Whispered Words

I am currently reading the book, The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. It takes place during the time of the holocaust. It is about a German girl, named Liesel, growing up in a pro-Hitler community, but with an anti-Hitler family. In the beginning, her father, Hans Hubberman, does not really feel either way. He does not mind the Jews, but he does not completely hate Hitler. Since even being in neutral could get you in trouble, he just does not say anything. Towards the middle of the book, Hans decides to hide a Jew, named Max, in their basement as a favor to Max’s father. As time goes on, Liesel starts to view Max as a brother, and she cannot understand why Hitler is determined to rid the world of Jews, when they are obviously not bad people.

If Liesel’s father had not openly showed Liesel that the Jews are not bad, but it is Hitler that needed to be stopped, then she would have grown up pro-Hitler. Even though there were families and different people that were not entirely for Hitler, they all kept quiet and said nothing.

I think that when a powerful leader or an authority figure says or does something, many people will follow them without question, and if only a few people question or disagree with their motives or their beliefs, those people are often discriminated against. Often no one will say anything because they are afraid no one will support them. But actually, there are probably many people out there that also agree with you, but are also afraid that no one will back them up if they speak out.

One day, a large group of Jews are being paraded through the town and Hans Hubberman gives one starving old man some bread. In this brief period of time, you start to see that not all the people that are completely pro-Hitler and anti-Jew.

“They called him a Jew lover. Others were silent, helping him back to safety.” This quote shows that even though some people were opposed by him, there were others who helped him and, though they were not loud, they did disagree with the others.

I think that even when a large crowd of people think or believe something, you should always speak up about what you think, and not just let everyone else’s voices roll over you. If you never voice your own opinions you will never get used to speaking up and you will instead end up always letting others do the talking. You may have very important things to say, and others will probably listen to you, but unless you say something, you never know what could have happened.

Everythings great, except when its not

In the third book of the sires I am reading, one of the characters, Valentine, (which is a pretty bad name for an evil person) wants to “purify” (destroy) the government that is in place and rebuild it under his laws and his beliefs. He truly believes that this is the right thing to do and that people will benefit from it and thank him in the future He is willing to destroy everything for what he personally thinks is right.

As the stories go on, you start to see that Valentine is not exactly a sane, rational person. In fact, he is kind of crazy. He basically wants to replace the current government with anarchy, and have him ruling it. He slowly stops seeing people as people and starts to see them as objects. And he either owns the objects, or he must control them somehow.  

At some point in the story, it stops being about fixing a corrupt government, and starts being about people worshiping him, and having him be the ruler and having the power. He always hated depending on other people. Even in a group of friends, he was always the leader and he always thought that he could do things better than others. If a certain goal or project was just done in his way, then it would work.  

He thought that dependency or reliance on others was a weakness. He called it a “Fatal Flaw.” After this “realization,” as he calls it, he slowly started to stop caring about others and instead, viewed them as lesser than him. He tried to distance himself from others in an attempt to not rely on them.

In the beginning of the story, you think that he is just a power-hungry person. But at the end, you realize he has told himself and his supporters so many times that what he is doing is moral and good, it is as if he has convinced himself that he is being selfless, acting for the good of the people. It seems almost as if he is in denial.

His fatal flaw is not weakness, it‘s that he thinks he can always do better than others. Many people today, while not as extreme, also have that problem.  Sometimes if you are doing a group project for school, you think that if you could do it all, it would be better. Or if you were designing a picture, or choreographing a dance. Many people feel this way, but you need to also listen to what others have to say. If people always thought that they could always do things better, then we would all be living in our own tiny personal bubbles, and the world would start to crumble apart.  

People Want What They Can't Have

In The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare, the characters all seem to end up wanting the people that they cannot have. In the beginning, the main character Clary, meets a boy named Jace. After a while, they start to sort of go out. I say sort of because they only kiss once on Clary’s birthday. Clary’s friend Simon sees them and becomes really jealous. While Simon did have a crush on Clary, you would not have expected him to react that intensely. Then, Simon and Jace start to have this competition over Clary. While they both liked her before, it seems as if they suddenly are both in love with her after there was something to fight over.

I think that sometimes, people enjoy the chase, and the winning of the desired object, better than the object itself. As the two are fighting over Clary, it turns into a vicious cycle. They fight, one person gets the upper hand, they gloat, they lose interest, the other boy jumps in, it happens all over again. After you actually acquire the object, it becomes almost less interesting. Sometimes all people really want is to beat the other person, prove that they are better than them. It gives people a sense of power and security to triumph over someone else.

If you fight over a person just to win and rub it in the other fighter’s face, then, chances are, you do not really care all that much about the person, as you do the win. Boys and girls always fight over each other, but most of the time they don’t care that much about the person they are fighting over, just beating the other. If you really loved someone, you wouldn’t mind it as much as to who got them, as you would if they were happy.

People need obstacles and challenges in their lives. If everything was just handed to you on a silver platter, then life would not be hard and you would never actually learn anything. If you don’t work hard, then accomplishing your goals would not be very rewarding. I think that that is part of the reason people want things that are harder to get. But while people need challenges, I don’t think that they should fight over other people.

Am I Blue? Reading Response

In the story Am I Blue, by Bruce Coville, the main character, Vincent, does not know if he is gay or straight, or if he is just in the middle. He is unsure of how others will accept him, and he is having trouble accepting himself. To make matters worse, some of the people at his school are taunting him and beating him up for who they think he could be. He is having trouble embracing himself for who he is, gay or straight.

Vincent is always getting beaten up and taunted by a guy at his school named Butch Carrigan, just because Butch thinks that he seems gay. One day, Butch whacks Vincent into a muddy puddle for "looking" at him. "You little fruit, I'll teach you to look at me!" He shouts at him. It would be a lot easier for Vincent to really figure himself out if people were not always trying to repress him. He says that he had been trying to figure out whether he is gay or straight for the past year. Right now, he is basically in the middle.

I think that some people are just frightened by the fact that other people are so different. They cannot understand them, so they try to repress them and they try to stop them from being different. There tons of gay people in the world, but they are afraid of the reactions of the people around them, and that they might get treated the way Vincent was, or worse. Some people know that they are gay, but they try to adapt and act the way people want them to be. For example, in the story, the grocery man, Mr. Alwain, is gay but he is married and he has two kids. Some people are gay, but they will probably never come out for their entire lives.

Other people are scared that they are different, but instead of trying to fit in, they make a sort of “shield of hate.”  They try to protect themselves by teasing and beating up other gay people. They try to disassociate themselves with gays. We find out at the end that Butch Carrigan is gay, even though he beats up Vincent for just that reason. We also see a very anti-gay congressman on TV. He talks about “the great crime of homosexuality” and “the gay threat to American youth.” He is also gay. These were the things that really disturbed Vincent.  He realizes that the people who make his life the most miserable are just like him.

Vincent is currently in the middle, so it wouldn’t be all that hard for him to pretend to be completely straight and blend in with the rest of the crowd. He doesn’t know whether to come out or stay in.

You need to accept yourself for who you are, and not be ashamed. You can’t be afraid of what other people think of you. You don’t have to blend in and do what everyone else is doing, because it’s okay to be different.