A Separate Peace

For the past two school months we have been reading A Separate Peace where the protagonist, Gene, and his best friend named Finny attend a boarding school named Devon

 where they both are being trained to eventually be drafted into the war.  Both Gene and Finny are athletic, however, Gene is also very smart, and is most likely to  be the top of his class.  After the close relationship between Gene and Finny developes, Gene suddenly has second thoughts about the relationship between his best friend believing that there is a competition between the two and that Finny is trying to lower Gene's academic grades.  Finny, being athletic, creates a club where its members must jump off a tree into a lake. 

Despite Gene and Finny's close relationship, Gene shakes the tree, injuring Finny for life.  Finny refuses to accept that Gene was the one who had shaken the tree, so this fact is kept a secret throughout Devon.  While this is happening, we begin to see as Finny being innocent and slightly ignorant because Finny thinks that the war is made up.  We see Finny's innocence being broken as another character, Leper, is drafted into the war and comes back having crazy thoughts, and acting mentally insane.  Finny then has to accept the fact that there is a war since Leper, his friend, had been affected in this way simply the training to go into the war--not even the war itself.  We hear in the news constantly about veterans being diagnosed with mental illnesses and the statistics are absolutely horrifying.  Although the numbers may be a big exaggerated, it is no surprise.  Younger soldiers are usually the ones to be exposed the action in wars, so are more prone to mental disorders.  As stated by the Democrat from Georgia, “You can’t send young Americans…and expect them to come home and just fit right in. They bring that trauma with them”.  Leper had been exposed to training, and he definitely did not come back to Devon fitting right in with the others, or at least saw things normally.  Knowles includes Leper and his fragile mental condition because it represents the thousands of soldiers that have mental health disorders. 

Brinker, perhaps the antagonist of this novel, puts Gene and Finny into a court-like scene where Gene is being tried for injuring Finny.  Brinker seems to enjoy putting Gene and Finny on the spot in front of the whole senior class witnessing the scene.  Brinker does this to gain power by diminishing the authority that Gene and Finny have among the people of Devon.  Brinker probably did not even consider allowing Gene and Finny work out this situation on their own, but just exploits the opportunity to break the relationship between Gene and Finny a part by creating a large scene, and Brinker rising at the top as the juror, the righteous man. 

The last scene we read about in A Separate Peace included Finny breaking down and crying in the court-like room, running out, and tumbling down the stairs.  I believe this point is where the climax has reached its furthest high point where we as readers are left wondering what has happened to Finny.  Also, to contemplate who is to blame for the further injuries Finny has to withstand.  Brinker’s non-empathic feelings, Gene and Finny for not talking the incident of the tree out, or perhaps a whole assortment of reasons for the fall of Finny.  i believe the deep problem is the lack of communication in the relationship  between Finny and Gene.  If Gene told Finny about his thoughts that Finny was trying to lower Gene's grades, Finny would have known that there was no antagonism between the two.  Then, the blind impulse to shake the tree would not have injured Finny.  Then, if Gene and Finny had talked out this situation and Finny accepted that Gene had shaken the tree before the court scene, Finny would again not be hurt.  A Separate Peace must have been written to demonstrate how importnat communication is in a close relationship, such as the one between Gene and Finny.

