To Pwn a Mockingbird: My First Impressions

This book so far has been pretty good. I was not sure if I would like it or not at first, but I find the interactions between the children to be interesting, during the time period. It is so different from modern times. I've been able to keep up with the annotations, and I do believe that it has helped. Sometimes I will annotate beyond what is written in the syllabus, but it is usually just thoughts I have and want to write down.

I can somewhat relate to Scout's first school days. I have always had a 12.9 reading level (though that was most likely my skill at the STAR test, not a completely accurate representation), and my teachers did not know what to do with me. "'It's best to begin reading with a fresh mind. You tell him I'll take over from here and try to undo the damage'". My teachers, however, handled the situation a little better than Miss Caroline.

The 1930's. Eww.

I think that growing up in the 1930's would be very unpleasant. My group's newspaper articles were on labor. Labor in the 1930's almost exclusively means the Great Depression. Call me strange, but growing up in the Depression sounds depressing, appropriately enough. Since the topic of the Great Depression was too morose, we tried to find things unrelated to the Depression but still related to labor. Somehow, both Andy and I ended up with tragedies involving the loss of life. Andy had the Massacre of Something In Which People Are Shot, and I reported on the Moweaqua Mining Explosion, which killed 54 people. On Christmas Eve. I don't want to grow up in a time where my father leaves for work on Christmas Eve, expecting to come home and hand out candy to all of the little children, only to be exploded and crushed to death in the mine. I'm sure that this didn't happen to everyone, but it seemed like tragedies like this were common in the 30's. People living at this time would have to acclimate to all of the misfortunes. They would have to be tough of spirit to survive in the harsh real world.
These difficult conditions would make growing up a tumultuous experience. The protagonist in To Kill a Mockingbird will have to undergo extreme character growth, and will have to adjust from the life of a child to the life of an adult, in one of the most difficult times that this nation has faced. Her friends and parents will have to help her become the strong person she needs to be to thrive.

The Late Short Stories Show

Since I cannot recall a short story that I particularly enjoyed, I will recount a story that I remember very well, and found intriguing. It was not that enjoyable, for reasons that will be apparent soon. This short story is called The Lottery. Those of you familiar with it will certainly remember it. It's a memorable story. --OMG SPOILERS!-- When I read it, I noticed something was just the slightest bit off, with children gathering stones, and people talking in hushed voices. I never thought anything of it, until it came to the big black dot. That was just felt very sinister.Then, surprise! Stoning! Sneak attack! And I just thought, "Wha--?!" The element of surprise made this story so memorable. In retrospect, this story was masterfully crafted. The air of unease really set the stage for the unfortunate woman's stoning, but I was completely shocked by the ending.

This week, I've learned that words like tone can be applied to these sorts of feelings that you get from stories. The "past assignments on short story" that I had for The Lottery was a search for and cataloging of  foreshadowing. That was basic plot-following stuff, but now we're doing some very epic delving into the deep, mysterious realms of literary analysis. And I mean REAL literary analysis, in which we infer things from the pattern of two syllable words with the letter P in the first three letters in a given paragraph, since the protagonist liked the number two and was named Patrick. We explore the things in the story that the author didn't even know was there; we're almost conspiracy theorists, but with more valid points, evidence, and logical thinking. This is a much higher level of thinking than what I did two years ago.

Fun fact: My diction follows the function y= -x²+6x where x is the number of hours since I last slept, and y is my overall level of diction.

I had fun this evening and now I pay the price.
So tired...
Zzz...

A Big Blag Post About The Count of Monte Cristo

The Count of Monte Cristo has been a very enjoyable read as of yet. I, through unusual circumstances involving purchasing two copies of the wrong edition of the book, then being unable to return them, have had the good fortune of reading a 50-page version of the exposition. Thus, I started the unabridged (very large) edition at just the point where it gets exciting. The Count of Monte Cristo has been a gripping read ever since the plot began, and I particularly enjoyed the escape scene. This book, while a daunting challenge and a rather intimidating undertaking, is still a great novel. It might have been chosen for the pre-AP curriculum to give students some experience reading a longer (to put it very gently) book. The exposure to a differently written style of novel might also have been a factor in the choice of including this book. I believe that the easiest part of the assignment given will be describing the point of view. This requires little analysis, nor critical thinking. I'll just look for insight into the different characters to determine the type of third person it is. I may have some trouble with finding a symbol in the story though. I will have to keep a watchful eye out for a symbol, or else scour the text later on, since one may not be very prominent.

The diction of The Count of Monte Cristo is undoubtedly formal. "The delay granted by the agent of the house of Thompson and French, at the moment when Morrel expected it the least, appeared to the poor shipowner one of those returns of good fortune which announce to a man that fate is weary of wasting her spite upon him. The same day he related the good news to his wife, to Emanuel, and his daughter, and a ray of hope, if not tranquility, returned to the family." This uses very complex sentence structure; one sentence almost makes up the entire quote. Also present in the text are scores of polysyllabic words, such as "tranquility" in this excerpt. The rest of the book follows a style very similar to this. The tone of this story is informative. The narrator seeks to provide the reader with unmitigated, if epic, information. The story is almost without tone, or at least the way we think of "tone" conveying any feelings from the author. Very occasionally, the narrator will refer to "us" as if he were telling us a (58-hour long) story. "The day after the scene had passed on the road between Bellegarde and Beaucaire we have just related..." This is very uncommon, and only mentioned in passing, so I believe there is little meaning behind it. All of this diction and tone add up to what would be a very dull read, were it not for the gripping plotline and terrific action. The plain style of writing may actually throw into contrast the action by just telling the story in a very direct manner. The very high diction does make it moderately more difficult to pick through, however.The tone has very little effect on other aspects of the novel, since everything is portrayed in a very clear manner, unlike a strong emotional tone, which could be compared to looking though a colored or warped lens; it influences how the reader perceives the characters, setting and other elements. The diction mostly affects the imagery and methods of characterization, both of which are largely dependent on individual words to affect their meaning. The diction would, for instance, have little affect on the theme of the story. That about wraps it up. Verily.

A person in Russia has viewed my blag. I am flattered.

Good night, internet.

[EDIT] Symbol was easy. What do you know?