Justice in Les Miserables (revised

Justice in Les Miserables (revised)

I read Les Miserables several months ago, here is a brief overview; the main character, Jean Valjean, has been a convict for 19 years. 5 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread, and 14 years for 4 attempted escapes.

The main social issue in this book is punishment. It is quite clear that 19 years is too much for stealing some bread. What really bothers me is the fact that according to his record he is a very dangerous person. What makes it so unjust is that no one knows the true reason why he was imprisoned. The report from his case says that he was sentenced for burglary and attempted escape. Although this is true, it lacks detail and I would say that it exaggerates the real situation. And due to this Jean Valjean has now been stripped of his rights as a person. No one wants to help him because they are afraid of him. It’s not exactly correct to say that they should meet him first and then judge him by his personality, because if a man shows up at your house and he has a card that says that he is a dangerous criminal you’re not going to let him in. however I do believe that there should be a more clear and realistic description of Jean Valjean’s crime.

I don’t really know why Jean Valjean would want to attempt to escape from jail so many times when he knows what he was risking if he was unsuccessful. It could have been just simply knowing that he did not deserve to be in jail, and it’s not all because of the simple fact that he was in jail, but his sentence was originally for 5 years. And 5 years for stealing a loaf of bread, is not just. Perhaps Jean Valjean just thought that he could escape successfully and start a new life, but failed four times.

I think that fair punishment for a crime is when it seems reasonable. If you steal an object then you should both return it and have to pay a fine or just pay a fine for replacing it. It’s just not fair to arrest someone and throw them in jail for stealing some bread, or let’s say for j-walking.

This leads me to my point; how do we know if the punishment fits the crime? And how do we decide on an appropriate punishment for a crime?  I believe that this is one of the biggest social issues of the world. It’s everyday that you hear stories on the news about some kind of crime and you always wonder what’s going to happen to the person responsible for the crime. And sometimes you may think that the punishment is too harsh or sometimes it’s too mild. But how can we develop a system for punishing crime the right way so that everyone can be in agreement, and is it even possible to do so? This book takes place in the 1800s, so just after the French revolution, which was when the absolute monarchy collapsed. Right away you can see how far we've come to punish crime in a more fair way. But there are still places in our world where punishment for crime is not fair, and even in places where it is, there are exceptions. Our world is far from perfect, but if everyone realizes the mistakes we may be able to create justice. 

http://lizaisawesome.blogspot.com/2010/10/justice-les-miserables.html?showComment=1301062007360#c2109415539742726843 

phantoms in the brain, how little we know of ourselves

                I have temporarily halted reading the scarlet letter because I found a different book (but I will return to reading the scarlet letter soon). I came across book while cleaning my book shelves at home. The first thing that caught my attention was the title: phantoms in the brain. I skipped the foreword and the preface and began to read the first page. It is a book written by a doctor about his personal experiences with patients. From the very first page I was hooked. It’s basically about how the brain works, but it’s not all boring facts one after the other. It’s about real life experiences and it’s absolutely thrilling. There are detailed descriptions of neurological phenomena. It answers the most unexpected questions!

This book really reveals a lot of interesting information about the way we think. And from the very first page it shows how little we really know about ourselves. I thought about the phrase from Romeo and Juliet “we’re born to die” and I realized that although it is true, the world is so complex. There are so many technologies in the world that are working to discover, to create, to help our way of life. And behind these technologies are people that create them and each person is “powered” by a brain. And yet there is so much information that remains unknown. As I was reading I couldn’t help but think of it as my brain learning about the brain. What really captured my attention was that this book contains theories about why certain people believe in god, and others don’t. To me this book just gave me a new perspective on life as we know it. It’s very intriguing. 

The Scarlet letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Themes

Right now I am reading The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. To give you a brief summary, the book is about a young woman in a puritan town in Boston, Massachusetts. Her name is Hester Prynne and she has gone to prison, for committing adultery. She is released with her infant but she has to always wear a bright red letter A, as public shame. Hester refuses to identify the father of her child.

Some themes in this book so far are sin, and secrecy. I also notice that at the beginning the scarlet letter is very thoroughly described and later on in the book, Hester’s daughter (pearl) wears a dress that has a similar description. I think that Pearl is supposed to represent or embody the scarlet letter that Hester has to wear. Pearl is kind of a shame for her mother, because her mother had her while committing adultery. I thought that this was a very interesting aspect of this book. Hester Prynne was a woman that was bolder than others; she did something that cost her her innocence.

the lost symbol by Dan Brown

                Although I have read and enjoyed the other two books in this series, this one did not pull it off. The first book of the series is “angels and demons” the second is the “Da Vinci code”. All three books have the same exact plot, and by the third book, it’s just annoying to read. I felt like this book was much too similar to the other two. I like Dan Brown’s writing but almost all of his books start off with a murder, then a really intelligent main character and usually some kind of assistant set off on a journey to find out who the murderer is. And this journey usually has an interesting twist, with lots of codes to crack and ancient mysteries. But it gets to be too repetitive. In my opinion this book was just an attempt to write another novel in the series and it used a lot of the same material as in the other books, just with more violence and more stuff going on as “fluff” to make up for the lack of originality.

                What I do like about these books though, is how they have interesting factual information. It shows that Dan Brown does a lot of research in order to write his books. And I learned a lot about different topics in each book. Angels and Demons was about antimatter, and the Da Vinci code was about the Mona Lisa and certain codes and stuff, and the lost symbol was about Free Masonry. And these books made me want to do more research on each topic. However this does not make up for the fact that the third book in the series was a failure and I really hope that Dan Brown does not write another book in this series, unless he can make it interesting.