The Adventures of Tom Sawyer By Mark Twain. Continued :)

This is Tom Sawyer continued. Yes, its late, but I refinished it today. Having finished it already but, having forgotten it, I realized I'd have to read it again in order to get this blog done. :)

Tom Sawyer is now a successful conman. Just as I predicted, the terrible little boy is now rich. He found the money with Huck Finn ( who deserves the money..maybe). While being a bad child he found loot in a cave... He was not even supposed to be there yet, he got the money. As usual they were ever so happy to get him back. His Aunt is much to forgiving. When he disappears in the river with the boys and comes back just in time to see his own funeral she cries. She cries because she is so happy to see him, I might to but still every time is bad she cries and says it's alright don't worry I love you. She never really discourages his make believe and mischief. That is bad parenting. Hey... what happened to his family? They aren't ever mentioned in the book. There's no father, no mother, no cousins, no grandparents, in fact the only relative mentioned is his story is elderly Aunt Polly. Why did Mark Twain leave the family out? To restricting for his style? Maybe. Huck Finn only has a drunk father. It could just be easier to write a story when there are less authority characters involved.

The Glass Castle 2

As I was looking up Jeanette Walls I found a 2007 Colbert Report interview with her about the Glass Castle, it made me realize how unbelievable her story is. It could be complete bs. We wouldn't ever really know though. In the interview she was a very pretty woman with perfect hair, make-up and clothing with an annoying habit of calling Colbert "honey." As she attempted to explain her story and life she came off as a maybe. I had a difficult time telling if it was all scripted or what. I mean the whole story is unbelievable right? Who could have survived that and turned out successful? Not many. She really ought to have died of neglect at age 4 when her body was covered in 2nd and 3rd degree burns due to her being left alone to cook hotdogs at age 4. That's barely out of toddler stage right? It doesn't make sense. There were no visible scars or anything. That woman looked like a beautiful suburban mother with 2 kids that go to Dunwoody high. Not a woman that lived through abuse for 16 years.
That's another thing that I don't understand how did they escaped the system for so long? How is it that child protection services never found them? True they lived in many different places for short amounts of time but twice a socail worker came asking around but never filed anything or tried to ask the right questions. This here is a classic case of a failing system. Each year many children are neglected and abused because somewhere there's a person who should care but isn't. What can we do nothing really? Just yesterday a bill attempted to go through the Georgia state senate that would allow hospital workers and people other than primary care givers the ability to report injured and abused children in prostitution rings. I think it passed with only one person voting no. That's a start.

The glass castle 1.

The glass castle is a fantastic unbelievable story. It's the memoir of Jeannette Walls a gossip columnist and contributor to MSNBC news network. It's mostly the story of her growing up homeless and dirt poor dreaming for better things. Essentially the "American dream" with a few hilarious and painful quirks. In example having her cat thrown out the car, herself getting thrown out of the car, seeing her mother being held out the window, starved, living in in a new town every half a year or less for the first 10 years of her life. Life just wasn't pleasent. There was never enough money with her father an acholholic and her mother was a... I don't know, maybe a complete FAILURE. O.k. let me tell you about this lady. What this lady was, other than being a failure as a mother to her children, was a failure in life. She never held a job more than a year and even that was pushing it after a few months on the job as a teacher she would lay and bed and scream refusing to get up saying she was sick or making up any kind of story. Work is really not that bad. Back in those days being a teacher wasn't bad at all not when your children are starving and you have nothing left in your cabbinet. If she didn't want to work she should've sold the land she inherited from her mother. She wouldn't, she said it had been in the family for years "family land." Who cares about that when there's nothing to eat? Even as she grew older she never changed. In the end of the book she decides to be homeless with her husband who she has never left. Yes, she decides to be homeless. This horrified me. It actually took laziness to the extreme.

Frederick Douglas: The most and least

Ok, so, what I like most and least.
What I like: Frederick Douglas. Most the story of Frederick Douglas himself this guy is awe-inspiring. He ought to be so angry, raw, frustrated, like ready to take off heads but he isn't. He calmly goes on about all the injustices done to him and the people around him in a "I'm going to act like I'm not pissed off" tone. Does anybody else feel that? Like, he's pissed off yet, not "seeing red" angry? In fact it's almost wrong how matter of fact he is. Golly, I'd have already started kicking down buildings not written a novel.

What I don't like slave masters. Inhumane cruelty is demonstrated throughout these chapters we've been reading, lack of food, worked to exhaustion, whippings, beatings, killings, horrible horrible things. People shouldn't be able to do that to others. They can't but still... What if it was your long ago relatives that did that? I just went and checked my moms Native American and Quaker so no slavery there and dads family was to poor or was fighting for the Union. I can almost sleep safely at night. I also didn't like how the slaves didn't fight back. They vastly outnumbered the slaveholders in the south. If they had banded together they could have made quite an impact. The same is said about the roman slaves. In the time of Spartacus the Romans were completely outnumbered by the slaves they imported. Its a mystery why they didn't rebel they could taken over without any trouble. (we're watching Spartacus in Latin)

I can't find my group's blogs. The only one I found hasn't updated. Sorry Ms. C.

Dialect Frederick Douglas

The narrator is Frederick Douglas. The dialect of the narrator is in the tone of an educated white man. Strange yet, not. If he talked in the dialect of an uneducated slave this would just be another Uncle Tom's Cabin. That is not the image Douglas wants to portray, slaves are completely equal if they are given the chance. He shows that with dialect. It's very matter of fact to him. Frederick Douglas would not be saying these things if they had not happened to him but, because they did he's there to tell the stories and examples off human cruelty.

In this book, I have enjoyed the quality shown in the writers voice and sentence structure, his tone fits his political issues. The writers style inflicts awe upon the readers. A man to have lived through the activities is a strong man indeed. A man to have lived through the painful times and then was to write about them is even stronger, he is awe inspiring. Reading those moments it is like pulling a band aid off a healing wound. It is painful but, necessary. The wound must air out to get better, and slavery changed and ended after people began to protest it, and fight it in public.

Frederick Douglas

Frederick Douglas is a very good writer. His writing is very correct. In it's probably more "correct" and better than mine will ever be. His structuring is just fantastic and ends up sounding smart. How come some people do that naturally but, others like me sound like imbeciles who have a word spewing disorder? Honestly now, but because of that I am given a stronger feeling of awe. This is man who went through more hardships than any person today will face in their life. Douglas started his education late (age 12). By learning the alphabet, he was able to put together words and learn to read and write. It's simply amazing that one of the final products we have today is the great literary piece we are reading in class today.
His writing in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave touches your heart. I especially liked the second chapter. He said slave sing more when they are sad and cry when they are happy rather than the other way around. I can understand that, when my father is upset, like when my grandmother died he sat down and played piano for hours. Sad music, happy music, fast slow, whatever. The point is he played like the slaves sang. Its not exactly the same. How can one compare the issue and sadness of slavery to the death of one person?

Mrs. C. is it alright that I post 2 or 3 blogs about my reading for individual reading? I am very behind but, can now hopefully catch up since mocktrial is done taking over my life. I think I will if they don't count its fine, sort of.