Wow, I read a lot this week...
Anyway.
Rant Thing
I started to see Ellie recognize (finally) that America is not all that she's worshiped it for. Not that I don't love my country, but she made it seem like America was perfect, a word in which I have absolutely no belief. So she learns. For example, there are a number of incidents surrounding the number on her arm from the concentration camps.
Happily hired to a school to enlighten first graders in Hebrew, she finds that children are children, and they are not so different from those in her country. However, their innocence keeps them that way. Those who have grown out of this happy stage see Ellie differently. The pricipal at Ellie's school admonishes her for explaining to a curious child that the number on her arm was her 'identification number'. She lets slip the term 'concentration camp', and the principal tells her that it was not appropriate for children to hear... that she should have told the child that it was her phone number. I was terribly angry at the absolute blindness of those who did not want to acknowledge the Holocaust, when it was obvious and real and painfully THERE. Disgusting.
I was having a good day.... darn it.
Vocab:
banality (140) : unremarkable comment or feature
triteness (140) : overused
Appeals:
"Piece workers are paid per piece, and so their earnings depend on the number of pieces they manage to complete by the end of the workday. Thier earnings depend on speed." (142)
Logical Appeal in here- She's explaining to the reader the qualities of her mother's job.
"I no longer need to talk about the things that tured my night into a sring of nightmares. Just being here with Alex- in his company, and the nightmares dissolve." (168)
Emotional Appeal. She's been having dreams that disturb her quite a lot- of people who dare to point and laugh about her ID number. Basically, terrible nightmares.
Quote
"Friendship is free and open wihtout constraints... without obligations." (169, Ellie)
She and Alex aren't doing well. They agree on friendship. I think this sums up the whole chapter adequetely because it points out the compromise that is seen everywhere in this chapter.
Theme:
I guess it's compromise. There was really no other underlaying theme in these chapters, they were all really spread out and a little random. So Compromise.
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2 comments:
Hey Dani!
First of all, I really liked the title of your post B (Rant thing). Very creative. Anyway, I agree with you about how it really annoys me when people don't acknowledge such things like the Holocaust. But just for the sake of argument, don't you think that the principal was right to not want to let the child hear? I don't know the full extent of your book, but if that child was young, maybe they aren't ready for the truth just yet. Like Ellie was ignorant about the flaws of America, the child is probably ignorant about the flaws of life, but that's what makes the child a child: innocence. Without it, are we every truly children anymore?
-Amy
Hi Dani!!
I can't agree more with how America is really hyped but isn't all the perfectness that its believed to be! I also think that when people get the chance to have a good opportunity in America, they should take it...especially if they haven't had many good offers.
Caitlin
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