Dialectical Journal #16: Catching Fire

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
“’ You were dead! Your heart stopped!’ I burst out, before really considering if this is a good idea. I clap my hand over my mouth because I’m starting to make those awful choking sounds that happen when I sob.            ‘Well, it seems to be working now,’ he says. ‘It’s all right Katniss.’ I nod my head but the sounds aren’t stopping…            ‘It’s okay, it’s just her hormones,’ says Finnick. ‘From the baby.’…            ‘No. It’s not-‘ I get out before I’m cut off by an even more hysterical round of sobbing that seems to only confirm what Finnick said about the baby. He meets my eyes and I glare at him through the tears…            I expect to see a smug or sarcastic expression on his face, but his look is strangely quizzical. He glances between Peeta and me, as if trying to figure something out, then gives his head a slight shake as if to clear it.”	281-2	(R) I really, really, want to jump into the book and give Katniss a good shake. SHE IS IN LOVE WITH THAT BOY. What needs to happen before she realizes this? He died and she still hasn’t come to grips with that little fact. Finnick, I gather, was informed of Peeta and Katniss’s “arrangement”. I think that was why he looked confused. He probably was not expecting Katniss to start bawling like that. Probably because he didn’t think she actually cared.

Dialectical Journal #15: Catching Fire

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
“I look at Cinna, raising my eyebrows for an explanation. He just gives his head a slight shake, as perplexed as I am. Why are they delaying this?          Suddenly the door behind him bursts open and three Peacekeepers spring into the room. Two pin Cinna’s arms behind him and cuff him while the third hits him in the temple with such force he’s knocked to his knees. But they keep hitting him with metal-studded gloves, opening gashes on his face and body. I’m screaming my head off, banging on the unyielding glass, trying to reach him. The Peacekeepers ignore me completely as they drag Cinna’s limp body from the room. All that’s left are the smears on the floor.”	262-3	(R) NOOOOO! Not Cinna!!!! I don’t know who I dislike more, President Snow or Suzanne Collins! I feel like all my favorite characters are being maltreated. Not only is my precious Peeta being put back into the arena, Cinna has gotten beaten up and has practically no chance of coming out of that alive! This story is so much better because of Cinna! I don't want anything bad to happen to him, ever!         In the play Julius Cesear, the character Cinna gets murdered by the hands of a mob. Was this the fate of Cinna the whole time? To be mercilessly beaten? I hope not.

Dialectical Journal #14: Catching Fire (Hunger Games Sequel)

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
“’ I’m so sorry,’ I whisper. I lean forward and kiss him.            His eyelashes flutter and he looks at me through a wave of opiates. ‘Hey, Catnip.’            ‘Hey, Gale,’ I say.            ‘Thought you’d be gone by now,’ he says.            My choices are simple. I can die like a quarry in the woods or I can die here beside Gale. ‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to stay right here and cause all kinds of trouble.’            ‘Me, too,’ Gale says. He just manages a smile before the drugs pull him back under."	118-9	(R) Before this part, I was actually feeling sort of sympathetic towards Katniss. I was thinking, maybe I’m too hard on this girl. She’s dealing with things the best that she can. Then she goes and kisses Gale, knowing full well that he will read so much into it and knowing it would break Peeta’s heart. She always acts like she has everyone’s best interest at mind but I think, at her very core, she’s just selfish. She wants what she wants, when she wants it. Then again, doesn’t everyone act that way at one point? Maybe I’m just bitter because she’s hurting Peeta. Again.

