Category: Reader response

Selected Methods of Literary Criticism

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Note that these are only a few methods of literary criticism. For more information, see the Introduction to Modern Literary Theory at http://www.kristisiegel.com/theory.htm.
New Historicism
New Historicists argue that the best framework for interpreting literature is to place it in its historical context: what contemporaneous issues, anxieties, and struggles does the work of literature reflect, refract, or try to work through? New Historicist criticism tries to relate interpretive problems (such as why Hamlet doesn’t kill Claudius as he prays) to cultural-historical problems (such as contemporaneous debates about purgatory, transubstantiation, and salvation, as well as anxieties about what constituted legitimacy in the church, the monarchy, and succession to the throne). New Historicists also tend to stress that authors and poets are not secular saints–that even though they may be more circumspect about their societies than the average citizen, they nonetheless participate in it. Consequently, New Historicist critics often point out places in artists’ work where their attitudes do not anticipate our own, or may even be distasteful to us.
Marxism
A sociological approach to literature that views works of literature or art as the products of historical forces that can be analyzed by looking at the material conditions in which they were formed. In Marxist ideology, what we often classify as a world view (such as the Victorian age) is actually the articulations of the dominant class. Marxism generally focuses on the clash between the dominant and repressed classes in any given age and also may encourage art to imitate what is often termed an “objective” reality. Contemporary Marxism is much broader in its focus, and views art as simultaneously reflective and autonomous to the age in which it was produced.
New Criticism
The New Critics were united in an effort to free literary criticism from what they regarded as fallacious interpretations, including assessments of value and meaning based on impressionistic, emotional, and historical criteria. They insisted on the autonomy and uniqueness of the text, whose language could be clinically described only by reference to itself—not to the author’s biography or to abstract concepts such as genre.

Feminism
Feminism might be categorized into three general groups:
  • theories having an essentialist focus (including psychoanalytic and French feminism);
  • theories aimed at defining or establishing a feminist literary canon or theories seeking to re-interpret and re-vision literature (and culture and history and so forth) from a less patriarchal slant (including gynocriticism, liberal feminism);
  • theories focusing on sexual difference and sexual politics (including gender studies, lesbian studies, cultural feminism, radical feminism, and socialist/materialist feminism).
Further, feminist critics believe that women (and men) need to consider what it means to be a woman, to consider how much of what society has often deemed inherently female traits, are culturally and socially constructed.
Psychoanalytic
Psychoanalytic criticism refers to the application of specific psychological principles (particularly those of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan) to the study of literature. Psychoanalytic criticism may focus on the writer’s psyche, the study of the creative process, the study of psychological types and principles present within works of literature, or the effects of literature upon its readers.
Structuralism
In literary theory, structuralism is an approach to analyzing the narrative material by examining the underlying invariant structure. Structuralists posit that literature is an individual instance of a larger system of language and structure; literature is a special kind of language use that has its own rules and conventions which govern how individual works are formed. Structuralists study sets or genres to determine the rules that govern them; an example is Propp’s eight actions in the fairy tale. They divide the work up into lexie or divisible components based on functional codes to do with the plot, suspense, character development, social knowledge, and themes.
Siegel, Kristi. “Introduction to Modern Literary Theory.” kristisiegel.com. 13 March 2008. Web 25 Jan 2009.

Lone Survivor: A Tribute, and Analysis

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Lone Survivor: A Tribute, and Analysis

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 is a non-fiction book written by novelist Patrick Robinson and former SEAL Marcus Luttrell, the only survivor of a mission in Afghanistan in 2005. Seal Team 10 was tasked with three other SEAL members to kill a high-profile Taliban commander . His story eventually became the basis of his book, which has now turned into a movie.

The book starts with Luttrell describing his childhood in Texas training to become a Navy SEAL, with Billy Shelton, a neighbor and former Green Beret. After joining the U.S. Navy, and finishing BUD/S training to become a SEAL, Luttrell heads to Afghanistan, undergoing several operations around the country before heading to the Hindu Kush mountains of the Kunar province for Operation Red Wings. He and his team, consisting of Lieutenant Michael “Mikey” Murphy, Gunner’s Mate Second Class Danny Dietz, and Sonar Technician Second Class Matthew “Axe” Axelson, were tasked to gather reconnaissance on a village and capture or kill a head Taliban member, who was said to be affiliated with Osama Bin Laden and the 9/11 attack.

