Literary Analysis: The Bomb, by Theodore Taylor

General
1. The story is about a boy Sorry that lives on an island in the Bikini Atoll at the end of WWII. His island is occupied at first by Japanese, then by Americans. The Japanese are eventually pushed out and the war is over for America, but not Sorry and his friends and family. Scientists want to test out their new bomb technology on the island. Eventually everyone leaves except Sorry, who rides out into the fleet of sips being used as a test target in order to draw attention to him and stop the destruction of his home. His plan fails and he dies.

2. Sometimes, if the world is against you, and you fight alone, the world wins.

3. The author's tone seems kind of confused, which adds to the story because the main character doesn't seem to know what is actually going on, and is constantly wanting to learn more.

"He did not know how long he could contain his anger, He did know that if any soldier raped (his sister) he would use the ax, no matter what might happen to him."

"From that plane trip to Rongerik, Sorry knew it was easy to see things from the air. He'd seen the schools of tuna. The men in the bomber would be able to see him down on the lagoon."

"Three mornings after the U.S. planes flew over the island, Sorry, who had gotten up to go fishing while it was still dark, broke the silence with a shout: 'Ships! Ships!'"

4. Symbolism:
-Protagonist's NAME= Sorry
-Atoll= paradise/sanctuary
-American soldiers= war propaganda
- Bomb= uncontrollable, unstoppable danger people deal with
-scars on shark and Abram= problems people live with after confrontation
-second encounter with shark= everyone is hurt by conflict, even when there is a clear winner and clear loser
-target fleet= power of American government
-love of little sister= extension of self into other people
-journey back to island= powerlessness of one person
Simile- Azakel compares island people to children of Israel (pg 80)

Characterization
1.  The author uses indirect characterization to describe characters. "The living reef and all life around it would be there tomorrow, as it had been for more years than a man could count, Sorry knew. Tiny animals made the coral from seawater lime, then died, leaving their empty dwellings to be filled with hidden food." This shows that Sorry is in tune with nature and knows how nature works. He also uses indirect characterization to describe unimportant characters, like how he describes the small children in the very beginning of the book.

2. The pace slows down when the author talks about character. When talking about action, everything seems to happen quickly.

3. The protagonist is static and flat. He doesn't change much throughout the story, he gains new knowledge, but that doesn't change his personality as much as his actions. He doesn't have any fatal flaws other than underestimating the power of the atom bomb.

4. I feel like I met a person, because the author did a great job in describing the characters and making their thought processes make sense.

Literature Analysis 2 (really, just #2): Call of the Wild

So here it goes, super late, I've got a lot of catching up to do.

General
1. This is a story of a dog that gets taken from his home and put to work on a sled dog team. He goes through a few owners, becomes stronger and stronger, then an owner he actually liked and respected gets killed by natives, so he kills all the natives and ascends into a more legendary status.

2. Sometimes, the best resources can be found where you wouldn't think to look.

3. I would describe the authors tone as being wise, yet powerful.
"He saw, once for all, that he stood no chance against a man with a club. He had learned the lesson, and in all his afterlife he never forgot it. That club was a revelation."

"Here was neither peace, nor rest, nor a moment's safety. All was confusion and action, and every moment life and limb were in peril. There was imperative need to be constantly alert, for these dogs and men were not town dogs and men. They were savages, all of them, who knew no law but the law of club and fang." 

"His muscles had wasted away to knotty strings, and the flesh pads had disappeared, so that each rib and every bone in his frame were outlined cleanly through the loose hide that was wrinkled in folds of emptiness. It was heartbreaking, only Buck's heart was unbreakable. The man in the red sweater had proved that." 

4. Whitman Classics unabridged
Personification: "The hoarse shriek of a locomotive"
Symbols: Club in the beginning= power that man has over beast.
-Lead position= honor
-Yeehats= limitations from men.
-valley in the end= paradise
-wilderness= new places
-men in tavern= naysayers in life
John Thornton= Buck's trust in obedience
Judge Miller= comfort and convenience
Spitz= challenge of power

Characterization
1. The author uses direct characterization to tell the reader that Buck was 140 pounds, and the son of a Scotch Shepherd and a St. Bernard and other trivial information like that, but later, the author uses indirect characterization to show the changes Buck goes through. He also uses indirect to describe Buck's love for John.

2. Most of the time, when discussing characters, the author seems much more excited. The environment is kind of dull to read about in this book.

3.The protagonist is dynamic and round. He changes throughout the story by becoming more savage and brave. He is round in that he is wild and kills people as well as brave and courageous and strong.

4. Read a character. these dogs seem much more intelligent than real dogs. But in the end Buck's pertinacity was rewarded, for the wolf, finding that no harm was intended, finally sniffed noses with him."

Plato's Allegory of the Cave.

