end of book blog

i did not enjoy the end of the book i thought that it was not only bad of huck and tom to "sacrifice" jim  wile they escaped. they could have escaped much easier and faster if they just rescued him not go through with this stupid plan. and then tom wouldnt have gotten shot and huck could still be friends with jim. once huck makes it back into "civilized" society he forgets all about jim. i think it is really bad of him because he and jim were tight. they had a special bond that he probably will never have with another person, because they were equals. and since jim is a black man society wouldnt let huck be friends with him. so in the very end of the book there is no mention of jim and i think that is very wrong, on huck's part. 

At the end of Ch. 23 Jim tells as story about his daughter. What is significant in that story and what does it reveal about Jim?

jim tells the story of his daughter being deaf, but he doesn't know right away that she is deaf. his daughter becomes sick, and when she is better she is deaf. when he tells her to close the door and she ignores him he doesn't know that she cant actually hear him. he hits her and when he realizes that she is actually deaf he feels awful. this is important because firstly is shows that jim has a family that he loves and cares for. and second it shows that jim has a hard side; although, his softer side is much more predominant. 

What do you make of the Duke and the King? Is it wise for Huck and Jim to go along with them?

to me these two men are large scams. I'm not sure if it is going to end up good or bad for huck and jim, but I'm sure that these two men are hiding something. i don't think that it is wise for huck and jim to go with these men that call them selves duke and king. i think that wile huck is trying to do the right thing by helping them, he should have let them pass because the more people they bring and the more they ask questions then the more likely it is that they are going to get found out. 

how are huck and buck similar

well they both live in little back woods cabin with their families, even though huck's was only with his father. other than the obvious, such as their age and height, they are both slightly under educated children. for example neither of them speak perfect english and they seem to live in their own world. this could just be because of their age or their lack of education, but they don't seem to see things in a broad picture. for example when huck asks buck what a feud is, buck tells him that it is a long lasting fight between his family and their rival family. he tells him this instead of defining the word, and huck tends to do this also. 

How do the events in this chapter characterize raftsmen?

based on the events in this chapter raftsmen weren't held to very high respects. first when the two men want to search Huck's raft. this is because they assumed that he would be helping run-away slaves, just because he is a raftsmen. then the incident with the steam boat. steam boat captains didn't think highly of raftsmen at all, they would come very close to hitting them some times knocking a board or two off. this particular boat didn't stop for them they plowed right through them, the only consideration they gave them was when they ran their raft over they turned off the engine. so do to the events in this chapter i would say rafts men were not thought highly of at all. 

Why does Huck want to help the men on the wreck? What does this show us about him?

Huck wants to help the men on the wreck because he knows that its the right thing to do. he starts thinking about the things from his "proper" upbringing, before his drunken father steals him back. he wants to help them because he knows that life is important he wants to try and help them. he also thinks it will make up for doing bad things. this shows that even though he isn't the best kid and he is running away and lying to people that he really does have a good side and now that he is alone on the river with Jim it is starting to come out more. 

What trick does Huck play on Jim? Why is he tricking him now when he didn’t want to before?

Huck finds a dead snake and decides that because Jim is very superstitious about those kinds of things that he will put it near him so in the morning he will see it. the plan back fires on him and the snake's mate comes back to it and then bites Jim. Huck isn't glad Jim got bit he just wanted to play a joke on him he didn't actually want Jim to get hurt. he tricks Jim because Jim is very superstitious so he thinks it would be funny. 

last american man?

is Eustace the last american man? yes i do believe that Eustace Conway is the last American man. he is the last american man because he is the only person left in america that lives off of the land. people in the modern day have developed all kinds of not natural ways to live, Eustace doesn't believe in this. this is why he builds his own house, kills his own food, and preserves his thousands of acres of land. the early american idea of becoming a man is going and living in the "wild" alone. Eustace is the last person in the country to do this. this makes him the last american man. 

no one wanted to work with Eustace because if you didn't do something right he would get frustrated because everything has to be perfect. and everything has to be done his way, he is a bad teacher because he will never listen to other opinions everything must be done how he says. people do not enjoy working with Eustace because he spends the whole time ridiculing them when they don't complete a task EXACTLY how he said to do it. 

horse travel across america

Eustace traveled across american on his horse because he could. he did it because he and his brother got the idea. he did it because he knew that he could if he wanted to. he did it to set a record for crossing the country on horse back. Eustace thinks that he can do anything he wants to, such as ride a horse across America, or any things else he could set his mind to. one think that happened to him during this trip was, because he was pushing his horse so hard and because he was dragging the other two along for the mostly unpleasant, the relationship between eustace and his brother only got worse as the trip went on. 

turtle island

when Eustace opens turtle island as a camp it gives him that many more things to obsess about. he got to teach children the importance of nature and how to use it correctly, but he also needed to have everything done his way. every thing needed to be built by his standards and there was a right and a wrong way to do EVERYTHING. he traveled less because more students came to see him, but he still did some traveling. once Eustace starts turtle island he becomes more determined to change peoples lives. he also becomes more obsessive and stubborn about many things. 

