Edmunds Elementary School - Burlington Vermont 

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The Tiger in Your Life   By Elizabeth

Drugs: An extremely harmful substance that affects the nervous system.  Drugs can become habit forming and cause death.  Danny the main character in “Riding the Tiger” by Eve Bunting might feel the same way about drugs.  A tiger shows up in Danny’s front lawn one day.  Danny agrees to take a ride. At first the boy enjoys the ride but then he changes his mind.  The tiger becomes more and more powerful.  To me the tiger is a symbol for peer pressure and drugs. 
            Ms. Bunting uses the tiger to represent peer pressure.  Danny becomes a little bit nervous so he wants to get off the tiger's back.  But he does not want the tiger to think he is a wimp or to hurt him.  

Also, another way to show that the tiger symbolizes peer pressure is that the tiger and Danny come across a girl who wants to hang out with the tiger.  The tiger says to the girl, “Anyone isn’t for us is against us.”  I think that it means that anyone who isn’

By the end of the text Danny is very scared and the tiger is growing bigger and bigger.  So like I would feel, Danny wants to get off.  But he’s afraid that the tiger will hurt him badly.  The tiger is pressuring Danny not to get off his back. That’s peer pressure.  Obviously you could tell that the tiger could represent peer pressure.

         Ms. Bunting also uses the tiger to symbolize drugs. Here is a quote, said by the policeman to prove what he is symbolic for. “Once you get up on the tiger's back, it’s hard to get off… but if you get off fast enough it’s still possible.  I think that this quote means that the more you take drugs the harder it is to stop. But if you stop at the beginning it’s still possible. I think that that is a very powerful quote about drugs and what they can do to you. 

       Also in Riding the Tiger, Eve Bunting uses two words a lot, options and choices. I think that means that everyone who takes drugs has a choice or an option.  It's their decision if they want to do it or not.  Eve Bunting uses those words to represent choices to take drugs.  Most people know that when you take drugs you become drunk so that’s why Eve Bunting has the tiger do Vandalism.  All over town he calls it “his territory.”  The tiger uses a symbol for himself, a paw print with the word tiger written across it .  Clearly Ms. Bunting uses those examples to represent drugs.

            One time in your life you might come across someone who wants to pressure you, or maybe even pressure you to take drugs.  Ms. Bunting probably had a million reasons in her head of what the tiger could stand for, peer pressure, drugs, gangs, smoking and more.  Also, I think that Eve bunting wanted us to have a specific idea in our head of what the tiger could be symbolic for.  If you lived in a place were a lot of kids were part of gangs then you might think that the tiger could symbolize gangs.  Maybe if your parents smoked you might think that the tiger could be symbolic for smoking.  So next time you read a sophisticated story book like this, think about if there is anything that might represent something else like the tiger standing for peer pressure or drugs in “Riding the Tiger” by Eve Bunting.