Tuesday, September 22, 2009
For your second blog entry, I would like for you to write a summary of events since your last update. After you have finished, choose a character to describe in detail. Make sure to include the elements this character brings to the plot of the novel. Choose a quote from the book that best describes or displays the character's personality and explain why it is significant to him or her.
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I am up to page 97 now and that is about a third of the way through the book since it is 297 pages. The quote I chose to show what the main character was like is this; “ I am about to buy a house in a foreign country” (pg. 1)… Because I had ended a long marriage that was not supposed to end and was establishing a new relationship, this house quest felt tied to whatever new identity I would manage to forge.” (pg. 14) Frances Mayes is starting an entire new life in a new country. That takes guts. Obviously our main character, Frances is embarking on something completely different and so far has been taking it all in a stride. All she thinks about is Bramasole, she is completely devoted to this house. Bramasole is beautiful, well, will be beautiful, once the renovations have been done. Renovations don’t come easy and take up copious amounts of patience and money. Frances has at least one of the two, patience. I’m excited to see where she ends up because not only is Bramasole changing but also Frances.
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ReplyDeleteCharacter - Amir
Amir is the main character in the novel, The Kite Runner. In the beginning of the book he is a young boy, who wants nothing more than to play with his servant friend, Hassan, and impress his father, who he greatly admirers. Amir excels at creative writing, which he shares only with Hassan and Rahim Khan, but not his dad, because his dad doesn’t approve of Amir’s talent for writing. “Children aren’t like coloring books. You don’t get to fill them in with your favorite colors.”(p. 21) this quote is said by Rahim Khan, telling Amir’s dad he can’t change his son to the way he wants him to be. As the book progresses, Amir becomes more and more hostile to Hassan. He feels like he is the monster in one of Hassan’s dreams. When Hassan leaves doesn’t do anything. He is relieved to have to stop lying.
Amir is a good hearted boy, who gets freaked out easily. He loves his father and his friend, but when things start to take a turn for the worse, he starts to lie, which only hurts him and Hassan more. When he is older, he says he wants to forget his past in Afghanistan, and when his father brings up Hassan’s name, Amir feels awful. When his father tells him to think of a happy time, he remembers running kites with Hassan as a child.
Summary
Hassan and Amir are still distant towards each other. Hassan tries to talk with Amir, but Amir is confused by all the current events in his life, and yells at him. Amir’s father plans Amir’s 13th birthday party for him, inviting tons of people and getting lavish decorations, but Amir feels it is more of his father’s party than his. Assef arrives at the party and Amir gives him a cold shoulder, to which his father frowns at. When the fireworks are going off, Amir glimpses Assef attack Hassan. After the guests leave, Amir unwraps his presents, which are all magnificent, but he only truly appreciated the journal given to him by Rahim Khan. Amir’s father had given him a watch, and many others had presented him with money. Amir takes these gifts and sneaks into Hassan and Ali’s hut. He slips the presents under their mattresses, then reports to his father that someone had stolen his watch and money. His father calls to Hassan and Ali, and explains what happened. Hassan confesses to have stolen Amir’s possessions, which Amir thinks, is his final sacrifice towards him. Ali tells them that are to leave, and when he looks to Amir, Amir knows that Hassan told him everything, and is grateful that someone knows the truth beneath his lies. The next chapter begins with Amir and his father sitting on a truck with a group of refugees. Amir is 18. They left their seventh servant without telling where they were going. The truck is stopped by a group of men. Amir’s father and one of the soldiers, who happened to be Russian, get in a disagreement. The Russian threatens to shoot, and Amir closes his eyes, terrified. He hears a gun go off, and fears the worst. When he opens his eyes, all is fine. They reach a house, and get inside, to meet more of the refugees. Amir recognizes a man and his son, and the man tells them his son won’t speak. Soon enough, they are back on a truck, this time in poorer conditions. When they finally get out, the man who Amir recognized is sobbing, his son had stopped breathing. Without hesitation, the man grabs someone’s gun and shoots himself.
When Amir and his father arrive in America, it takes some adjusting. His father has difficulty with the language and the rules in the new country. Amir, however, enjoys it. He feels like he can finally be free from his past life, and all the lies. He graduates from high school at the age of 20 and tells his father he wants to get a degree in writing, which his father accepts. He and his father soon take up selling at the flea market. There his father introduces him to a friend, and his friend’s daughter, who Amir can’t seem to get out of his mind.
