One of the defining qualities of Battle Royale by Koushun Takami is that almost everyone dies. Set on an island where a 9th-grade class is kidnapped and forced to play a ruthless game of killing each other until one is left, we, as readers, get to experience a multitude of gory deaths and tragic endings through the perspective of the student dying. We witness their last thoughts, last words, and the way they were killed. Rather than watching the student’s death from the perspective of the person killing them, we are kept in the dark about the corruption and wickedness required to win the game. Battle Royale blends the gruesome game with the silliness of school-girl crushes and innocent school drama, shielding both the students and us from the killings of their classmates. By doing this, our views of the gruesome game become confined to the filters through which the children see their lives and deaths, whether it be through innocent metaphors or a great amount of hope. Almost every student’s death throughout the novel is compared to something far unrelated to death in a juvenile way. There is a distinct contrast between what the student thinks is happening and what actually is happening. For a moment, we are led to believe that the child's death is not as horrifying as we think it is. For example, when student Megumi Eto was killed by Mistuko Souma, Megumi described her own death in the following paragraph: "She heard a sound—slkkk— like a lemon being sliced. It was a very pleasing sound, right out of a TV cooking show; a sound only the best, newest knife and the freshest fruit could provide. Today, viewers, we’ll be making salmon with a lemon marinade. It took a good two or three seconds before Megumi realized what had happened. " 117) In this paragraph, Megumi’s innocence makes the moment almost sound positive with words like “pleasing” and “best” as well as “freshest”, setting up the contrast between what really happened and what Megumi thinks is happening. In the third sentence, the readers are even explicitly addressed and told that they are witnessing a completely ordinary, mundane act, which diverts the focus away from Megumi’s death to the cooking show she compares it to. These positive words and the pure, innocent metaphor describing her death change the reader’s view of the fact that Megumi’s throat was just slashed, as if trying to cushion the next sentence’s impact. While the final sentence jarringly moves from innocent daydream into reality, the real description of her death remains vague, with only a hint or a gesture explaining that this is death. While it is clear Megumi died, the book boils her death down to nothing but a mere comparison to a cooking show. Even the first sentence, where the sound of her death is being described, still never mentions any weapon or form of gore. We are intentionally kept in the dark on what the killer of Megumi thinks, reinforcing the innocent way death is described. This absurd metaphor, comparing morbid things to childish ones, creates a blend between innocence and corruption. Violence is woven onto almost every single page in Battle Royale, allowing us to find and question the limits to which violence can be portrayed without being immoral or unjustified. In the end, the filter of childhood innocence not only shields the students in Battle Royale and the readers from the corruption they are faced with, but it also serves as a way to turn violence from something we would never want to face in our daily lives into something appealing.

Hands shaking, the voices of my friends faded into the background as I could only focus on the emptiness inside my chest. This couldn’t be real. In disbelief, I looked down at the text confirming that my best friend, Logan, was dead. Startled by my friend’s voice asking, “Are you okay?”, I pried my eyes away from my phone, barely aware of my surroundings. Not able to process my feelings, I was paralyzed by denial the rest of the day. My mind immediately drifted to the possibility of suicide. Having known Logan since fifth grade, I knew he struggled with depression. “Everything is okay,” he used to say with a laugh, masking deep pain behind his smile. Though we attended separate high schools, I replayed his hopeful voice in my head saying, “We’re going to be together again!” after repeated promises of transferring to my school. But a later text confirmed my worst fears—he committed suicide. After a year of suppressing my sadness, my vision blurred as I found out that another best friend I'd known since 6th grade also committed suicide. This time, I was completely caught off guard—no one suspected she was struggling. I tried avoiding my feelings again, but my worried family convinced me to try therapy in hopes that I could process and heal. My therapist explained what I was experiencing—dissociation. Amid these unthinkable tragedies, I’d lost control of my body and emotions. In order to regain control, she urged me to find an outlet that I could use to express my grief, instead of keeping it inside. Dismissing her advice, I continued to go through the motions until two months later, when my friend recommended that I watch Good Will Hunting. Initially, I expected the movie to be nothing more than an entertaining story used to kill time. But as I wiped tears away as Will Hunting—a genius who struggled with letting go of his childhood trauma— learned to accept that his upbringing does not define him, I found myself resonating with him. Suppressing my grief wouldn’t help me get over the hardship I faced; it would only make it harder. As the credits rolled and I came to terms with the fact that I had to find a way to face my emotions, I realized that movies have a purpose beyond entertainment. They spread powerful messages that can change lives. Cinema became my new passion. I watched a new movie every week, whether it was a drama film or a neo-noir. From “Parasite”'s metaphor for social class to “La La Land”'s depiction of achieving dreams, I took notes on the deeper importance of these films in the context of society. After finding the screenplay for Good Will Hunting at my local thrift store, I realized that I didn’t have to just watch movies. I could write them. Screenwriting could not only be an outlet for expressing my grief, but I could also use it to shine a light on larger issues like mental health. Eagerly, I read numerous screenplays, teaching myself how to format lines and cut scenes. Summer after my sophomore year, I wrote my first screenplay addressing the effects of loneliness on the human mind. A film student at my high school, who was moved by the concept, helped me turn it into a short film. As students and parents came up to me, telling me that the film had moved them, I knew this would be the first of many screenplays to come. Currently, I attend the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where I continue to nurture my love for screenwriting and connect with others to bring my scripts to the big screen. I no longer suppress the emotions that came with my friends’ deaths; I embrace them, using them as motivation to write and spark change. My chest swells with fulfillment as I look to my future writing to change people’s lives.

