Blog Post #6- Style

In the book The Secret Life of Bees, there is a good use of imagery within it. Imagery is the use of sensory details in a literary work (sight, sound, taste, touch, smell). In The Secret Life of Bees the author Sue Monk Kidd does a great job in using imagery.

After Lily and Rosaleen leave Sylvan to go to Tiburon, South Carolina the place that Lily believes to hold secrets to her mothers past. They are welcomed into the home of a trio of black beekeeping sisters which then unlocks secrets about Lily's mother she herself didn't expect.

This is an excerpt from the book where Lily and Rosaleen first walk up to the beekeepers house.

"The woman moved along a row of white boxes that bordered the woods beside the pink house, a house so pink it remained a scorched shock on the back of my eyelids after I looked away. She was tall, dressed in white, wearing a pith helmet with veils that floated across her face, settled around her shoulders, and railed down her back. She looked like an African bride." (pg. 67)

This is a very good example of the use of imagery because it describes a lot to do with sight and when you read it you are actually able to easily picture the scene in your mind and that is the point of imagery, to actually be able to use your senses while reading.

Blog Post #5- Social Issue

     The book I'm currently reading is The Secret Life of Bees. The social issues present are inequality and discrimination. Having inequality and discrimination as part of the social issues it helps us to further understand the time period this book's placed in and allows the things that happen in it to be plausible. In this part of the book Rosaleen and Lily are walking in town. There were Caucasian men sitting outside as they passed by. ""Where're you going, nigger?""(p. 31) Rosaleen is an African-American who's a nanny for a Caucasian girl named Lily, Rosaleen was in town to register her name to vote. The men then began discriminating Rosaleen by making fun of her skin colour.

     "By then Rosaleen lay sprawled on the ground, pinned, twisting her fingers around clumps of grass. Blood ran from a cut beneath her eye. It curved under her chin the way tears do." (p. 33) The men waiting outside ended up beating up Rosaleen they didn't want her to vote because she wasn't white. They were discriminating and were being inequal.  

    

     When the cops came this is all they said ""You're under arrest," he told Rosaleen. "Assult, theft, and disturbing the peace."" (p. 33) Since she was black it was automatically assumed she was the one disturbing the peace and also the one who assulted the men.

     Without discrimination or inequality this book wouldn't work very well. It is based on how Rosaleen and Lily run away and stay with a family of African-American bee-keeping sisters. Without the inequality or discrimination Rosaleen and Lily would be able to stay with any family, but since Rosaleen isn't white she isn't accepted in a white household.

Blog Post #4- Significance

The Communists Daughter- Dennis Bock

Significant Elements:
1. The War
2. Bethune's Daughter

The war helps create or maintain the atmosphere of a place, contribute meaningfully to the plot, create conflict or a complication for the main character, establish the theme of the text, establishes setting, and contribute to the visual appeal of the text. It creates a sad atmosphere, it helps the plot and creates conflict or complication because it stops him from being able to see his daughter making him write these series of envelopes to her. It's theme is the constant battles Bethune goes through the war is one of the many. Since our common sense is that the war was a terrible muddy dark dreadful thing it helps us get a visual appeal of the text. Since the war happened we've learned where it was and helps us know time period this book is placed in and also props.

Bethune's daughter (whom he has never met) helps reveal character traits about the main character, helps the audience undersand the character's motivations, create a plausible character in the mind of the reader, provide insight into the character's feelings or emotions. It shows that Bethune cares for his daughter or else he wouldn't be writing his life story to her. It helps the reader understand that he didn't just get up and leave his daughter that he still loves and misses her and he's motivated to live through the war and not leave her life empty not knowing what happened to her mother and father. This makes Bethune seem like a plausible character because he loves and cares for his daughter like any other loving father. It shows how he feels towards her, that he truly does miss her.

Blog Post #3

Words to describe the character in my novel:

     1. Brave- To have courage or courageous endurance

     2. Caring/kind- a person who has a good heart and looks after the well being of others

     3. Intelligent- Someone who has a high mental capacity

Synonyms:

1. -Bold -Confident

2. -Affectionate -Gracious

3.  -Brainy -Knowledgeable

Antonyms: 

1. -Afraid -Cautious

2. -Bitter -Cruel 

3.  -Foolish -Idiotic

My character Norman Bethune has all of these qualities:

Brave-

 "We walked, slightly hunched, down the stairs and along a cramped passageway for twenty or thirty paces before another explosive thud shook us. We journeyed deeper under the city. I struck match after match and walked slowly so as not to extinguish the flame." (Bock 22)

This is indirect because it makes you think about it. It takes confidence to go underground in a tunnel while there is bombs being dropped above you.

