Farenheit 451

I think the most interesting character was Beaty. He was also the most bewildering. He changed his attitude so drastically moment to moment. You never could understand him. Most characters have a clear surface characteristics and other layers under that if you look hard enough, but Beaty has no clear attitude or characteristics. Montag has worked with him for a long time but no information is given about him. One moment Beaty is sypathetic and the nexthe is the devil.
Just the things Beaty talks about contradicts himself. He seems to believe book are stupid and wrong and yet knows all about them. He quotes millions of books carelessly in front of anybody as if he has nothing to be guilty about. He must of read so many books and several times to no words by heart and yet the only way to have done this was illegally possess books yet he flaunts his knowledge.
His conversation with Montag when Montag pretended to be sick and then at the firestation after and in front of Montag's house was too contradictive to me. I did not understand the point of pretending to try to help one minute and then burn down Montag's house the next. Why did he try to get Montag to give up the books if he was going to burn does his house anyway? What Beaty did never seemed to add up and yet he never appeared to be incapable of thought and off the wall crazy.

Bradbury Interviews

Bradbury wrote Farenheit to express his views of what technology will become and how we might use it to help with self limitation. I believe that Farenheit 451 is about censorship. Not from the government but from ourselves. We self-limit ourselves and perhaps bradbury believed he could stop people from closing their minds. That is what everybody was doing, staying with what was known and normal. In the future everybody kept acting and thinking as was acceptable and usual than, so blocked out the old ideals and stretched thoughts meant to astound that are written in books. As most kept trying to be more conservative to fit in, the boundaries for what was considered sane thought kept shrinking. But hasn't keeping with the values of the time always been around. How many of the great painters, writters, and philosophers of different times been shun then. They were brilliant because they expressed things not yet accepted bringing in new extreme thoughts. And yet most were considered nuts or merely unrecognized until years and decades later when people had slowly gotten use to them.
I do not believe we have become so unimaginative that we are all followers. We still make original jokes, think new thoughts, and have little or nothing in common with some people. Also books and television limit imagination about the same. I mean television tells a story just like a book. Reading books doesn't make you imagine anything as it is all written out, just like television. So portraying technology as if destroys all original thought and imagination, and books give you new thoughts and imagination is inaccurate and leaping to conclusions.

To Kill A Mockingbird Part I

To Kill a Mockingbird is an interesting read. The characters are very developed and life-like, and you continue to learn more about them. This is like the kids finding out that Atticus is an awesome shot. The young children grow up and change. Jem gets wiser and no longer thinks it is fun to tease Boo Radley. Scout is slowly growing up. Their main motivator is pleasing their father. Scout keeps growing out of prejudices and racism, while gaining wisdom. Everyone around her is stuck in their ignorance and prejudice.

The book makes you infer most everything for yourself. It never seems to state a person's description and attitude. Everything we get is from conversations and actions. The book didn't even tell us Scout was a girl until in a conversation. They also didn't give us a name to call her let alone her real name until 10 pages in. The book is confusing because of this. You have to fit names together like Boo being Arthur, and slowly draw a picture of the characters. It is also hard to complete the sections of self descriptions and appearances on the chart since the book doesn't say these things.

Boo Radley is an extremelyinteresting character. Although we never have met him, he captures our attention as well as the neighborhoods. He is kept in the house after disgracing his family. I believe he has remained childish and immature, never growing up. For one thing, he remains caged by Nathan Radley when he could rebel and walk out of the house. The other thing is he reaches out to Scout and Jem, two children. They are more accepting and he makes the connection by giving them Indian-Heads, gum, and a carving of them. I suppose he chose them because he watched them and saw they had so much life to his lack of. Whenever they mention him, I think of a child until I remember his age.

To Kill a Mockingbird held my interest and I am interested in how it will end.

A Separate Peace

A Separate Peace ties in well with its setting. It is set in an American School in the middle of WWII. The students were always aware of the war but it was distant and hard to imagine fighting. The country was at war but Gene and Finny were at peace in the sheltered school. While reading the book I was always aware of the war, but I did not really think on it. I did not imagine the horrors of the war, but instead the peace at Devon. The Great War took second to the personal lives of some of the boys.

A Separate Peace reminds me of Lord of the Flies. It had similar concepts to Lord of the Flies, but much milder. In the latter, the children were out of control since their was no authority. In Separate Peace, they were wild during the summer session which had only one authoritive figure, Prud'homme. The boys became savages on the island, and Gene had a lot of savagery in him, which Leper recognized, that came out sometimes like at the tree. However, Lord of the Flies ended when authority came back. A Separate Peace continued and the characters had to deal with the consequences.

I was surprised by how little guilt Gene felt. I mean when it first happened, he was racked with guilt and during break until he confessed. When Finny returned to school, Gene was fine even though he had rescinded the confession. He continued to be Finny's best friend and joke and look him in the eye and didn't seem to be thinking of the pain Gene had caused Finny. Since he injured his best friend and didn't admit it, I thought it would be like Dimmesdale's guilt, eating him up but to scared to tell anyone. Instead he repressed it until the trial brought it up. Once Finny forgived him he was fine even though he had caused his friend's newest wound, too.

