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The Contender Argumentative Essay

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Have you ever been so desperate that you were willing to give up? Alfred is seventeen year old boy who dropped out from high school. Alfred works at a grocery store and hangs out with street kids. Alfred begins to realize that he needs to do something he decided that he will be a Contender. He goes to Donatelli's gym to start his training. Donatelli is a very important person to Alfred throughout the story. He also gets good advice from him and learns a good important lesson. In the novel, The Contender by Robert Lipsyte, Alfred Brooks is training to be a Contender and will learn a very important lesson in his life that is necessarily just about boxing. At one point in the novel, Alfred is training hard to be a contender. Alfred learns that in order to be a Contender he must put in the hard …show more content…

The first weeks were going to be hard for Alfred. He was sore and tired. “It’s not easy trying to become a contender. It’s never any fun in the beginning. It’s hard work, you’ll want to quit at least once every day. If you quit before you really try, that’s worse than never starting at all. And nothing’s promised you, nothing’s ever promised you ”(pg.36). This quote from the novel shows that Alfred was sore the first week of his training, but knew that he must deal with it to work hard. Alfred continues to work hard and dedicate himself as much as he can. Even though times could be difficult for him. In the song Rise Up by Andra Day, the message is to just keep working hard and don’t give up on yourself. The song's message is similar to Alfred's training because he is working hard to be his best. ”Your broken down and tired of living life on a merry go round and you can’t find the fighter, but I see it in you so we gonna walk it out”. The message from this quote shows that even though you're tired you have to keep pushing yourself no matter how hard things

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