Week of Nobember 10 - 16 Entry #10

This week, I have read a 127 page introductory book about the Maldives. This was supposed to be a book for the research in writing class. The title of this book was Cultures of the World Maldives. I didn't expect this book to take so long, but it took me more than two hours to read it. This book had some interesting facts about my country, the Maldives. The book gave me a detailed list of information about the geography, history, government, economy, people, lifestyle, religion, language, arts, leisure, holidays, food, and map about the Maldives. I have even found some interesting facts about my country that the islands of Maldives are currently sinking, so the politicians there are looking for places our countries that will accept their people. Overall, I have found this book interesting and beneficial for my writing project.

P.S. Ms. Lilo, I was not sure whether I could count this book as my independent reading book, but this book took me around three hours to read, and this is an AR book. So, I have decided to do this book as my independent reading book.

Week of November 3 - 9 Entry #9

This week, I read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, because we were going to read this in English class quite soon. Somehow, I have read this book in Korean before, because when I was in Korean school, we did this in my Korean class. Then, two years ago, I read it once more in English. Hence, now I know the story pretty well. The story is about Santiago, a shepherd, journeying to find the treasure he found in his dreams. The plotline is simple, but this book is very philosophical. It seems to have a lot of themes and have many universal truths embeded in it.
To me, this book was a good book. I just liked the story itself and it gave me some nostalgia of when I was in Korean school. Besides that, I also venerate Santiago for being able to take the risk of selling everything he has to go on a journey that is so uncertain. I wish I could do that, but I don't think it would ever be possible for me to do such a thing. Anyhow, I am looking foward to read this book again in English class soon.

Week of October 27- November 2 Entry #8

This week, my book ended. I have read the last three chapters of this book. The story basically continued on without nothing serious happening. Tom just hide in the woods avoiding the police because he has killed two people. When Tom's mom comes Tom, Tom says that he will follow Casy and live as a great soul. That is basically how the story ends. There is a short incident at the last chapter about the father of a boy being milked by Rose of Sharon. That was somewhat a shocking scene as well as being desperate and sad.
Overall, this book wasn't the best book in my life. The plot was not dynamic, but just calm and basically flowed like a small stream, making it too boring for me. Yet, I liked how Steinbeck portrayed the miserable lives of the tenant farmers of the late colonial periods. My big question for this book is "What is the theme of this story?" I think this story can be interpreted in many ways, but what I think is that human are greedy and cruel in nature, so that we make each other suffer. That is what the large landowners showed in the story. Now I have finished my book, I need to find my next book, but I don't think I will be looking for another classic for quite a while. I have found that classic doesn't fit me the best. Still, The Grapes of Wrath was a good book and I think it deserves to be such a famous (notorious) book.

Week of October 20-26 Entry #7

This week, I have read chapters 25 through 27. In this section, the reason why this book is titled Grapes of Wrath comes out. In chapter 25, we see how large farmers harass the tenant farmers by monopolizing the industry. Hence, small farmers' debts increase. The book says that "the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy." In the next chapter, Casy gets killed by a police, just for being accused as a communist. Tom takes revenge by killing the murderer police, but he gets hit too. After killing the police, Tom also runs away. Chapter 27 is about the tenant farmers and people who are looking for jobs. They are poorly treated with extremely low wages.
Now, the story is coming to an end and seems to reach some climax. Poor people are still being ripped off and now Casy has died. I start to kind of get the theme of this story in which poor people had harsh conditions in the colonial times. Again, if I was to live in this kind of condition, I would hate it. Also, I have thought that if I was one of the huge farmers who were monopolizing the market, I wouldn't do that. The acts of these people seem so inhumane and cruel. I would at least give some space for the small farmers to join in the market so that they don't starve.

Week of October 13-19 Entry #6

This week, I have read chapters 21~24. These chapters talk about how more big landowners push out small landowners and how the small tenant farmers live. Many aspects of farmers' lives are shown such as the Weedpatch camp and being baptized by preachers.
Now, I am starting to get a little bored to this book. The story just seems to be endless. The farmers just moved to avoid misery but it didn't end. They are just living hard lives. They drink alcohol, sing, get preached, look for jobs, but they fail. That's all they do and the mood of the story never seems to fluctuate a lot, which makes the book feel like watching everyday-life of a machine. Yet, the story seems to proceed little by little, which is at least a little relieving. However, I wish I could see some more progress to the depressing mood in the next chapters.