On a night during their mission, while hiding out, the team was discovered by three sheepherders, including a boy. The team debated killing the shepherds silently and hiding the bodies, which was the most millitary sound way to not compromise their mission. However, after considering the rules of engagement, they decided to let them go (the shepherds were unarmed and not posing a threat currently). However, the shepherds notified their presence to the Taliban, and about an hour later, SEAL Team 10 was surrounded by dozens of armed warriors under heavy fire. Three of the four men were killed, leaving Luttrell the only one to survive the firefight, but not after one of his attempts to contact the SEAL combat operation centers succeeded. A quick-reaction rescue team consisting of 16 special forces soldiers were sent to extract SDV-1; however, their Chinook helicopter was shot down by the Taliban with a RPG-7 rocket propelled grenade to the chopper’s rear rotor assembly, leaving no survivors. Luttrell was left unconscious and sustained a number of fractures and other serious wounds. After he regained consciousness, he was rescued by local Pashtun villagers, who treated his wounds and ultimately saved his life.

One of the main motifs shown in this book is Luttrell’s frustration at the rules of engagement (RoE) which, indirectly, resulted in the death of 19 American lives. These rules state that no force should be used against unarmed civilians, if they are not presently posing a threat to your safety. When SDV-1 was discovered by the sheepherders, Team Leader Mike Murphy decided to hold a vote in which SDV-1 decided to let them go, since the team may have been considered violating the RoE and possibly being sentenced to life in prison for their actions. If the team did kill the shepherds, then at the very least they would have been ridiculed and criticized by the media, even in the circumstances they had. When describing the situation and his vote, he states, “I had turned into a f—–g liberal, a half-a—-d, no-logic nitwit, all heart, no brain, and the judgement of a jackrabbit… At least, that’s how I look back on those moments now. Probably not then, but for nearly every waking hour of my life since.”

Marcus Luttrell’s story also shows that war is not glorious but evil, no matter which way you put it, and people will die on both sides of the conflict. He also makes a point that when you try to make war “clean,” and “civilized,” you won’t win. Terrorists will stop at nothing to achieve their cause, we can see that everywhere from the acts of ISIL to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Were it so easy to make that decision, for SDV-1 to be sure with the fact that the most militarily sound option was also the “right” option, this book would have been very different. Luttrell believes that if there was no fear of what may happen to them back home in the United States, SEAL Team 10 would have made it out alive, mission accomplished. However, nothing can change the fact that his team is gone, and so, deeply rooted in this book is his deep sorrow for his friends and his guilt as the sole survivor. Going on a long journey across America, Luttrell visited every family whose son, and in some cases, father, died to honor him and tell them of his last moments. The book closes with a word from Luttrell, saying, “I will never give up on the memory of those nineteen men who lost their lives on the mountain that day, because they never gave up on me.”

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10, is a stirring tribute to Axe, Mikey, Danny, and the rest of the fallen soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, and I would recommend this book to anyone who has relatives in the military services, or is aspiring to join the military. It’s very well-written, yet easy to read, and is very powerful. The only problem some people have with the book is regarding the actual numbers of Taliban forces (it’s disputed whether there were actually 120 to 200 Taliban, or if that was an exaggeration. Nevertheless, Lone Survivor is an amazing and riveting book. Hospital Corpsman Marcus Luttrell went back into the tour of duty in Afghanistan after he recovered from his wounds until he was medically discharged from the Navy in 2007. Mohammed Ismail, the target of Operation Red Wings, was killed during a firefight in 2008.

Blood of Olympus Or End of Olympus?

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By Gwyneth Schloer

Blood of Olympus Or End of Olympus?

The giants have risen along with thousands of long passed-away monsters who have only one thought on their minds: “Awake Gaea and take revenge”. In this finale to a long and adventure-filled series, heroes Annabeth, Jason, Percy, Leo, Piper, Hazel, Nico, Frank, Reyna, and Coach Hedge are aboard the Argo II trying to save the world from destruction, as the Greek and Roman camps attempt to slaughter each other.