Caring/Kind-

"I saw that little girl in the blue who had so caught my attention our first morning out. Today she wasn't feeding the gulls but standing alone at the railing, beside a life raft watching the sea below. It seemed unsafe to me, a child alone at the precipice. The woman I'd taken to be her mother sat reading on a nearby bench, dressed in a red overcoat and white glasses. I stopped and watched nervously as out from under her bonnet the girl's strawberry-blond hair spilled and danced about the circle of her face. She place a foot on the bottom rung of the rail and lifted her other foot.
"'Wait there,"' I called" (Bock 112)

This is also indirect because you have to clarify what you think is being said. I think that he's caring/kind because in this direct quote he's looking after the well being of other people, in this case the little girl who was about to step on the bottom rung of a ship she is on.

Intelligent-

"Why am I writing? I'm so very busy, and I ask myself this question night after night. I ask it now. I know it is not to spout political slogans for you or to claim idealistic affiliations. None of those may make any sense to you by the time you read this. They're just words, after all, and I'm aware that words change or lose their meaning. What do you think, for example when I write the words "justice" and "society" and "democracy"? They are often used these days, and so they should be. But will they mean anything to you twenty or forty years on? Probably not, and maybe that's for the better. Maybe there will no longer be any need of them. Maybe we have accomplished what we set out to do. When my dear old mother raised me we had no such words. She said only, Do unto him, Norman, as you would have him do unto you. You see how complicated this has become?" (Bock 48-49)

This direct quote from my book's also indirect. He's intelligent because his knowledge is extending and thinking beyond. He's very knowledgable and brainy.

Blog Post #2- Elements of a Story

Bock, Dennis. The Communist's Daughter. Canada: HarperCollins, 2006. Print

    

5 elements of a story that are included in my book are conflict, suspense, trap or obstacle, crises, and that it's plausible.

Importance:

1. Plausible

2. Suspense

3. Conflict

4. Trap or Obstacle

5. Crises

     The most important one I picked was that the story is plausible. I think this one is the most important because it further helps the story be more real. If the story made absolutely no sense with no plausibility I personally wouldn't enjoy it at all. I personally enjoy books that are slightly based on real life events with a touch of Fiction added in.

"I listened to Robert's moans. In the new dark I saw him roll his head toward me, and his eyes opened. They were small white things. I crawled toward him carrying a canteen, an aid kit and my sidearm. 'Robert,' I said, 'it's me, Beth. Stop your groaning they'll hear you.' I examined him and found a large piece of wood piercing his left thigh. His cheek was hanging open like a second set of lips. He was missing his left ear. He was a terrible sight. I told him to shut his mouth. 'I'll get you back,' I said, 'you can survive this. But you have to shut up. They're not far off, and they can shoot with their ears as well as their eyes.'"  (The Communist's Daughter- Dennis Bock pg. 86)

     This part of the book I picked was very plausible since it is based about the life of a medic in the war this is the kind of things they would go through sometimes on daily bases. There's also lots of suspense in this section of the book, making you're heart race with thoughts of the things going to happen next? Will they live? Die? What could be running through the mind of the other character who isn't expressing what he thinks or feels like the main character. There's also conflict going on, they're faced with a trap or obstacle, and there is also crises happening as well. This paragraph from my book explains the top 5 elements of a story perfectly!

Blog Post #1- Qualities of Books

     In a good book, 3 qualities I'd expect it to have is descriptive, has suspense, and should arouse your emotions. The book should be able to deeply explain anything in order for you to actually imagine it and feel as though you're not just reading the book but you're part of it. The suspense it should include because I find it's just something every time of book needs to allow the reader to think about what could possibly happen next instead of the author just telling you. And by arouse your emotions I mean, if it's a sad part and it's meant to be terribly sad it should make your heart melt and tears welt as though it was a loss you had suffered as well.

     The book I'm currently reading is The Communist's Daughter by Dennis Bock. I think since its a book based on a medic in the war it contains the descriptive feature, it does have quite a bit of suspense here and there, and it hasn't had any sad parts have have made me cry. In this part of the book it built up some suspense because you ask yourself 'what's going to happen next!?!' this is the part:
    

"We felt the walls and on we walked, using the flame only when we became unsure of our footing or when we found another door. Your mother reached for my hand in the dark. I couldn't help smiling. The world was ending and here I was, smiling because a pretty girl was holding my hand. The Lord's mysterious ways, as my mother would say. I felt the walls with the other hand, reading them as I read the inside of an open chest or abdomen. Now we were inside the entrails, and here I was smiling." (Bock 29)

Works Cited MLA

Bock, Dennis. The Communist's Daughter. Canada: HarperCollins, 2006. Print

Blog Post #9- Meeting the Mentor

     In my book The Neverending Story I think the mentor is Falkor the Luckdragon.

This is an image of Atreyu (left) and Falkor the Luckdragon (right) together.

     The reason as to why I would count Falkor as the mentor in this book is because when Atreyu embarks on his large mission he comes across the Luckdragon. From then on Falkor shares his wisdom with Atreyu to help him complete his mission. Also throughout the mission Falkor protects Atreyu from any harm that may become of him. I think that throughout the book Atreyu had absorbed Falkor's wisdom and will then carry it with him from now on and maybe later on become a mentor for another. Without Falkor I honestly doubt that Atreyu would be able to make the mission on his own, and I couldn't see this book without Falkor it just wouldn't be possible.