Week of October 6-12 Entry #5

This week, I have read chapters 18 through 20. Basically, the story continues to flow on. In chapter 18, the Joads get warned by a man and his son, who are coming back from California. They say that there are no jobs in California. In chapter 19, the perspective changes and the narrator explains a brief history of California. California was once part of Mexico. The story comes back again to the tenant farmers in chapter 20. Chapter 20 describes some more hardships of the tenant farmers. Grampa is dead, but the family does not have money to bury the dead body properly. Also, Tom and Casy meed a man named Floyd. Floyd explains that they cannot organize together to find jobs because if so, the police will arrest them. Despite Floyd's words, some farmers try to fight against landowners and, Tom and Casy attack the police. Casy takes all the blame and gets arrested.
Again, as I have written before, this story consistently changes perspectives, and it makes me so confused. I guess that is why so many people call it difficult and "classic," which always implies the meaning "boring." Anyways, the story just seems to flow on. Every time I read, the hardships the tenant farmer group faces changes. First was the landowners who drove them away. Second was the greedy salespeople, and the third was the police, who only favored the landowners. As I was reading this part, I have started to thank that I wasn't born at this period. The life of these people didn't seem hard; it was just hopeless. Nothing good happened for them. Some even died during the journey. Still, I start to find this book less boring, but more interesting because the introduction seems to be done. I wonder what will happen to Casy later on.

Week of September 29 - October 5 Entry #4

This week, I read 6 chapters, 12 through 17, of the book The Grapes of Wrath. This part of the book describes the journies of the tenant farmers. Eventually, all the farmers suffer under harsh conditions and cheatings of greedy salesmen. In the story, the tenant farmers who are moving are ripped off by car salesmen. Those salesmen change the parts of cars into cheaper, older ones. Later on, when the farmers move, those cars stop and farmers suffer finding replacements from nearby towns.
This book felt new to me because overall, I have never read a book like this. Before, I have always read si-fi and never experienced classic books like this one. So, I can't get used to the literary style of The Grapes of Wrath. The way Steinbeck descriptions of scenes sound different from fictions. Steinbeck seems to portray it so that the readers can actually draw the scene in their heads. This sounds great, but this makes the book somewhat boring. Also, the atmosphere feels exotic from what I have read and experienced. The overall mood of this book is so depressing I can't hold this book long. I think that is one of the reasons why I feel this book is so hard to read, but I think this is worth the effort. Another thing I felt about this book is that this book sounds too much like a story. Other books that I have read before seems to have a clear plot line around the main character with limited characters and conflicts, but The Grapes of Wrath just merely sounds like a "story" that just flows regardless of what the characters do. I am not sure how it will change later on, but until now, this book just sounds like a story to me. I wonder what will happen to the miserable farmers in this story.

Week of September 22-28 Entry #3

Chapter 10 and 11 talks about farmers getting prepared to move and after they move out. In Chapter 10, Tom and Casy join the farmer group and help the group prepare to leave. The farmers do work such as salting meat. At the end of the chapter, the farmers finally leave. A grampa suddenly change his mind and decides to stay and the rest of the group leave the land and head towards California.
Chapter 11 is about the land that was left after the farmers left to California. The author describes the land as barren because some people are left there and they cultivate the land, but they are not so enthusiastic enough to actually grow crops there. The author says that these workers just drive a tractor over the land everyday. The men left in this land seem to have little skill in cultivation.

Week of September 21-28Entry #2

This week, the independent reading was done in class because we had to do the oral presentations on our Things Fall Apart scrapbooks. Since the class wasn't so silent due to other kids being nervous, I couldn't read a lot. Yet, I read about 30 pages despite the bad conditions.
From this part of the book, the story starts to flow. Chapter 7 is somewhat different from the precedent part of the story. This talks about how a salesmen could cheat tenant farmers. If a car seller changes the car's important parts into older and cheaper components, the salesmen could make more profit because the farmers don't know well about cars.
Chapter 8 starts to talk about Tom and Casy going to uncle John's house. Tom talks about Unlce John to Casy. Later, they arrive to the farm of Uncle John, but they found out that the place has been abandoned.
Chapter 9, the next chapter relates to chapter 6 again. It talks about the tenant farmers preparing to move to California. The interesting part of this chapter is the people who help the farmers move are ripping them off and the author is taking the perspective of a typical tenant farmer who is disappointed about moving to California.