The Mother Earth Goddess, Gaea, is rising from her once eternal slumber, and the only thing in the way of her rising, is the blood of a male and female hero, the Blood of Olympus. If she wakes, it is almost certain the world will end. Caught up in their petty rivalry that has taken place for hundreds of years, the Roman camp doesn’t even know that they should be helping the heroes fight against Gaea. Malicious, self-centered and evil Octavian decides it is the camp’s best interest to target and kill the Greek camp in order to end the God’s silence. What the Romans and Octavian don’t know is that the Gods are silent because they are suffering from an extreme case of multiple personailty disorder. Due to the conflict taking place between the Romans and the Greeks, the Roman and Greek sides of the Gods both want their side to win, so the Gods’ brains are constantly switching between personalites. In order to stop this so that the Gods can assist in the saving of the world, the two sides must stop fighting. Only then will the demigods and Gods be able to team up and defeat Gaea and her evil army of Giants. With Octavian in charge manipulating the Roman legion’s minds, there is no chance that peace will happen any time soon. The only chance that the Greeks have at surviving relies on the Athena Parthenos statue that was retrieved by the demigod heroes. It is said that the statue has magical powers, so the heroes decide this might be a good way to defend the Greeks from the pending Roman attack. The only trouble is, how are they to get it across the world in such a small amount of time? On the other side of the world, while Reyna, Nico, and Coach Hedge attempt to bring the Athena Parthenos to Long Island, its home, the heroes on Argo II are trying to kill all the giants that have risen in order to make sure they don’t succeed in awaking Gaea.

Writer Rick Riordan provides an outstanding ending to his five-part epic, Heroes of Olympus, in The Blood of Olympus. Not only does he bring back the stories of the Gods and the heroes, but he also inserts jokes, slang, references, and items relevant to today’s society, such as a Wii remote and the series Doctor Who. The dynamic characters, or heroes, in The Blood of Olympus represent the ideal humans and their flaws and imperfections. Even the relationships between each character were carefully thought out based on what mood the character was in, who was in the room, and what had just happend or what was about to happen. In this desperate fight to stop the ever-nearing end of the world, the author mixed in stories of love, tragedy, and comedy. This modern twist on Greek and Roman mythology deserves a full five-star rating.

Being Harish Karumuri

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Being Harish Karumuri

When I first picked up Being Henry David by Cal Armistead through my club, Battle of the Books, I groaned. I was tired of these books about some guy who I don’t even know having amnesia who is trying to find out who he was. I mean, really? This is not a bad concept, but it is so overdone that the genre is no longer interesting. But then I started reading the first page. And the second. And the third. Before I knew it, I was reading the last page of the book, staying up until 2 o’clock in the morning to finish it.

The book is very well written, using a sense of living life to its fullest, feeling loss, and joy of a person trying to find out who he really is. This also has a scenario of what to do when life is controlling you, not the other way around.

The main character, who goes by many different names, but mainly as a character named “Hank”, wakes up at Penn Station without knowing who he is. The first person he sees is a psychopath named “Frankie,” a guy who will eat anything from ID cards to wallets and pages of books. The only items Hank has are a 10 dollar bill and a book called, “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau, an abolitionist with many careers such as an author and a poet. Thoreau has a major effect on the book by giving Hank a pathway through the story, giving him a person to connect and feel to, especially when no one was with him. This book personifies a quote by Thoreau; “Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.”

A good component of the story is the adventure. Hank has no idea about who he is or where he is from, but tries to figure out when life starts to stress him out, especially when he accidentally kills someone. Led by the book in his hands, he goes to Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts in order to see if he can remember who he is.

The upbeat part of the story is when Hank meets a person named Jack, who gives him shelter, food, and a job at the library. He then befriends many people, and even gets a girlfriend. Life seems to be simple, and most of all, he seems to be happy. However, he still goes searching for who he is and wants to figure out how he got to the place he was at now. Throughout the book, there seems to be a struggle between himself and a “beast” that seems to guard his memory and prevent him from remembering his past. However, once he finally gets information about himself, he freaks out trying to figure out what he should do next.

The end was very beautiful, as he begins to see everything come through. In spite of the hardships to leaving this new life, he decides to go back to who he really was and live his old life. That “struggle” is what makes the entire story very well written and enjoyable to read. This was one of those moments where I wished I could cry. It was just that moving.

