Slaughterhouse-Five

I had mixed feelings about this book. There were parts of it that I thought were funny, but other parts sort of annoyed me. I didn't really like Billy as a character. He just seemed so insane, and it was hard to tell what was real and what wasn't. That was cool at first, but by the end I just wanted to know what really was happening and what Billy was imagining. I think if I knew Billy Pilgrim in real life, I would want to yell at him and tell him that Tralfamadorians aren't real. It was odd how Billy was so sure of himself about stuff that probably wasn't true. I think if I read the book again I might like it more because I think I kind of missed the point the first time I read it.

war movie 2

Just kidding! I've seen Forrest Gump! I really like that movie. I think Mary O'Hare would approve of this film because Forrest is sort of an innocent dude and it shows the awful things he has to deal with when he goes to war in Vietnam. That goes along with what she said about the war being a "Children's Crusade". The movie shows how the war ruins soldiers' lives. Forrest's friend Bubba is killed and Luitenant Dan doesn't have legs, so it kind of ruins his life too.

war movie

i haven't seen any war movies so i can't blog about this. the end.

Yesterday in philosophy we started learning about Existentialism. Literature is a main form of communication for Existentialists. Franz Kafka was an Existentialist, and a lot of the things pointed out in class fit into The Metamorphosis.


One of the main points of Existentialism is that people must make choices all the time. At first I thought the fact that Gregor turned into a beetle sort of went against that idea because it wasn’t his choice to turn into a beetle, but it actually made a lot of sense when I thought about it more. Existentialists believed that conformity was “bad faith” and that it was the worst possible thing. In Gregor’s life before he became a beetle, he totally just agreed to what his parents wanted him to do. It wasn’t his choice to work all the time; he only did it because his parents told him to. Existentialists thought that choices would eventually create a purpose for humanity or something, so maybe Gregor transforming into a beetle symbolized that his life of conformity as a human was so meaningless that he was more like a bug.


Something else Mr. Brehm mentioned that reminded me of The Metamorphosis was a play called Rhinoceros which was written by Eugene Ionesco. I looked it up and I guess everyone in the town turned into rhinos except for one guy who stayed human, so he was kind of the opposite of Gregor. I thought it was interesting that multiple Existentialists wrote about human to animal transformations.

Group

A group that I am part of is the soccer team. I like being on a team with lots of other people because it makes practices and stuff a lot more fun. I would get bored just practicing by myself all the time. Having other people on my team also motivates me to try harder because I feel like I have a responsibility to my team and not just to myself.

Families in Fences and True West

In class, we have begun to read fences and are almost done watching True West. A similar theme in both stories is a messed up family relationship. In Fences, Troy isn't very close with his kid. It said that he wasn't there for most of his son's childhood. Lyons always asks Troy for money, and he is kind of taking advantage of him. He seems to know that Troy will always give in and pay him, so he doesn't have a job or anything. In True West, Austin and Lee have been apart for a long time. Lee has been living in the desert, and Austin writes movie scripts. When they meet up at thier mother's house, they dont' get along very well, but Austin tries really hard to make Lee happy at first. I think Lee takes advantage of that when he makes Saul choose his script over Austin's. Lee has a much stronger personality than Austin does, so he has more control over the situation.If Austin had been more forceful with Lee from the start, the situation wouldn't have gotten as chaotic as it did.