The Message by Irma

The Message by Irma - May 2017 Scholarship Essay

During the winter break of my junior year of high school, I stumbled across the novel, I Am the Messenger, by Markus Zusak. I had been searching through the different novels available on my online library, and I had added a couple novels to my bookshelf that piqued my interest. The morning that I decided to start reading I started with I Am the Messenger and did not put it down until I had finished reading it. It only took me a few hours to finish it, and once I was done I felt like a whole new person. I believe that this novel truly transformed my view on the world and the impact that we have on others.
This novel is a story about a nineteen year old cabdriver, Ed Kennedy, who finds himself in a peculiar situation. Following his random heroic act during a bank robbery, Ed receives an Ace of Diamonds in the mail which turns his world upside down. On the playing card there is scrawled three addresses along with allotted times for each. Ed decides to pay the addresses a visit and discovers the tasks he is to accomplish. In the first address Ed discovers a home in which the husband is an alcoholic that rapes or physically abuses his wife every night. The second home is of an elderly widow whose husband had died nearly sixty years prior, but whom was still suffering from the loneliness his death caused. The last address was of a young track athlete who ran barefoot in the mornings, not because she could not afford shoes, but because she felt more free that way. This is how Ed realized that he was tasked with helping these people in the situations that they found themselves in. Ed befriends the widow, Milla, and helps her cope with her loneliness as he spends time and reads with her. In order to help the athlete, Sophie, Ed gifts her an empty shoebox, so she starts running barefoot in her track meets and does better because she is racing in the way she feels most liberated. The first address was the hardest, as Ed had to threaten the alcoholic man with a gun until the man was reduced to a blubbering mess and realized the fear that he provoked in his wife and child at home. After completing the first card Ed receives the next ace, fulfills his duty, and receives another ace until he has received all four. Throughout these four aces Ed has inconspicuously filled a church with attendees, given a single mother of three an ice cream cone, brought two troublesome brothers together, given christmas lights to a poor family, and more. In the end, Ed has not only brought some happiness and change to the lives of those in the cards, but also to himself.
The raw honesty of the main character and narrator, Ed Kennedy, truly made him someone I could relate to and his character development is astonishing throughout the novel. By the end of the novel, Ed is no longer the incompetent, lazy, unhappy nineteen year old that he was at the beginning. At the start of the novel, Ed was faced with a mid-life crisis as he felt unaccomplished compared to all the other nineteen year olds that had already accomplished so much at the same age. However, as Ed goes about committing these small acts to positively impact the lives of others he learns that it is not so much about what you have accomplished, but what change you have made. The same changes that Ed was undergoing as he started realizing that his life had purpose, I was experiencing. The gratitude that Ed was receiving in return for his acts of kindness was lifting his spirits and I knew that if he could do it, so could I.
This overarching idea that helping others in even the smallest ways can change both you and the person you have helped has led me to have a more positive take on the goals that I want to accomplish. As Ed realized that recognition and the level of impact does not matter, I realized the same. I want to help the world become a better place by helping people receive their rights, an education, and potable water as well as food. However, the world is a huge place, and I am just one small person in it. Before reading the novel, I felt a lot like Ed. I felt that I was going to be unaccomplished and that all my hard work in school was never going to pay off. However, this novel has allowed me to realize that feelings of accomplishment and fulfillment do not always come from a career or being well-known for something. To quote Markus Zusak written into his own novel, “‘Maybe everyone can live beyond what they’re capable of.. Maybe even I can.’” This realization has led me to be a lot more lenient on where my life takes me. There is no one set path that will lead to happiness and success, and I realize that now. Regardless of what I end up doing in my life, I know that if I do what I can to implement positive change in even the smallest of ways, the rest will come my way.