Deadline

This quarter I read the emotion jerker Deadline written by Chris Crutcher. The book is based upon an 18 year old kid named Ben Wolf. Ben is going into his senior year of high school when he is diagnosed with cancer and is told he has one year to live. Ben isn’t sure at first how to react, so he tells the doctor to not tell his parents. The doctor must follow his orders considering Ben is 18, an adult. Ben could approach his last year two different ways, sad and depressed, or with an attitude of getting everything he could out of his last days. Which one do you think he chose? Of course he chose the positive route! In my eyes, most people under these circumstances would do the opposite of what Ben chose to do. But I can see why he chose to live positively, like nothing was wrong. He didn’t want other peoples sympathy, especially his families. So Ben begins to take risks at high school, joining the football team, asking out the girl of his dreams, ridiculing teachers getting under their skin. He began doing all the things he wanted to do and found out that a little courage could take you a long way in life.

I think Crutcher wrote this book for the kids out there struggling on a daily basis from self confidence. Ben, no taller than 5 and half feet, struggles to let his personality shine as his light is blocked by his superstar athlete brother. But after getting the news that his life will be ending, Ben incredibly finds the you know what to be himself. Most kids nowadays struggle to let their personality come through. It’s not their fault entirely as society makes teenagers live to a certain standard. I personally do not care what others think of me, because I’m not going to change. I think Ben is a good example of finding courage to be yourself and take risks because you never will be able to go back and change the past, but you can always change your future while you still have one.

“The first time I heard the saying ‘Live every day like you’re going to live forever and every day like it’s going to be your last’ I thought it was one of those unsolvable story problems from my fifth grade math book, but it turned out to be the truest thing about my year. When I took risks like this was my last chance and at the same time kept it in my head that my actions had consequences not only for me but for everyone I touched, forever, I made my best decisions. I did get a lot of help with that, by the way.”

The story of Deadline taught me a lot about life. It taught me that life is the most precious thing humans underestimate. A snap of a finger and it’s over. So why would you ever try to live a life that’s fake? Be yourself every single day, take risks but know the consequences, and tell the people you love how much they mean to you. Deadline was a great book and I truly enjoyed it!

Deadline

For my fourth quarter book I chose Deadline by Chris Crutcher. The genre is realistic fiction. As of now I am on page 82. So far the plot is based around a high school senior named Ben Wolf. He was going into senior year with big plans but was diagnosed with something fatal but yet to be mentioned but I believe it’s some form of cancer. Either way, Ben was told he has one year to live. So he decides to go into the year with a positive attitude, truly living without regret. Ben decides to join football besides the fact of his 5 foot 120 pound stature and his gift of cross country. He decides to go for the girl of his dreams and ask all the questions he never would have. What confuses me is that he has yet to tell anyone of his disease other than his doctor and the therapists he goes to every week. He doesn’t want them to feel sympathy for him I’m sure. My prediction for the rest of the book is Ben will get his dream girl, succeed in football despite the odds, and live the best year of his life. But obviously, the end will come and I’m not sure what will happen. It’s going to be a sad one that’s for sure.

Into the Wild

This quarter I read Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. Krakauer challenges you, arranging the events out of place rather than traditional chronological order. This was quite confusing to me but made me think what was the purpose of it? Krakauer tells you right away Chris dies in the wilderness, but why spoil the ending? It was something I couldn’t wrap my head around until finishing the book. Chris dies in the end but it still gives you a feeling of happiness. The life Chris lived all led up to this. He would have not wanted to go out any other way then the way he did. In the wild with nobody to bother him or a worry in the world. It amazed me how even a highly educated traveler in tip top condition couldn’t survive the Alaskan wilderness. It is challenge some people find appealing and exciting. Living in complete isolation of society with no one to worry about but yourself. I wouldn’t mind taking the adventure to Alaska as I love the outdoors and would love to scenes and sights Alaska has to bring.