children in africa such as the sudan are discriminated against and arent free. they are put down by rebel forces and given nothing to eat. they are forced to live in camps that can hardly support life. they have to struggle every day just to go get fire wood to cook with. compared to the life of american slaves i think children in africa have it slightly worse because if the rebels kill them then they wouldnt care but the slave owners wanted to keep the slaves alive. 

freedom?

linda in the end of the book is freed. she is freed by being bought for $300. as much as linda loves being free and has been trying to be free for so long she has two major problems with it. one is that she wasn't able to procure the freedom of her family, mainly her children. and her other problem is that her freedom had to be bought. she cant help but still feel of property because of the "bill of sale" that shows her freedom. she is troubled by this because its hard to feel free when you are still being put down and emotionally abused.

north

when linda escapes to the north she does not find anything even close to what she expected to find. when she finally got a train ticket to New York she was confused why she couldn't get a first class seat. when it was finally explained to her she was very disappointed to find the north not as different from the south as she had hoped. when she gets on the second class car she finds it dirty and gross. it is packed full of people and smoke fumes. there are lots of screaming children too. she says that you can get the same treatment in the south, but the only difference about the north is that u have to pay to be treated badly. 

mr. sands

in this chapter Mr. sands promises linda that he will buy her children from Dr. flint and take them to washington where they will be free. when Dr. flint runs into a bit of a financial problem he looks to sell a few slaves, and when he does linda and Mr. sands have come up with a plan to free her children from the evils of slavery. they have a speculator offer to buy linda's children from Dr. flint, little does he know that they are going to Mr. sands and then he plans on taking them north. linda feels like she can trust him with her children, in my opinion this is a bad idea because he doesn't seem that different from most other white men. i think this is going to end up being bad for linda.

chain

linda gets mad when the woman puts the necklace on her daughter because the necklace was a gold chain. she did not want her to feel any such chain. she wanted her to have as much of a normal childhood as she could. much like linda did. the significance of the gold chain is that even if you are a slave and your master is very nice it is still slavery, and it is still very bad. "gold" or not slavery is still one of the worst things that has happened to our country, even if u try to mask it with gold. i liked this part of the book because i thought that this connection between the necklace and chains was a very good one. i especially liked the reference to gold because i felt like that was really important for it to be said from a slaves perspective that it doesn't matter if your master is nice or not being someone's property is the ultimate demoralization a person can have.

interesting passage in text

the part that struck me the most interesting was when she called black men inferior. at first i read it and was confused about why she was contradicting herself, but then i kept reading and realized that this was a really good thought. i had never thought about slavery in this way before. of course black men were not inferior to white men when they are both equal, but when the black man is told every day that he is worthless. when he is repeatedly whipped and not cared for, this would cause anyone to think them self inferior. i think this was one of the most powerful things that she touches on in this book so far.

chapter 1-4 (which i am posting now because its the first time in 2 days that i have had an internet connection)

in chapter 1-4 there were many descriptions of the harsh treatment of slaves. Between mothers watching their sons get sold and people getting nearly beaten to death. She also describes how hard the everyday life for the slaves, it was especially hard to try and keep families together and if they were separated it was even harder to bring them back together. most of the time they would never see each other again. 

the powerful thing about her writing is that it is all written from a slaves prospective so you are getting first had experiences that happened.

COLONIAL PERIOD

The other day in class we got our articles about the colonial period. we are doing a project about the colonial period. from these articles we are picking out important events, people, and dates to talk about in our powerpoint presentation. the first article that i read was about the plymouth colony and their voyage over here in the mayflower. the second article was about the life of a slave. i found this to be very interesting and intriguing. i think that this is a good project that will make us think about things that maybe we haven't thought about before. 

            I was disappointed in the attendance at Gatsby’s funeral. I wasn’t surprised, but I was disappointed because I thought that more people should have been there to support him because even if he was in the middle of not so good dealings he was for the most part a good person and threw pretty good parties.  Only his father, nick, and owl eyes come to his funeral. His father comes because it is his son and he hasn’t seen him for so long he feels its important to come. Nick felt like he was Gatsby’s only true friend and that it was his duty to be there for him. Owl Eyes was only there for symbolism, he represents god and that showed that god was watching, but wouldn’t do anything to help the poor man. 

In my opinion when Gatsby was at lunch with Wolfshiem this was a foreshadowing of events to come dealing with Gatsby’s death. I feel this way because when Wolfshiem and Nick were talking about the other man that died Wolfshiem said that he didn’t go to his funeral. When I read this I was thinking that this could possibly mean that if or when Gatsby dies Wolfshiem wont even attend his funeral. 

Nick finally tells us the truth about Gatsby this late in the book because if he had done it earlier in the book we would have a totally different opinion of him. It is important for the mood of the book that there is a certain mystery about Gatsby, its not till he reunites with Daisy do we find out the truth. Nick saves it for this time because if we knew everything about Gatsby from the start of the book then we would know that he is “new money” and the perspective on people like that in this book isn’t good. That’s bad because Gatsby isn’t really a bad man at all. 

What Gatsby Lost

in this chapter when it says Gatsby lost something it is referring to the chase for Daisy he has spent the majority of his life after the war preparing to meet Daisy once he finds her and when he finally finds her he doesn't know how to act. To me i think he isn't only missing the chase for Daisy but he isn't happy that after all his time it didn't go the way he had dreamed.

i am posting something to make sure it works