Dialectical Journal #13:Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
“’ Aunt Petunia, whose face had been buried in her handkerchief, looked up at the sound. She did not expect to find herself alone with Harry. Hastily stowing her wet handkerchief into her pocket, she said, ‘Well- good-bye,’ and marched toward the door... For a moment Harry had the strangest feeling she wanted to say something to him… but then, with a little jerk of her head, she bustled out the door of the room after her husband and son.”	42	(R) This quote makes me feel a bit sad. I think it’s horrible how this woman couldn’t find any other words to say to her only blood nephew-the flesh and blood of her only, sister who is now deceased- other than ‘good-bye’. Whenever I read a book in this series I wonder, how can family treat each other like that? If I was in Petunia’s situation, I would be the best Aunt I could possibly be! I would do anything to keep my nephew happy. I think, personally, that if you took away all the Death-eaters and such (Voldemorts Gang) Petunia would be the vilest creature.

Dialectical Journal#12: Where Angels Fear to Tread

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “’ My dear Laila, don’t let’s have a scene. Before I arrived I thought I might question you. It is unnecessary. I know everything…. He is probably a ruffian and certainly a cad.’… she was sharp enough to say, ‘ indeed Philip, you surprise me. I understood you went in for equality and so on… and for my own poor part, I think what people are is what matters, but I don’t suppose you’ll agree.”’	·         33-4	·         (R) I thought this book would be very interesting when I picked it up because of the name. Also, the author wrote a book that’s on the AP Lit reading list so I thought I would give it a try. So far, nothing angelic is going on. Lailas’ in-laws are trying to bully her into living the way they want her too and I applaud her for not giving in! Sure, I don’t agree with the way she does things, but she should have the right to do things however she wants! She needs to do something to those in-laws off her case.

Dialectical Journal #11: Candide

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
“’ But you, my dear Pangloss,’ said Candide, ‘how is it that we meet again?’            ‘It is true that you did see me hanged,’ said Pangloss. “… The rope was wet and wouldn’t slip through properly, and it got caught. So I was still breathing…”	92	(R) I think that it is absolutely ridiculous that this guy is still alive!!! I thought he was dead then suddenly he’s back surviving against all odds- and logic. I also don’t even understand why Voltaire would bring this character into the story again, especially now when it is practically over. Perhaps he is going to use Pangloss the philosopher to make one final jab at Leibniz just in case the reader forgot that this whole story was a satire on his teachings.

Assignment 3:Edgar Allen Poe...try (Do you see what i did there?)

Edgar Allen Poe has many themes present in his poetry, but the three most prominent are death, love and nature.

Death is a theme that is not just apparent in Poes’ poems, but in his short stories also. In almost all his poems his characters have some kind of interaction with death.

THE CITY IN THE SEA

“Lo! Death has reared himself a throne

In a strange city lying alone

Far down within the dim West,

Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best

Have gone to their eternal rest.”

The death theme is quite apparent in that poem, but it also more subliminal in other poems.

The Haunted Place

                “But evil things, in robes of sorrow

                                Assailed the monarch’s high estate.

                (Ah let us mourn!-for never morrow

                                Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)

 Even in the few poems that Poe wrote that weren’t about death seemed to have a kind of deadly undertone to them.

The next biggest theme in Poe’s poetry is love. His characters all seem to be longing for somebody they can’t have, usually because they have been departed from them in this life.

[“Deep In Earth”]

                Deep in earth my love is lying

                                And I must weep alone.

His characters seem to always be separated from the ones they love. In the poem “The Raven” the narrator is depressed because the raven tells him that he will never again see the one he loves- in this life or the next.

The Raven

                “’Prophet!’ said I, ‘thing of evil!-prophet still, if bird or devil!

                By that Heaven that bends above us-by that God we both adore-

                Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

                It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-

                Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”

                                Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

Nature is the last most prominent theme. Poe is apparently a big fan of it. His characters seem to receive something (usually mental insight) from nature when they are surrounded by it and he also seems to slightly reprimand humans for what they are doing to nature with all their expansion.

Sonnet-To Science

                “Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood

            The Elfin from the green grass, and from me

             The summer dream from beneath the tamarind tree?”

                

The three most prominent themes in Edgar Allen Poe’s poetry were death, love and nature. Death and love were usually tied together, usually with the character of the poem being departed with the one he loved. Nature was often used to describe things and was usually connected a character to something in their life.