Krakauer did not intend to write this book about some kid who dies in Alaska. He didn’t as much investigation to find prior information and motive about Chris. Chris who formally called himself Alexander Supertramp, thought life would best be enjoyed in nomadic fashion. A guy with a bright future ahead decides to head out west and travel along finding different people and jobs along the way. He continued to roam the west before heading north to Alaska. The dream of Alaska was everything he expected. He was happy all the way until he died. I believe he shows that living a life without enjoyment is not worth than living one with adventure and possible danger as long as you enjoy it.

“I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor – such is my idea of happiness. and then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children, perhaps – what more can the heart of a man desire?”

After having a very rare meal, Alex Supertramp writes this passage in his diary. Through the struggle of starvation, hypothermia and dehydration, Alex has the will to find enjoyment in the wild. It is mind boggling to me that he wrote such a beautiful, moving passage with little to no energy. Something about this passage makes me want to be happy all the time, cherishing everything in my life taking nothing for granted. That is why it is important to me.

Into the Wild – blog post #1

I am currently reading the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. The genre of the book is non-fiction. It is a biography on a guy named Chris McCandless. Being on page 35, the book is explaining the background of Chris’ life. So far I have learned that Chris was a smart young man but didn’t want to live a normal life. He was adventurous and wanted to travel out west without a care in the world. The book is not in chronological order though as it already goes through how they found his dead body in a bus somewhere out in Alaska. They start out with the end and now are starting from the beginning, describing his life and decision to drop everything. Donating his money to charity, ditching his car and all the materials in it to hitchhike, and burning all of the remaining money in his pocket. His story is inspiring as I enjoy nature and sometimes feel like I want to get away from it all. Leave my phone, my money, and all my worries behind. They already state that he dies, so I can’t make a prediction of the end but I’m sure I will learn more about his life and adventures as the book goes on.

Comparative Blog Post

Today in American society we are lazy and I will be the first to admit it. I don’t like to get up off the couch and work hard, I don’t like to read instead of watch TV, I don’t like to cook a meal when I can eat fast food. Our society is becoming more and more lazy. But two authors, Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman are motivating me through persuasive poems filled with multiple pathos that gets my blood pumping. In Langston Hughes poem, Let America Be America Again, he moves me to become friends with my neighbors, to say hello to a stranger and open my door for new and old friends. He goes into how we worked hard to make this America what it is today, and that we need to all come together as one unit, and together we will preserve and prosper.
In Walt Whitman’s Beat! Beat! Drums! he uses alliteration and repetition. Through his use of alliteration, he infuses an idea in your brain. It makes you want to join the war even though he is being sarcastic about it. When i read the lines I get images of war and trumpets playing in the distance. It makes me proud to be where I am from and wants me to protect the land I own. In both poems, the authors use literary devices to persuade you to be patriotic.

In both cases the American Dream is being promoted but isn’t promoting it mean that it’s failing? If authors have to try and persuade you to be patriotic and become unite as one nation, hasn’t the american dream already been destroyed. The authors know that the dream is failing through slavery, fighting and the civil war. Raising kids with moral values like these, the dreams already been destroyed.

The Old Man and the Sea

After reading my first ever Ernest Hemingway book first quarter, I decided to read another one. I decided to do this not because I necessarily enjoyed the first one a lot, but because it was a challenge and had many secret symbols that were hard to discover. And just like the previous experience, The Old Man and the Sea gave me challenging but meaningful read. Short and sweet, the book goes into the true meaning of human fight and perseverance.

The beginning was a little dull and hard to understand. Now that I look back on it I can better understand what was happening. A boy, who had previously been fishing with the old man, was told by his parents to find a new boat because the old man was unlucky, going 84 days without catching a single fish. The kid obeyed their orders but you could tell he was upset and sad for the old man. This feeling that the kid feels for the old man has already brought me upon a comparison. In the Hunger Games, Katniss the older and wiser competitor takes little Rue into her wings as an alliance. Together they are strong and become a force in the competition. Katniss kept in the back of her mind that they both could not win, crushing her spirit. In the Old Man and the Sea, the boy knew that sooner or later he would have to let go of the old man as he matured and learned the ways of the sea. Even without the boy with him, the old man kept going out everyday, using his techniques everyday.