Week of September 17-20 Entry #1

Book Read: The Grapes of Wrath
Author: John Steinbeck
Entry 1

The Grapes of Wrath. Some students might recognize the title of this book if he or she has an elder sibling. Some may know this book even though they don't have an older sibling because of its notoriety. The information of this book indicate that this is a classic book written in the 1930s by John Steinbeck, whom we know as the author of The Pearl, and is one of the hardest, enduring, and painstaking book to read. However, this is an inevitable book that we have to encounter in our high school year. I wanted to have some experience with the book, so I checked this book out of the library.
As I was reading this book, I noticed that what I heard was true. The first day I got this book, I read two pages and I was already half-sleeping. The first few pages describe one scene of a village in detail. For students who haven't been reading a lot, this book is rigorous. Yet, I endured the hardships and proceeded on. The basic plot is that a group of farmers are pushed out of their land in America during the early times of the United States, and are forced to move to California, and this book portrays the hopeless and hard conditions of the migration. The main character is Tom, a man who stayed in prison for 4 years for killing a man in a fight when drunk. I have read up to chapter 6, but not much has happened except for the fact that a group of farmers are forced to move, and Tom is with Jim Casy, a former preacher who quit preaching because of bad sexual relations. Anyways, this book seems to be an interesting, but hard book. I am looking for to check out whether the things I have heard about this notorious book is really true or not.

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Book 2 Entry #6

Q. Are there any current situations in the world that relate to the novel? what are they, and how do they relate? does the novel shed any light on how current situations could be resolved or "fixed"?

As I was reading this novel, I was easily, obviously relate this situation to a real world situation. It was Korea. Although some minor factors are different, there are many similarities with Korean education and the Battle School in Ender's game. Both gives hard time to students and soldiers.

As many students in TCIS know, Korean schools literally “impose” a lot of work on students and basically inundate the students with knowledge. The similar thing is done in the Battle School. They take the children when they are young, treat them like soldiers in armies, and make them do tough training. Moreover, the Battle School and Korean schools both show ranks of soldiers/students about how well they perform. As the students and soldiers grow older, their lives become more harder. They have to think more and work more. Therefore, students who perform well tend to live an easier life in both places.

Still, there are some differences. One is that the Battle School doesn’t force students to enter it, and it only has geniuses in the school. However, after the boys enter the school, more things are similar. They are swamped with hard work by harsh, given from not so magnanimous teachers.

Because the novel isn’t focused on criticizing Korea’s education system, it doesn’t talk a lot about how the battle school could be resolved or “fixed.” As a matter of fact, in the novel, the Battle School seems to be an efficient system, which can train soldiers and commanders at the best conditions. Yet, it doesn’t mean that Korean education system is always efficient. There are always problems in education systems. If we are to find solutions for such problems, it would be better to look at other non-fictions are other genres of fiction, because Science Fiction has a distance from real life. Personally, I think this book relates a lot with the 21st century Korea’s education system, though it isn’t intended by the author.

Book 2 Entry #5

Q. What is the mood of this novel? Do you find this novel saddens you in any way? why?

The whole novel’s mood, as a matter of fact, is quite depressing. We all have these scenes and numerous pages where Ender goes under suffering from his launchmates, fellow soldiers, upper commanders, and even his brother, Peter. Then, in the last climax, Ender gains victory. However, this part is too short to change the mood of this story. Though it has a strong emotion, ten pages can’t beat the rest of the book. Moreover, I think this book is more depressing because there is no nature in the book. Throughout the whole novel, Ender stays in the Battle School, and because it is located in space, no sense of nature comes out. The author almost never seems to mention about nature such as sunlight, forests, flowers, fresh air, rain, or snow. It is just life in the cubed rooms, full with tension.

