Of Mice and Men (WARNING MAJOR SPOILERS!!)

The Book of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is about two men named George and Lennie. George is small, bossy and clever while Lennie is big, obedient, and not the brightest but they are still best friends. They travel and work together and both dream of one day sharing a plot of land with their own shack and some rabbits to care for. However, Lennie is always messing up things for them. He has the mind of a child and doesn’t understand his own strength. He love to touch soft things like mice, but he always pets them too hard and ends up hurting them instead.

On the farm where George and Lennie work, an old man named Candy also works. Candy has a dog who is old, tired, and smells very bad. The other farmhands all wish that he would put the dog to sleep and get a new one because she is a nuisance. Candy doesn’t want to kill her though, he has raised her since she was a puppy and is very attached to her. Later on he decides to kill her to put her out of her misery, but allows one of the other farmhands to do the job. Candy is very mournful afterwards.

Then, at the end of the book Lennie accidentally kills the boss’s son’s wife and runs away. George knowing where Lennie is finds him and shoots him out of mercy because he knows the other farmhands will be much crueler. George doesn’t feel right about shooting Lennie even though the other workers think he is a hero.

I think John Steinbeck is trying to ask us whether or not it is moral to kill someone “out of mercy” or “for their own good”. In both cases the individual killed (either Candy’s dog or Lennie) would have suffered more if they weren’t killed when they were. Personally, I think it is rarely ever moral to kill someone. I don’t think candy’s dog should’ve been killed and in not quite sure if Lennie should’ve been killed either. I believe that John Steinbeck also thinks these characters should not have been killed. Both killers feel extreme remorse after their actions and seem to regret it.  I think Steinbeck was trying to make a point that it is not moral to kill people under any circumstances.

Son by Lois Lowry

The book Son by Lowis Lowry is about a young girl, Claire, who is given the job to give birth to children. She is not supposed to know where her baby goes, or who it is “assigned” to, but Claire wants to find out, and she does. She finds he is going to be killed because he is different. But, someone rescues her baby, Gabe, before she does, and she goes on a journey to find him. But the cost is her memory. I think a theme in the book Son, is that family comes first, no matter what. There are many instances where it is evident that Lowry is trying to communicate to the reader that message. I think this is important because it is a valuable lesson that relates to the real world in many different ways.

                One reason why I think that this lesson (family comes first) is a theme in the book Son is that, the main character Claire has a need to rescue Gabe, her son “I could walk out of here,” Claire thinks to herself as she holds Gabe (page 62) “I could leave right now. I could take him.” She really wants to take him from a place called the nurturing center so that she can take care of him, not some random family. Claire wants to be the one to help Gabe grow so badly that she is willing to steal him from the nurturing center. I think that she wants to be the one to do this for Gabe because here, in this point in the book, Claire feels like she doesn’t belong anywhere and having family means you belong somewhere. You belong with your family.

                Another reason why I think the theme family comes first is a lesson in Son is that on page 194 sometime after her and Gabe are separated, she has a conversation with her friend Alys:

‘”I must find him’ Claire whispered, finally.

‘Aye you must’

‘How?’

Alys stayed silent’”

She is explaining to Alys in this paragraph that she HAS to find Gabe. And later on she does, but she gives up her youth and nearly dies trying to find him and be with him. Claire puts family before anything else in this scenario. She leaves her love for Einar and her friendship with Alys all to find Gabe, her only family. But in a way Einar and Alys were also her family because she belonged with them as well as with Gabe once she finds him.

                The last reason why I think that family comes first is a theme in Son is that when Gabe is apart from Claire, even though he doesn’t even know who his mom is he has a passion and zeal for finding where he belongs and where his family is. On page 274 Gabe is determined to find his mom or “birthmother”:

“’what happened to the birthmothers? What happened to my birthmother?’

‘I don’t know, Gabe’

‘Didn’t she want me?’

Jonas sighed ‘I don’t know Gabe. It was a different system---‘

‘I’m going to find out.’”