On the 85th day, the old man goes out into the sea and pulls in a huge marlin. Weak and old, he does not have the strength to pull in the marlin single handed. Not letting go, the old man wraps the line around his shoulder and back, giving it slack just in case the marlin would make a quick motion. Enduring the strength of the marlin, along with the pain of the line on his back, the old man shows you what true perseverance is lasting two days and one night holding on to the brutal marlin. During this time the marlin tires out just enough to give the man enough strength to pull him up and kill with a harpoon thrust. But the struggle isn’t over! The harpoon cuts the fish and is leaving a trail of blood in the water attracting sharks. The old man does everything he can to fight off sharks but after losing his harpoon, the predators eat all of the precious meat the marlin once maintained. I felt a feeling of sadness as I could tell the relationship the old man with the marlin was strong. It was almost as the marlin was something more than a fish to him, but a foe. The marlin was like the enemy we all hate because of his talents but still have incredible respect for them.

Finally the Old man returns home, with nothing but the massive skeleton of the marlin. He immediately goes back to his house and sleeps. The next day, the other fishermen and tourist admire the huge skeleton of the marlin. In return, the old man receives his respect back is known as a legend among the village once again. The boy now returns to the old man and they go fishing together once again.

(I also thought it was cool how the old man loved baseball and he just happened to catch a marlin, the name of a MLB baseball team)