Frankly, this novel saddens me because of how other characters treat Ender. This is similar to real life in Korea. I think the people in this novel treat geniuses in a wrong way. At least, I can’t blame Graff for giving Ender such a hard time because he actually became the war hero, but I think Graff’s method was wrong. I think a real way to grow geniuses is using the carrot-and-whip method. The people who train the genius shouldn’t just give loads of work and hardships, but also fruits and show accomplishments of the genius so that they can understand that they are developing. This worked because this was fiction. I am quite sure that if this was real life, Ender would have had a very, very high chance of giving up in the middle of the Battle School. Furthermore, geniuses are also people and they need rest. As I mentioned in the last paragraph, no nature comes out in this novel. I think we could change the mood of this novel by portraying the scene where Ender comes back to Earth, feels the warm sunshine and enjoys the scent of flowers.

Book 2 Entry #4

Q. Who are the main characters in the novel? Do you like them? Why or why not? What is special about them? What do they reveal about the universal human experience?

Peter: Being the oldest of the Wiggins, Peter comes out as the villain of this novel. Though the Wiggins in this story are all portrayed as geniuses, their characteristics are all different. Peter represents the evil side of the Wiggins. Throughout this novel, Peter threats Ender a lot of times, and later, he becomes the greedy man who just peruses power. It is not precisely known why Peter didn’t enter the Battle School, but the two biggest reasons seem to be not being genius enough and his malevolent character.

Valentine: Valentine is Peter’s younger sister and Ender’s older brother. Valentine is basically the opposite of Peter. Unlike Peter, Valentine really cares about Ender, encourages him, and supports him mentally. If we see Valentine, we can see unconditional love like one a parent should give. Later, Valentine becomes an anonymous author with Peter, writes articles, and tries to change the government.

Ender: Ender, the youngest of the Wiggins appear to be the most intelligent boy in his family. He also has the character right between Peter and Valentine. He loves his family and friends, but he often hurts them, for example during the launch, he breaks Bernard’s arm. As we could see in the title, Ender is the protagonist of this story, and the whole plot is focused on Ender. Starting as a genius in a normal home, Ender enters a Battle School, becomes the youngest soldier, shows superior qualities of a commander, gets promoted to command at the Third Bugger war, and finally becomes the war hero.

Like most people would, my favorite character from this book is Ender. However, I also Valentine too. I think these three characters are significant about human truth because they each represent types of people. There are many types of people in this world, and I think this author described it well with this three characters. I think this book also has a focus on relationship between people. This shows how people react to others and kind of shows how we should act to others by showing the good aspects of Valentine.

Book 2 Entry #3

Q. What is the climax of this novel? What happens? How do the events of this novel make you feel?

“Ender took off his headphones, filled with the cheers of his squadron leaders, and only then realized that there was just as much noise in the room with him."

I think this passage is the climax of this novel. This is where Ender wins in the simulation and it is found out that actually the simulation wzas a real war.

This scene was the catharsis of the novel for me. Though this novel was exciting and fun to read, it wasn’t short, and I was starting to feel pain from reading the book. Then, this climax came out and at last Ender won! Ender’s victory was the fruit of all the hardships Ender had to go over. Until the simulation ends, Ender doesn’t know that his simulation was a real war. The basic plot is that Graff, which is one of the main characters, plans everything and makes up lies to make Ender do the simulation. After getting trained by Mazer Rackham, the war hero from the Second Bugger War, Ender finally starts the simulation. After many hardships in the simulation, Ender finally defeats the enemy’s planet and achieves victory. Later, Ender is told that the simulation was actually the Third Bugger War, and Ender became the war hero.

This part made me feel catharsis. It felt like I have beaten the final boss of a game, or got an A for a grade. Actually, I knew the basic plot of this story beforehand, because I was the only on in our family who has never read Ender’s Game before. My parents and my brother read it when my brother was doing his project back in Minnesota. So, I was somewhat worried about reading this book, but it was okay. I liked the climax and it felt different from what I heard. Just listening to the story and reading the book was different. Because of this climax, I felt like recommending this book to others. I heard that Ender’s Game is coming out as a movie next year, and I am looking forward to see it and watch how the movie conducts the climax of this novel.

Book 2 Entry #2

Q. Are there any settings in this novel which you have found to be beautiful? Or disturbing? Or memorable? Describe these settings and comment on why they were meaningful to you.

