business, because people would react with hostility after learning the truth. Consequently, it was important that they taught me to be proud of where my ancestors came from. And in that regard, they succeeded. The trouble came when, before I was born, they moved to a much less ethnically diverse place, but the consequence of that was that I grew up disconnected to a Sicilian-American community. Where I grew up, everything mostly operated on race. My parents were flabbergasted when I told them that my White friends had no idea whether they were German or English or Swedish or Polish.. I learned about my Sicilian culture through my mom’s stories: the good, the bad, and the organized crime. But my mom’s stories weren’t enough– I needed community. I used the internet and social media to foster my own community and learn more about my culture: our history, our love of celebration, our superstitions. We are a resilient, dedicated, and determined people, and I seek to embody these traits from the motherland through my learning; not just in college, but throughout my life. I can be seen in coffee shops writing poetry. It’s an outlet to make sense of the world around me where I don’t even feel like I'm exhausting any brainpower. The gears in my head turn as I form another metaphor. It’s an alchemical equation: something from nothing, the best words in the best order. I’ll scratch it out and write it again, slightly different this time. This character trait of mine demonstrates Sicilian dedication to our craft, whatever it may be. That ancestral passion for craft and community that runs through me suits dedication, resilience, and determination well. I am determined to make sense of the world around me. I always have been. Everything is a puzzle to be solved and interpreted, and there is never just one right answer. The questions “where do I come from”, on a greater scale, were always the biggest mystery to me. As I learned about Sicilian history, I was able to learn the story of distant, distant ancestors, the formation of a culture, and the diversity within. Now, I’m determined to create a community for, and raise awareness about Italian ethnic minorities and our struggles. These struggles instill within Sicilian-Americans a blazing resilience. Our culture stays alive because we kindle it, nurture it, like a fire. My goal since I was young was not cultural, but arguably bigger than that. I knew that I wanted to go to college. I had many struggles throughout my schooling, specifically relating to mental health, but I know that I can’t stop until I can hold that degree, and the Rosino Scholarship would be an immense help for financing my goal. I plan to use my education to work in the humanities, specifically involving Ancient Mediterranean studies, which includes early Sicilian history– our founding as a Doric city-state. Next, I plan to use my education to help the community around me through education. Knowledge is one of the greatest tools we have, especially when combined with a bona-fide Sicilian-American spirit.

“A black cloud of grief came shrouding over Achilles. Both hands clawing the ground for soot and filth, He poured it over his head, fouled his handsome face And black ashes settled onto his fresh clean war-shirt. Overpowered in all his power. Sprawled in the dust, Achilles lay there, fallen… …Antilochus kneeling near, weeping uncontrollably, Clutched Achilles’ hands as he wept his proud heart out— For fear he would slash his throat with an iron blade” The Iliad, Homer. Tr. Robert Fagles, book 18, p468. At the heart of The Iliad lies the dichotomy of love and grief. They are two sides of the same concept, and the act of loving someone truly, means to accept the risk of losing them. The “cut” of what is supposed to build. No stanza in all 15,693 lines, however, display the central argument as clearly as these. This scene opens directly after Nestor delivers the news that Patroclus is dead, and displays Achilles’ immediate grief, while Achilles’ actions in grief display the divinity of the love that he held for Patroklos, regardless of the nature of their relationship. Homer explicitly states that Achilles is in grief, but it is the adjectives that he uses that show its gravity. The Ancient Greeks did not necessarily have words for colour: they had words for groups of colours, for instance, forest green to lemon yellow is all khlōros, while dark blues are kyaneos but light blues are glaukos. Descriptions of colours were often much more vague than ours are today. Fagles’ choice of the word “black” to describe Achilles’ grief not only gives an image to the words, it also demonstrates the weight of the emotion. Achilles dirties himself, soiling his beautiful physique and clean clothing to physically reflect his emotional state. The use of colour symbolism serves to demonstrate this. The “black cloud of grief” is tangible through the black ashes with which he dirties himself. Achilles has experienced the death of many comrades, but none have hurt him like this, “Overpower[ing]” the best of the Myrmidons “in all of his power”. He is described as “fallen,” a word that anglophones would normally use for dead people, not only to emphasize again the weight of the grief, but to strengthen the connection of Achilles to Patroklos. In essence, Achilles is dead too, all but physically. “Fallen” in the context of death, bears many meanings in representation to Achilles’ wellbeing: to his pride, around which many of his epithets are centered. Achilles, who willingly turned a blind eye to tragedy when his other comrades died, only deigns to “weep his proud heart out”, and return to the battlefield later, for his companion. More importantly, Fagles’ choice of the word speaks for Achilles’ deterioration on the whole. His grief is so strong, that Antilochus restrains him, “For fear he would slash his throat with an iron blade”. Achilles is now completely irrational, a trait that will only grow as his grief for his companion does, building up to his moment of aristea (i.e.-- virtuous military prowess) on the battlefield. One soul in Ancient Greece was believed to be enough for two bodies. When two people are created, they each are given half of the same soul. The connection between these two souls is infallible and transcends death, another side to how the word “fallen” relates to death: to showcase the gravity of this connection as it applies to Achilles and Patroklos. The interpretation of Achilles and Patroklos as soulmates is only further strengthened by the following three lines, and hinges on the fact that this soul connection transcends death. Antilochus, who holds Achilles’ hands as the both of them weep, knows that Achilles would do something drastic after hearing this news. In other words, he would only wish for the death of Hektor before he is able to reunite with his other half. The two interpretations of the latter half of the stanza work together to demonstrate how these two souls compliment each other: through this analysis, one can tell that Patroklos was Achilles’ level head. The latter half of this stanza unifies divine love with the former half, divine grief, and this unity demonstrates that love and grief are the shaft and the arrowhead which combine to make a spear. That which can cut one man and build an army.