Quote Responses

Quote One: "Frailty, thy name is woman." Hamlet said this in a soliloquy about his mother. He means that women are weak minded and depend upon a man to protect them. I do not think that this quote applies in the modern age. Women nowadays are much more intelligent thanks to being allowed to attend school, and are capable of being independent from men.They can take care of themselves when the need arises.

Quote Two: "Brevity is the soul of wit." Polonius says this to Claudius and Gertrude. It means that being well spoken and having knowledge of how to use words in conversation makes you intelligent. I think that this is very applicable to life today. It's important to be well learned and know how to speak well and with at least an air of intelligence about you.

The Line Between Caring and Overbearing.

I believe that parents do have the right to know what is going on in the lives of their children. It’s only natural to be protective of your kids. However, there are boundaries that parents should respect. I imagine that adults wouldn’t like having their privacy constantly invaded and being treated as if they were untrustworthy, so expecting teenagers to put up with that sort of treatment isn’t exactly fair. I can’t see any teen that I know going along with the agenda of nosy parents either.

At younger ages, such as fourteen, parents should pay close attention to what’s going on with their kid. There’s a lot of changes that go on during that time and sometimes kids don’t deal with it as well as others might. Having enough insight into how a teenager is feeling and what they may be dealing with can really save a lot of trouble from happening down the road. Kids that are that young aren’t mentally mature enough to make the right choices in some situations, so I think parents need to be there to give them guidance and support. Rules like where they go, who they see outside of school and how late they’re allowed to be out may seem unfair and I know they make most teenagers angry, but those are only set in place for our own good.

For example, when I was growing up my parents told me I had to be home before the streetlights came on (which in my opinion was ridiculously early, but alas). Sure, I whined about it because come on, it was a stupid rule, and I always pushed the rule to the limit. Nevertheless, I look back on it now and I know they only made that rule for my own safety. They just didn’t want their thirteen year old daughter running around the neighborhood in the dark alone.

However, as teenagers get older parents should learn to ease up on how controlling and prying they are with their kids. Nineteen years old, for example, is a bit old for a parent to be telling them what time to come home and who they can’t hang out with. Eventually all teenagers have to grow up and move out, essentially becoming independent from mom and dad. Keeping too close of a watch on someone who just wants to grow up makes them feel stifled and quite frankly irritated with their parents. Of course we know that adults mean well, and they only want to protect us from at least part of the bad things in life, but they can’t do that constantly. Restricting us in too many ways keeps up from experiencing life and learning valuable lessons first-hand.

Revenge

I think that the act of getting revenge on someone for wronging you is a more common thing than people think. It doesn't necessarily have to be something extreme like in a Shakespeare play. Getting revenge on someone can be doing something simple to him or her as payback. I don’t think that many people really realize that they’re getting revenge whenever they decide to take defensive actions against someone. We just see it as “getting even”.

A lot of crimes that people commit are fueled by the desire to get revenge. If someone has a loved one who is murdered, they may feel like killing the person who did it will make them feel better. Still, something as serious as death doesn’t need to be involved. People who are stolen from may take something back from the thief, or might try to give a disrespectful person a little grief in their life.

An example that I can think of is something that I witnessed a long time ago. I won’t mention any names, but an individual that was my friend during middle school did not get along with another student. It was pretty much a hate/hate relationship. They were always fighting and making life tough for one another. One day the other kid took this person’s books from their bag and hid them around the classroom before class could begin. When my friend discovered what had happened, and who was behind the disappearance of their reading materials, they told me that they were going to get them back.

This final act of revenge didn’t occur until about a week later. The middle school served breakfast every morning. On this particular morning, a cold December day, the tile flooring had become slick due to snow being tracked inside on people’s shoes. The “enemy” of this scenario was walking to one of the tables with their juice and toast, and as they moved past our own table my friend quickly stuck out their foot and tripped them. Of course the person went flying and their breakfast wound up all over the floor in a giant mess. As if this embarrassment was not enough, the entire lunchroom burst into laughter at their misfortune. My friend was able to conveniently blame the slick flooring on it, but the other person knew what had really happened. So, the battle between them continued on for the rest of the year.

I learned from this experience that revenge is a common thing that people do without really thinking about it. I also realized that while cathartic at the time, revenge scarcely solves the problem entirely.