My memorable place from this novel is “Earth” before Ender left for the Battle School. Some might think I am just being silly. However, after reading this novel, I have started to appreciate my real life. Although I am living under enough suffering, Ender’s life in Battle School looked quite harsh for me to adapt in.

Before, I have always complained about given situations. In school, Mandarin tests were hard, I could never get an A on my writing assignment, I was the section leaders of clarinets in Band, but many people challenged me and I have lost every single challenge. Besides that, there was too much English homework. At home, my parents were giving me pressure to get the headmaster honor roll for this semester, and my private tutoring teacher was scolding me everyday for not being able to solve the “easy” questions. However, in the story Ender’s Game, Ender goes over a much harder situation. Being about ten years younger than me, he decides to go into a Battle School, which everyone lives in a dormitory, can’t see their family for more than ten years, and can’t even talk about home. To me, Battle School is a kind of frightening place, because I can’t see the clouds in the sky.

Most evaluations in life are done relatively, which means that we compare. When I compared my life to other friends, it was hard. However, when I compared to Ender Wiggin, I have to say no. Comparing to Ender, I was living in paradise, and I recognized that fact when I was reading the book. My hardships and complaints were nothing when I saw Ender. Thus, I have found Ender’s life before Battle School and my Earth, my school, and my home all memorable. I think this novel itself was a meaningful and fruitful experience to me.

Book 2 Entry #1

Q. What is the main theme of this novel? Why is this theme important to a teenager living in 2008?

In this novel, Ender Wiggin, who is a extraordinary genius, uses his outstanding abilities to become a war hero, in spite the fact that he is young. I think this is the theme of this novel, and I think this is closely related to our lives as a teenager living in the 21st century.
From the beginning of the story, Ender gets chosen as the child to be sent at the Battle School. In the story, we know that Ender is the youngest of his siblings. Peter is his older brother, following Valentine, Ender’s older sister. After he goes into the Battle School, Ender becomes the first to get promoted to an army, which is Salamander, among his “launchies.” The novel clearly states that the earliest boys usually get promoted at the age of eight, but Ender becomes a soldier before he becomes seven. And at the end, Ender being still young becomes a war hero. As we can see, Ender does everything though he is young.
Then, what is the theme of this story? All the four steps of finding the theme, which is title, characters/conflict, climax, and resolution, all at least imply that Ender is young, but did all the great things. Furthermore, we can obviously see that the whole novel emphasizes that Ender is special because he is young. Thus, I think the theme is that “Although teenagers are young, they can accomplish many things. Therefore, don’t use being young as an excuse.”
This seems significant to a teenager living in the 21st century. Nowadays, at least in Korea, there are many crimes done by teenagers, starting from bullying to raping. The problem is that these teenagers get less punishment because of the fact that they are “young.” I don’t think the society should permit this and teenagers should use this as an excuse. As one of the teenagers in 2008, I am somewhat proud of Ender, being so superb and young, and I think we shouldn’t use being young as an excuse. We can still do anything regardless of the fact that we are young.

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Entry #7

Q. Are there any settings in this novel which you have found to be beautiful? Or disturbing? Or memorable? Describe these settings and comment on why they were meaningful to you.

A. Personally, the animal farm, which is the only setting, was memorable to me, not because it is beautiful, but it represents something else. I think in this novel, the Manor Farm represents the world, because it has everything in it. It has all kinds of animals, which symbolizes many types of people, food, water, and land. The Manor Farm is literally a miniature version of the world.
This setting was particularly interesting to me because I think the writer described the world well. Probably because of academics, my primary interest right now is writing skills, I feel that this author is surely a great writer. It seems that he blindly selected, and made a farm as a setting, but I think there is something behind it. The farm in the novel is thoroughly designed, and has deep thoughts in it. I think the author; George Orwell tried to illustrate many kinds of people by describing most of the animals one by one. The pigs represent the intelligent people. Molly and Clover are related to people who do physical labor, and the specialization of animals represents the specialization in the world.
I think this book is filled with symbolism. It even starts from the purpose of this novel, which is to criticize the communists. The farm represents the world or a specific nation, and Animalism directly relates to communism. Animals relate to people living in the world or the nation, and the fall of the farm is the fall of communism. Because I am not a good writer, who could create such metaphors and symbolism on paper, I admire writers who could write such things, and that is why I really liked the setting of this novel. Of course, I like the overall story too. The story is interesting, fresh, and makes us think.