In this quote, Gabe is determined to find his mom and belong somewhere, even though he has no idea how to find her or where he is going. I think that people put family before other things and want to belong because they feel safer and they feel loved. Instead of being the odd one out, they have family.

                All in all, a very strong theme in the book Son is that family comes first. This is an important theme because all people want to belong somewhere and when you are with family, you feel like you have a place in the world. I also think that this book is a reflection of our world where so many people are lost and have no one to be with or love. I don’t think anyone deserves that. I think something that someone can learn from this theme/ book is that if you don’t have any place you belong or any family you can find family in people like your friends and mentors.

The Hobbit

The book The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien, is about a character named Bilbo Baggins that goes on a very long journey. Bilbo is a hobbit (which are small, big footed and home-body type creatures) and the journey is to regain treasure stolen from the dwarves of the Lonely Mountain by the dreadful dragon Smaug. A pattern I have noticed in the book is that even though the hobbit seems to think he is very uncourageous, he saves the dwarves from harm multiple times. This is important because by the end of the book, Bilbo seems very brave indeed! But before Bilbo does any very courageous acts, he happens upon a ring that renders him invisible to others. I infer that it is the ring that makes Bilbo feel Brave.

                One example of Bilbo’s unexpected braveness is when he saves the dwarves from the giant monstrous spiders that try to eat the group of travelers (Bilbo and the dwarves). All the other dwarves get captured by the huge spiders and are stuck in the web, but Bilbo is not caught and is able to help them. This connects back to my theory about the ring, because the way that Bilbo saves the dwarves is by wearing the ring and luring the spiders away from their webs, and then slaying them. The spiders cannot see Bilbo and that aggravates them. Then, when Bilbo is rescuing the dwarves he takes the ring off for a second and that’s when things start to go wrong; “He had taken off his ring when he rescued Fili, and forgotten to put it back on” then after that line the spiders find them and Bilbo and the dwarves narrowly escape. However, I believe that the only reason he is able to do this is because of the ring that sort of protects him.

                Another example of the courageous Bilbo brought out by his ring is when the dwarves are caught by the elves of the woods and are locked up in dungeons. Bilbo was not captured because he wore his ring and followed the elves to their palace. After a little while he was able to set the dwarves free out of cunning and courage. He stole the jail guard’s keys and unlocked the prison doors. He then packed all the dwarves inside barrels that the elves shipped food in. The elves unknowingly shipped the dwarves to safety! This connects to my theme because saving the dwarves was very brave, and Bilbo did so with his ring. But as well, sometime when Bilbo was unlocking the dwarves chambers I read “And his heart was often in his mouth, in spite of his ring, for he could not prevent the keys from making every now and then a loud clink and clank, which put him all in a tremble” this quote shows that anything that reveals to someone where Bilbo is, he is quite afraid of. I think Bilbo actually becomes much less careful as the book goes on because of the ring.

My last piece of evidence is when Bilbo steals a bit of treasure from Smaug for the dwarves. The first time he does this, Smaug is sleeping, so Bilbo gets away just fine. However the second time he does this, he encounters Smaug. But, he is able to talk to Smaug while he was invisible, and Bilbo gets away. But while he is running away from Smaug, the dragon tries to scorch Bilbo with his fiery breath, “It was an unfortunate remark, for the dragon spouted terrific flames after him.” Bilbo gets scorched (nothing too serious) because he had the ring and was sure the dragon had no clue where he was, but Smaug did have an idea of where Bilbo was!

All in all, Bilbo feels courageous only when he has his ring on! I think this is a weakness, or will be his downfall because sometimes he is too sure the ring will fully protect him, and it doesn’t. Readers can learn from this because it shows the life lesson: Don’t be overconfident! That’s what happens with Bilbo! I predict that the ring might be Bilbo’s fatal flaw in the end!