As I mentioned before, the story gives a meaning behind “build your life”. You have control of your life; your life does not control you.

I feel that a story is made through emotions, actions, and interactions. The emotions are what the person is thinking behind his actions, and those actions lead into interactions with other people, other objects, and themselves. Cal Armstead has used those components very well making the book have an uplifting feeling inside of you after seeing or witnessing something emotional and inspiring.

I clearly remember the feeling that I got after I finished reading the book. I was struggling to go to sleep as the thoughts I had about the book were swirling through my head. I was and am truly glad about joining the club and deciding to give the book a shot.

As Thoreau said in Walden, “However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.” This quote is the meaning behind this story and for that reason, and the reasons before, I highly recommend anyone and everyone to read this book.

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The Fault in Our Thoughts
By:  Sreya Palnati
There is more to this world than grades, beauty, and gossip.  There are things that are more “pure” in the world such as friendship, kindness, and perseverance.  It feels as if the fact that we are being reminded of the same thing repeatedly wears down the actual meaning of the idea.  In the book The Fault in Our Stars, John Green has a way of presenting this idea that continues to blow my mind every time I read it. 
This author tells a delectable love story.  Although this story isn’t the stereotypical relationship, it relates to modern relationships in many ways.  For example, not everyone is perfect.  It is okay to have imperfections.  Hazel and Augustus learn to accept each other’s imperfections.  This is necessary in many of today’s relationships.  This is because people are constantly growing to be more diverse.  We are learning our own imperfections and different natural talents.  Even though I may not have uncovered any natural talents, I am still learning more about myself.  In the past few years, I have learned to accept who I am.  I learned not to be someone else, the person who I wish I was.  Hazel truly motivated me to feel this way.  She doesn’t change who she is throughout the book, even when people tell her about her limitations. 
Also, it’s okay to make small mistakes once in a while; it is not the end of your life.  Well in Hazel’s point of view, her life could end any minute.  This shows me that other people have it worse.  I shouldn’t be stressing over my small “problems” when it could be much worse.  It actually took me a while to learn this.  At one point in the summer, I realized that I was acting really spoiled and had become very lazy.  That was when I knew that I had to change my ways.  Reading this book made me realize that I was lucky just to be living.  There are people in this world who don’t sleep at night with full stomachs, people who can only take a bath every other day.   Some people have to even walk tens of miles just to get some medicine.  Now here I am in my room too lazy to go downstairs and wash my clothes.  It made me feel ashamed.  I felt as if I was taking advantage of my circumstances, which I was.  Nowadays, I take the time to appreciate what I was given.  Hazel’s delayed death allowed her to fall in love with Augustus Waters, a persistent and truly ambitious young man.  She was given a chance, a chance to start over, build up her life again.  She definitely made the right decisions and used her second chance to be happy.  She experienced things she never had before. 
I hope to someday positively impact someone’s life the way Hazel did.  I want to make them think “I sure am happy Sreya was in my life!”  I want them to know me for who I am, not somebody I made up on the top of my mind.  I want them to remember me at times of doubt, fear, and sadness.  I want them to replace those feeling with faith, hope, and happiness when they think of me.  In this book, Hazel impacted Augustus’ life in a way that I know I will probably never achieve.  She taught him that there are people in the world who care about him and stuck to her own beliefs while showing Gus the true meaning of life. 

This book shows the ups and downs of life and how we should appreciate the good things instead of being concerned with the bad things.  Just live in the moment and be thankful for what you are given.  After all, “you don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, but you do get to choose who hurts you!”  Take advantage of that fact and just be happy!  

Star-Crossed Lovers in a Senseless Society

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Star-Crossed Lovers in a Senseless Society

“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

This quote comes from Rainbow Rowell’s book Eleanor and Park, a romance novel revolving around a sarcastic, red-haired girl and an introverted half-Korean boy. At the beginning, the chemistry between these two misfits is very sweet, and I enjoyed every breath of it. However, the book goes downhill when the lovers become serious with their relationship, especially since the story takes place over a year. Many flaws in this book have confirmed that this novel wasn’t my favorite, but it was definitely unlike anything I’ve ever read before.

