Adhering to Influence: How Role Models Affect The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and Rule of the Bone

From the second a person enters into the world they begin to be influenced by the community around them. Children learn language, behaviour traits and social customs from others they encounter. As we grow older and start to develop, we look to our elders for guidance, and it is these people who lead us into adulthood and shape our personalities. These role models can offer spiritual, ethical or even financial guidance, and are very important to us growing up, as they affect nearly every aspect of a person's journey into adulthood. Russell Bank's Rule of The Bone tells the story of Chappie, a fourteen year old boy from upstate New York who runs away from home and starts a new life as Bone. Mordecai Richler's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, another classic "coming of age" novel presents an account of a young boy from the Jewish ghetto of Montreal named Duddy, who starts an unrelenting pursuit of property after becoming obsessed by his grandfather's words. In both Richler's The Appr...