Julius Caesar - Nov. 14-18

  
Initially, early this week, we read about Julius Caesar ignoring all signs of his assassination, continuing to the Capitol to receive his crown.  These signs include the bad dreams of Caesar's wife Calpurnia, the priests' warning, and the letter of his friend describing his assassination.  The conspiracy however, persuades Caesar to ignore the bad dreams, and the priests bad omen by using Caesar's extraneous ego.  There was controversy among the conspirators whether or not to kill Antony, Caesar's right hand; Brutus believed that the assassination would then be seen as a slaughter, however, Cassius believed that Antony was a large threat.  Brutus's view is plausible since we know from the French Revolution the rebels, after murdering the monarchs, continued to murder anyone that was associated with the government so Brutus knows the conspirators should control themselves and assassinate the 'head and the body will seen follow'.  Although, we will see that the conspiracy should have listened to Cassius and assassinated Antony also.  After the assassination of Caesar, those part of the conspiracy covered their arms with the blood of Caesar to go into the Capitol to propose that the conspiracy comes in peace, explaining there was a beneficial reason for murdering the king Caesar.  Antony, confronted with the conspirators who had assassinated his friend that he loved dearly with bloodied hands surprisingly kept his calm and made an alliance with the conspiracy and Antony was also allowed to have a speech spoken for Caesar's funeral against Cassius' will.  Antony then says a monologue describing his emotions of anger and revenge against Rome and the conspiracy over Caesar's bleeding body.  This foreshadows the inexorable riots that will erupt in Rome.  The two images--the bloody hands and the peace sign the conspirators will make contradict each other.  Violence and peace.  The reading that we had read on Thursday described the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and the chaos that ensued the streets of Washington D.C. after this assassination.  The peace of the civil rights act movement turned into flames of anger.  This may describe Rome's own chaos that will ensue after the citizens learn of Caesar's assassination. Similarly in Cairo, Egypt, there was not a king, but ten fellow Egyptians that were killed, however, both resulted in riots among each city's citizens.  The citizens of Egypt like the citizens of Rome, erupted in anger when fellow Egyptians, metaphorically similar to Caesar, were killed by security forces in Egypt like the conspiracy.  It is quite ironic that the security forces in Egypt's responsibility is to do what's best for the citizens of Egypt when they killed ten Egyptians; similarly, the conspiracy were trying to do what's best for the citizen's of Rome by killing Caesar.  This event in Cairo, Egypt could also be compared to Mr. Luther King Jr.'s own assassination and his fellow members in the civil rights movement.  In all situations, murdering all led to disorder in each city where each murder took place.  As we can see, there is a pattern of trying to do what's right for the citizens of a country such as murdering, and turning out it was not right for the citizens of a country which then leads to the rebellion of the citizens.

Oct. 10-14: LOTF

This week we discussed our readings about Simon speaking to the Lord of the Flies, Simon's death, and the connection between the sounds and images of the introduction the Lord of the Flies movie to the Lord of the Flies novel.  As Golding introduces the Lord of the Flies, it might surprise the reader  because of the sharp change in Golding's style of writing from realist to more of a fictitious style with a pig's head surrounded by flies being the Lord of the Flies.  Golding might have done this to show Simon himself is turning primitive in his own way as the Lord of the Flies abets to Simon that he should be like the other boys.  The Lord of the Flies seemed to be like a manifestation of the war inside Simon's conscious, emaciated by the Lord of the Flies.  During the Lucifer Effect in a Stanford experiment  college students were put in a mock prison as guards or prisoners.  The prisoners, within a few days had psychological problems.  This correlates with Simon because he is on this island with other boys who are having fail attempts at making a fair civilization and as a result, Simon is having hallucinations trying to decide whether to stay sane, or become primitive like the other boys.  After his encounter with the Lord of the Flies he decides to go up the mountain and goes on even though he is scared.  He sees the beast and wanted to tell the others that everything was all right.  Unfortunately the others were in a trance killing Simon believing him to be the beast in the boys' game.  After this chapter, I believe Golding was trying to convey Simon as a prophet-like figure, being right throughout the story as a trustful figure to the reader.  That Simon was bringing the good news like a prophet to the boys that the beast is not a thing to be afraid of, and yet, be killed in the process as Christ had died.  Golding even includes the phosphorescence dragging his body into the sea.  On Friday, we watched the introduction to the Lord of the Flies movie describing the images and sound Peter Brooks, the producer included and why Brooks included those certain images and sound.  Brooks includes images of war and peaceful times, and even once flashing back and forth between adults on the lawn relaxing to a launch pad of missiles to convey that the adults that were having what it seemed a cheerful time were the reason there were missiles that symbolized the war happenings in the world which led to an evacuation of children.  The foil of the adults on the lawn and the missiles are interconnected.  Brooks used the beat of the drums to show the arc from a neutral moment as the beat of drums are study to an intense moment when the tempo of the drums increase rapidly.  Brooks uses these techniques to convey the opinion to heighten emotion to a visualized and audio extent.  Arcs are found in real life everyday from in our lives to a more broad worldy levels.

