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.

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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.

Entry #5

While reading Fahrenheit 451, I didn’t really understand why firemen burned books. But the main character was happy, and he was having fun with his job. I guess I felt glad like him during this part of the book. Then, the main character starts questioning his job. I was confused; if he liked burning books, why did he question his job? I think his curiosity made the conflict in this novel. As Beatty was explaining about why the job firemen had become from "protect people from fire" to "burn books and any other literature", I was pretty saddened. This is the part where I realized the society is corrupted, and everyone won’t think about anything, just let the government lead them. I understand why people were afraid of knowledge, but I still thought that they have to achieve knowledge in order to bring the society to a better, peaceful place to live. I felt gloomy as I read through, because I couldn’t believe that ones with knowledge let people head on to a state so contaminated people don’t even like to think. When Montag killed Beatty, I knew that Montag was in a big trouble but I felt a relief inside me and started to encourage Montag to do what is right even more. I started to worry about Montag when the Mechanical Hound chased him down. I was really impressed when the Mechanical Hound pierced him but he kept on running away even though he was injured badly! I thought Montag would die when the car was following him and was about to crash into him, but there was a twist. The car wasn’t the police’s! I kept on urging Montag to escape this corrupted society and come back with full of knowledge. I was finally relieved when he met the others who have run away just like him and each represents a book with knowledge. I was disappointed that the novel ends without telling the readers what happens next. But I felt proud of Montag and I was glad enough that there was still a ray of hope glimmering in the contaminated society.

Entry #4

When Montag and other firemen are called to the fire station to burn another house, he finds out that they were called to burn his house. He realizes that Mildred, Montag’s wife, betrayed him and told Beatty about Montag’s attempt. Montag steps in front of Beatty and kills him because he thinks that Beatty must be killed in order to save Montag himself and the society from decaying. Then, people and the Mechanical Hound begin to chase him and it gets pretty intense. I think this part of Fahrenheit 451 is the climax. I think this part is the most important moment for Montag because he can’t go back in time and change what just happened. He takes a step forward and keeps on walking the road he was going. This step was probably the hardest step because he actually sacrifices a person in order to keep going on. Maybe he didn’t want to, but Beatty was pleading to kill him indirectly. I think Beatty was shameful of himself that there are people who try their best to alter the path the society was rushing into: destruction, chaos. I think these events in the book make me think about the real world and how it is activating. In my opinion, if the world keeps going on like this, although it will be slower than in the book, the world would be brought to corruption. But there are many talented people who have much knowledge than me, so I believe that they will keep on reaching for their goals and pass it on to the next generation. We are in a better situation than in Fahrenheit 451, and I see many rays of hope still streaking across the sky.

Entry #3

In Fahrenheit 451, there are 5 main characters that play a major role in this book. Guy Montag is the character who plays the most important role in this book. In the beginning of the book, he lives a normal life in the society which is pretty different from the real world, and does a job he likes, burning books. The role of a fireman changes as time passes. People start not to like thinking, and gaining knowledge. Books has enormous amount of knowledge, so the society needs a person who can burn books and get rid of knowledge. Burning books is an amazing job for someone like Montag, no thinking, just burning. But his thought for the society begins to change. He starts questioning, “Why do firemen burn books?” And he learns about the past and goes on a voyage to make people read books again. He is the brave kind of hero who tries to save the world from stupidity, and contamination. Then there is this character, Mildred, who is the wife of Montag, and all day long she watches the television. She is an example of a person who doesn’t have the strength to resist and let the flow of the environment go right through her. She is very immature, and doesn’t even think about what she think is right. She just does the same thing as most people in this book do : eat, sleep, and watch T.V. Then there is this character named Clarisse who is the main person to change Montag’s point of view of the outside world. She is very curious about every little detail. She questions the society, and wants to gain knowledge. She wants to, but since there are no books to read and no other alternative courses of action to achieve knowledge, she just observes how people behave. Clarisse is the character who relates to people that needs knowledge, but because of the environment around them, they cannot do anything because their voice will not be heard. There are two other characters who know that ignoring knowledge is unwise, but are afraid of the circumstances of after they announce it to the outside world. But one fights and the other gives up. Beatty is a fireman like Montag, and knows why knowledge has been pushed away but doesn’t do anything to make people realize that knowledge is the key way to making the world more peaceful if used in the correct way. He asks for death because he knows what’s right but is afraid of doing it. But on the other hand, Faber, sucks it all up and becomes courageous to resist and fight. He was afraid just like Beatty, but meets Montag and realizes that there are people who actually fight for what they think is right, and he starts to change his mind. Faber helps Montag to actually publish a book in the situation he’s in, and helps all he can to make people read books and achieve knowledge. I favor Montag and Faber, because the stand up for what they believe is right, but I can understand Beatty because if I were to be in that situation, I think I wouldn’t have been able to fight for what I believe what’s right against so many odds. I like Clarisse’s curiosity, she’s the reason Montag is questioning about everything. I think if she was old enough, she would have fought against the society with Montag. I think Mildred is just an example of a person who is helpless and needs to be rescued from contamination. I think each character resembles different characteristics, the brave, weak, and the helpless. I think they each reveal that the benefit of knowledge is more enormous than any other power.