Joanne Rowling

Dear Joanne Rowling,

I was in fourth grade, and perhaps nine or ten years old at the time, when I got my hands on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I remember being excited and just as equally terrified as I opened that book and began to read. All of my friends had been reading the book and absolutely loved it, while my parents had told me that it was not something I would ever be allowed to read due to it clashing with their religious beliefs. You can then imagine my apprehension with sneaking a copy home from the school library, hidden behind my math folder inside my book bag, and reading it under cover of night in my room.

For as long as I can remember, I have loved to read. In elementary school I would get my books taken away in class because I’d rather be lost in a story than paying attention to the lesson plan. However, as often as I would make trips to the library to check out another book, I never found a novel or book series that really grabbed my attention for longer than a few weeks at most. That’s why, when I finished the very first chapter of Sorcerer’s Stone all those years ago and kept going until I was nodding off with my face in the book, I knew that the story of this orphaned boy with messy hair and a scar was special. However, I don’t think I quite realized at the time how much the Harry Potter series would grow to be a part of my life for years to come.

When you put aside the magic aspect of the series, there are still a lot of valuable lessons to be learned (the importance of love and friendship and honesty, to name a few). I think many people miss out on these due to focusing on the fact that it is labeled a book series meant for children about wizards and such. There’s no rule written down that says kid stories aren’t capable of encompassing life guidelines, after all.

The importance of doing what is right rather than what is easy, even when others push you to side with them is the biggest thing that I’ve taken away from Harry’s story. If Harry had simply given up and stopped fighting, stopped caring for his friends and the fate of everyone else to join the evil side just because it was easier, the story would have ended far differently and not in a good way either. I’ve learned through all of the trials the characters go through during the course of the series that life is hard, it is not always fair, and good may not always prevail over bad but you can’t just give up. I credit my will to keep fighting and never quit to these books. I’m a much stronger person today because of this.

I am now seventeen years old, and a senior in high school. In less than one month I will be going to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part one on opening night at the movie theater with my friends and family, all of whom are avid Potter lovers (yes, my parents came around to Team Potter as well, much to my relief). I own every single Harry Potter book and have read them multiple times, the spines of them well bent with use and a few pages now slightly dog-eared or stained with occasional inky fingerprints. Of course I am teased by my other more “serious” peers for admitting that Harry Potter is my favorite book series. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t dare change it. I’ve grown up right alongside the small boy who lived in a cupboard under the stairs for eleven years of his life, and in a way I can relate to Harry, Ron and Hermione better than I can people my own age.

The story of Harry Potter has essentially been my entire childhood, contained within the pages of seven wonderful books. Your incredibly, magical story has made me very happy for many years, and will continue to do so until I’m old and in my rocker. There are things in life you never forget, and this story is one of them. I can only hope that the future generations of children will read your story and gain as much as I have from it.

Sincerely,

Kaitlyn Graves

Learning Independence.

I should probably start this off by saying that I’m really not a complete social hermit. I enjoy talking to people just as much as anyone else does, probably more if you ask anyone who‘s seen me outside of school. I just have trouble with getting a conversation going and letting people in to see the real me behind the stupid shy shell that I have. I truly do enjoy having friends and being able to count on someone when I need it.

However, at the same time I’ve learned to never depend on someone entirely. It’s okay to trust people, because you’ll be miserable if you don’t. At the same time though, you have to be a little independent. It’s okay to be able to function by yourself and not depend on constant attention and reassurances like a little kid. This is something that I have, unfortunately, learned through a lot of trial and error.

Maybe this is a little bit pessimistic of me…okay, more than a little. But the experience of having someone who you always thought would love you and care about you flat out say that you mean nothing to them anymore can change you a lot. It happened to me after all.

As cliché and barf-worthy, teenage romance as this is going to sound, I let a boy with too long blond hair and big brown eyes get an emotional hold on me and I thought it was all good. Scott was his name, and yes, he was my boyfriend for six months but before that he had been one of my best friends since middle school. I’ve told him things that no one else has ever heard about me, and he will be the only person alive to ever have heard those things. In retrospect, it was probably unwise to place that much trust in him but what can you do?

Anyway, as with most teenage relationships it just fizzled out on my end so I broke it off. Of course there was all the usual moping from him for a while, but we still hung out and talked all the time. We were great friends despite everything, and when I told him I was moving away to Homedale he assured me about a hundred different times that nothing was going to change.

Yeah, because things always seem to work out just as someone says they will, right? Life is never that simple.

