Nineteen Minutes- Outside Reading Post 3

Nineteen Minutes and The 400 Blows- Comparisons

After watching The 400 Blows, I can see many comparisons between it and my outside reading book Nineteen Minutes. Both of the pieces have the common theme of rebellion. Antoine from the film and Peter from the novel both deal with rebellion, although through many different ways, they both have dealt with very similar things in their young lives.
Peter and Antoine both rebel at a young age. However, the rebellion is for different reasons. Peter rebels because of brutal bullying he has tolerated for most of his life, while Antoine is dealing with the neglect from his parents. However, one could argue that Antoine has to deal with the bullying of his teacher. When Peter is asked why he decided to start a school shooting, he replies simply with saying, "They started it" (317). When Antoine is asked why he has stolen, run away, etc, by the shrink at the Juvenile Facility he replies with stories of how he was angry with his mother or teacher, or simply bored and looking for something to do. I would have to say that both boys rebel out of anger though. Peter is angry at the kids who bullied him, and Antoine is angry at the authority figures in his life who ignore him or provoke him,.
Peter and Antoine also both lack structure in their lives. However this comes to them in different ways, they are both left alone by their parents. Peter grew up mostly in his room, playing computer games and building experiments such as bombs. "'He was on his computer,' Lacy said. 'Almost always'" (175). The mass amount of time Peter spent on his computer left hours of unstructured and mostly unproductive activity- which most often involved violent games. Antoine spent most of his time with his friend Rene causing trouble and cutting class. Antoine cut class repeatedly and his parents did not suspect a thing for the longest time. The lack of parental involvement in these boys' lives contributed to their desire to rebel.
I found it very interesting that I could tie these two very different pieces together, but through analyzing the characters, I saw that rebellion is a common theme in both the film and the novel.