The inciting incident was the adults at congress that I predict declared war.  The problems and obstacles included the images of the the boys singing, the adults relaxing, the missiles. The crisis point was the evacuation of the boys in airplanes.  The climax was the plane crash.  The falling action was the beginning of the movie with the boys alive on the island.  

This arc can be used to describe the riots in Vancouver.  The inciting incident was the hockey game of the Vancouver Canucks and the Boston Bruins.  The problems and obstacles was during the game when the Canucks were losing.  The Crisis point is when the Vancouver Canucks had lost.  The climax could be associated with the Canadian riot because of the loss of the Canucks to the Bruins.

Sep. 26-30: LOTF Ch. 2-5

This week as we read The Lord of the Flies, Jack is gaining authority in many scenes.  Jack attained meat, the pig, so the people see Jack as a strong hunter who can be admired even through the ignominy of Jack letting the fire go out when a ship was seen in the distance.  He also talks when he does not have the conch during meetings, and bullies Piggy.  Even Piggy realizes this and disobeys Jack.  When Ralph was telling everyone they must leave to go back and light the fire, Golding uses the word, 'mutinously' to describe the non-docile children's thoughts about leaving the fort-like place.  Golding uses this word to show the gradual loss of Ralph's authority. Civilizations still have trouble, such as the one in Egypt, about the authority of leaders and form of government.  According to the article "In Egypt, Concessions by Military on Politics" by David. D. Kirkpatrick, Egypt's military leaders are trying to figure out the leaders of the government by upcoming elections.

Also, when Ralph calls a meeting after missing the ship, but Jack killing the pig, he tries to draw conclusions to the fear of 'the beast' and live in happiness.  He explains how the people say they will do things, such as build shelters, but they didn't help Ralph and Simon.  This shows the concept of how people are able to complain and castigate leaders but can't come to a solution themselves.  People in Egypt argue about rights and laws and about what military leaders will choose for the government of Egypt, such as the people of the island talk about what to do on the island to be productive.  However the difference is that the military leaders of Egypt came to a conclusion, and the people of Egypt have to follow that form of government, no matter the arguments made.  Ralph does this, however it leads to the uneasiness Golding sets of an upcoming rebellion against Ralph, with the growing power of Jack  After the dispersing of the people after Ralph's meeting, Simon, Piggy, and Ralph wish for a sign for the adults, saying the after adults have a cup of tea, adults could solve the problem the children were in.  What Simon, Piggy, and Ralph do not know, is that the situation that they children are in are because of adult's fault, and the adult war that caused the evacuation of the children, which itself led to the plane crash onto the island.  Golding does allow the adults to give the children a sign: a dead man flopping around due to the wind catching the parachute attached to the man.  This is rather ironic because during the meeting, Simon had spoken up saying that the beast might be the people themselves, and the beast was identified as the dead man attached to the parachute.  Golding may have chosen the symbol of an dead man attached to a parachute to bring the fact farther that the adults have caused the children to have to build a civilization on the island.  That the adults have done this by having a war, so Golding uses the dead man in the parachute to bring out the consequences of adult actions further into the reader's mind.

Sep. 12-16: LOTF Ch.1

Also on Monday as we began reading we began discussing about the introduction paragraph to Golding's novel, The Lord of the Flies and its diction.  Some phrases I took a not of was 'sand was think', 'heat hit him', 'ripped of each stockings and garters', 'kicked off his shoes', 'skull-like coconuts', 'forest sliding over his skin', 'snake-clasp', 'lugged off', 'dazzling beach', and 'green shadows'.  I wrote a lot of diction paragraphs about different novels because I was in Mr. Title's class which wasn't too insipid, so I can wrap my head around diction fairly well.  Then we discussed how Golding establishes his characters, Piggy and Ralph.