Now, fast forward about a year and imagine how it felt, stomach sinking as if I’d eaten a handful of lead, when I was informed by him that he no longer knew if I meant anything to him because he’d “changed a lot”. Really, dude? You’re going to pull that crap now, after all the other fights and break ups and things we’ve gone through? I’ve changed like you wouldn’t believe since I left Fruitland, but I’m not going to be a jerk and stop being your friend over it! Ugh!

In turn, this all got me to thinking that maybe I had been too insensitive during the whole breakup. Maybe it had hurt him worse than it had me somehow. I brooded over it for a ridiculous amount of time, and thinking back on it I kind of want to kick myself for doing so. I can’t imagine myself doing that now, and I’m really glad for it.

For a long time I was absolutely crushed over this revelation. As I said, it’s difficult for me to let people in and trust them entirely, especially people my own age. I felt like someone had literally stolen a piece of me. Not in the heartbroken girl sense, but in the sense that I had lost someone I could truly trust no matter what. It was as if I no longer had a port in the storm or a place to confide when my thoughts grew too cumbersome to be dealt with alone.

Then, like the epiphany of a lifetime or something, I realized that I do not need to always have someone to lean on. Sure, it’s nice to have support when times are tough and life wears me down, but I’m independent. I’m a very strong willed young woman and I’m not going to waste my time pining for the loss of him. I’m going to keep my head up and go on with life. Looking to the past only keeps me blind to the future and potentially better things that will come along.

It was the ending of a good friendship, I will admit. Perhaps someday it will be mended, and perhaps it won’t. Either way, it really helped me change and develop into the person that I am now. I suppose in a really messed up way I owe him a word of thanks. Not that he’ll ever get it, hah. It’s the thought that counts in this case, I believe.

Disney, what are you doing?

The Disney version of the book Huckleberry Finn is a…laughable example of a book-turned-film. There are a few points in the movie that kept true to events in the novel, such as Pap kidnapping Huck and Huck running off with Jim, but the way that the movie carries these things out ruins the overall effect that it’s supposed to have upon the audience.

One major change, and one that ultimately ruined the ending for me, was the absence of Tom Sawyer. Sure, maybe we were spared from his annoying antics and all that jazz, but at the same time Tom was a vital part to not only wrapping the story up but revealing a little more about Huck’s character. In the book, Huckleberry seems to be an independent young man until he’s around Tom. Whenever he does get together with his friend, he becomes soft spoken and easy to manipulate. The movie totally misses this character trait for Huck, instead making him out to be a strong willed kid who does as he pleases. Don’t even get me started on how the film ended versus the book. It was rushed and seemed as if it had been slapped together at the last minute. It was terribly overdone with dramatics, to be honest. That’s Disney for you though, I suppose.

Another difference was the relationship between Huck and Jim. Twain had not put his story together to portray the two of them as best buddies from the very beginning. At the start of everything Huck and Jim were acquaintances at best, and slowly grew closer and trusted one another more as the story progressed and they went through a lot of troubles together. Once again, Disney took the cheery side of things and made it so Huck and Jim got along perfectly from the very start. That really did take away from the character development of Huck and Jim, because watching their trust for each other get stronger was an interesting part of the novel.

Then, of course, the overall tone of the movie was sheer corniness with how there seemed to be a constant undertone of comedy in even the “serious” scenes (such as Peter Wilks’ mouth randomly being open as he's laying there dead in his casket). Twain intended for his book to be humorous, true, but to also have serious situations and to show people how dangerous it was for Huck to be helping Jim escape to freedom. Not surprisingly, Disney pushed the serious side of the story to the back burner in favor of laughs. Really, the epic slow motion “BILLY!” thing? I don’t know how anyone could have possibly taken that seriously. I sure didn’t, even though it was, admittedly, hilarious.

My issue with society.

I’ll be the first person to admit that I value intelligence amongst other people that I associate with before how they look or dress. I don’t think that being smart is anything to be ashamed of, and being called a nerd on a regular basis doesn’t bug me one bit. Brains before beauty, people.

What I can’t seem to understand is why society seems to place all of these Hollywood stars and starlets up on special little pedestals when they haven’t got enough brains, nor common sense, to function like a normal human being. True, not every single person in the entertainment business is a total moron. Quite a few of them are actually very intelligent and do a lot of good for the world. However, when you turn on the news or go to the homepage for MSN.com, what always seems to be there? Something about some moron who got caught smoking dope or doing something else idiotic. You know, all those people who can't seem to stay out of trouble for more than a month at a time.

