iKowalski

will do the ones for the second book once i find book two. it is somewhere in my room.

back to this blog, prisoner on the hell planet was an interesting comic, but i wonder if it was abridged in Maus, so that only enough was left to let us see why it would affect his father so much. Mala was right in describing it as highly personal, it seemed far more personal than even maus, perhaps because he did not try to set the story up as a metaphor, but just left things as they were. admittadly, the metaphor in Maus is interesting, especially since the metaphor carries over to the discussions that occured during the making of the book. in most cases, i would say that the lengths they took to hide and escape were extreme, but, during the holocaust, i don;t know what would be to much effort put into hiding.

the reason why i can do these like this is because i finished reading the book a while back, but back to the blog.

it would seem that greed combined with the homegaurd is Inman's antagonist. while niether one indivdually has a a great enough presence to serve as an antagonist, the two combined would seem to work well. the homegaurd would provide a physical existance for greed, which serves as a driving motive. however, since many people oppose Inman at various points, the antagonist for him has to be seperated into to parts, the homegaurd, and greed. Ida's life continues more or less as is the norm now, although ruby's father has showed up. the rest of this blog is a spoiler to the end, so do not read pass this point unless you want to know the end. Inman ends up dying as a result of the homegaurd, although he is able to destroy most of it, perhaps echoing a sentiment that the actions of one man are not enough, that many people must speak out for something to end.

at this point i don;t really think that Inman can be said to have the homegaurd as an enemy, it would seem that his enemy is more of a concept (remember, the greeks thought of gods a real, so odessyus can be said to have a main antagonist. or perhaps literature styles are somewhat cylic in nature, and the greeks once experimented with ideas that we have now). the idea that serves an enemy would seem to be greed, since those who have tried to turn him in, or nearly caused harm to him, have done it out of greed. But can greed be considered an antagonist? Ida now has a semi profitable farm on her hands, and no equivalent of suiters trying to marry her and destroying the lands productivity. then again, most of the suiters would be in the war.

"then he could hear that they were asking her about money', while these people greed may not be directly affecting Inman, he still feels bound to do his best to counter it, strengthening the above point.

Inman continues to have an ill defined antagonist, although it could possibly be argued that it is the homegaurd. in which case, the homegaurd would be the equvalent of posiden in the odessey, which cold mountain mirrors in several ways. for ida, little has changed, except for the emergance of her mentor, which is the person who teaches a protagonist. In effect, the person (ruby) is merlin with ida being arthur in the once and future king.

"make the women and children atone for the deaths of the soldier" page 136, i find this an interesting quote, just because it is shifted away from what someone would expect to be the norm. Although, can one cinsider the death of soldiers on the opposite side atonement? since (depending on beliefs) there may or may not be an afterlife, and atonement is normally considered actions done in life, although hell is in a way a place of atonement. back to the women and children atoning though, can the ever atone for something done by someone else? thats the end of this ramble.

the defining characteristic of the 'modern' novel would seem to be the freedom the author has with the protaganist and antagonist, although at this point in the novel there could still be a main antagonist for inman, while ida has a man against nature as her theme.

so far Cold mountain has been a fairly interesting book, with Inman being an injured in the civil war, and the subsequently deciding to desert, meaning that he has to be careful on his journey home. Ida is the girl he is seeking to return to, who, with the death of her father, is now in control of an estate without workers and no idea how to manage it.

"inman decided to risk going to the whitewashed store" page 72 shows inmans care on hishomeward journey, against his need to buy supplies.

sorry about the factual errors in the last blog, i got confused.

redolent, page 151- having a pleasant odor; fragrant. many fruits have redolent smells

 corroborate, page 154- to make more certain; confirm. the police were able to corroborate his story.

"I didn't want to leave gatsby" page 153, this shows how much Nick is now bound to Gatsby, since he now knows all of the story that is Gatsby's life (barring a few things, especially things relating to Wolfsheim). I think that knowing about Gatsby bound him to him because, because he now understood the gestures Gatsby was making in life, how they were in a way the gestures of a man who has not realized hope is lost. It is this searching for lost things that i think Nick mentions as despising in the begginning of the book, because that which is lost cannot be truly reattained. However, while he may despise these actions, I feel that he was bound to help Gatsby in the end because he had helped him search for these things, by reintroducing Gatsby to Daisy, and helping feed Gatsby's hopes. If he had instead, perhaps crushed the hopes, he realizes that Gatsby may have been somehow, better off, mentally and spirtually.

since i think this is the first time i'm including page numbers, this is the none authorized version, so add five and it should be the same as the authorized.

despicable- deserving to be despised; contemptible

truculent- fierce; cruel; savagely brutal."he told the first policeman it was light green", for this quote i am going to focus on the color of the 'death car', because in this case the color seems important to Myrtle's death. Green is typically seen as a color representing envy, hence people turning green with envy, and for Myrtle, when she saw the yellow coupe, she observed it with envy. Thus, since she was killed in an accident involving the same car that she envied (rushing headlong at it), it seems clear the choice of her car being green is important.