Ray Bradbury Interviews

From the few interviews we read and watched about Ray Bradbury, I was able to learn alot about him and his reasons for doing certain things. I think that Fahrenheit 451 is a great contrast with who Ray is as a person, because of his message, "do what you love. love what you do." This message talks about living your life to the fullest while Fahrenheit 451 is all about people that don't really live at all. This shows how imaginitive Bradbury is and proves that it is like a "theatre" in his head. At one point in Ray's interview, he mentioned that in F451 Clarisse is him in a sense because of her love of life at such a young age, as Ray had. I think that what Ray is saying is that teaching children young will make them love life as it made both him and Clarisse love life.

Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 was a very interesting book to me, although I didn't like the forecast it had for our future. I hope and also believe that the people of our planet are smarter than to allow the government to take over and take all of our books away, to take away basically all of our knowledge. Yes, it's true that we have alot more technology today than many years ago, but it is also true that many more people are going to college and achieving degrees than in previous years, which is one of the ways the book is innacurate.
I believe that one of the main plots of the book was the idea that ignorance is not bliss. In Fahrenheit 451 most of the people are very ignorant about the fact that the government is taking away any chance they have of ever learning anything or broadening their view of life. Because the ignorant people know nothing but what they have always known, they do not understand that their is more to life than what they have. Like Guy in the beginning of the book, many realize that they are not happy but they have convinced themselves that they are. Clarisse on the other hand is not at all ignorant and is an extremely happy person.

To Kill a Mockingbird: Part 1

I have to say that To Kill a Mockingbird is the best book I have read in a long time, and it is definitely not overrated. Part 1 of the book was very easy for me to read because it is sort of a mystery so you want to know what happens next; and at the same time it is a coming- of- age story that we can all relate to. At one time we were all children and even if we were children at a different time then Scout and Jem, we still played and matured in the same ways as Scout and Jem.
My favorite character, and also the character I found most interesting was Scout. Scout is a ornery little girl who tends to act like a little boy, probably because she has been around mainly boys her entire life. On the surface it seems as if Scout is blunt, mean and a bit of a pest to the townspeople but under the surface it is evident that Scout is a very loveable little girl, even if she does cause problems. This is shown through the love- hate relationship both Calpurnia and Ms. Caroline have with Scout. As Part 1 progresses, it seems as if Scout is maturing little by little even though she amy still fight with other children at times. At times when Scout would have normally followed Jem in some sort of scheme or another, Scout begins to reason what the best thing to do would be and what effects it would have on others, as she does when Jem wants to retrieve his pants from The Radley Place. Scout understands that if Jem doesn't get his pants back, Atticus will punish him, but she also understands that going to The Radley Place alone at night could be much more dangerous. Jem seems to see Scout's growing maturity as well when he says "you act more and more like a girl everyday". By this I believe Jem means that girls don't do as many more crazy things as boys because they are more reasonable which is exactly what Scout is beginning to do. Of course Scout is offended by this comment, and so she goes along with whatever scheme Jem was about to do, but at some point Scout will have to face the fact that she is maturing.
I believe that To Kill a Mockingbird portrays a very important piece of the transition from childhood to asulthood; a transition that many children don't like to make. This nowvel shows that although it is hard to face the facts of reality, and lose some innocence, it is inevitable and may not be completely terrible. I think Part 2 of To Kill a Mockingbird will focus even more on this idea, and maybe bring a little light to the subject.

A Seperate Peace

The Seperate Peace is probably the summer reading book that kept me interested the entire book through, and also the only book that I couldn't wait to see what happened next, which is why my blog is so early.
From the beginning, I knew that Finny and Gene's friendship was going to have a very important and relatable theme, and once I finished the book I immediately knew what it was (or what I think it is): the battles we all face throughout our lives, and the ones we must overcome. From the moment Gene begins talking about his and Finny's time together it is evident that he was always jealous of Finny, and for a while it seems that Finny is as much jealous of Gene as Gene is of him. But after further analyzation I found that Finny did not want to do/be whatever Gene did/was, but instead he wanted to perfect whatever he did, which was sports. Finny seemed to be winning his battle throughout the book, but after he falls off of the tree and is no longer able to play sports, he has lost his battle, which eventually causes him to die after his second fall. Ironically, when Finny has completely lost his battle when he dies, Gene seems to win his battle of getting over his jealousy of Finny and becoming happy with himself. He says that when Finny died a part of him also died, the part which I believe was Gene's immitation and jealousy of Finny, and when this piece of Gene died, he was finally able to be happy with himself.
I think that everyone faces at least one very important and life changing battle in their lives, and this need to beat something gives everyone something to strive for, therefore givng us a reason to live. As in the Great Gatsby, the green light symbolizes the want of life and Gatsby dies without any want, as does Finny after he can no longer strive to perfect his skills in sports. Gene won his battle while at Devon School, and, as he said, didn't have any war even during World War II because he had already won his battle.
A Seperate Peace is a novel with a very powerful and relatable theme; one that I believe can never be forgotten and willbe a timeless novel for years to come.