Comparative Analysis Essay

Nate H
Mrs. Degenhardt
6th Hour English 11
November 14, 2012
It’s the little things in life that can make a day. Whether it be someone saying bless you after a sneeze or a nice smile from a fellow peer in the hallway. These actions of love towards one another happen everyday, but there are a small portion of true love. Love can be the most powerful emotion a character can feel and can drive them to make sacrifices as it controls them. This feeling of love is present in three texts I have read; The Crucible, The Sun Also Rises, and Taking Emily Dickinson’s Clothes Off. Characters in these books make rash decisions because of the power of love.
In the Crucible, love occurs causing characters to perform irrational actions.The first and most obvious one you can spot out is the love between John Proctor and Elizabeth his wife. At first we discover that John has cheated on her causing her to have no trust for him. Depressed, which is understandable because getting cheating on will hurt a person, she ignores John. First of all, cheating on your wife can make you serve jail time in the type of society The Crucible portrays, so the fact she hasn’t told anyone makes me view her as a strong trustworthy women. She says this when talking to John one night, “I think you be somewhat ashamed, for I am there, and she so close.” John denies this comment, so Elizabeth says, “Then go to tell her she’s a whore. Whatever promise she may sense, break it, John, break it” (62). Even though she might not admit it, Elizabeth has already forgiven John, even if he never technically tells Abigail she’s a whore. The love has taken over and she wants to forget about the whole thing. So in the beginning her trust for John is not there but she knows she can’t let him go because the love takes over and controls her. Elizabeth, even after being cheated on and betrayed by her husband, has regained trust because of love. John has either a choice between his scandalous so called “love” with Abigail or his love with the one that has been there through it all, the up and downs. The choice is quite simple for him choosing Elizabeth. Unfortunately because of a plot twist, in the end their love actually separates them. In court John tells everyone (Elizabeth was not in the room to hear) that he has slept with Abigail and that she is a whore. When Elizabeth is brought in to confirm this story, she lies to protect John’s image because she knows telling the truth will put John in jail. In any normal circumstance Elizabeth would have told the truth, but because of the love she has towards John, she lies hoping to keep him safe. But because she lies about the whole story, John is taking away to jail. The author then uses sorrowful tones to create a sad image of heartbreak. Elizabeth knows that his husband will be put to death and it kills her inside because of the ever so fierce love between them. We can relate to this through a death of a loved one. The feeling is something not easy to describe but can bring you feeling so down that it could spiral into depression. Love that is torn apart from death, divorce, or any other event will affect a character because of how powerful the feeling it is.
As love affects characters in The Crucible, it also affects characters in The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. Jake, the main character, makes countless sacrifices to please the one he loves. Jake is in love with the beautiful but promiscuous Lady Brett Ashley. Through actions in the book, it is clear that he puts her issues, her worries, her life before his own only because of love. It shows what characters are willing to give up for love. Jake has accepted rejection from Brett many times but he stays persistent. She has blown off dates with him but he brushes off his shoulders and doesn’t get upset. Sacrifices like these are only a few examples of what Jake does because of love. Brett loves Jake but she will never be with him for one reason. Jake had an injury in the war enabling him to have sex. She will not give up sex because she says this will cause her to cheat on him for the pleasure. Even after all of the sacrifices Jake makes for Brett she will not give up sex. “Oh Jake, we could have had such a damned good time together” said Brett. “Yes isn’t it pretty to think so” (251). This is the last line from the book, leaving the reader wondering. Why wouldn’t Lady Brett give up sex to be with the one she truly loves? It’s something that we can think about from our point of view. Would you give up sex to be with one you loved? Everyone will have a different opinion which is why American literature is such an awesome genre, making you think of human nature. Love through this book is sad knowing that Jake can never be happy, but it shows how powerful love is as he can not let Brett go.
The final text I analyzed was Taking Emily Dickinson’s Clothes Off. This is a double entendre poem written by Billy Collins. In the poem the author is literally taking Emily Dickinson’s clothes off but he also is stripping down the meaning of her poems. If you don’t know anything about Emily Dickinson, she doesn’t get out much and doesn’t open up to many people. She is quiet, shy, but intelligent, writing thousands of poems that have hidden meanings that take true skill to comprehend. I believe Emily Dickinson opened up because of love. It wasn’t true love but a different kind of love. It is the love you feel towards another person that you find attractive. This love may not be what people believe as true love, but it is just as powerful. For Emily Dickinson to open up like that and have this man take her cloths off, (open up the meanings to her poem) the love must have been persuading. “So I could hear her inhale when I undid the very top hook-eye fastener of her corset” (39-41). This part of the poem is when she lets go. She lets the love take over and reveals the messages to him, almost setting herself free of the heavy load she’s carried for sometime now. The guilty pleasure takes over as she can no longer keep up a forcefield. I believe this is the only time you could honestly see a person and know their true character.Once you fall in love with someone then you know who they are but until then trying to “analyze” them may not be easy as people try to fit in everyday.
The power of love is present in all three texts. Whether it be making sacrifices for someone else, putting down the brick wall opening up to others, or forgiving someone even after they have treated you poorly. We can’t control love as it happens unconditionally in our lives. It can make us happy, sad, depressed, angry, joyful, cry, scream, anything emotion you can think of, because it is so powerful. Trying to stop love is not easy and is almost impossible. Before I end my essay, I came up with my own analogy of how love can be related to American literature. Love is like a fire, starting out weak but quickly spreading tall and wide with glorious colors. Trying to put out the fire is hard as it remains hot and burning, getting fuel everyday from the little things in life. The coals on the bottom become so hot as the fire becomes almost invincible. This is love as it can take over someones life and control them.

The Sun Also Rises Review

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Reading through The Sun Also Rises you will know that the book is about the struggle of love.

Throughout the book, Jake Barnes struggles through his plain life searching for a connection of love. Love in the book can be better told through this analogy; Pretend love is like a parent function. It is stable but can be translated or viewed differently by people and can cause people to feel a whole different type of emotion such as sadness, happiness, excitement, ect. Mostly every conflict Jake faces throughout the book is because of his love he feels towards the ever so beautiful but promiscuous Lady Brett Ashley. He will drop his tasks to seek help for her tasks, he puts his life behind to put hers in front just for love. He sacrifices work, free time and even fun for her but she yet cannot love him back. And this is how Ernest Hemingway makes the reader cringe every time you see Jake help her knowing she can never love him.