Entry #6

Q. Please choose one passage from the novel that is significant to you. Why is this passage meaningful? Please type it into one of your entries and comment about what you think about the passage.

The passage I chose is from the exposition of the novel Animal farm. This is the front part of Major’s speech, inspiring the animals for independence.

"Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours? Let us face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short. We are born, we are given just so much food as will keep the breath in our bodies, and those of us who are capable of it are forced to work to the last atom of our strength; and the very instant that our usefulness has come to an end we are slaughtered with hideous cruelty. No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old. No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.
"But is this simply part of the order of nature? Is it because this land of ours is so poor that it cannot afford a decent life to those who dwell upon it? No, comrades, a thousand times no! The soil of England is fertile, its climate is good, it is capable of affording food in abundance to an enormously greater number of animals than now inhabit it. This single farm of ours would support a dozen horses, twenty cows, hundreds of sheep-and all of them living in a comfort and a dignity that are now almost beyond our imagining. Why then do we continue in this miserable condition? Because nearly the whole of the produce of our labour is stolen from us by human beings. There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. It is summed up in a single word-Man. Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever.
"Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself. Our labour tills the soil, our dung fertilises it, and yet there is not one of us that owns more than his bare skin. You cows that I see before me, how many thousands of gallons of milk have you given during this last year? And what has happened to that milk which should have been breeding up sturdy calves? Every drop of it has gone down the throats of our enemies. And you hens, how many eggs have you laid in this last year, and how many of those eggs ever hatched into chickens? The rest have all gone to market to bring in money for Jones and his men. And you, Clover, where are those four foals you bore, who should have been the support and pleasure of your old age? Each was sold at a year old-you will never see one of them again. In return for your four confinements and all your labour in the fields, what have you ever had except your bare rations and a stall?
"And even the miserable lives we lead are not allowed to reach their natural span. For myself I do not grumble, for I am one of the lucky ones. I am twelve years old and have had over four hundred children. Such is the natural life of a pig. But no animal escapes the cruel knife in the end. You young porkers who are sitting in front of me, every one of you will scream your lives out at the block within a year. To that horror we all must come-cows, pigs, hens, sheep, everyone. Even the horses and the dogs have no better fate. You, Boxer, the very day that those great muscles of yours lose their power, Jones will sell you to the knacker, who will cut your throat and boil you down for the foxhounds. As for the dogs, when they grow old and toothless, Jones ties a brick round their necks and drowns them in the nearest pond.

A. The passage I chose goes kind of off from the theme of this novel. The main point of this passage is how the humans treated the animals. The part after this speech directly inspires the animals to rise up, but this part talks about the bad deeds about human being. As I was reading this passage, I felt somewhat sorry for the animals. I have always thought that animals are dumb and stupid so that they can’t think of these things, and I have never imagined being an animal who could think like a person. However, when I read this passage, which is pretty much a point of view from an animal after the process of personification, I started to think about the animals that are being abused and killed.

Although this is not straightly related to the theme of this novel, I felt sorry for the animals when I read this passage. Each word Major spoke was touching to me, because I knew such abusing was implemented, but I didn’t know that it was “real” in terms of seriousness. I think this passage gave me a stronger impression because it was spoken to convince others. My personal thoughts about this passage are “touching,” “well written,” and “desperate.” The final thought that came up to my mind is, since I can’t do anything to stop the killing of animals, I should at least always thank for the animals that were sacrificed by human’s foolishness. Of course, if I could stop this kind of abusing, I would stop it without hesitation.

Entry #5

Q. Entry of your choice: Create a synopsis for another ending for this novel so that it will have an opposite theme.

A. First, to explain about the question I created, I wanted to make a happy ending. This story ends with the fall of the animal farm. When I stopped in the middle of this book I imagined the animal farm prospering. Yet, it didn’t. As the story proceeded, Napoleon started to cheat over other animals, and break the rules of Animalism. So, based on the figure I have imagined, I have decided to make a synopsis (plot) of the animal farm which succeeds.

