Thursday, September 30, 2010

Cry Journal 2

In Cry, The Beloved Country women and men are both characterized very differently. Alan Paton writes as if the women are not important. Most of the women there are not healthy and do rotten things to themselves. And the Men are much more highly thought of. For example there are a lot of  Priests and John is a very strong character he has his own business. I do not really think this is really important because that's how everything really use to be. Women were treated horribly back a long time ago, and this story takes place around that time.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Cry Journal 1

"Keep it, guard it, care for it, for it keeps men, guards men, cares for men. Destroy it and man is destroyed"(33). I chose this quote because I like the way it sounds, I like the repetition of the words, especially men. I think it enhances the meaning that Alan Paton is trying to convey. I think its significant because of all the meanings it can have. In the book its taking about the valley and how it is no more because of the problems it went through. But I also think it could be taking about family. And how if you take a man's family away it can hurt or destroy him. The second passage I liked was "And even if it did leave you, it would not much matter: unless you are a cripple, or very you could tun after it and catch it for yourself"(40). I think this passage showed how old everything is, and how warn down the train is just like the people there. I think this passage is also saying that when you are young you have a lot of places to go because one, you can and two because you want to explore and experience new things. When you are old it becomes hard for you too move let along travel. I also found it very interesting how the say "Go well, umfundisi"(44). I think its interesting because its almost like God bless you or God be with you. I think its significant because it doesn't say God. It just says kind of be well, or do good. The last quote I picked out was about the traffic lights, "He sees great high buildings, there are red and green lights on them, almost as tall as the buildings. They go on and off"(47). I like this quote because when he goes on to describe the traffic lights he is confused by them. Traffic lights usually help people with telling them whether to go or to not. But for Rev. it made him more scared and did not help at all. With the giant city he is already confused and scared then you add flashing lights on a dangerous street, well it doe not help.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Journal Entry 3 (Theme)

One of my favorite themes I found from Lord of The Flies was that desire for the feeling of importance or acceptance can drive humans to pursue desperate measures. William Golding expresses this with Jack behavior when Ralph is chosen to be Chief over him. It says that “Jack’s face disappeared under a blush of mortification.” (28). When Ralph sees this he feels obligated to offer him something so he won’t be too mad. And it does help.
            Another way we can see how this theme flows is with the point of view of  Piggy. Piggy wants to be heard, but is never really is. Piggy just wants to be accepted for who he is. Piggy is always trying to be heard and trying to make friends with the other kids on the island but because he is chubby, with asthma and that he has glasses no one wants to be friends with him. And I bet he feels down about it. He wants to be accepted by someone and he also wants to feel important, I think that’s why Piggy always wants to hold the conch and why the conch is so important to him then to anybody else. Piggy is constantly searching for these things and that can be really bad because if Piggy gets desperate enough it could get him into big trouble or even killed.

Monday, September 13, 2010

How would the novel be different if it included female characters?

When I first thought about this question my first automatic thought was that girls would stick together. I went deeper into that thought and I think it’s mostly true. Being a girl I don’t like to go anywhere alone. I love having my friends with me and I would stick with them if there was a problem. Another big change that I think would happen is when Jack and Ralph split up. I think the girls would have stayed with Ralph because he is nicer and would be more of a gentleman. Also all the little kids would be there with Ralph and the females would have a motherly instinct to take care of them. The last big change I think that would be in the book is that there wouldn’t have been so much fighting. I think that because boys are going to want to show off and impress the girls, and you’re not going to do that by fighting or crying because someone is yelling at you.  I think those three changes would have made this book a very different one, and maybe a more intrested one.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

The Effects

On the first page of the first chapter in Lord of the Flies, William Golding mentions that Piggy wears specs. I think he mentions this because the specs become a very important prop in the book. First off, they let Piggy see so he isn’t blind. Second, they make all the fire and the fire is really important. It gives heat, warms up food and makes smoke signals. It can also be very dangerous, especially in the hand of a wrong person who is not afraid of using it too its full ability. You would think that the specs wouldn’t be any use for anything bad but they really can be. Just like any other object or more importantly, a human. They could seem really harmless at first but once you get to know who they are and what they are truly like they could be really dangerous, especially when dangerous measures are involved. Leaving us with a theme, be careful who you trust, they may not always seem to be who they really are.

I think another important decision William Golding makes is when he tells us in the first paragraph that Ralph is dragging his “school sweater”. I think it’s important because he is letting us know that the main character is young and so will the rest of them be. With deciding to make the characters young you are already developing natural problems, like being naive, or not being very smart, and getting spooked too easily and being very easy to influence. And one of the most important problems is that they probably don't like to be away from their parents for a long time. On top of all these problems they have the issue where they are all stranded on an island and that there are bullies and selfish kids, which then makes even more problems. It seems that when you are in a problem its gonna be hard to get out of it without digging yourself farther in first.