The Crucible

"Why is the accuser always considered innocent?"
The quote above, from Act II, basically sums up what my main question throughout the play was: Why did everyone believe the young, childish girls throughout the trials, while no one ever believed the accused even if they were good people known throughout the town? Since this is not a fiction play, but a play based on events that really happened in Salem, Massachusetts almost 400 years ago, I guess none of us can really analyze what Arthur Miller meant by the play or what the purpose of him making everyone believe children, rather than adults. I don't think even Arthur Miller analyzed those things while writing the play, but instead I believe that he was just trying to accurately portray what happened during The Salem Witch Trials, while still making it entertaining for the audience. With that said, I think that the point of reading this play was to try and understand what we would do if we were in a similar situation as the people of Salem were in, in 1692, and also to try and understand the reason behind their ways of thinking.
I honestly don't believe there was anything close to witchcraft going on in Salem during the witch trials, but instead a group of young girls bored with their everyday lives and a town that was also so bored with their everyday lives, that they would believe anything just to be entertained for a little while. This is shown when during town meetings the so-called "bewitched" girls would fall into fits the entire town would break into hysteria and some even began falling into fits like the girls. The townspeople would "believe" there was witchcraft going on in the town until they were the ones on trial for doing the witchcraft, and then they would suddenly say that the girls were lying and there was no witchcraft going on. The ones who didn't believe in witchcraft from the beginning of the trials would all of the sudden say they were bewitched when they were on trial for bewitching the girls. To me, none of it makes sense, which leads me to the conclusion that the town had a bad case of extreme boredom and nothing but a little bit of excitement could make it go away.
Although I don't believe there was any witchcraft going on, I do believe that the effects of the trials were very real and brought up a good point in the play: puritan morals and beliefs. In the Epilogue of the novel it talks about how the town took a while to recuperate, because while many of the townspeople were in prison or were attending the trials, their crops, animals and some children were being neglected. The reason for the trials( in my opinion) was of course the boredom and need for excitement, but also the town's Puritan beliefs and morals. The morals the town had were kept in place to make the town and townspeople perfect, and these beliefs and morals were used throughout the Salem Witch Trials, to restore the "perfect" life in the town. Ironically, the result in the Salem Witch Trials was not restored perfection but instead, ruined crops and abandoned children. So, I guess what I"m trying to say is that from this play I got that the people of Salem in 1692 were bored, hypocrites, and I think that Arthur Miller did a good job of portraying this and even making it a bit entertaining.

The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter is probably my favorite summer reading book I've read, because I think it had a really interesting plot, and it used a lot of symbolism that could be interpreted in many different ways. Because there was so much symbolism and so many ways to interpret the symbolism, I did have trouble figuring out the theme or message the novel was trying to portray, but when thinking about what the theme may be, I found that two words always popped into my head. "Society" and "morals".
It is clearly stated in the beginning of The Scarlet Letter, The Custom House, that the narrator chooses to not judge Hester on the information he has received about her, but to instead inform us about Hester's story and let us make our own judgements. By doing this I found that had we read The Custom House as its own book and then compared it to The Scarlet Letter, also as its own book, the two books would have completely opposite themes. The Scarlet Letter's theme surrounds the idea of Puritan societies' morals and their need to judge based on those morals, while The Custom House's theme is based on the idea that the narrator isn't going to judge if he has never really been in the position of Hester, which is what I believe the "moral" of the book is: don't judge a person until you've been in their shoes.
Nathaniel Hawthorne does a great job of portraying this theme by showing us different perspectives so it feels like we have been in each character's shoes. We are also able to see how much pain Hester feels from being judged by people who have no idea what they are talking about. The Scarlet Letter is also a symbol of the judgements made on Hester, and these judgements cause her to look much older than she really is. When Hester takes off the Scarlet Letter, when she is running away with Dimmesdale, she becomes much more lively, because she feels as if she is not being judged any longer.
I feel that the theme I received from The Scarlet Letter is not even close to being the only theme of the book but instead one of many themes that each person can view and learn from in their own way.

The Great Gatsby

When I first started reading the Great Gatsby, I really was very confused and didn't like the book at all, but as I was reading the book I was able to understand what was going on, and eventually I was able to understand the many symbols used throughout the novel. Out of the three books I've read so far this summer, The Great Gatsby was not my favorite, but I do think Fitzgerald used many more significant symbols that made the book important. Although there were so many symbols to analyze throughout the book, the symbol that most stuck out to me was the green light at the end of Daisy's dock.
When the green light was first mentioned, I didn't think anything of it, but as I read more, I realized that the green light was a continuous symbol. Then, in chapter eight, when Nick tells the readers that he believes that all symbols in life are created in our minds, I had a sudden realization of what the green light meant. After a while of thinking about Nick's suggestion of symbols, I came to the idea that Nick meant that life is whatever we want it to be, and without a want or desire in life, we have no purpose. In the Great Gatsby, Gatsby seems to have everything he could ever need or want, but if Gatsby wanted nothing more, what purpose would he have in life? So instead of Gatsby living a great life with no purpose, he finds one thing he wants and makes his life's purpose to get it. That thing is Daisy,Gatsby's greenlight, or desire in life. When Gatsby realizes that Daisy will never want him back, he feels like he has no purpose in life, or even a reason to live, which is symbloized when Wilson kills Gatsby.
Whether you are looking at the relationship of desire to the characters in the novel, or just to people in general it is easy to see that everything a person/character does is based on what they want, and achieving this want is what sets their place in society and who they become as a person. Therefore, I believe that we must all have a green light to search and strive for in our life, or there is no life.