One way we discussed about how Golding established his characters by the two different personalities of two main characters.  Piggy is established by his friendliness and curiosity, but Ralph has a sort of gauche nonchalant  personality.  When Golding introduces Piggy's name, Piggy said he didn't want Ralph to call him Piggy, however since Ralph found it so funny about Piggy's name, the name Piggy stayed with Ralph even when Piggy had said he did not like it.  We, as readers, don't even get to know Piggy's real name.  Although Ralph laughs jokingly, Piggy is hurt.  In schools, children are teased, and those who tease, the bullies, feel name calling is just a joke.  However, some children are immensly hit with this name calling so much they are brought to depression and even suicide, and people still deal with it today.
Next in the story, Ralph had found a conch shell and had blown in it to see if there are others on the island.  Other children arrived, however the most peculiar was the introduction of Jack who in Golding's physical appearance description is nearly opposite to Ralph.  We wrote down some words Golding uses to describe Ralph and Jack.

Mr. Keating told us the six tools of characterization:

Appearance

Mannerisms

Speech

Socio-Economic Status

Motivation

Setting that Contextualizes Character

We described the characterization of the main characters we know so far.  Ralph, Piggy, Simon, and Jack.  Golding described Piggy as a boy that is plum and has glasses, from the middle to upper classes, he does not want to be called Piggy, but his motivation is how he takes after Ralph the leader.  He still talks like a boy in a sensitive way.  I described Simon as between Jack and Ralph as friends of both of them because Simon is in Jack's toon; however Ralph was nice to Simon when Jack coerced to Simon to keep going when he had fainted.  Golding described Jack as 'ugly', he is also mature but harsh and also leader-like such as Ralph.  All the characters are unique from one another because with their different personalities will have to team up together and be friends.  Golding's purpose is to use these different uniqueness of characters to draw conflicts among them, such as the part in the story when the three boys confront a pig, and felt jaundiced since there is danger on the island.

Aug. 22-26: TKAM Introduction Paragraph

The theme that I have chosen to write about for Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird is race relations.  We chose our themes by looking at our text logs, deciding which one of the themes we wrote about over the summer stood out to us, and which we wrote about well.  I had a hard time choosing between childhood innocence and race relations, however I felt more inclined to choose race relations since it felt more closer to me, and perhaps would be easier to write about.  Then we chose our six quotes/examples from To Kill  Mockingbird, and you abetted to a student to change the last quote since it wasn't a major part of their theme, and was extraneous.  One of my examples is Frances calling Atticus a nigger lover.  In an article by J. Richard Cohen, "Hate crimes are a national problem", a teenage boy ran over a black man, just because of his skin color.  The boy told his friend after in a phone conversation, "ran that nigger over", so as you can see this racist word is used constantly in the world today.  We followed an example of another student's essay to follow a cohesive staircase through sentences we write in the introduction paragraph.  The staircase starts with a hook that draws the reader into the essay we are going to write, for the reader not to be reading the essay insipidly  I wrote the hook about one of the golden rules, treat others as we like to be treated, since the people of this world usually do not ever follow this rule, and isn't strictly applied to racism.  When we started to write about our story background, I specified this towards a racist view, explaining how people will hate another person's race to act horrible to others to whom they do not know.  This is shown in Arizona's immigration law passed by Gov. Brewer according to Ross Miletich's article "Arizona Immigration Law is Racist and Wrong".  Many will be placed in poverty because the law states one cannot shelter an illegal immigrant knowingly.  Poverty will rise in Arizona to people the Governor will never know.  After we wrote our story backgrounds you taught us about writing a thesis, and how the verb in the prompt, develop, is very important and would be useful to use the word in our thesis.  I wrote about how Lee develops the theme through the childrens' eyes.  I believe that the essay I will write will have a connection to childhood innocence, even though it is about race relations because Lee develops the theme of race relations by having the children go through different hardships, increasingly advanced, throughout the novel.  After we passed our introduction paragraph to our partners, it was sort of funny since we both gave each other proficient in our relevant story background.  He wrote that I needed to add more information, while I said he needed to take out information.  However, I do agree with him since I only talked about the children going through Tom Robinson's trial.  This week we learned about the different parts of an introduction paragraph, and followed the outline you laid out for us to write about a theme of To Kill a Mockingbird.