I have now read to page 123, or chapter 46 in The Life of Pi. In the last 31 pages, since my last entry, much has happened in this book all revolving around a single event; the sinking of the ship that Pi and his family were traveling on. The section begins with Pi in a large lifeboat calling out to someone in the water, in an effort to save them and have company on his lifeboat. Pi calls “Jesus, Mary, Muhammad, Vishnu, how good to see you, Richard Parker.” As the swimming form nears the boat, only able to because Pi has thrown him a life preserver and pulled him in, Pi realizes what he has done, although the reader doesn’t yet know what. The figure is able to board the lifeboat and Pi is terrified, knowing now that he has saved and led a 450-pound, adult Bengal tiger to his boat. Without much thought, Pi jumps off the boat. Next, the book tells of the time just previous to the ship sinking. And how it seemed that all of his family drowned in the lower portions of the ship, while Pi was on the deck. It was 4:30 in the morning and Pi heard a noise from his bed when he decided to go exploring and this decision saved his life. Horrified, Pi found some crew members who might be able to help, but instead they threw him off the ship into the lifeboat. Pi sees the men on she ship pointing at the lifeboat that he is in, which he later realizes was because of the hyena, as was why they threw him onto the boat in the first place. The zebra jumped in after him, crashing into a bench and presumably badly injuring itself. The story now returns to Pi, freezing in the Pacific Ocean beside a life boat in which is Bengal tiger and an injured zebra. Before long, Pi begins to see sharks swimming dangerously close to him and places an oar under the tarp on the boat, securing it parallel to the water. He then climbs onto the precarious extension to the boat. Now Pi had to hope that the tiger would not come into sight and see him, leaving him with the choice to die by sharks or tiger.
ReplyDeletePi is forced to move slightly closer to the boat so that he will not fall. Some time after the sun came into the sky, Pi caught his first glimpse of a spotted hyena which given the current situation and Pi’s assumption that the hyena’s presence means that the tiger is no longer on board, is a relief for Pi. Pi is forced to stay still and wait, miserably perched on the oar, after quite a while, Pi sees the Virgin Mary approaching the boat and is overcome with joy. It isn’t until she is very near to the boat that Pi realizes it is not the Virgin Mary but an orang-utan, Orange Juice, floating on a net full of bananas. The orang-utan then boards the boat and joins the company. By mid-morning, the hyena reappears and begins to run laps around the zebra. Pi lives through an uneventful night on his perch and is delighted when the sun appears in the sky and he is again able to see the things that could attack him at any moment. One of the first observations that Pi makes is that the zebra is missing his broken leg, presumably because the hyena has eaten it. Pi waits in terror for anything to happen and is amused when he finds that Orange Juice is seasick. A turtle surfaces near Pi who promptly tells it “go tell a ship I’m here. Go, go.” before it returns to it’s underwater home.
ReplyDeleteFor my character I chose the Hyena who is currently the antagonist in the novel if this is possible. Pi gives a very detailed description of hyenas, which I will quote some of. “It is ugly beyond redemption… and it’s shaggy, coarse coat seems to have been patched together from the leftovers of creation… with a high forehead, like that of a bear, suffering from a receding hairline… All the parts together look doglike, but like no dog anyone would want as a pet.” The book also tells of a hyena’s incredible hunting and eating skills. A pack of hyenas will take down a full size adult animal and devour all but the skull in fifteen minutes. After they have eaten, the hyenas will cough up hairballs of everything indigestible that they consumed and promptly roll in them. According to Pi, a hyena will eat anything from tem-minute-old gnu to exhaust pipe.
From about page 100 (where I left off last entry) to my current position at page 143 a significant event occurred in Water for Elephants. The Fox Brother’s circus had fallen on hard times during the Depression, sending the Benzini Brother’s circus into a dizzy frenzy. Uncle Al and the crew pick up the circus and travel by train for three days to the withered remains of the Fox Brother’s circus. Many unemployed performers, freaks, and crew members plead to Uncle Al for any type of employment. Uncle Al had other plans in mind. He hired only a few performers because he needed room for his largest purchase that would put the Benzini Brother’s circus on the map. This is where the reader is introduced to Rosie, the gargantuan 55 year old elephant. I finished that chapter with the crew unsuccessfully trying to load Rosie onto the train.
ReplyDeleteI briefly described Jacob in the last entry, so this time the character I would like to focus on is Marlena. Marlena is August, the equestrian trainer’s, girlfriend. Marlena is fair, dainty, and light. She is important to the story because of the relationship between her, Jacob, and Rosie. In my opinion, Marlena and Jacob seem like a more compatible match than her and August. Marlena seems to open up more to Jacob and I believe she really feels that she can share anything with him. Many times, her ideas or actions are rejected by August, even if they are out of the goodness of her heart. For example, page120-121 reads, “Marlena’s eyes narrow. She sets her pate down, stabs a pork chop with her fork, and slaps it on a piece of bread. She swipes Augusts’ bread, slaps it on the other side of the pork chop, and storms off. “What do you think you are doing?” shouts August. She walks straight to the gaunt man, picks up his hand, and plants the sandwich in it.” Marlena’s relationship with Rosie also starts to develop as they become more familiar with each other. Both Marlena and Jacob are animal lovers, so in my opinion the bond between Jacob, Marlena, and Rosie will only grow stronger.
My post was too long to post in one piece so it is split into two.
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