The biggest and most disconcerting obstacle in Eleanor and Park was its constant use of profanity. Upon reading the first five pages, I found about twelve nasty words scribbled hastily in dialogue before flipping to the next chapter. Though the setting takes place primarily in a high school in the 1980’s, I feel like the author is making an unfortunate excuse to press her anger into each of the pages, screaming the f-word repetitively through her characters’ thoughts. She may think that it seems more realistic this way, but personally I think it makes the characters less enjoyable to be around. Therefore the vulgar language was completely superfluous, and I think that this book would have been more satisfying if it weren’t for the author being as tempered as a toddler, flicking the f-word all over the place.

Another flaw that made me uncomfortable was the author’s tendency to be racist towards Asians. Park is part of one of the only Asian families in his neighborhood, making him a minor target for being different from the rest. I agree that racism is still a problem in today’s world, and I understand that Rowell wants to address this problem to her audience. But rather than resolving the situation herself, she simply mocks the Asian accent and expresses feelings that should have stuck to her rough draft. Her constant reminder of Park’s mom pronouncing Eleanor’s name as “El-la-no” frustrates me, as if she didn’t need to remind me twenty times to get the gist of how differently Park’s mom spoke from the rest. Also, at the start and end of the book, Eleanor regards Park as a “stupid Asian kid”. Whether Rowell means this and her other open thoughts playfully or seriously, it doesn’t improve the plot any further from its original state.

Thirdly, the book had a few plot holes that I was really unsatisfied with. What happened to Eleanor’s family after Eleanor ran away? Richie is the only one who seems to live in the house after the incident, and there are no signs of Eleanor’s siblings or her mom after the fight. I was anxious to know where they had gone, or if they had met Eleanor in the future, but unfortunately I was never given the answer to what will forever be a vague ending. Also, if Richie wrote vulgar insults in Eleanor’s books, how did he get to her locker in the first place? Eleanor told Park that the insults appeared after her Gym class, and it seems very unlikely that Richie would suddenly barge into the school and somehow locate the girls’ locker room deliberately. How did Richie get in and cram Eleanor’s new clothes in the toilet? Since he is Eleanor’s stepdad, it makes completely no sense and desperately needs a logical revision.

The main idea of romance captivated me early into the story, but as the plot progressed, there seemed to be something off about it that made me change my mind. The timing was unreasonably hastened, and even though Park is awkward, wouldn’t he have chosen a more appropriate time to confess his love for Eleanor? At the time their relationship was only starting to bloom, and I believe that Park went a little overboard. The author may attempt to sound realistic in this aspect of the story as well, but I think that it would have been more reasonable if Park was a little more careful about what he said, since this is after all his “first love”.

In addition, there were many imbalances in the story. Sloppy, disproportioned transitions between Park and Eleanor were made frequently throughout the story, and it was hard to keep up since some viewpoints lasted 3 pages and others lasted a few sentences. The author tries too hard to sound simple, because it makes readers juggle a deep pile of thoughts and fluctuating perspectives. Although Eleanor and Park had a steady relationship throughout the book, it saddened me to see that Eleanor never truly admitted that she loved Park, because Park had told her multiple times that he loved her to soothe her insecurities.

Lastly, the parents of both families failed to be good role models in the story. All of the fathers in the story either use vulgar language, drink, or provide too much freedom excessively. The mothers are calmer and wiser, but there are no major spotlights for them in the book other than restricting the lovers from doing what they want. An example of unreasonable parenting is Park’s dad. He allows Park to drive Eleanor to Minnesota in the middle of the night, but he restricts Park from wearing eyeliner? Park’s dad probably wanted to prevent Park from wearing eyeliner to avoid attention at school, but if Park’s dad provides that much freedom for Park and his girlfriend, then he should definitely be more easygoing about something as simple as eyeliner.

In spite of all of the book’s imperfections, only a few portions have truly contented me. The plot, despite its adult-like tone, was engrossing, and I had finished this book over two days’ time. Some peaks in the story included the semi-creative flirting between Eleanor and Park, but clichés such as “I can’t live without you,” and “I can’t breathe without you,” were little things that made me cringe. However, the fact that they avoided the “it’s not good-bye” cliché was unexpectedly impressive. The most stunning part overall was that this book captured real-life situations that people are still facing today, like family pressure and bullying, overlapping the romance just before it became too boring and mushy to handle.