The Crucible

It was good to have a new type in our summer reading books. A play was a good break from all the novels. It was a lot easier to read than I thought a play would be. It was very descriptive with a page every now and then in novel style. It probably would have been boring if there were only continuous dialogue. The Crucible was engaging and easy to read. I could clearly picture the situations and the emotions the characters felt.

The second scene of act 2 changed a lot if included. It always appeared as though Abigail was selfish and vindictive. Her being mad changes her motives. She is still despicable for hanging others, but you can pity her for not being in her right mind. She goes from evil to nuts which is probably a step up. Everywhere else she is accused of lying and hurting others for power and self-gain; her being mad enough to believe she is doing God's work shows she believes she is telling the truth and really thinks she is helping. She becomes less of a cruel villain and more like a child who knows not what she does. It actually makes the people who follow her word even more foolish for not being able to tell insanity from reason. A well-rehearsed lie should be more convincing then crazy babble.

The Crucible shows how fear can get out of control. Fear causes people to not see the truth right in front of them. The puritans had great fear for Satan and thengs unknown, it caused a witch hunt that only a few objected to. Fear caused mayhem and opportunities people exploited and so tried to keep the fear alive and growing until no one could control it. The people were so frightened of what witches might do or that they may be accused of witchcraft that they went along with it. When truth was presented in front of them or the insanity questioned, they were still so afraid of evil and their hands already dirty, they could not accept reason.

The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter is a confusing book. It is long-winded.

What was interested was the fanciness of the scarlet letter. At first I thought that she made the letter like that to defy the people's will trying to press shame on her. However, she obviously has guilt and shame for the sin. Although I get that she wanted everyone to notice the A, I do not understand why she would make something beautiful to represent something so ugly.

The setting had a big impact on the story. The puritan era is none for its harsh, religious-base crimes and punishments. It also gave Puritans a more rounded view. It told a story that was based on the well-known society without the commonly used angle of witchcraft. The first thing you think of with puritan towns is witches. That period is known for its false witch trials. Because of this hunt that killed many innocent women, it pushes aside the extreme punishments given for crimes which a lot of times were religious sins. You could be put to death for the slightest misbehavior. In the book, some of the women resented that Hester was not executed.

Although she is considered a sinful person, Hester is the best person in the book. She made one mistake and paid for it the rest of her life. She accepted ridicule and banishing yet still had good in her heart. No matter how she was treated she always helped others and did not complain. Others hid their sins, like Dimsdale, or commited and ordered sins in the name of law, like flogging and executions. Most were spiteful or cruel, like the women who thought Hester deserved death. Hester kept values and other's secrets even when they did not deserve her trust or it hurt her. Dimsdale and Chillingworth only hurt her and led sinful lives, she did not betray them. Although in time, people saw her goodness and treated her more kindly, they never forgave her sin, even though they sinned too.

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is revealing book about the roaring 20s. It portrays the secrets behind the parties and wealth. It also depicts the boredom of the children of millionaires, who are restless because they never had to work hard to get anything. The members of this group remain like children, too oblivious to what they do, so they can live with the excitement they create to amuse themselves without really realizing the damage they leave in their wake.

Nick is both awed and disgusted by the life of the rich. Everyone wants to be rich and live the privileged life, but scorns their shallowness and scandals. This is still present today with get rich quick reality tv shows and gossip magazines. Rich people are expected to live a wild, extravagent life, but are showed contempt when they do so. It is a way of dealing with lower social classes when you fail to reach the top.

Nick Carraway is an interesting narrator. In the beginning he was unbiased, only intrigued by the extravagent life of the rich. He states facts and does not have a voice. Later on he gets a voice, and everything he writes about is tainted by his distaste for the people. It is unusual for a narrator to change unless he is the main character. Most narrators are unbiased or has one voice which does not evolve. Nick was impassive but developed a strong opinion on that type of life.

A major thing in the novel is social class. More accurately, the difference in class. People some times try to reach much higher than their place. In this book it has them all come crashing down. Both Myrtle and Gatsby overreached their place society had given them. Myrtle tried to act like she was sophistacated and gain class by a man. Gatsby tried to rise above his low beginnings through money. Both of them were crushed because of it and it led to their deaths. However, the people born to high society are kept high and mighty, above the problems of regular mortals. They coasted through life using people to forget their problems and not caring about the chaos they left behind. Both Daisy and Tom were like this; they used Gatsby and Mytle and then dumped them, merely moving on without looking back. People are often striving to go higher up, but if they try to go to far, they and society cannot handle it, and they fall brutally. High Society, like Tom and Daisy, have nothing to strive for as they are on top. I believe this is why they are bored and restless, because they have nothing to obsess them. Tom and Daisy had everything, and so tried to fill their time and get satisfaction from parties, gossip, and travel. It is only temporary relief.

The Great Gatsby brings forth thoughts and opinions on people that one usually does not think of.