5 Points for Victor!

After reading Victor's essay, I wanted to sit down and cry. Five points for Victor! The terminology used was very advanced and is the kind of vocabulary that should be used in an AP course. I fail to use such words that enhance my vocabulary, but I will try in my future papers to use bigger words and to sound more intelligent. I also liked his use of symbolism. I felt that he adapted it well to the books and explained them thoroughly. He made clear connections and did not use fluff to fill up the essay. He also completed the quota on quotes :P Overall, I thought it was a very good essay.

Pre-Hamlet

In the introduction we were asked to watch, Kenneth Branagh tells of his love for the story Hamlet written by William Shakespeare. He tells that since he was young, he had a deep love for stories full of drama and especially written by Shakespeare. I find Shakespeare hard to read at times. I read "Romeo and Juliet" in my freshman year back at my old high school in Florida. I loved the play and understood it quite easily. In addition to reading it, we also saw the movie in class and had each small part explained to us. Then we were tested on it which I wasn't so fond of.Last year, we read "Macbeth." This piece of literature was very difficult for me to read and understand. Only after watching the film, and after multiple classes discussing the play, did I come to an understanding of the play.

"Hamlet" is known to be a very long play, and I, personally, am not very good with literature. I also know that it is difficult and confusing because my older sister studied it last year, and I remember watching her night after night studying. My father, who is a genius when it comes to history and literature, can tell us any story "in a nutshell," which helps incredibly when you are trying to find the main idea of the story, or in this case play. With reading "Hamlet" I hope that we watch a film. But I hope we watch it without interruptions, because otherwise it is very confusing and difficult to understand. I also hope that we have many discussions in class so that in case if while reading i did not understand, maybe someone else did and they can explain it to me.

In regards to performing the play, I am not sure whether we are going to be performing the whole play or if we will split the book into parts like we did with "Macbeth" and then each perform our small scenes. Being an experienced dancer, i know that we will need much rehearsal time, and in order to act your part well, you will need a good understanding of the whole plot, characters, and background. Overall, I am excited to begin this piece and to perform it with my classmates.

Different Opinions

After reading this excerpt, I realized that some people had a completely different view about the book than I did. At first I too dreaded having to read a book during my vacation and have to write a summary on my own so that I would remember what I read when school began. The beginning I found boring, which didn't help the fact that I didn't want to read the book in the first place. And I have a small confession to make... after reading the first five pages, I skipped the rest of the first chapter and continued on chapter two.

At this point, the book started to interest me. I love stories that include drama, love, and suspense. I, personally, am like a little girl who loves to hear about grand parties, romance, and happily ever afters. The Great Gatsby began to depict these things and I began to read further and further into the book. On the other hand, Sonya Chung thought that the book was boring and caused her to "fall asleep" while reading it. I felt this way about the previous novel I read, The Road. Some people appreciate the difficulties of life and enjoy reading about the hardships of others, but I like to hear about fairytales.

I loved reading The Great Gatsby, and I think we should read more books like that one. Sonya Chung had a different view point which I respect but do not agree with. I know many people who had the same opinions as Sonya and I also know people who prefer fairytales to depression stories, but to each his own.

We Need Better Books

So I finished the book. I did not like it one bit. The beginning was so confusing I had to talk to other people so that they could explain to me what was going on. I made my mother read it so that she could explain everything i did not understand. (My mother is a genius at everything, especially literature.)

The fact that the father died at the end was terrible! I loved the father! He was all that the little boy had! He taught the boy everything he knew and protected and provided for him throughout the entire journey. Everything he went through for that boy and for himself just came to an end within 30 seconds. I personally thought that this book was depressing and not a good read for teeanagers who are stressing about grades, college, and just life in general.

I think for our next read we should read something with love, romance, comedy, fairies, unicorns, and etc. I liked The Canterbury Tales for that reason. Something with a nice ending in which I can go to sleep and not worry about having nightmares related to it.

Memories

Almost done with the novel, I began thinking about the next blog I had to write to please dear Mr. Tangen. The idea of having to write again and have him check scared me so I began. For this blog I did not have an idea of what to write. I was not inspired at the time I wrote it so I started looking at other people's blogs and then I took many ideas and formed it into one. B y looking at one of my classmates blogs, I saw how memories were used and I agreed and thought it was the closest idea to what I had while I was reading The Road.

