January Book Review, The Old Man and the Sea

1. Santiago is the old fisherman in the book. He is old and wrinkled. He has many scars from the handling of many fish in his past years. His eyes are the color of the see but always remain cheerful and determined.

2. Santiago is very intelegent and knows alot about ships, the sea, and fishing. He is also a very humble person. Never sticking his chest out far when he catches a big fish. He, all the way through out his life is determined. Even when he hadnt caught a fish for 84 days he still tried to find a way to bring in a fish. He also makes great sacrafices for his fishing job and the biggest one of all is when he went out so far just to catch a fish.

3. When everything failed and nothing was working and he couldnt catch fish, what motivated him to continue fishing. His pride kept him going through all hard ships. When the prized marlin was eaten by sharks he got mad at himself, but he kept going by showing pride. This pride that he showed also made the village people look higher upon him. When he fought the fish for three days, he felt as though the fish and him were very equally matched and this gave him great pride to know that he was such a good fisherman to be equally matched to such a great fish.

4. One conflict that Santiago faced was the drought of catching fish. It was hard for him to keep going because he was old. He couldnt decide wether or not to continue fishing or to just quit. He kept fishing and was rewarded in the end by things more valuable than catching the big fish. The biggest conflict he had was with the fish. He faught this fish for three days neither gaining or losing. All the pain that he felt for fighting the fish on and on eventually ruined his body. Until the third day the fish finally tires and he was able to reel the fish in. It was the largest fish he had ever seen, but as he tries to take it home the fish gets eaten by sharks.

5. Santiago changes alot through out the novel on the inside. The fight with the fish may not have been as physicaly rewarding as he had hoped but it also proved a great deal to himself. It proved that he was a great fisherman and gave him a great deal of pride. The fight with this fish also represented something. It represented the fact that Santiago would never quit. When something would be pulling him down he would fight back as hard as he can, sacraficing his body.

6. While reading the book i could only make one connection and that was how hard he tried at what he does. For me this relates to basketball. I may struggle sometimes but i try as hard as I can to get back on track and do what I do best.

7. In my opinion i liked the character. He showed alot of heart and passion for what he did that now-a-days we may lack in alot of things. Santiago almost seemed to be christ like in someways. In his fighting with the fish and the sharks it seemed as though nothing could beat him, and all of his physical suffering eventually leads to a greater spiritual triumph.

Book Report

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain was written about a boy who is very mischievious and it tells about all of his adventures and how much trouble he gets himself into. This book seems very real and all of the things Tom does could be something that people would do today. Mark Twain took everyday occurences and put them into this book.

Mark Twain was born in 1835 in Florida and raised in Florida. His father died so his brothers and him were left to making the money for the family. Then the civil war broke out so Mark moved to the desert life in Nevada. He started out his writing career by write articles for publications about the life of mining. Then Twain married Olivia Langdon. The couple had kids but three of them died before they even got into their twenties. His family and him then moved to Conneticut, and this is the home that he started to write his novels. A few of his many books were The Gilded Age, Tram Abroad, and Innocents Abroad. Twain ended up dying in 1910 in Conneticut.

I really liked this book because the suspense of what Tom was going to do next kept me reading. It was very descriptive and the things that Tom did I couldn't even believe. The adventures that Tom did were very realistic. They were to far feched or fantasy. I could see a few of the things that he did happening in Redfield. I think that everyone should at sometime sit down and read this book. Once you start you can't put it down.

http://www.online-literature.com/twain/
This is a site about Mark Twains life.

http://www.twainquotes.com/ClaymationReview.html
This is a site that gives a review about the book.

Psychology Tests

For those people that are in Psychology, we have a test today and it absolutaly sucks. The tests are long and take the whole hour and just drains your mind. Good thing that it is the last hour of the day. It takes alot of work just to get ready for one of the tests. Type the words, find the essays, copy notes or outlines, all of this just for one test.

The Crucible

What was Miller's point in writing The Crucible?

http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0140481389/ref=cm_cr_pr_redirect/105-5872511-8134806
This website talks about why Arthur Miller wrote the Crucible. It told about how he put his writing career on the line when he wrote this.

Mccarthyism, the Red Scare, and The Crucible

How are Mccarthyism, the Red Scare, and The Crucible related?

I couldn't find to many websites that talked about all three of them together so i just found three sites, one about each of them, that were very descriptive and told alot about each. None of them are long and are very easy to read.



Red Scare

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/SaccoV/redscare.html

Somewhat of a longer website, but really in depth. Talks alot about the Red Scare though and about how the United States was afraid of the communist Russia.



Mccarthyism

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/McCarthyism/Legacy_McCarthyism.html

This website realy defines Mccarthyism well and tells alot about the history of it. It also tells alot of the underlying details about the problems during this time period. It is only one of the links off of the Mccarthyism home page so there is much more about it if you go to the home page at the botom.



Crucible

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/SAL_CRU.HTM

This website talks more about the play, or movie than about the book but it also talks alot about Arthur Miller and the reason he wrote the play.

Other Witch Hunts

Document other times in American history when 'witch hunts' were conducted and discuss the outcomes of the Salem witch hunt and the other witch hunts you find. What do they all have in common?

http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/whats_new.htm
This one is about slavery also. It isn't quite as lenghty as the other one, but it is very interesting. It was easy to read and it had alot of other links on it to click on that told in much more descriptive and broke slavery down much more.

Blog Assignment

What was Miller's point in writing The Crucible<

http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Lab/4191/MILLER/millers.html
This website tells of how The Crucible was a metaphor to Meccarthyism. It was about the the Salem Witch hunts but the underlying reason was the Cold War and Meccarthyism.


How are Mccarthyism, the Red Scare, and The Crucible related?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crucible
This site talks about how The Crucible, The Red Scare, and Meccarthyism is interrelated.

Document other times in American history when 'witch hunts' were conducted and discuss the outcomes of the Salem witch hunt and the other witch hunts you find. What do they all have in common?

http://www.innercity.org/holt/slavechron.html
This site tells about slavery and how it is like the Salem Witch hunts and how the people were wrongly judged.