City of Ashes

The book City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare is about a sixteen year old girl named Clarissa Fray (clary for short) who finds out that she is not quite who she thinks she is. She leaves her old "mundane" life behind her as she delves into the world of the demon killing shadow hunters, and realizes that she is actually a shadow hunter, not a human or a "mundane". In this book Clary meets a mysterious shadow hunter boy named Jace who's one passion in life is to fight  demons and put himself in the most dangerous situations. Jace's shadow hunter friends hate the fact that Jace is always putting himself in the most danger possible, but that all changes when he meets Clary. Clary and Jace have a very special connection and it baffles Jace's friends. Jace is not the caring type, but there is not doubt that he cares about Clary.

I noticed that when Clary is around Jace, he usually thinks twice about doing dangerously stupid things. one might say he is protecting Clary by not dragging her indo ridiculous situations, but I think that Jace is trying not to kill himself, because Clary is Jace's reason to live. Before Clary, although he had friends, Jace was all alone. he had no parents brothers sisters or relations of any kind. However he cares so much about Clary Fray that he thinks twice about charging blindly into battle.

Divergent

The book Divergent, by Veronica Roth is about a girl named Tris, who lives in a futuristic dystopian world where the people are split into factions based on what values they think are most important. The factions are Erudite which values knowledge, Amity which values peace and kindness, Candor which values honesty, Abnegation which values selflessness and Dauntless, which values courage. The factions were created because in turmoil, different people blamed certain qualities for their problems (for example abnegation values selflessness and blames selfishness and greed). However I believe that by breaking up the population into factions, the problems were made worse.

For example, the Erudite faction which once was a faction that valued wisdom and knowledge that was used to do good now is greedy and constantly hungry for knowledge. As well, dauntless, a faction that used to favor courage in sticking up for friends and yourself is now full of reckless and violent people with little sense of comeradery. I think that by breaking up into factions and just focusing on one value, they forgot all other values. The Erudite found knowledge, but lost Abnegation, the Dauntless found courage, but forgot Amity. The factions seem to think that since another group of people focuses on that value, they don’t have to, but the truth is the best type of person is the one who can be courageous, friendly, honest, knowledgeable, and giving all at the same time.

Virals

The book Virals is a novel about a girl named Tory Brennan, a smart, science-geek girl who finds herself in South Carolina with her father (Kit) after her mother dies in a car crash. Tory’s dad is a scientist who didn’t know he had a daughter until someone told him that he Tory’s new legal guardian. They are both still getting used to each other when suddenly, things start to get dangerous. It all starts when Tory and her friends start exploring Loggerhead Island, a home to a science research facility.

When she first goes to Loggerhead, Tory runs into the wolf-dog pack, a family of wolf-dog hybrids that live on the island. She rescues one of their puppies and returns him to the pack (after naming him Cooper, or Coop for short). From then on, she feels a sort of responsibility towards them and returns to Logger head once in a while to check up on them. Then, tory and her gang stumble across an old military dog tag that is rusted beyond recognition. Seduced by the idea of the mystery, they break into the lab to de-rust it with the fancy tools there. While in the lab, Tory and her gang find the Coop It appears he has been hurt, and purposefully infected with the parvovirus, a disease that only infects canine mammals. The group takes the puppy and scoots as fast as they can, hoping to heal the puppy and return him to the rest of the wolf-dog pack.

I think that Tory rescues the dog (twice) and feels a sense of responsibility toward him because her mom died, and she feels a little abandoned. She still has her dad, but Tory and Kit are unfamiliar and nowhere near as close as Tory and her mom had been. Tory feels like she has to protect the puppy because she knows how it feels to be left alone (and scared) and wants to help the little guy and return him to a safe place. Her friends are wary of the affinity Tory has for Coop (naming him and rescuing him and looking after him like a mother), but they go along with it, probably knowing that it will make Tory feel better about what happened to her mom.

After tory and her friends rescue Cooper from the lab, they try to nurse him back to health with antibiotics the y nabbed from the lab, but something they don’t know it that this strain of parvovirus could be a new one, never seen before. One that is infectious to humans.