I as the reader and I’m sure everyone else out there in the world can somewhat relate to this feeling Jake has towards Lady Brett Ashley. Love cannot easily be put down on words, it could have a million different definitions, all with perfectly right answers. It could be the love we have with our pet, an unconditional love that we feel with them. It can make you smile while they lick your face or make you cry as you watch them pass away. It truly is amazing how to think about what love can drive humans to sacrifice. Unfortunately for Jake, his love with Lady Brett can never happen. She refuses to love him because he had an injury in the war that does not allow him to have sexual intercourse. It seems silly to think that even though Jake makes countless sacrifices for Lady Brett, she can’t make one for him. It would be hard for most to give up sex when you think about. But is it truly worth giving up to be with the one you love? This is why American literature is such a critical thinking type genre. It makes you look past the book and into human nature.

“Oh Jake,” Brett said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.”
“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

These are the last lines of the book, leaving the reader thinking of lots of things. Why would he just end the book so openly? Ernest sets up the scenario and it is for us to come to our own conclusion. It is hard if you look at it through Jake’s point of view. By the end of the book, he has given his all to Brett, and all he can say is, “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”. He can’t say anything else because the ball has been on her side of the court the whole time. This happens a lot in love, one person feels it and the other doesn’t.

The love in The Sun also Rises is similar to that of Twilight. In Twilight, Edward and Bella share a love. Edward could be all of the women Brett have been with. She doesn’t love them but just shares sexual relations with them. Jake in Twilight loves Bella and is a nice guy just like Jake is in The Sun Also Rises. It is a fight for a girl that really deserves neither one because she constantly is playing with their emotions. This is what a one sided love can do and it may end up hurting people badly.

The main message Ernest sends the reader is that it is hard to find trust in someone that doesn’t love you back. But even how much we try to convince ourselves we don’t love that person, we do because love cannot be denied. In the end, I gave this book two stars because I felt it lacked excitement. For me to try and read a love story and watch a guy struggle like Jake did made it boring and painful to read.

View all my reviews

Analyzing Cash and Crucible?

After analyzing the song What is Truth by Johnny Cash, it can be directly related to The Crucible. In the song Johnny Cash is saying that our society is changing and younger people are starting to have more questions about what we believe to be the “truth” of the world. For example, in the first stanza of the song, Cash states that we are listening to different music and starting to voice our opinion more in the world. The same can be said in The Crucible. The young girls, not completely understanding Puritan’s ways, start to have a curiosity in witchcraft and dance in the woods. And instead of confessing to it, they lie which is against the Puritan’s beliefs. Another example could be in the third stanza where Cash sings, “The man looked down at his long hair, and although the young man solemnly swear, nobody seems to hear anymore”. This section is saying that because of the young man’s looks or long hair, we don’t trust him because it is different. This is not giving the man a chance even if he says he is telling the truth. The same can be said in the book. An example from the text would be this (The Crucible 47) “I knew it! Goody Osburn midwife to me three times. I begged you Thomas, did I not? I begged him to call Osburn because I feared her. My babies always shriveled in her hands”.  This is when Tituba blames others with Parris because they do not like them or have a grudge against them. They try to cover up their own wrong actions by blaming others. The overall theme of the song can be related with the book more than you could think. Just because my generation sees the world differently than our parents generation doesn’t mean our opinion is wrong while theirs is considered the truth. I believe the young girls are starting to come to a realization of this and are going to maybe leave the Puritan society just because they are starting to question some of their regulations that aren’t justified.

Interview Q & A

1. 1.    Describe the plot of the book. Sea Pines

• What is the major conflict in your book? Callie, the main character gets put in a rehab type center because she cuts herself. She is shy and doesn’t talk at all through the first half of the book.
• What causes the conflict to occur? What are some of the obstacles that lead to the conflict? She cuts herself because she feels good afterwards, just like an addiction to drugs. She feels like she causes all of her family problems and that no one likes her.
• What is the most exciting part of the plot? Is this when the conflict is resolved? I would say the conflict ends, but it is a gradual ending. I would say that the most exciting part is when she runs away from Sea Pines and figures out that she truly has people that care about her.
• How is the conflict resolved? Is this what you expected? Explain. Callie opens up and tells the reader why she cuts herself. She then starts talking to the people in her Group and she says she wants to change now.