1. It represents the ignorant lives that people in most institutions live.
2. Symbolism is used often in the form of extended metaphor. He refers to the institution of education as a cave with shackles and an instructor telling you what to believe. The sun being true enlightenment.
3. If you want true enlightenment, you have to ask your own questions. You must personally take charge in figuring the world out yourself.
4. They weren't there by their own will. Somebody else forced them in there and don't want them to leave.
5. School in that in order to succeed, a student has to mindlessly follow whatever the teacher tells them, rather than a person being in charge of their own personalized education.
6. The freed prisoner is excited and curious while the trapped prisoners are subtly content with where they are, even though, it's not the true world.
7. Leaving the cave at first, when you become "blinded by the sun," and when you go back into the cave, when "your eyes need to adjust to the darkness."
8. The prisoners simply need to be curious enough to break their shackles by asking questions, and observing what is really happening.
9. I don't think there is too large of a distinction, the distinction comes when trying to recreate a reality in the form of words for somebody else, or when you try to remember what reality used to be.
10. The world is better understood through the physical makeup of things. Thoughts cannot influence reality.

Big Question

My big question has been one I've been thinking of for a while. It's more of a theory than a question, but it follows the formula that Dr. Preston laid out for us about these questions, so here it is:

On the topic of dimensional theory, I can think in a way that nobody else can. Everybody's thoughts are unique, and cannot be measured directly. According to my theory, this is because thoughts are a fourth dimensional object that humans cannot directly perceive because we are third dimensional beings. If thoughts are fourth dimensional, then it is very possible that all thinking forms of life are controlled by the same fourth dimensional being.

The basis of my theory is speculation on the fourth dimension, through comparison of the third and second dimension. Since we exist in the third dimension, we can perceive the first three dimensions. Imagine the second dimension as a piece of paper. You can touch the paper at separate points with one hand, and wiggle your fingers around the paper separately. In the same way, we could be controlled by a fourth dimensional being by being the "fingertips" of a being touching a third dimensional "paper."

In order for this to be efficient, this means that each our world would need to be equidistant to this fourth dimensional being, as to waste less energy (if that even exists in the fourth dimension). This means that our space is fourth dimensionally round. What does that mean? Well, imagine a circle. That's a two dimensional figure. The circumference of that circle is a first dimensional line, coiled in a way so that every point on that line is equidistant to a point in the center of the circle. In the same way the points on the surface of a sphere are equidistant to the point in the center of a sphere. So our "space" is fourth dimensionally wrapped around a center fourth dimensional point.

Comment with any questions or loopholes you find in my theory and I'll look into it.

Notes on Hamlet

This one is a little late, I kinda forgot about this one. This is for Hamlet Act 3, even though we've already gotten more than half way through act 4. Not much has changed about the characters since they were first introduced in my opinion. Every character wants to take the blame for anything that goes wrong, then tries to correct it making things get worse. All the characters are very self-centered, and it does get a little annoying to hear each character talk about how bad everything is.

I see a lot of death in the near future. As soon as one character dies, there will be a chain reaction and a lot more deaths. This will be bloody and violent.

Oh, and in case you didn't see the video, Here it is. The Collaborative Hamlet Remix that I was involved in.

Who was Shakespeare?

I just went to Google, typed in William Shakespeare, clicked on the first site, and I got THIS. William Shakespeare was a poet, an author, an actor,and most importantly, a real person. We know he wrote a lot of poems, sonnets, and plays. The site acknowledges the fact that a lot of people don't believe in Shakespeare, it points out a lot of different conspiracies, and shrugs them off. This site is a great source for Shakespeare, and to post everything I learned from this site would be a waste of time to write down, because there is a lot of information there. Check it out.

To Facebook or not to Facebook?

Privacy is the main issue given in this article, but what I think is misunderstood is what the information is used for: advertising. I could be completely wrong, in which case I would feel quite stupid, but Facebook isn't selling your 11-year-old's information to serial killers that enjoy killing children simply because they know where the child lives and likes Snickers candy bars. People need to calm down and realize what the term "personal information" actually means. I understand that building a brand name into a child's mind may be considered morally wrong, but it's just advertising.

One of the other huge issues about Facebook is bullying. Cyber bullying can cause a lot of problems in the development of a child as a human being. Hold on, so does NON-cyber bullying. Only difference? Online. This has some upsides and some downsides to it. Bullying done online has a larger audience, so it may be more embarrassing for the victim. On the plus side, the evidence is always there, an authority can catch a bully much quicker, and they can be punished and stopped. On the playground, bullies are sometimes never caught, because the victims fear what will happen if the bully finds out.

When I started Facebook, I thought it would be a fun way to be with friends in a way and never be out of touch. I don't get on often enough to make full use of this, but I do use Facebook to plan social events, where I can interact with my friends. I think people in general are just too quick to overreact to the "evils" of Facebook.