The Fault In Our Stars

 

The Fault in Our Stars is an award winning book about a girl named Hazel. She is a teenager who has cancer. She often talks about her favorite book An Imperial Affliction (also about a teenaged girl dying of cancer). Hazel is quite similar to the main character of this book (who is named Anna). Hazel often talks about how “life is just a side effect of dying,” and is mostly very dismal about life. One would expect that carelessness from a dying, cancer-diagnosed teen, but I think, secretly, Hazel really cares. I can tell this by the connection Hazel feels to Anna in An Imperial Affliction. She constantly talks about the book, and, although she never mentions feeling close to Anna, you can tell by the way she talks about the book and its characters that she does feel close to her. Most importantly, you can tell that she does care, mostly about the people around her.

                I can tell Hazel really cares about her family and what happens to them after she inevitably dies because she is so obsessed with figuring out what happens to Anna’s parents after she dies. An Imperial Affliction ends mid-sentence, presumably because Anna dies, so you never figure out what happens to her family and friends. Hazel goes all the way to the nether lands just to figure out what happens to Anna’s family. She claims she did this because she really like the book, but I think she made this effort because (since she connected with Anna so deeply) she thinks that figuring out what happens to Anna’s family will tell her what will happen to hers.

                She really desperately wants to not “hurt” anybody when she dies, so she distances herself from all her old friends (and newer ones). At one point she describes herself as a grenade and says that when she finally kicks the bucket she will explode and leave shrapnel in everybody she cares about and everybody who cares about her. She wants to know that they’ll be okay. Unlike most people, who want to be remembered, Hazel thinks that the more people you know when you die, the more casualties of your grenade there will be. I think this an interesting thought, but not entirely true. I believe that when you pass, people are glad to have known you, and yes, they will be sad, but it is part of human nature to miss people or things, without that we would be much more heartless and careless.

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows- Continued: Inquiry question #3

The book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling is the seventh book in a series of seven about a wizard named Harry. This wonderful installation follows Harry and his two best friends Hermione and Ron on their thrilling quest to find and destroy all of the horcruxes made by the evil Voldemort. Their goal is to vanquish Voldemort and stop his terrible schemes of taking over both the wizarding and muggle worlds. In this series, muggles are often seen by the evil characters as an inferior race, and below the wizards. House elves as well are treated this way. This is an allegory for racism, a very real and non fantastical problem that has and still does haunt our world. In the end the problem is solved, as in most storybooks. However, there was a question I asked myself after reading this book; how does justice in the book make me think about justice in the real world? I think that  the justice in this story is the conventional, hero-saves-the-day kind of justice you expect to see in a fantasy novel, but in the real world, this is not typical justice.
 
In Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, there is an element of racism towards the muggles and house elves from the evil characters. In the "real world," we have come across the issue of racism. Racism is the idea that certain cultures are better or more deserving of something than another culture. Sadly, this is still something we encounter in life today. I'd like to think that whenever someone is discriminatory someone is there to bring justice, but sadly some people (mostly those who are racist) don't see racism as a problem., and therefore don't do anything about it. In reality, you can never completely get rid of a problem, especially if it is someone's thoughts or opinions that are causing it, but we can try to serve justice when there is a problem we can fix. 

In this story, a hero saves the world nearly single handedly. In books (mainly fantasy and other types of fiction) there is usually a hero/heroine that steps in, immediately knows right from wrong, and saves everyone from evil. However in real, day-to-day situations of crime and misdemeanor, the government is often the one to step in and serve justice to those who need it. This is what happens in court cases where judges decide whether or not there was wrong doing and, if there was, who should be punished for it and how they should be punished. These two situations are an example of justice being typically served. There are all sorts of people who bring would typically bring justice for a certain situation. The same rule goes for the antagonist. Most traditional storybook plots have an evil force that threatens the main character and his/her friends. This is the case in Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows. Most real world situations are a group that threatens society or peoples lives on a larger scale. 

