Reflection Blog Over Bradstreet and Rowlandson's Work

Mary Rowlandson was very strong in her faith, and never let sin shake the ground she stood on. She went through many hardships during her travels as a slave and was able to cope through them with prayer. The biggest of these being the death of her baby boy. He was only sixish years old and should have had a long healthy life ahead, but the Indians came and ended his life too soon. He didn't die immediately though, he hung on for nine days of pain and starvation. As I quote,"Thus nine days I sat upon my knees, with my babe in my lap, till my flesh was raw again. My child, being even ready to depart this sorrowful world, they bid me carry it out to another wigwam; (I suppose because they would not be troubled with such spectacles;) whither I went with a very heavy heart, and down I sat with the picture of death in my lap. About two hours in the night, my sweet babe, like a lamb, departed this life, on Feb. 18, 1675..." (Rowlandson 83). As you can see he was a fighter, yet the battle was too great for him to conquer. Mary spent most of her younger years though going through hardships like this one, and living on as little as a spoon full of nuts a day. She must have been one of the strongest ladies of her time. Hearing her story made me feel as if my life was a joke and whenever something bad happens to me it is a huge deal to me, but in reality its not that huge of a situation.

In the poem "Upon the Burning of Our House", Anne Bradstreet talks about the fire within her own home. She talks about how nothing was salvaged and nothing remained (Bradstreet 91). If you have ever heard the phrase, "They have nothing, but the clothes on their back," this is exactly what happened to Anne. The fire happened so quickly she didn't have time to save anything. I can relate in a way to this, since my old house burned down around nine years ago. It was a very hard time and we were only able to salvage a few things. I was able to relate to how it felt to her in the story which made it that more realistic for me, and feel like reality.

The two stories have a couple things in common. The first being they were both females, but that isn't of importance. Second, Mary and Anne, both had nothing of their own possession. They basically spent every day in hopes to find food and water, and make enough money to survive. Mary being a slave meant she was give some food on the occasion to keep her alive, but it wasn't a proper and full serving. And when Mary got sold to a new owner the rules and routine would change. She would do a couple side jobs and make a little extra when she could. Anne struggled through, but knew that this wasn't the end of the world. She was able to stay positive through it all. The point being, both of the women had a tragic event take place in their lives, and both of them learned how to make do with what they had and to trust God with it all. They were both very strong Christians, which I feel was the reason they were able to make it through. Most people would have given up, but these ladies put their faith in God and trusted him with the control over their lives. It is just another example of how great God is and the miracles he is able to perform in peoples lives.

 Glencoe Literature. New York: Glencoe McGraw-Hill, 2009.
Bradstreet, Anne. "Upon the Burning House." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 91. Print.

Rowlandson, Mary. "A Narrative of Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson." Glencoe Literature. New York: Glencoe McGraw-Hill, 2009.

George the Giraffe-Manners-Journal 2

George the Giraffe was walking home from school once day, when Dave the duck stopped him and invited him over for dinner. George was very hungry and could not decline an offer for free food. He was scared though because George had never been over to a friends for dinner before and was afraid his manners were bad. When he got there he wiped his feet at the door, said thank you for inviting him, and even helped make dinner. He was still paranoid thought that he wasn't showing good manners and wasn't being socially acceptable. George then sat down for dinner and ate a huge meal. He did not talk with his mouth full, he did not chew with his mouth open, he even held his utensils correctly. Once dinner was over George helped Mrs. Duck clean up and did the dishes, while Dave sat around watching the television set. George was confused and wondered if maybe he was being too good and had too much manners.

When he got home, his mom told him to sit down. He was scared and wondered what Dave's mom might have told his mom over the phone while his walk home. When she sat him down she told him that he wasn't in trouble, but needed to work on a few things and that was why they were talking. As it turns out, George worried too much and actually was too good. His mom said to settle down on how much he was helping out with. Mrs. Duck was very thankful for all of the help he gave her, but she said she would have been happier if he would have had fun playing with his friend. As it turns out George learned that manners are good, but most of your good manners are habits and you just have to be yourself. From then on, George went to Dave's house weekly and every time Dave's mom gave a good report and said he was the most well mannered kid she had ever met.

George the Giraffe

George the Giraffe was a small giraffe who spent most of his days in the fields. His parents were the biggest giraffes in all the land and George's father hoped that he might one day be the same. The problem was George didn't have a long neck. He had all the spots, all the looks, even the legs, but he did not have a long neck. One day George's dad was eating and could not reach the leaves towards the bottom of the tree. Since giraffe's can't bend their necks too far, this was a huge problem for the giraffes in Africa. When George was eating his dad saw that he could reach the leaves on the bottom of the tree since his neck was abnormally short. Garry the Giraffe, George's father had a great idea, to make George a legend just like him. He immediately told George and informed all the other Giraffe's. From now on George was to pick all the leaves from the bottom of the tree and store them in baskets that the other Giraffe's could eat. From then on everyone loved George for doing this, except George. He got bored of picking leaves and hanging them in baskets up in the trees for the others. He wanted them to like him for who he was. After that days work George went to talk to his dad, who was not happy with George's decision, but accepted that George didn't like his job.

Everyone went on in life just eating the leaves from the top of the trees, skipping the bottom ones. As the years past, George grew greater and greater becoming the biggest giraffe in all the land. He had the biggest neck and was known for something different than leaf picker. As Garry grew older, he turned over the responsibility as king of the giraffe's land to George who worked hard to be an equally great leader as his father.