Hatchet: A Thrilling Roller Coaster

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Ethan McFerren
Mr. Koch
English 9H
October 3, 2014
 Hatchet: A Thrilling Roller Coaster
            The outdoors, a hatchet, near death experiences, animal attacks, surviving by a teeny thread. These are all included in Hatchet, the ultimatesurvival book about a boy named Brian Robeson who is hopelessly stranded in the middle of the Canadian forest. And he has absolutely nothing with him except one little hatchet. Brian got stranded in the forest because the pilot flying him to his father in Canada got a heart attack and died. He then attempted to land the plane near a lake after trying in vain to get help via radio. For nearly two months alone he was forced to make a shelter and get food and fire after crash-landing the plane near the lake.
Brian is a similar character to Chet in the Hardy boys series because both are stocky and anxious characters, both for good reasons. They worry for good reasons because both have to deal with life threatening situations, Chet with helping the Hardy boys fight crime, and Brian with the hopeful chance of surviving in an endless wilderness. They are also brave, resourceful, and smart. Brian has to fight his past as he recalls his parent’s divorce and the Secret. The Secret is capitalized in the book because it is very important to Brian. His mom divorced his dad because she was in love with another man, which only Brian knows and refers to as the Secret. Different parts of the Secret were revealed in different parts of the book.
This book is also similar to a T.V. show called Dual Survival. In the show, two men are placed in harsh climates like the desert, tundra, an island, etc. and they must survive with limited materials they have by getting fire, finding food and water, and creating shelters. Brian was forced to do all these things and more. He had to find a good place for a shelter on a ridge and build a door and walls. He already had access to a lake, but he had to create weapons to hunt for food, like a bow, arrows, and a spear, and he had to start a fire. The reason this book is called Hatchet is because Brian wouldn’t have survived without his hatchet. His hatchet, given to him by his mother as a present, helped him cut down wood for his shelter and make weapons, and also helped him make a fire by reflecting the sunlight from his hatchet to his wood pile to start a fire. It was also used as a weapon of defense. The hatchet was most useful at the end when he hammered his way into the plane that he crashed to help him find a survival kit, which gave Brian the upper hand at surviving.

The author Gary Paulsen has a writing style similar to R.E. Weber, author of Star Agency. The reason they are similar is because both have mind-blowing detail incorporated in their books. R.E. Weber describes planets and space stations so it paints a clear image in my head. Gary Paulsen describes the forest and Brian’s struggle so vividly that I feel I am watching Brian in a movie. Also, I could tell Paulsen researched and included real life survival skills into his book, which makes it more realistic, relatable and heart-pounding.  

Bradbury’s Warning Reader Response

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Bradbury’s Warning
                     Fahrenheit 451 is a fictional novel that was written in 1953 by Ray Bradbury.  This book used irony in relation to the real world.  Everything that Bradbury said in the book about the futuristic world having televisions the size of walls and radio sets on their ears the size of seashells is real in our age of time with flat screens and ear buds.  Bradbury said he wanted to put this book in homes so that they would avoid these inventions but they happened anyway.
                     The main character in this book is Guy Montag.  Montag is a fireman.  In his futuristic world rather than put out fires, firemen would set books on fire.  This world believed that books were racist and inappropriate.  As a solution, they decided to burn all of the books.  If anyone had books in their house, firemen would be called to the house to burn the books.  If a person would have books in their house, they would be burned alive if they don’t want to leave their house.
                     Montag meets a young woman named Clarisse McCellan.  Montag is surprised by her love for nature and people.  Soon after strange events start happening to Montag.  First, his wife tries to kill herself by swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills.  Then, he is called to a house to burn down books.  The woman that lives there gets burned alive so that she could be with her books.  Finally, Clarisse is killed by a speeding car.  Almost all cars drive very fast. Montag starts to express his hatred for his world.  He tries to find a solution for his world in a stash of books he had hidden.  The police never find the driver of the car that killed Clarisse.  The police aren’t that big on finding criminals in his world.
                     Montag doesn’t show up to work the next day.  His boss, Beatty, pays him a visit at his home.  He explains that most firemen go through this stage.  Beatty knows a lot about books which makes me think why he would ever become a fireman since he loves books. Montag is given 24 hours to see if his books have anything that will help him.  Montag seeks help from his wife but she would rather watch the parlor walls. That is very realistic.  Now a days, more people would watch television than read.  He remembers a man named Faber.  Faber was a former English professor who retired once books were banned.  He agrees to help Montag.  He gives Montag the green bullet.  The green bullet is an earpiece that allows them to talk to each other secretly.  The green bullet sounds like a Bluetooth. After this moment, Humanity is forever changed.
                     Ray Bradbury gave us a warning back in 1954 that if we keep inventing new things and forgetting about previous things, it will come back and haunt us.  The message he is attempting to spread is that if you outlaw something as common as books, then society gets turned flipped upside down.  It is ridiculous to not believe his theory. After all, he was right about the green hornet and the parlor walls.  I think I see someone every day with a Bluetooth in their ear. It is such a common sight.  A Parlor wall is just as common as Bluetooth.  Every day when I come home from school, I sit and start watching the parlor wall.  I think there isn’t a single person that doesn’t use a parlor wall every day.  Now I’m not saying stop watching television all together. I’m just saying we shouldn’t commit our lives to televisions and always having something in our ears.  We should always read books because if we stop, then we will all receive the same fate as humanity did in Fahrenheit 451.
                    

