Entry #6 w/ 1 significant passage from the book Blog #2

“’The sky’s simply full of shooting stars,’ she said. ‘All bright green. They make people’s faces look frightfully ghastly. Everybody’s out watching them, and sometimes it’s almost as light as day-only all the wrong color. Every now and then there’s a big one so bright that it hurts to look at it. It’s a marvelous sight. They say there’s never been anything like it before. It is such a pity you can’t see it, isn’t it?”

This passage from the book made me want to actually see the view for myself. I was so full of wonder of how it would look like: shooting stars that are green, and lights the world as bright as day. I would love to see this spectacular scene, and I was really excited, even though it was just the start of the book. I felt bad for Bill Masen, because he had bandages on his eyes that very day! But after reading a few more pages, I thought he was one of the really lucky ones.

“If you need to dramatize, you could well take for your material the years succeeding 1945, when the path of safety started to shrink to a tightrope along with we had to walk with our eyes deliberately closed to the depths beneath us.”

I was really surprised and found this passage very significant to me after reading this passage because I’ve never thought about this until I read this part. I soon realized that in the real world, the same problem was happening. The world will soon be a dangerous place, with wars going on and people killing each other. I felt very stupid and amazed about why I didn’t notice a problem this big that’s involved with me. I started thinking of ways to make people forget about desiring power and to make a safer world. I felt a need to do something about this and was inspired by this passage.

“’The thing hit him,’ she said. ‘It hit him and he fell down. And it wanted to hit me when I tried to help him. Horrible thing!’”
“In all the overwhelming disaster, that was the only grave I dug-and it was a very small one. She gathered a little bunch of flowers and laid them on top of it. Then we drove away.”

These two passages from the book really made me depressed and gloomy. A young girl who witnessed her younger brother being struck by a triffid. This passage was very disturbing because I thought it was very disgusting and sad. I know the author would want to show a part in the book when innocent people die because of a disaster, but I didn’t really like this passage. I felt real bad for the girl’s younger brother.

“

Entry #4 Blog #2

“The moon had risen, and the yard was bathed in white light. I had forgotten to oil the shed doors, and gave them a curse for every creak. The rest came in procession toward me. The Brents and Joyce were familiar enough with the place not to need a guiding hand. Behind them followed Josella and Susan, carrying the children. David’s sleepy voice rose once, and was stopped quickly by Josella’s hand over his mouth. She got into the front, still holding him. I saw the others into the back, and closed it.
Then I climbed into the driving seat, kissed Josella, and took a deep breath.”

I think this is the climax for “The Day of the Triffids” because this is the turning point when Bill chooses to give himself to the government people or to let them die by the triffids. This is a very important moment for Bill because he could have lived a life in a safe area while feeding countless blind people without his beautiful daughter, but with people who desire power, or could have lived a life quietly with all of his family and friends and slowly grow the population. He doesn’t understand why people want strength in a time when triffids fill up most of the Earth and when there aren’t many people that can fight. Bill didn’t pursue power, but pursued the safety and happiness of his family and friends. I felt very relieved and impressed after he let the triffids kill the people from the government. I thought his plan to let the people from the government get drunk and then leave was a very good idea. He is very strategic, and knows all his current weaknesses and strengths and use them to his full potential. This is one of the big events that I looked at Bill as a hero and I respect him and honor him. I think all the events that led Bill and Josella throughout the whole book are awesome because after all the hard work and reflecting on their mistakes, they finally meet and make a whole new family with hopes in the air. I was inspired by his decision and all his efforts to make a better world and make his wife happy.

Entry #5 Blog #2

The mood in “The Day of the Triffids” is very sad because of all the catastrophes and people fighting for survival. This book is based on dystopia, so it had to be gloomy. This book is a lot like “Fahrenheit 451”, because the common theme is similar and they both relate to dystopia. In Fahrenheit 451, people tend to stay far away from knowledge, and in The Day of the Triffids, people tend to fight with each other and not see the bigger problem that is going on. It makes me very depressed to see these situation and they are actually going on in the real world! I know it is human nature that people have at least a tiny bit of greed inside them, but this is outrageous! People fight for being the leader when humongous disasters are occurring right in front of their backyard. I think this is absurd because God created us to feel bad and to reflect when we do bad things. The author emphasized on the current problems of our society in the real world, and how to resolve these conflicts. The author wanted to show how sad and depressing the world is right now even if it is only his point of view, but I agree. The settings are very saddening for me to read and there is only a ray of hope. I think he used this kind of mood for us to realize the problems going on in the real world and how corrupt the world actually is. We think we are living a good life, leading our children to a safer world, but we actually are running into a dead end, and pretty fast. Moods in novels change our way of looking into our life. I think the author hopes that we feel his emotion, feelings towards our society from this amazing book.