The exposition of my story is the same from the original. The animals rebel and kick Mr. Jones out of the Manor Farm. It is the same until Snowball was kicked out. They also make the idea of Animalism too. However, the story changes right before the animals vote for their leader.

Despite all the cheating of Napoleon, Snowball wins the vote and becomes the leader of the Animal Farm. Unlike Napoleon, Snowball was generous enough to leave Napoleon inside the Animal Farm as a member, but Napoleon leaves the farm by himself. He believes that the farm will fail with Snowball as a leader. After leaving the farm, Snowball governs the farm wisely. Until Mr. Jones calls the police to retreat the farm, the animals live in peace without doubt about their farm. After a while, Mr. Jones tries to return to the animal farm with force using the police. When the police comes, the animals in the farm panic, but soon, they start to follow Snowball’s order again. Snowball makes the animals to become obedient as normal animals, so that the police would think Mr. Jones as a crazy man, and eventually, their plan work. And the night Mr. Jones come back, they rebel again and exile Mr. Jones out of the Animal Farm. From that time, Mr. Jones doesn’t make an attempt to retrieve his farm, and the Animal Farm lives happily ever after. Though Napoleon returns with more tempting speech skills and ideas in the middle of the stories, the animals do not get brainwashed because they get educated in the farm under Snowball’s policy.

Because I wrote the opposite ending of the story animal farm, this story pretty much became a novel that praises the greatness of democracy. Personally, I didn’t like my writing after I finished writing because this story feels so hackneyed. It is like a cliché, which is too obvious. By writing this synopsis, I learned a lesson that whenever I have to change the ending of a story, I shouldn’t blindly make it the opposite because the story can get boring and changing the theme doesn’t always turn out well in all stories.

Entry #4

Q. What is the main theme of this novel? Why is this theme important to a teenager living in 2008?

A. To find the theme of this novel, I did the four-step analysis of finding the theme, which is the Title, Character/Conflict, Climax, and Resolution.

To start with, the title of my novel is “Animal Farm.” This is a somewhat awkward title because when we think of animal, we have ideas such as “food, friend, idiotic, labor force, and exploitation.” The title literally means a farm owned by animals or a farm that domesticates animals. Because a farm that domesticates animal is too common, we need to consider the title as a farm owned by animals. It feels quite awkward to imagine a farm owned by animals. So wee need to find why the animal farm was made and what it means.

The next step is character/conflict. The characters in this novel are mostly animals that each represents something in the human world. Napoleon, which is a pig and a leader, represents a dictator in our world. The novel illustrates pigs as smart animals, and usually dictators are intelligent people who could speak well so that they could convert people to one’s side, and intellectual enough to control a nation. Other animals, the cats, birds, horses, dogs, and chicken are civilians in the nation. The difference of the animals and their roles represent specializations. In this story the pigs and other animals each take roles and create their own farm which represents a nation. This represents a group that goes off from the rest of the world.

The climax of this novel is when the six pigs and six human meet and play. This novel, I think doesn’t have a distinct falling action or resolution that could be separated from the climax. The climax is playing poker and finding out that each side are cheating the same way and the resolution and falling action is when the animals watch the pigs and human fight. I think this climax represents the fight between two ideas.

In the resolution of this novel, animals just merely watch their leaders fight with human. I think this represents the people finding their leaders all cheat for power and wealth.

The theme, I think, of this novel is the cons of communism. Probably it is because that I know the author’s intention, this book seems obvious that it is written for democrats criticizing communists. Yet, this doesn’t connect to us. As a teenager living in 2008, I think this idea relates to us that no one can stand up of someone and rule equally. Therefore, we shouldn’t feel superiority over others who lack in tangible abilities such as intelligence, and we shouldn’t promote someone as a leader. Therefore, we don’t have to feel inferiority over other people.

Entry #3

Q. Are there are any current situations in the world that relate to the novel? What are they, and how do they relate? Does the novel shed any light on how current situations could be resolved or "fixed"?

A. First of all, the story "Animal Farm," written by George Orwell was written in 1945 to criticize the Soviet Union. Before we know the fact that this novel was written to criticize, it may be hard to recognize it, but after we know the purpose of this book, we can clearly see the resemblance between the situation of Animal Farm and Soviet Union. Starting with the idea, they both have an ideal theory called "Animalism" and "Communism." Animalism is an idea created in the animal farm. It emphasizes equality between animals and hostility against the human, which represents democrats. Communism is a social idea, which claims equal distribution of wealth within everyone. Both of these sound great, but they both fail in close future.