In conclusion, you can reflect a lot upon the world by looking at the books around you. Often writers model their problems off of problems society struggles with today. Books and real worlds aren't always completely aligned, but you can still analyze these seemingly fantastical problems for a grain of truth.

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Inquiry Question #1

The book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling is an engaging book about three wizards on a quest to find all of Voldemort’s (an evil wizard who is trying to rule over both the wizard and muggle—human—worlds) horcruxes (an object that has a piece of your soul in it and keeps you from completely dying if someone kills you) so that they can destroy the horcruxes and kill Voldemort to keep him from terrorizing the wizard and muggle worlds. In the story, muggles are often seen as an inferior race, below the wizards or just useless and stupid. As well, House Elves (elves that are usually enslaved to do a wizard’s bidding) are also treated very poorly and without much thought. This reminds me a lot of racism in our non-fantastical real world. I think J.K. Rowling is trying to tell us something about racism through an allegory in her book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

One example of this allegory is when the Ministry of Magic (the government of the wizard world) puts a statue in their government building of a bunch of very tiny muggles all stacked up and being sat upon by very large wizards. On pages 241—242, “A gigantic statue of black stone dominated the scene. It was rather frightening, this vast sculpture of a witch and a wizard sitting upon ornately carved thrones… Engraved in foot-high letters at the base of the statue were the words MAGIC IS MIGHT... Harry looked more closely and realized that what he thought were decoratively carved thrones were actually mounds of carved humans… ‘Muggles’ whispered Hermione ‘In their rightful place.’” This kind of belittlement of a race (whether it be Muggles, House Elves, of African Americans) is highly unacceptable and distasteful. As well, I noticed that Rowling makes all of the “evil” characters (the Ministry of Magic, Voldemort and the purebloods) the most discriminative and racist towards Muggles, and the “good” characters (Hermione, Harry and Ron) look upon the injustice with disgust and act the kindest towards the Muggles. By making the discrimination happen because of the bad guys, J.K. Rowling puts racism in a bad light and seems to want us to think inequity is undeniably lousy. With which I completely agree.

Another example of this allegory is on page 195, when Hermione speaks of house elves and Voldemort, “Of course Voldemort would have considered the ways of house elves far beneath his notice, just like all the purebloods who treat them like animals… It would never have occurred to him that they might have magic that he didn’t.” This quote displays that the characters in the book not only encounter problems with muggle-wizard equity but with House Elf intolerance too. Most of the people who treat House Elves badly are, in fact, Purebloods who persecute Muggles. These purebloods and evil-doers often think that muggles and house elves are only capable of unimportant and useless things when there actually are muggles who have magical abilities, House Elves who’s magic extends far beyond any wizard’s reach, and pureblood wizards who are squibs and can’t do magic at all. This whole idea of shaming or disrespecting someone because you think they are inferior to you is horrific. Who knows, maybe you aren’t better than that person or group. Even if you claim to be, you most certainly shouldn’t make them feel bad about themselves for it.

All in all, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a great book and an allegory for racism, discrimination, and persecution.  There are many real world problems that are reflected in certain books and that ensures that these problems are noticed and considered. J.K. Rowling makes it very clear that these acts are distasteful, disrespectful, and altogether, wrong. She is entirely correct in that matter; the world would be a much better place without discrimination.

House Of Hades

The book House of Hades, by Rick Riordan is an engaging story about Eight demigods (half mortal-half gods also known as half-bloods) named Piper, Jason, Leo, Hazel, Frank, Nico, Annabeth, and Percy. They are on a quest to stop Gaea, the ancient and powerful earth goddess, from resurrecting the Giants, a group of very large and dangerous monsters that are set on killing all demigods, mortals, gods (Olympians) and everything else that isn't evil enough. They are thwarted by monsters, curses, problems, and minor gods who generally want to get in their way and each have their own specific reason for wanting them dead. As well, the Olympian Gods’ Greek and Roman sides are warring within their bodies, each fighting for dominance. Instead of helping the quest like they usually do, they are completely useless and unhelpful, sometimes even getting inside the half-blood’s heads and distracting them. As if all these problems aren't enough, they also have to stop a civil war between the Greek demigods and the Roman demigods. The half-bloods are left to their own defenses and have very little help from anyone besides each other. The one thing they have to guide them is something they call The Prophecy of Seven. The Prophecy is supposed to help them, but prophecies are often confusing, unclear, and have double meanings. One line in The Prophecy of Seven says: “To storm or fire the world must fall.” The demigods all seem to think this pertains to Jason (a son of Jupiter who can summon storms) and Leo (a son of Hephaestus who can summon fire) However, I have a different theory as to what this prophecy means.