Hands shaking, the voices of my friends faded into the background as I could only focus on the emptiness inside my chest. This couldn’t be real. In disbelief, I looked down at the text confirming that my best friend Logan was dead. Startled by my friend’s voice asking “Are you okay?”, I pried my eyes away from my phone, barely aware of my surroundings. Not able to process my feelings, I was paralyzed by denial the rest of the day. My mind immediately drifted to the possibility of suicide. Having known Logan since fifth grade, I knew he struggled with depression. “Everything is okay,” he used to say with a laugh, masking deep pain behind his smile. Though we attended separate high schools, I replayed his hopeful voice in my head saying “We’re going to be together again!” after repeated promises of transferring to my school. But a later text confirmed my worst fears—he committed suicide. After a year of suppressing my sadness, my vision blurred as I found out that another best friend I'd known since 6th grade also committed suicide. This time, I was completely caught off guard—no one suspected she was struggling. I tried avoiding my feelings again, but my worried family convinced me to try therapy in hopes that I could process and heal. My therapist explained what I was experiencing—dissociation. Amid these unthinkable tragedies, I’d lost control of my body and emotions. In order to regain control, she urged me to find an outlet that I could use to express my grief, instead of keeping it inside. Dismissing her advice, I continued to go through the motions until two months later when my friend recommended that I watch Good Will Hunting. Initially, I expected the movie to be nothing more than an entertaining story used to kill time. But as I wiped tears away as Will Hunting—a genius who struggled with letting go of his childhood trauma— learned to accept that his upbringing does not define him, I found myself resonating with him. Suppressing my grief wouldn’t help me get over the hardship I faced; it would only make it harder. As the credits rolled and I came to terms with the fact that I had to find a way to face my emotions, I realized that movies have a purpose beyond entertainment. They spread powerful messages that can change lives. Cinema became my new passion. I watched a new movie every week whether it was a drama film or neo-noir. From “Parasite”'s metaphor for social class to “La La Land”'s depiction of achieving dreams, I took notes on the deeper importance of these films in the context of society. After finding the screenplay for Good Will Hunting at my local thrift store, I realized that I didn’t have to just watch movies. I could write them. Screenwriting could not only be an outlet for expressing my grief but I could also use it to shine light on larger issues like mental health. Since then, I’ve written nine screenplays, each addressing social issues. I’ve submitted to festivals like UCLA’s Open Minds Mental Health Film Festival and the Beverly Hills Film Fest. I no longer suppress the emotions that came with my friends’ death, I embrace them, using it as motivation to write and spark change. My chest swells with fulfillment as I look to my future writing to change people’s lives.

This passage is from page 149 of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Looking at herself in the mirror, with the bright morning sunlight freshening even the blue room of Hill House, Eleanor thought, It is my second morning in Hill House, and I am unbelievably happy. Journeys end in lovers meeting; I have spent an all but sleepless night, I have told lies and made a fool of myself, and the very air tastes like wine. I have been frightened half out of my foolish wits, but I have somehow earned this joy; I have been waiting for it for so long. Abandoning a lifelong belief that to name happiness is to dissipate it, she smiled at herself in the mirror and told herself silently, You are happy, Eleanor, you have finally been given a part of your measure of happiness. Looking away from her own face in the mirror, she thought blindly, Journeys end in lovers meeting, lovers meeting. The passage from page 149 of Shirley Jackson’s Haunting of Hill House, gives us insight into the way the main character, Eleanor, thinks and the way her mind operates as we reach the end of the novel. The very little use of periods, makes the paragraph seem like a stream of consciousness simply written down into words compared to refined and well thought-out prose. There is an excessive use of commas to compensate for the lack of periods which keeps each sentence flowing even when it shouldn’t be. For example, “Looking at herself in the mirror, with the bright morning sunlight freshening even the blue room of Hill House, Eleanor thought, It is my second morning in Hill House and I am unbelievably happy.” When she’s thinking, she isn’t thinking in sentences that are grammatically correct, but instead with phrases that all blend together and go on for a while. Almost as if she doesn’t want whatever she is thinking about to end like her journey at Hill House, because while commas signify a pause, periods signify a stop. Even in the quote “Journeys end in lover meeting, lovers meeting” there is still an unnecessary repetition of ‘lover’s meeting’ like she just wanted to keep the thought going. Eleanor was not ready for the journey to end in ‘lover's meeting’ and to express this she added ‘lover's meeting’ again to continue it. The uniform font of the paragraph also tells us that Eleanor’s mind is somewhat being lost to the setting because of the lack of difference between Eleanor’s thoughts and the third person narration. The third person narration is primarily used to describe Hill House “bright morning sunlight freshening even the blue room of Hill House” and the first person narration is also used to voice Eleanor’s thoughts of Hill House and her experience there. Since each narration is depicting Hill House and there is no distinction between the two in fonts or quotes, it seems as if both narrations are one. Eleanor’s inner thoughts are muddled with the descriptive narration, with the only indicator of a switch being phrases like “she thought”. Those phrases seem to be a metaphor for Eleanor losing herself but still able to hold onto one last piece of her identity. Eleanor has slowly started to become one with the house and the atmosphere of Hill House reflects her mind. This passage seeks to reinforce the idea that Eleanor and Hill House are slowly becoming more intertwined. The repetitive language, punctation (or lack thereof), and lack of distinction between Eleanor's thoughts and descriptive setting is a reflection of Eleanor's path towards insanity.