Currently, there are only a few communist nations left. China is currently in the process of changing to democracy and capitalism. However, North Korea, which is our close neighbor, is still adhering to the fallen idea. The setting and characters of Animal Farm have a somewhat direct correlation. Kim Jung IL can be considered as Napoleon, the sole leader of the Animal farms, and other animals who suffer from harsh labor and starvation are people living in North Korea.

Frankly, this novel shows no hope to the solution. At the end of this novel, six pigs and six people meet and play poker. Then, Napoleon and Pilkington start fighting with each other because two Aces of Spades came out at the same time. This represents the fight between communist ideas and other ideas. I think playing poker and having two Aces of Spades means they both have cheated and doing the wrong things to the people in their nation. Thus, this novel just shows the ending of communism, not the solution. Yet, it has an implicit solution, which is snowball. The novel mentions about snowball a few times after he is banned from the animal farm. I think this represents that if the animals didn’t ban Snowball, the animal farm would have had a better ending.

Entry #2

Q. What is the mood of this novel? Do you find this novel saddens you in any way? Why?

A. I don’t think this novel has a specific overall mood. The mood of this novel changes over time. It is like a decrescendo in music, which means become gradually smaller. At the beginning, the animals have no doubt in their new idea and their farm. Thus, they show great enthusiasm in their actions, and consequently, the mood is very bright. However, starting from where snowball is banned and Napoleon started to trick other animals and break rules, animals start to doubt their ideas. So, the overall farm loses energy and this automatically affects the mood. As time flows, the mood gets more and more depressed. The animals start to question themselves more about whether they are doing the right thing, and the mood becomes the most shocking and depressing in the part where the six human and six pig leaders fight. As we read that part, we can easily imagine the animals appalled, looking at their leader pigs fighting with men. It is also easy to imagine the atmosphere. It will feel quite dumb to stand at that moment and watch the fight.

Do you find this novel saddening you in any way? Yes, because of the story. It is not really the mood that saddens me. The story flows, I get sad because of it, and the mood follows the story line so it could illustrate the scene appropriately. As I stated a few times before in other entries, I don’t like the ending of this story. Of course, the work itself is written very well, but the story is not so touching to me. I really expected a happy ending resulted by overcoming all the temptation of corruption, but it didn’t. Napoleon started Animalism, and he was the first to break it. He started cheating over other animals for his own wealth, which is food, and tricked other stupid animals. This made me sad because it showed me the corruption of a very competitive being. I feel worse when I see an intelligent being surrendering against corruption and temptations. Therefore, this novel makes me somewhat sad, but it is not caused by the mood.

Entry #1

Q. What is the climax of this novel? What happens? How do the events of this novel make you feel?

A. I think the climax of this novel is the part where two spade aces come out at the same time when the six human and six pigs play poker. I consider this as the climax because it directly and obviously shows what the author is ultimately trying to say: The inefficiency of communism and corruption of its leaders. From the author’s point of view, meeting and playing poker is making “friendship” with other nations. However, when they play poker, two spade aces come out at the same time, which is impossible. This means that the leaders were cheating in the game in the same way. Then, the leaders start fighting with each other, and they all get mixed up. I think this is a satire of communism that the leaders will start with an ideal ideology, but they all become corrupt at the end, and only seek for their wealth.
Frankly, as I read this part of the novel, I found it both bitter and funny. First, I felt bitter because I expected a happy ending in this story, but it didn’t. This part is when the utopia of this story suddenly becomes a dystopia. I also realized that just finding the truth may turn the world into a dystopia, and sometimes, it would be better to not know the truth, because when people’s belief gets shattered, they all may panic.
While reading this part, I also found this part funny, because this part told me that “Ideas are just ideas and dreams are just dreams. Truth is different from it.” This part wasn’t really funny, but it made me despondent. I think the ending of this novel is written well, but I felt sort of ashamed because it just showed that the animal farm was nothing, but just a stupid dream. I wished everything to turn out well, because I was somewhat counting on it.