The Prophecy of Seven says: “To storm or fire the world must fall.” I think that the storm or fire in the Prophecy is not a symbol for Jason and Leo, but for Greek and Roman. Both the Greek and Roman demigods and Gods are battling, when they should be unified and fighting the larger more important war against Gaea and the Giants. Traditionally to defeat the Giants, demigods and gods must work together. I think that the Prophecy is explaining that one side, either Greek or Roman is going to accidentally or purposefully destroy the world or that the demigods will be so wrapped up in their own quarrels that Gaea overpowers them. In one part of the book, Jason visits the God of the South Winds. He tells him “It is time to choose a direction. A wind that blows aimlessly is of no use to anyone.” The God is referring to the fact that Jason is a little confused about whether he is Greek or Roman. I think that everyone needs to not pick a side as Greek or Roman, but demigod or monster.

All in all, the Prophecies of demigods can be double sided and misleading, but I think the Prophecy of Seven is saying that the demigods need to wake up and fight Gaea instead of each other. I hope that the half-bloods realize this before it is too late to fix.

Faithful Elephants

The story Faithful Elephants: a true story of Animals People, And War, by Yukio Tsuchiya is a beautiful story about three elephants living at the Ueno zoo in Tokyo. Japan is currently at war, and the government orders all animals in the zoo to be poisoned to death lest bombs drop on the zoo and the animals run wild through Tokyo. The first animals to be killed are the three beloved elephants: John, Tonky, and Wanly. Although this is a children’s book there are many symbols and deeper meanings. One example is the setting, which carries a much stronger meaning than just describing blue skies and cherry blossoms.

At the beginning of the story, the author describes a scene at the zoo: “The cherry blossoms are in full bloom at the Ueno zoo their petals are falling in the soft breeze and sparkling in the breeze. Beneath the cherry trees, crowds of people are pushing to enter the zoo on such a beautiful day.” In this excerpt of the story, there are two happy lively elephants performing outside the zoo. They are happy and lively.  I think that the elephants reflect the setting. The two details often coordinate, such as in this section where the day is beautiful and the elephants are jubilant. However, the setting isn’t always so upbeat and neither are the elephant’s conditions.

In a later part of the story the author describes the frightful setting of the war: “’The elephants are dead! They’re dead!’ screamed the zookeeper… Above them in the bright blue sky, the angry roar of enemy planes returned. Bombs began to drop on Tokyo once more.” In this section, the elephants have died after the zookeepers were forced to starve them. Just after they die, bombs are being dropped on Tokyo in a frightening war scene. The elephants reflect the setting similarly to before, as the war is sad and dire, and so is the elephant’s predicament.

The last part takes place at the elephant’s grave. The author describes the scene in a sad, but peaceful way: “With tears in his eyes, the zookeeper finished his story… He was still patting the tombstone tenderly are the cherry blossoms fell on the grave, like snowflakes.” This last excerpt is serene and calm just as the elephants that are ‘resting’ peacefully.

All in all, I think the setting is a symbol for the elephants. They seem to be closely intertwined, and very similar to each other. The elephants could also be reflecting the whole world currently in the story. The idea that the elephants reflect the world is a strong one. Because the zookeepers oppose the elephant’s death so immensely, it seems to me that they also oppose the state of the world right now (war) it has caused the whole nation, the whole world so much grief, it seems only natural that they would despise it.