Is this what our society truly values? Are these men and women the types that mothers want their children to look up to as role models? Do we all want the teenager girls of this generation to grow up to be clones of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan? Are we all supposed to be tanned to the point of looking like we’re covered in the powered cheese from a Mac n’ Cheese box? Why is it that someone who walks around with their perfect clothes and perfect hair and one-dimensional personality gets more recognition than something else that’s more important?

Are we really all so shallow that beauty comes before brains in this day and age? Really? This country is obsessed with the idea of celebrity, for crying out loud!

To be fair, I realize that not everyone thinks this way. I know a lot of people who hate all those Hollywood types because of how they are. I, along with those people, look up to folks with skills and smarts instead of a size four waist or a car that's worth more than my house. Still, it's rare to see someone who’s doing so much good for this world getting a ten minute slot on the news broadcasts like Lindsay Lohan does whenever she gets her coke-head self tossed back into rehab. It’s sad, really, to think that this country is more interested in hearing about her drug usage than about the three teenagers who killed themselves in the past month alone after being bullied at school over their sexualities (yes, this really happened: http://www.aolnews.com/surge-desk/article/seth-walsh-dies-after-suicide-attempt-another-teen-bullied-over-perceived-sexuality/19653569).

It just shows how the minds of the general public work, I guess. We want to hear all of the dirty little secrets of the actors and personalities that we like instead of the serious issues going on in society. It's easier for people to handle hearing LiLo going to jail for drugs for the umpteenth time than to hear about stories like the teens mentioned above.

I really do think that this needs to change. I think the media needs to stop presenting us with these images that these "stars" are what we need to center our attention around. There are more serious issues out there to take notice of than what the stars are eating for lunch today, who's getting a divorce from who, and where they bought their newest pair of jeans at.

All I know is that people would be a lot better off if they spent less time reading rubbish like this

and more time doing something productive.

Huck's "crisis of conscience".

There are many times in the book Huck Finn prior to the scenario of Jim being captured by the Phelps family where Huck argues with himself over what he’s going to do concerning the runaway slave. A part of him knows that it’s wrong for him to be helping Jim escape, not only because he feels guilty for betraying the widow Douglas but because it’s highly illegal. At the same time, however, he has gradually grown to see Jim as not just another black man but as someone he can trust and count on in tough situations. Huck views Jim as more of a friend than as someone who’s lesser than him as a person. This bond that they've developed helps Huck make his decision.

When Huck realizes that he can’t just let Jim be sold off down the river and decides that, wrong or not, he’s going to steal Jim back, I thought it was a really brave thing for him to do. Not only because he could potentially be caught and punished severely, but also because Huck is essentially ignoring his own conscious for the benefit of his friend. This seems, to me, like a very noble thing for Huck to do because he always appears to be struggling with internal conflicts concerning Jim’s freedom. When he essentially says that he might as well go to hell for what he’s going to do, but he’ll do it anyway because he cares about Jim, it really sends home the entire idea that Huck respects Jim a lot despite him being a runaway.

Considering that this book was released in a time period where common white people wouldn’t dare think about stealing a slave to help them gain freedom, I think that Twain expected the people reading his novel to be shocked and perhaps even outraged at Huck’s decision. However, I think that the other reaction Twain was hoping to get was realization from his readers as to how morally unjust slavery really was. I think he wanted to make people see that just because they were white, they didn’t have to agree with the practice of owning slaves or looking down upon African Americans.

Jim in Huckleberry Finn.

Up until this point in Huckleberry Finn, Huck has had this view of Jim as being a little bit simple minded and happy go lucky about things. There hadn’t really been any indications that Jim had problems like many of the other characters we meet or that he was suffering from any internal battles. However, when Jim finally reveals to Huck that he worries for his family every night it makes Huck realize that there’s a lot more to his friend than meets the eye. This little conversation between them drastically changes how Huck perceives Jim as a person. It makes Huck see Jim as more of a human being rather than just another slave who doesn’t have feelings and fears and worries.

Jim is a unique sort of character in the book in comparison to some of the others that we’ve met. He’s selfless and a little naive about how the world works, which shows in how he doesn‘t believe certain things that Huck tells him (like how French people speak a different language). I honestly don’t think he has a mean bone in his body. Some characters, like the dauphin and the duke, are vile and take advantage of the kindness that they're shown by townspeople. Jim is always kind and somewhat even tempered about things, and he treats people well. Despite this people still look down on him and treat him as if he’s less than human simply because he’s African American.