Entry #2

I think that the situation in the world right now relates directly to the novel. For instance, the different types of magazines are increasing, with more television shows. You can see for yourself if you walk down the street, that there are more pictures than words. People are more comfortable with looking at pictures than to read the text and imagine using their creativity. There are many awesome novels out there, and some of the most famous novels, come out as a movie. People rather watch the movies of the books than to actually read the book. They don’t want to look up in the dictionary what the definition means for each word they don’t understand. People prefer to watch what is happening than to imagine every single scene that actually is described very detailed in the book. I think sometimes looking at a picture is clearer to me because you might not understand everything in the text, and you sometimes want to get an understanding of it before reading it. And you know what they say, "A picture is worth a thousand words." But, in this case, it’s not always about the "imagining", it’s also about gaining knowledge, and to have critical thinking. You don’t know what a copper is even if you see it, you only find out how it looks like. Is a picture going to show all the chemical/physical properties it has? In these areas, I think reading is a lot easier to understand than to watch. Also, I read in an article that the average amount of books a person above the age of 13 reads is decreasing. This is a bad sign that people are not paying attention to literature, and reading. Yes, the society has become more comfortable over the years, but don’t you think it is because of all the books and knowledge people earned to make the world become like this? I think people should appreciate books more and more throughout the years. The novel is telling us indirectly to pay attention to what is happening to us. We are becoming more lazy and weak minded. We should try to attain as much knowledge as you can and reading is one of the major ways you can attain knowledge! I think that current situation can be resolved if people start reading more books and ask questions to one another. I noticed this after I read Fahrenheit 451 and now I am trying to achieve more knowledge by reading books, and asking teachers about the areas that I am curious about.

Entry #1

In Fahrenheit 451, society has come to a devastating state that no literatures are allowed because books raise questions, and they sometimes bring forth revolution, even anarchy. Books give you knowledge, and allow you think differently and the government doesn't want to take the risk of letting people question them. As you’re reading throughout the book, you can find that the government isn't trying to do something corrupted, but people don't want to think about the problem that arises in the society. So people's minds become weaker and weaker and they start to fear knowledge, the ability to think. They rely on other people (governments, etc) to think for them. Now this is where television comes in. Since they don't think about anything and have nothing to do, people watch television all day long and their minds get brainwashed. I think the major theme of this novel is to not to be afraid of knowledge, use it to your own benefits because yes, knowledge can bring destruction to us, but it can also allow us not to repeat the same mistakes we made in the past. Reading books is one of the best ways to think and question one another and achieve knowledge. There is a minor theme about anti-television in this book because the author is speaking of television and the government with a critical eye. For example, Montag’s wife Mildred, watches the television all day long and doesn’t think about anything. In the text, you can see that Mildred only eats, sleeps, and watches the television.

I think this novel is important to a teenager like me because of the way the theme relates to society. Teenagers are not full-grown, not yet, so the author, Ray Bradbury, is telling us teenagers to think a lot about the problems that arise in our own society to be prepared when we actually become fully grown adults. I think the author wants us to read books and think about anything, have curiosity. I think the character Clarisse in this book plays an important role since she has so many questions and observes any detail she can find and eventually makes Montag think. Clarisse was just a teenager, and I bet she could’ve answered all her questions through reading books.