Grapes of Wrath- Would I Recommend this Book

No, I would not recommend this book to anyone on the simple account that I did not enjoy it. I am not trying to ruin any intentions someone else might have had to read the book, but for your sake it is not worth it. To me the book was a huge descriptive novel and nothing but that. As I have said before I think the thing that made the book bad for me and no fun to read is the constant describing of what is going on.

There is a line that is crossed when an author goes out of his way to describe what it was like for Ma to sleep with the corps of her husbands mother or what it was like drugging Grampa Joad. Im not saying that it was incorrect doing this and mentioning it in the book, but you don't have to take up a paragraph or a page doing so. All it requires is one sentence and then talking about stubborn old Grampa or about more packing that had to be done. When you spend one paragraph writing about the drugging and another writing about stubborn grampa, thats when excessive description comes into play.

I know that John Steinbeck worked really hard on this book and I'm not trying to crush his little heart. Mostly because I'm pretty sure he will never read this, and second he makes more money each day selling this book than I do in a month. I have a feeling though that someone else thinks the same thing I do. If he would have cut down that book by a hundred pages that would have been a really good novel because it would have been the correct length and it wouldn't have bore the reader like crazy. In the end, although I didn't enjoy it, I am happy and proud to say that I have read this book because I have a feeling it will come in to play sometime later on in life even if that means when my kids are in high school and have to read it.

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

Grapes of Wrath-Rating and Reason

For Grapes of Wrath, I would give it one star on a scale of five because of how boring the book was. I usually like adventure books, but not this time. This time the author used way too much description and made it hard to even continue reading.

Description is considered a good and helpful attribute to a book, I think that there is a fine line between helpful and beneficial and excessive and overused. Although many people wouldn't agree with me, I feel that the description was taken overboard and used way too much. When you describe things so much that the reader can forget whats actually going on, you know you need to back off. I feel that Steinbeck took what could have been a 200 page book and turned it into a huge novel of 400 pages.

John Steinbeck was and still is a popular writer, but to me this book was not very good. He used his past esperiences of being in the Great Depression and what not to help describe his book which is very helpful, yet it is an easy way to over describe things. He definatally did not find the balance inbetween the two and stuggled with that. I would have enjoyed the book more if there was very little description compared to his page long thoughts about one little thing. If I were him I would have cut back on some of it just in case. This was a prime example of when too much descriptive writing is used some of the readers fail to be impressed and to enjoy the book properly like the author intended. This definatally happened to me when I tried to read this book. I would have to take many breaks to regroup and start reading more about the same thing being repeated and continuing to be described over and over again. In the end I was happy I had read the book, yet I had wished it would have been more exciting.

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

Fahrenheit 451- Clarisse

Clarisse was a teenage girl that lived down the street from Montag. He met her one night while walking and ever since then had been friends. She would walk with him on his way to work every morning and they would talk about miscellaneous things. Each day it would be something new and they would always wonder new things. One morning Clarisse explained to Montag that she had decided to quit school since it was all brain washing her and it was a waste of time explaining that they just repeated themselves all day everyday taking knowledge away from her, not giving any.

Clarisse was an accomplished girl and had a unique outlook on life. She wasn't a lot to tolerate and she always stayed positive. She would walk in a lot of different places simply wanting to admire nature and her beauty. As her and Montag would walk she would tell him of different stories of her family and how they had come here and what they did. She would explain all about her uncle saying he was the coolest man on earth. She said that he knew a lot about books and had a lot of knowledge that the government would have him killed if they found out. Truth is, they already knew because when Montag asked about Clarisse to Betty he said he had been eyeing her and her family for a while. Saying this, Montag grew scared yet not defeated. He still kept his books and went on in life in his daily routine of getting up, going to work, going to bed, repeat. This book was very interesting to me and I feel that the character Clarisse really took it to a whole different level with her wittyness and kindness. Unfortunatally she was taken out of Montag's life prematurely when a car had hit her while she was walking. This is extremely sad yet good that she was able to move on and be away from this horrible would Montag was in.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine, 1953. Print.

Fahrenheit 451-Mildred and Betty

Since Mildred and Betty would be considered major characters by many people I decided they deserved a blog analysis too. Since they didn't play a huge role in the book I found that it might be easier to put them on the same blog yet different paragraphs neither pertaining to the other in order to make up my amount of words I had to.

Mildred was the wife of Montag, who called the police and turned him in. She had had enough of his nonsense and just wanted to get back to watching her three walled television set. She was addicted to the thing and kept on begging Montag if they could get the fourth. She would ask him every night and every night he would explain that they just got the third and its extremely expensive. Then she would say something like, "we can go without a few things." After that Montag would have to explain to his persistent yet annoying wife that they already are and that he doesn't plan on getting a fourth television wall anytime soon. Although Montag didn't like the television I found it a clever idea and thought that it would be cool to have one sometime.

Betty was the fire marshal at the fire department where Montag worked. He would continuously harass Montag, who was scared of the Hound saying it tried to attack him the other day. Betty would insist he is imagining things. Betty would also try to brain wash anything Montag had once learned and explain that books are no fun, and are just a waste of time. Betty wasn't the only one that would say this for the entire community thought the same including the government which is why they made books illegal and invented firemen, to start all the fires to burn the books. Towards the beginning of the book I found it interesting that they would use firemen to start fires instead of put them out.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine, 1953. Print.