Lina

//Reign Over Me.//
Alan Johnson is a successful dentist with a beautiful wife and two daughters who he loves very much. It seems like he lives the perfect life. But he feels that he can't really open up to his wife and tell her stuff that concerns him or tell her personal things about himself. Explain how he feels, and then everything will be much better. Alan also thinks that he has no friends to hang out with, someone to just talk to on a Saturday night, or someone he could just watch the football match with.

So when he one day sees his old friend from college, Charlie Fineman, he starts to talk to him and asks if they can’t hang out sometime. But soon he realizes that something is not really as it should with Charlie. He barely remembers Alan, he seems confused and whenever something is tough he puts on his earphones and escapes into his own little world of music.

Once Charlie was just like Alan. He worked as a dentist and he had a beautiful wife, three lovely daughters and a little poodle, Spider. Now all that is gone. Charlie lost his whole family in the terrible disaster of 9/11 and since then everything has gone wrong for him. He got so depressed that he tries to forget it all, he does not talk about his family with anyone and he pretends that they never existed. He doesn't even want to talk with his parents in law who tries to help him. Charlie lives alone in the apartment where he and his family use to live before, his hair and clothes are a mess and he spends his days playing video games or riding his scooter around the town. I don´t think it is good for Charlie to live in the same house were his dead family once lived. It only reminds him of them, every single day and that makes it so much harder for him to move on.

I understand why Charlie reacts like he does, why he tries to forget. It's easier and many people would´ve done the same. But I think that the best you can do is to talk with friends, your family, a psychologist or someone else you trust. Then you can get all the bad stuff out and you're not alone anymore. It may not seem as a good idea, most people think that no one will ever understand the things they've gone through. But almost always, that's the best to do and it will feel much better afterwards.

Alan starts hanging out with Charlie. They play video games, watch comedies and Alan tries to make Charlie better, tries to make him talk about his family. Charlie likes to hang out with Alan and he often calls him in the middle of the night to invite him to play videogames or go watch a movie or something like that. Charlie likes to do crazy stuff and thinks that Alan is boring when he says no. By spending more time with Charlie, Alan starts to be more confident about himself and starts doing those crazy things that Charlie likes to do. Like playing the guitar, even if he actually doesn’t know how to do it. Alan and Charlie become really good friends and it felt like the right time for Alan to ask about Charlie’s family. But when Alan does that, Charlie gets angry and screams that he should leave him alone. I don’t think Charlie actually wants Alan to go. He is just insecure and afraid of what will happen if he tells his story and have to relive all those painful memories. To protect himself from that, he tries to get rid of Alan and all memories he brought back. But Alan stays, and wants him to go see a psychologist. Charlie refuses to and gets angry again, but one day he finally realizes that he needs help. The psychologist- Angela, who also is a friend of Alan's, says that he needs to tell somebody about his family and what happened to be able to move on. At first Charlie doesn’t want to, he just walks out of the room and put on his earphones. But after some meetings with Angela he starts talking to Alan. He tells him about his wife and children. And he tells him about the day when it all went wrong.

Charlie’s wife and kids was going to visit his wife’s sister in Boston and they were taking the dog with them. Just before they went on the plane, Charlie talked to his wife in the phone. They had a little fuss about renovating the kitchen, and Charlie snapped at her. That was the last time he ever spoke to his wife. Because the plane that his family travelled with was the plane that hit World Trade Center. Charlie just couldn't take it and tries to forget it all, pretend that they never existed. But he can't. He feels very guilty about how he in his last talk with his wife, he snapped at her. So now he keeps renovating the kitchen. On and on and on to get the perfect kitchen that his family would've loved. I don’t think that renovating the kitchen is going to help Charlie. I understand why he does it, because he feels guilty about arguing with his wife and wants to make it up to her. But I think that he must accept that there is nothing that he can do that will change the happenings, he has to move on.

When Charlie has told his story to Alan, it feels good. But at the same time it brings back painful memories and when he gets alone, Charlie loses it. He takes a gun and walks out. He is looking for trouble and it ends up with Charlie threatening two policemen with the gun. This results in a big fight and suddenly Charlie finds himself in the courtroom. They are going to decide if he has to be placed at a mental hospital or maybe even in prison. It’s up to his parents in law as they are the only family he has left and they think that he should be locked up. Alan and Angela fights for Charlie’s sake and they think that he should walk his own way to be able to get better. At last, after a little talk with the judge his in-laws give in and Charlie is free. It is sad that Charlie had to go through all that bad things, but at the same time it was good for him. Because now he has gone through the worst and he is free to live as he wants to. The only way for him to go now is forward.

Charlie has to move in to a new apartment and Alan helps him with that. Suddenly Alan realizes that he got himself a really good friend who has helped him a lot. Not only to stand up to his boss who treated him unfair but also to open up to his wife and to live a much happier life than he did before. So in a way, by helping Charlie and being his friend, Alan helped himself too.

Task 2. Pictures.
I think this picture fits in well because it represents the loss of all the 9/11-victim's families. That there is a place where they can go and talk to other people who has been through the same thing. Maybe that´s a start to move on for many people. I can't imagine how hard it must have been and I understand that some people, like Charlie Fineman, just can't handle it and shuts down.

Task 3. ‍‍‍Quotations ‍‍‍.
//**“As long as you don’t give up, you haven’t lost”**// At first, Charlie has given up but then Alan makes him realize that if you just keep on fighting you can continue your life and move on. And in the end it gets better for Charlie, when he starts fighting his way up again. Also in //"Flight 93"// the passengers refuse to give up and tries to take over the plane. By doing that they saved many, many lives. But unfortunately they had to sacrifice their own to do it.

//**“Music should be your escape”**// Charlie is in his own little world when he is listening to music and whenever life gets hard he escapes into his world of music and he can calm down. Music is in many ways a good medicine and it can help in many different situations.

//**“The truths that you don’t want to hear is the ones that you need to listen to the most.”**// Charlie is trying to escape the truth by forgetting the accident, but when Alan makes him to remember he gets that the only way to really move on is to face the truth and don’t hide from it.