rereading the call of the wild- social studies themes

                Since last week we were talking about muckrakers in social studies, I decided to reread the call of the wild. Now that I have in mind that Jack London was an investigative journalist and a social activist, it changes my perspective on the story completely. When I first read this book I was probably in fourth or fifth grade and to me it was just a great story about dogs. But as I learned about the background information for the time period and the author, I realized that the book “isn’t really about dogs” as Ms. Maier said. It’s like the picture books we did, it’s an allegory, and it has a much deeper meaning than it seems to. The main character is a dog named Buck who had a very happy life in a California estate until he was kidnapped and sold to several men. Buck is forced to train as a sled dog and experiences brutality from man and beast and also nature. In his new environment there is “neither peace, nor rest, nor a moment’s safety”

The beginning (first chapter) is very easy going and calm. But then as soon as we enter the scene where Buck is kidnapped, we enter a whole new type of text. From here on, many parts of the book have a dark tone, and there are many violent scenes. I believe that these scenes with poor working conditions (for the dogs) and harsh environment and rules represent those factory workers in the progressive era, which also faced those kinds of issues. Not all of the dogs make it, only the strongest survive, there is absolutely nothing they can do about their current conditions, such were factory workers. There was little that factory workers could have done about their working conditions, no matter how much they protested, until the Triangle fire. It took the deaths of people in order for working conditions to change.

I think it’s useful for me to reread this book especially since now I can relate it to events that have happened in history. It’s a really great book, and it’s still interesting the second time through for me.  :)

secrets and betrayal in "the compound"

Right now I am reading The Compound by S. A Bodeen. This book is fairly interesting, the plot is creative. It’s not the most well written book, but it’s one of those enjoyable books you can read in two days. In the book, there is a millionaire who has his whole life planned out. He even has his own “compound” built in case there is a nuclear explosion. The compound has enough supplies to last 15 years, until it’s safe to emerge because the radiation levels are down. On one terrifying day, the family is forced into this compound because of a nuclear explosion. The compound is enormous and each child’s room has an exact replicate of every object that they had in their old room. Only one of the family members did not make it. After 6 years of living there, Eli, the main character begins to unravel shocking secrets about his father.

The two major themes in this book are secrecy and betrayal. Eli’s own father is betraying him and the whole family. The father is a very mysterious character. He is illusive and secretive; he lies to his family, in an effort to mask some kind of extremely evil plan (which I don’t know yet because I haven’t finished reading). The father comes across as a bit crazy, he spends many sleepless nights working in a lab, he wants to clone his children, and he had his whole life planned out in great detail, now this one makes me a little suspicious. How could you plan to build an enormous compound? How would you know to fill it with all the supplies you will need for 15 years? It’s almost as if he wanted to go into the compound, but why?

And also, another big theme is regret. Eli’s father told him that his twin brother, Eddy is dead. Eddy did not make it inside the compound during the nuclear explosion. Eli misses his brother, he blames himself for his death. But when he figures out that his father is hiding something from the family, he has hope. He has hope that someday he will make it out of the compound.

thoughts on Romeo and Juliet

            I am still reading phantoms in the brain which is a very scientific book. The information and real life stories continue to fascinate and perplex me. But there isn’t really anything “deep” about a scientific book that I could write about on an “English language arts” blog. So I guess I will write about some thoughts about Romeo and Juliet since I’m writing a literary essay on it.

            I really love Shakespeare’s writing. I loved it even before this whole unit in ELA, but through this unit I got a much deeper understanding of Romeo and Juliet. I have gained even more respect for William Shakespeare because I have realized that his plays are quite complex. I really like that the characters (as in most books) are purposefully named. But more importantly I like how the main/more sophisticated characters in the play speak differently than the less important ones. They speak in sonnets and iambic pentameter, which is really awesome. This year I wrote my first sonnet and it was a lot of work. Knowing that Shakespeare wrote 160 or so sonnets plus all the ones in his plays is just extraordinary (and the thing is they are all really good and deeply meaningful). I also noticed his exquisite metaphors; some were religious and others just very beautiful. I learned a lot from this unit.

            My essay is primarily about fate. Personally I think that William Shakespeare believes in fate, I think that the play is created so that it is fate when Romeo and Juliet meet. And they fall in love. That very love brings them to their fate, which is to die. We had a class discussion on fate and it turns out that different people perceive it in different ways (which isn’t really surprising). Some believe that it is the direction of life, the way things are bound to be. But some take it more seriously and others less. I used the quote from Daniel Defoe as an introduction to my thoughts about fate. “The best of men cannot defend their fate, the good die early and the bad die late”

            Now that we’re finishing up this unit, I just want to say that I actually enjoyed most of it and I definitely learned a lot from analyzing Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. I hope that I can read the rest of his plays with the same detail.