Cry,The Beloved Country characterization

In chapters 5 and 6 Paton introduces some female and male characters. When Paton introduces the female characters he calls them Ms. or Mrs. so and so. And if he described any physical appearance he would say they were African. But when he describes the male characters he says they are white or black men. He describes the women with more respect then when be describes the men.

Cry, The Beloved Country Tabs

I tab a portion in chapter two when the first dialogue shows up. I tabbed this because I found it interesting that Paton used - to indicate when someone is speaking instead of quotation marks. I have never seen a writer who uses this form of writing. This also makes me wonder if you would use a - when you quote his dialogue in a paper.

In chapter three I tabbed the section where Paton is describing Stephan's fear of traveling. I thought that this would later play apart in the story when he is actually traveling to Johannesburg. I have a feeling that this fear will cause some sort of problem in the future.

I tabbed the first part of chapter four because I saw that Paton repeated his description of the soil. I thought that it might be used as a symbol in the rest of the novel. I think Paton will use the soil to represent the people in the story who are suffering.

A little later in chapter four I tabbed where railway-lines and stations were repeated twice. I tabbed them because they stuck out to me. I don't remember Paton repeating anything else like that and it showed that he wanted to place emphasis on those two words.

English Hw post 3 - theme

One of the themes in "Lord of the Flies" is, Fear can not be physically changed or destroyed it must be mentally conquered. Some ways that Golding develops this theme is through the use of characters and plot. At one point in the story the boys are having an assembly and start talking about the beast. During this time Jack says, "You say they dream and cry out. Now they talk-not only the littluns, but my hunters sometimes-talk of a thing, a dark thing, a beast, some sort of animal" (85). This quote shows not only the little boys fear but also that Jack maybe worried that there really is something out there even though he would never admit it.

Later in the book Golding continues to develop this theme by the use of plot. In the first page of the chapter "Beast from Air", a dead man falls from the sky landing on the island. At first all the fear was in the boys heads but now they have what they believe is real evidence that there really is a beast. An interesting thing I noticed was that all the boys except for Simon see the beast at nighttime or when it's getting dark. When Simon actually see's what the beast is and tries to tell the boys he ends up dying. It is as if Golding didn't want the boys to find out the truth about the "Beast". The fear that the boys were experiencing was all in their heads. If the boys had taken the time and had the courage to look at the beast during the day they would have realized that the figure they thought was the beast they wouldn't have to be afraid. Having read further on I think even if the boys had figured out the the figure on the mountain wasn't a beast they most likely would have thought that the adults tried to rescue them but was killed by the real beast. So no matter how the boys saw the beast the fear would always be in their heads.

English Hw Post 2

I think that the novel "Lord of the Flies" would be different with female characters because females are very different then males. Females think and act differently. With females in the story I think the boys would have been more civil and fought for different reasons. There would have been the chance for some female input and different brains working on the same problems. Females tend to be more organized and rules would have been more likely to be followed. But considering the way the boys treated Piggy they might have treated the girls as people who are less worthy of opinion and stature because the were different from the boys.

English homwork post 1

One of the decisions that Golding had to make when writing the first page of "Lord of the Flies" was, when he introduced the main character he didn't give him a name right a way, he made us wait. In doing this Golding made us want to know more about this fair haired boy. We wanted to know who this boy was and why in the world was he in this jungle. We were given the boys physical appearance be for his name. I thought that was interesting when I read this because I have never read a book where I have been given the physical appearance before the name and I have read a lot of books.

Another decision that Golding made was how he started the book off. We did not discuss this in class but I feel that it was a important decision that every author has to make. Golding started his book off with Ralph coming out of the jungle and meeting Piggy. He doesn't start out with the plane crashing or the boys boarding the plane or even why the boys were on the plane in the first place. We were aren't told any of this till later in the chapter. I found it very interesting that he started the book out this way.