In the novel, the father had lived a normal life for most of his lifetime. He had a mother, a father and a normal home. It was only until after he had gotten married and had the little boy that things started to change. People began to die off and suffer tremendously from the changes, but there was nothing anyone could do about it. (The book does not specify what exactly happened that wiped out all of the people, but we can infer that there was much suffering and change occurring.) The mother shot herself because she could not handle or adapt to the harsh changes occurring in the environment. The father on the other hand, took the boy as his life and guarded him as so.

Later in the book, the father makes references to his past life and memories in subtle ways.

seeing places and having flashbacks of how they used to be and the effects those places had on the father as a person was one of the hardest things he had to cope with. When he gives his son a coke, which he found in an abandoned vending machine, he thinks that "this is what I had in my time, but you will probably never have ever again and you will never fully appreciate it the way I do." When they went to places of the father's past, he thought, "you will never know this place to be what it was, but it kills me to see it so barren and deserted."

The father's past allows him to continue and be successful in his future. He knows about things that the little boy will never know about. He has experienced things and the company of other people, which have gone and will never return. He has lived a life that no one can ever match up with.

Life on The Road is Tough.

As I continued reading through the novel, I saw how hard living your life on the road would be. I relate it to camping. I think living on a road such as the one in the novel would be the same as a camping trip with just one other person. There are no other people there to bother you about anything. Life like that would be difficult. You start off with a surplus of food, but you do not know how much you need to save daily so that it reaches the end of the time period in which you will be nomadic.

Food would not be the only stress. You would also have to worry about safety. In the novel, the little boy and his father sleep in deserted places where they think no one will find them. When camping, you must pick a location in which you also know you will not be robbed by humans and by the more common criminals, raccoons and other animals. You would need a way to protect yourself from anything that comes your way.

Aside from these two factors, like in the novel, you must always worry about the other people whom you are with. The father in the book spends many sleepless nights watching for animals and other people who might come around and try to harm them. He many times gave his food to the child so that he could have more. You have to always be sure that the people who are accompanying you are ok.

The book stresses the love the father had for his son. In this time where they had nothing and no one else but each other, they took care of each other and kept each other company. Again I realize that this book is nothing like the poem I mentioned in the previous blog.

Always Judge A Book By its Cover!

When I got the book, The Road, I did not even want to open the book. I thought the novel would have some relation to the poem I read and had to recite in midde school called "The Road Not Taken", by Robert Frost. The cover seemed sad and colorless. To be honest, it reminded me of an old person's book, that would most likely have a huge life lesson that they could relate to,or something like that. Because in the assignment I had to read the book, I got over my laziness and began.

The beginning of the book was very confusing for me. I could not understand why everything seemed to be so empty. The author, Cormac McCarthy, describes everything as gloomy, dark, full of ashes, and lifeless; although, he does not mention why everything appears to be this way. My guesses are wars, a huge fire that wiped out the area they are in, or possibly, but with much doubt, the end of the world. Whatever really happened got exterminated all the people in the world, or most of the people, but then possessed the rest of the people still living in the world. After reading the first few pages of the book, I realized the novel had absolutely nothing to do with the poem by Frost.

McCarthy also mentioned that the two main people in the book were a little boy and his father. Where was the boy's mother? Why was she gone? Was this all of what was left of the human race after whatever happened? I continued to read and the book explained about the shooting scene and why the mother had suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth. personally, I could never make a decision like that. I naturally am a very maternal person. I take care of all of my things, I am always watching over my little sister, and I am a neat freak when it comes to my personal belongings. These are all characteristics of being a mother. I have a farm in La Calera, in which my family owns many animals. We have sheep, cows, geese, turkeys, chickens, horses and rabbits. Of these many animals, I personally own one of the bunnies and one of the horses, but I do not pay to feed them, or keep them in a sheltered home (that is what my father does.) With my animals, I always make sure they have enough food for the time I am gone, I make sure that their homes are sturdy and good enough for them to live comfortably. I also do not let them get into situations where they could easily get in danger's way. If a nuclear bomb went down or something, I could never shoot any of my animals, or shoot myself... 1) because I would be too scared to actually shoot myself, and 2) because I would always want to know that my babies are safe and ok.

In conclusion, I saw that my gut feeling was right. The cover of the book told me as a reader that the book would be weird and hard to understand. there would be many hidden meanings that only people who are prepared to teach the book would know of and understand.