There aren’t many things that Jim seems to be truly concerned with. However, the things that he does worry about are very important to him. Gaining his freedom by fleeing with Huck and worrying about how his family is going to fare now that he’s gone seem to be the two main things that he thinks about. Jim is also concerned with doing the right thing morally, which is why he doesn’t like being around the dauphin and the duke.

Overall, it seems like Jim’s slowly becoming a more complex person, and Huck is starting to see that Jim isn’t his inferior but his equal. I think that this will only continue to strengthen their friendship as the book goes on.

Satire in Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain is well known for his technique of using satire to poke fun at as well as criticize society, certain people and even religion. In some cases his use of satire has helped people see the wrong in certain aspects of their way of life. This approach to writing is definitely seen in his novel Huckleberry Finn.

One of the most obvious use of satire in Huckleberry Finn, is Twain poking fun at the hypocrisy of religious people. Many families, even ones who were devout Christians and believed in treating other people right, owned slaves. An example of this, seen very early on in the book, is the Widow Douglas. She, along with Miss Watson, tries to teach Huck how important it is to be kind to others and to pray and believe in God. However, she also owns Jim as a slave at the same time and doesn‘t give him the same special treatment as she allows Huck to have. Twain uses these types of people to criticize those who thought they were perfect in God’s eyes despite treating African Americans as if they were less than human.

Another example of criticism about those who believe themselves to be perfect yet are quite the opposite is the feud going on between the Grangerford and Shepherdson families. According to Buck Grangerford, none of the men in their family are cowards and they even go so far as to take weapons with them to church in case they need to defend themselves against the Shepherdsons. Ironically when they are at church, the sermon is all about “brotherly love”. This is yet another perfect way to show how people back in those times thought that simply being religious made them perfect and above committing sins against their fellow man.

Superstitions, especially all of the ones believed by Jim, are really made fun of in the novel not because they are wrong but more because they’re amusing to read about. When Tom and Huck steal Jim’s hat and hang it up in a tree to convince him witches had visited while he slept, Jim blows the entire situation far out of proportion. It even gets to the point where other slaves come from all around to hear the tale, and Jim goes so far as to say that witches possessed him and took him all over the place during the night. Other examples are the hairball that’s supposed to be some sort of an oracle and Jim wanting to interpret the “dream” he had when he is reunited with Huck after the fog on the river.

I think that Mark Twain had a couple of different reasons for using satire so much in his writing. First, he wanted to make readers laugh and enjoy the story with how he portrayed some things in a more comical light. However the other reason, and perhaps the more important one, is how he used it to show his displeasure with certain aspect of society back in that time period. I believe that he wanted to show people what was wrong with their actions and hopefully would convince some of them to change how they acted as well as treated others.

Huck Finn

It seems as though people are either entirely for teaching Huckleberry Finn in high school classes, or completely against it for the usage of the word nigger over 200 times and other derogatory things directed towards the black characters in the book. While I completely understand why the word offends people, as it stems from the days when African Americans were treated as less than human in comparison to white people, I do not agree that the book should be banned from being read by the youth of today. As offensive as the word is to people, it's a part of not only the english language, but a part of the history of this country. There are many things that have happened in the past that still bother people today, but you can't just erase a part of the past because it offends you.

All of the bad names and things in this book, while shocking today if we hear them being said in a malicious manner, were commonplace in life back in those days. I think that what people need to understand is that this book wasn't meant to put down African Americans so much as to accurately depict how white people acted towards blacks. Once again, it is a real part of the past in our country, and like it or not you cannot simply erase it so that no one else can learn about it.

I fully support the teaching of Huckleberry Finn in schools. It does a good job of showing what life was like for African Americans back in those days, and how those who were looked down upon because of their race dealt with the daily descrimination against them. No one has the right to tell someone what book they can or cannot read. After all, what one person finds offensive might not be too big of a deal to someone else who wants to read the book.

Freedom

When I see or hear the word freedom, many things come to mind. Not only freedom in the physical sense, but freedom to do and say whatever I want, be friends with whoever I want to be friends with, and achieve whatever I want to with my life. Freedom allows us to achieve a lot of things in life, and I think that a lot of people who live in countries like America may take that right for granted. Without this right I wouldn't have the things that I do have in life and I wouldn't be able to have as bright a future as I do.

 Something else that comes to mind when I think of freedom is the fact that not everyone else in the world has the same amount of freedoms that we do. Some countries in other parts of the world severely limit the amount of freedom that the people living there have, which I think is really unfortunate. I believe that freedom of speech and expression, and the freedom to want your own life without having to follow strict rules, is something that every single person deserves to have.