Wise Blood
I am not sure how to react to the novel after reading it. It has been a very confusing novel; I am not quite sure what it is saying about religion. Initially I thought that it was supporting an anti-religious aspect of life. However, the end of the novel presented a twist though the eyes of Mrs. Flood, which made me change my initial thoughts about it, turning it into a novel that seemed to say, this is what happens if you do not believe in Christianity. The novel also presented the atmosphere of the American City as a trap; an inescapable place that drains all morals, leaving one surround by a society of loneliness.
The novel consisted of two different stories, one about Hazel Motes and one about Enoch Emery. Both stories, in my eyes, were quite different. The story involving Hazel Motes involved something that he had been struggling with for most of his life - purity, religion, and guilt, which I believe, was brought about by his mother. This information is given when he is in bed with Mrs. Watts and recalls a memory of when his mother told him that Jesus died to redeem him. Motes's response to this was, "I never ast him." However, even after his beating, Motes feels that he must repent more by walking a mile with stones in his shoes, thinking that there will be a sign from "Him." Perhaps it was this incident that led to his disbelief, waiting for a sign that never came.
His mother seems to be someone that he both cherishes and hates. The bible and the pair of glasses show this. He feels that he must carry both her Bible and her pair of glasses around with him, although he disbelieves everything that she believed in. Although he says that he is keeping the bible because it reminds him of home and the glasses incase he ever looses his vision, I feel that he is keeping them to hold on to a piece of his mother; a piece of Jesus.
The last chapter helped me to form a sort of understanding. I felt that I could relate to Mrs. Flood. I felt like the questions that she kept raising to and about Motes were questions that I would have been raising.
What I liked most about it was reading from two different perspectives and how those different perspectives met through the book.
How would you like to be accused of a crime and then be disenfranchised because of your race? Well this is what happened to Mark Charles Parker because he allegedly raped June Walters a pregnant white woman on February 23 1959. In Howard Smead’s historical nonfiction book Blood Justice he describes one of the most important investigations of a racist, motivated crime in the history of the United States.
Desert Blood, a book by Alicia Gaspar De Alba, is considered to be a mystery novel that covers a seventeen year crime wave. Specifically, the author has focused on the Juarez femicides issue whereby femicide is defined as the murder of females just because they are women. However, in this case, the Juarez victims are the poor and young Mexican females that were murdered because they were poor. The protagonist of this story is Ivon Villa, a professor that focuses on women studies while the antagonists are Silvia Pasquel, Natalia Stregnard and Zabaleta. This paper will therefore focus on the plot summary and analysis of the novelwhile pinpointing the main parts of the story.
What do you think the writer wants his/her readers to think and/or do after reading this book?
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and believe it to be one of the best books I have ever read. It was extremely well written and challenging for me to understand at times. It conveys that dark side of human ambition very well, and it has given me much to think about.
My overall opinion of this book is good I really liked it and recommend it to anyone. It is a good book to read and it keep you interested throughout the whole book.
This is my personal reflection about this book. First and foremost, I would like to say that this book is very thick and long to read. There are about nineteen chapters and 278 pages altogether. As a slow reader, it is a quite hard for me to finish reading it within time. It took me weeks to finish reading it as a whole. Furthermore, it is written in English version. My English is just in average so sometimes I need to refer to dictionary for certain words. Sometimes I use google translate and ask my friends to explain the meaning of certain terms.
Criticisms (Unfavourable): Near the end of the book the dialogue becomes more rhetorical than the rest of the book. This isn’t really a problem, but can become slightly confusing at times. The best option would be to read this part slowly and carefully in order to understand what the message is.
... the ending of the book seemed too abrupt to me, and could be improved by making that a little smoother. It seemed like he was rushing to finish the book toward the end of the book, and quickly wrapped up the story at the end, I think that could be improved, but still nicely written.
From the second half of the book I enjoyed learning new things and being able to find ways that I could relate these things to my life after graduation and my career. The two chapters that I was interested in were chapter 126: “Why do graduates of school for the deaf hold reunions every other year?” chapter 127: “I’ve noticed that Deaf people travel a lot—more than hearing people. Why? And how can they afford to? Where do they get the money?” I believe that I enjoyed these two chapters because it gave me insight on how Deaf people value friendship in each other it also gives me a closer look on the deaf community.
What I wish Momaday would have done to finish the book, would have been to explain how connected he feels to his tribe after he reached the end of his journey. I felt like there was not a proper ending, other than reaching his grandmothers grave. What does he do after he reaches the grave? I also wish Momaday tried to connect with the reader on more of a personal level. I enjoyed his stories, but I feel like the personal paragraphs for each story was lacking. He wrote a lot in the second person, which is good for the story telling aspect. I wish he had elaborated more on the meaning and why he chose the stories and not left the interpretation up to the reader. Personally, I have learned to not leave my writings open ended, as they always seem to be misinterpreted.
I really liked this book because of the stories it had in it, that really helped me understand how bad these times really were, and how the treatment was horrible. I read a lot of how strict they were which was a part of my essay.
I was definitely looking forward to the end of the book, not because I wanted to finish it, but because from the beginning Wright discusses that the end is about the tomorrow, while the entirety of the other parts of the book discusses the yesterday. I find myself always wrapped up in the tomorrow instead of the yesterday, but I am very fortunate to have read the addressing questions that Wright brings up in the book. I can now reflect on the comprehensible challenge that Wright presents – Jesus reigns in and through people.
In Truman Capote’s non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, the Clutter family’s murderers, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, are exposed like never before. The novel allows the reader to experience an intimate understanding of the murderer’s pasts, thoughts, and feelings. It goes into great detail of Smith and Hickock’s pasts which helps to explain the path of life they were walking leading up to the murder’s, as well as the thought’s that were running through their minds after the killings.
The book exemplifies the failure of religion especially in minorities. Any religion that has a “better afterlife” like heaven for