1. 2.    Describe the setting in the book. What visual images do you see in your head? Give examples in the book that lead you to these images.  Well the setting was Sea Pines, the mental hospital type thing. I saw it as a hospital only filled with teenage girls. When the author talked about the cafeteria I saw a humid, kind of sticky place with girls filled in. The girls are shouting and laughing. The cafeteria ladies are nice and are all dressed with white shirts. “The cafeteria here has a humid, steamed-vegetable smell that’s enough to give anyone food issues. What’s worse then smell though is the noise.

• How does the setting relate to your own world? Well I can’t really relate the rehab place with anything I have expierenced but I can relate to the dorm rooms. I saw the image of when I stayed at Lakeland for basketball camp when the author describes the room.

1. 3.    Describe an important symbol in the book. What is the symbol? What does the symbol represent? In the beginning of the book you get the image of the narrator, Callie running. She is in a cross country meet. She says she kept running after the finish line, all the way back to her house. She runs inside and cuts herself. I would say that running is a symbol. The author brought it up constantly, kind of saying that running was good for her but it was like running away from your problems. In the end Callie runs away but decides that she needs to head back, head back to face the issues she has.
2. 4.    What effect do the events in plot have on the characters? Well basically, you undergo Callie’s experience of Sea Pines and her trying to get back to being a healthy human being.

• How do the characters change throughout the book? Callie stops cutting and gets a healthier relationship with her dad.
• Do some of the characters not change? Why? Explain. *****Talk about group members maybe*
• Describe a questionable action by one of the characters. Do you think they were right or wrong? Why? In the beginning, I was very frustrated with Callie. She didn’t talk to anyone. It kind of bored me.
• Compare and contrast two characters in your book. I would compare Callie and this other girl who cuts herself named Amanda. They both cut, but they both are separate people. Amanda isn’t embarrassed so to say of her scars. She shows them to be and is kind of proud of it. She is a bad person in my eyes and just cuts because she thinks she is cool. Callie is embarrassed of her scars, she always wear sleeves and only reveals them to one person one time in the book. She does want to stop and ends up succeeding this goal.

1. 5.    Describe an important passage in the book. Why is it important? Pg. 147, last paragraph
2. 6.    What other books or stories could you compare this book to? How are they similar? How are they different? This book is difficult to compare with any book just because it is so different. The only book that would come to mind is Thirteen Reasons Why. They both about girls and they’re life as teenagers. For one, the character in 13 reasons why is dead and she is heard through voice recordings. They relate by showing how hard it can be it is to be a teenager sometimes and some people take drastic actions whether it be cutting or committing suicide.
3. 7.    Where there any words that you did not know the definition? Did you look the word up in the dictionary? If you didn’t, how did you determine what the word meant? Well I know I didn’t look any up but a word I didn’t understand was co-dependent. I could figure out that through the text that this means wanting to help others.
4. Was there a moment in the book when you were surprised, angered, upset, excited or happy? Describe the scene and what evoked this emotion. A passage that made me scared kind of was when Amanda and Callie were in the bathroom alone and Amanda wanted to cut with Callie. Callie had stopped cutting and was starting to get better. I didn’t want Callie to fall into peer pressure and she ends up not cutting.
5. 9.    Are there any parts of the story that are confusing? Why? You know I just couldn’t understand how cutting yourself makes you feel good, how does pain help you? All you do is give yourself scars and have a low self-esteem.

10.  If you could ask the author one question, what would it be and why? The cover is the word cut with slashes across the u. Is the slashes just put in randomly or are they supposed to be on the u?

11.  Would you recommend this book to someone else? Why or why not? Use specific examples from the book to answer this question. Yes I would recommend it. It gave me something to think about. I never thought about how people in our world have issues like Callie did. I never knew that they had rehab centers for kids like this. It opened my eyes and kind of shocked me on how much more there is to our world.