                     

Everyone is Divergent

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Everyone is Divergent
Identity is the sense of self.  It is the person you see in the mirror, past the eyes, to the inside.  When you do look into that mirror, you do not just see a face.  You see everything about yourself at once. What about other people, what do they see?  For Tris Prior, her past life only allowed her to glimpse into the mirror, to peer at an identity she was told she did not deserve to see.  
In a world that is constantly trying to tell you what your identity is, finding out for yourself can be one of the hardest journeys.  In Divergentby Veronica Roth, this is the biggest challenge Tris faces: coming to terms with who she is, and standing up to an overbearing society.   I believe that everyone faces this, and personally, I am learning to understand my own divergence, the way that society has told me I am different.      
            Tris came from Abnegation, the community dedicated to selflessness and service to others.  Following that background came a reputation, as clean and sharp as the lines in her plain, gray clothing.  She was expected to be quiet, to keep to herself, almost nonexistent, the gray in the background.  She was always taught to be extremely modest, to never show herself off.  The day that she chose the Dauntless faction over her home in Abnegation was the day the perfect lines got wrinkled. 
“Stiff!”-“What a goody- two-shoes!”  Tris and I have been called our fair share of names.  When Tris first arrives at Dauntless initiation, with many people from other factions, everyone sees her as the “stiff” from Abnegation, small, tense and as insignificant as a mouse, when her heart roars like a lion. She finds it difficult to show her true self because she has spent her whole life trapped behind a wall of insufficiency.  Their first impression is that she is boring, two-dimensional in the flat, monotone garb.  
Like Tris, the place I come from suggests that I am rigid, a major goody-two shoes, but unlike Tris, everyone expects me to be perfect; to get perfect grades, be pretty, to never swear, to never sweat.  They tell me that things should not be hard for me, that everything is handed to me without any work, but they only see my reflection, and nothing more.  Tris never identified with the place she came from and the expectations that came with it.  Like Tris, I don’t see that girl in the mirror.  
Her problems don’t end there: Tris is Divergent, and divergents threaten the system.  Tris is in danger because she is not just selfless or just brave or just wise, but all three.  Tris knows humility, love, sacrifice, and friendship.  She is many things and has many parts to her personality.  She is unlimited, undefined, and you cannot sort her, put her neatly into a file cabinet with a fancy label. Her society tells her that it cannot run efficiently unless she fits herself into that box, under a faction name.  The society is scared of the “Divergents” of the world.
Today, society is much the same, though not as extreme.  It is scared of the people who cannot be labeled. The truth is, everyone is a million different things, and should never yield to such an awful principle as trying to be just one.  Just because you are one thing doesn’t mean you aren’t another.  It is a gift, a privilege, to be selfless, to be peaceful, honest, brave and wise.
For Tris and I, it is time to stand in front of that mirror, scrutinizing, observing, and examining, until we recognize ourselves.  She must break the board, for she is no longer, and never was, “stiff”. As for me, I am growing out of my two shoes; they never really fit me anyway. It is time to stop being afraid, and to realize that everyone is special, everyone is different, and everyone is divergent.