Entry #3 Blog #2

The characters in this science fiction are very different from each other and these characters show personality traits of some people in the real world because this book’s theme is that humans’ selfish greed cannot prepare for a disaster on mankind. The main protagonists, Bill Masen and Josella Playton, are very caring, responsible, courageous, selfless, which are some of the main characteristics of a modern hero we learned recently in class. There are other characters like Wilfred Croker, Michael Beadley, and Miss Durrant who relate to leaders with different opinions of surviving and ruling. Bill Masen is the main hero-guy and he falls in love with Josella who is a person who cares about others enormously (a lot like Mother Teresa) shortly after they meet each other. I think they both have many characteristics in common, except that Josella worries more about people who are blind, and Bill worries about triffids and the reason for all the disasters. Michael Beadley is a man who thinks ahead and puts his effort mostly to rapidly increase the amount of sighted people and Miss Durrant thinks of him negatively because she is a religious person. I think Michael worried too much only on reproducing, and was too cruel to blind men; who would have wanted to be blind? Miss Durrant worried too much on the blind people, and she had no idea what to do to survive in the future. Wilfred Croker worries about the blind people and soon ties sighted people to blind people to not let them escape. He shortly finds out that he made a big mistake, just because sighted people can see it doesn’t mean that they can help so much blind people. They can last the blind people’s lives a little bit longer, but can’t go for so long. There is a red haired man who comes in for a very short time around the middle, and comes back towards the end of the book. He wants Bill and Josella to join their party, and to separate them from their daughter (Susan, not a real daughter but real close to a daughter) to match the ratio of blind people to sighted people. The author criticizes the military or the government indirectly with this character. The red haired man desires to gain power and as much land to become stronger than other parties, even before he worries about blind people and triffids.

Entry #2 Blog #2

"The Day of the Triffids" shows a situation that people’s selfishness and greed will block the way of surviving from an unexpected disaster. This science fiction shows that in the current real world, how contaminated, disgusting, cruel the world actually is. How can humans survive an unexpected disaster if they fight against each other for their desires? I realized from the book that the world cannot rebuild their society once more if they are not willing to reconsider their past mistakes. We are walking into a path that soon will be too thin to fight with each other. I think this is a major issue for people, especially teenagers. This book relates to the current world because in the book, a disaster wipes out 90% of the human race. And in the real world, there probably will come a time when another world war will occur, or a force from outside Earth destroys the human race. Why can’t people realize the serious situation we’re in and cooperate with each other instead of fighting just because of their stupid greed? Why don’t we try and prepare for the worst disaster? I feel the author’s angry emotion towards our current situation and putting effort to try and solve this enormous problem. In this book, except for Bill and Josella, people only worried about reproducing, not about the triffids that killed an enormous amount of people. And they tied people who can see to people who are blind, to make sure that the people who can see not run away. This is one of the biggest mistakes because just because they can see, they can’t serve so many blind people. I think a better solution would be to go to a safe area, or to wipe out the triffids first before they even start worrying about the size of their population. In the end of the book, the author showed some people’s desire for power even after all they’ve been through. What will power do if they can’t survive against the triffids? Those people will die before they even realize it. The author showed a way to solve all this disaster: to cooperate with each other and never fight. We have to learn from our mistakes fast. We must fix our corrupted mind and make it more useful, for humanity.

Entry #1 Blog #2

In this book, triffids play a very big role. Triffids are plants that can walk and strike people with venomous stings. Human have an advantage over triffids because human can “see”, but triffids can’t. People can spot a triffid and kill it before it comes near. But in this book, meteor-like rocks cross over Earth and people who have seen this extraordinary sight becomes blind. So, humans’ only advantage over triffids is gone. Now it comes down to human overcoming their greatest enemy: themselves and triffids. Mankind is going to be extinct even if triffids don’t exist because humans will kill themselves for their desires. The main role of triffids in this sci-fi is to reduce the human race so small that people would have to find a way to survive the catastrophe and rebuild their communities. So, I think the major theme of this book is that everything that human race have built will eventually collapse with mankind itself if people keep on fighting against each other for power, greed. There are some minor themes like how fast people can cooperate with each other and work together in order to survive. There will come a time when mankind cannot make any mistakes if they want to survive in this world, and triffids dramatically forwarded the moment in this book. Towards the end of this sci-fi, some people still want to achieve power even after all the disasters that had occurred. This shows how selfish humans are and how cruel they are to each other. This book shows teenagers like me in 2008 what kind of catastrophe will happen in the future if we keep on running towards our selfish greed and how to prevent it from occurring. Teenagers are young, full of energy, and SHOULD be eager to learn. There is still hope, and if us, teenagers start holding ourselves together then we can turn this soon-to-be dystopia world into soon-to-be utopia world.

Entry #6

The passage that I thought was most moving and had an impact on me was in page 68 of Fahrenheit 451, "It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end." I couldn’t understand this passage at all until Mrs. Lavender helped me and after looking back at the theme, I realized what it meant. Lots and lots of people gave up their hope and heart to others and live at their command rather than to resist and fight for what they think is right and there are only few people who actually fight back.
I found a character rather than a setting that I thought was beautiful. I thought Clarisse would have been like an angel if she were a real person. Her thoughts about the society were really mature and I loved her curiosity. She wanted to learn so much about everything, but couldn’t achieve that goal because of the surroundings. If she was able to read books, I bet she would have been another wonderful person to fight against the society. The setting of Fahrenheit 451 was very disturbing to me. How could a person watch the television and listen to the radio while taking pills and say life is fun? I wonder how the television brain washed her. I mean, how can people act like that? Human are different from animals because of their high IQ and knowledge. But that kind of behavior from a human being, does that make sense? That’s not human, that’s a robot! Also, Montag believed in her to keep his attempt to bring knowledge back to the society a secret, but she betrayed him and told Beatty. I was really disappointed in her. The part when Montag burned Beatty and took off, it’s still in my head vividly. I found that part to be very memorable because of the very descriptive language, and what Montag actually did. Stepping the hardest step, I was really inspired by Montag. I feel like he is one of my heroes now.