By degrees the monster wins the war, and as a result drives Gene to trounce the branch and end Finny's athletic career permanently. He feels guilty but doesn't know what can be done, whether he is even responsible. It's debatable whether we can call it an accident, whether it was his fault- after all, we can't control (or suppress) our subconscious urges, but they are as much a part of us as our flesh and bones. For a long while he intends to hide the truth from everyone around him, but no one so much as suspects him at first. Since he has no accusations from which to defend himself, the guilt eats at him even more, because he has nobody to even profess his innocence to, he's just left to the silent mocking of his own mind.

Finally, when he goes to visit Phineas in the hospital, he resigns himself to telling his friend the truth, “that's what Finny would have done in my place,” he decides. This mollifies Gene's guilt somewhat, and consequently strengthens their friendship via his willingness to speak to Finny again. Coupled with the passage of time, which is this case heals wounds both physical and spiritual, the increased honesty between the two of them goads Gene to try to make it up to him, in a sense. For example, he tolerates and to a point believes Finny's drivel about the war being a hoax, if only as a show of goodwill. He begins to feel better about the whole situation, and life in general, and starts to believe that maybe things will turn around for him.

However, these hopes are crushed by the “trial” because Gene knows that under the combined duress of Brinker and all his minions, Phineas will eventually succumb to the allegations against his best friend. After he is forced to accept reality, he cannot cope with it. He was too much of an idealist for this world, and in the end it killed him. The world had beaten down upon him. The same is true of Gene, really. The very occurrence of the accident killed his optimism, so that he was rendered unsuitable to face reality, a fact that haunts him for fifteen years. It is not until he returns to Devon that he can shake off the fog of guilt that has so thoroughly consumed his mind.

When Gene does return to Devon, he is finally able to face his demons, and forgive himself for what he's done. He had made peace with Finny long ago, but still blamed himself for all that had happened. I think in this case it's true that we are our toughest critics, because we can regret the deeds we've committed. Therein lies the difference- we do not feel bad about being wronged, we don't regret it. The people we hurt may give us their blessing, and we accept it, but the fact remains that they feel no lament, as there was nothing they could have done differently. In this respect we are certainly harder on ourselves than we need to be, a lesson Gene learned the hard way. I think ultimately we sometimes need to just come to terms with our faults and move on. If he had, in the very beginning, he could have had a very different life- one of tranquility, and his own internal separate peace.

Because Grant is continually emasculated in society, he finds it difficult to be a mentor to Jefferson, and also feels powerless against prevailing white oppression. When Grant goes to visit Pichot’s plantation he has to wait in the kitchen with the hired help. This emasculates Grant because he feels like less of a man because he has to stay in the kitchen like a hog. Grant also is emasculated when he asks his professor in college for a book and the professor has to pull lots of strings to get it from the white library. Because of all of these emasculatory incidences, Grant finds it difficult to mentor Jefferson.

Despite his own high level of education, Grant’s frequent witness to the racial inequality at work in the south’s educational system reinforces his own sense of despair and hopelessness. When Grant goes to the store to buy a radio, he encounters racial inequality from the store clerk, “She started up the aisle toward the cash register, but just about then another white woman came into the store. The clerk set the radio beside the cash register and went to see what the white woman wanted” (Gaines 176).

This blatant act of racism reinforces Grant’s sense of despair and hopelessness. He feels as though he will never move up above being just another black man. Grant also sees racism when the superintendent comes to check on his school. The superintendent checks on the children’s hygiene more than their academic skills, and when he does test their academic skills he picks on the less smart children. Grant notices this and takes offense to it, but he is not able to say anything though because he is black. Grant sure gets hopeless.

In this piece she makes use of the following rhetorical devices possible, division, and greater, in order to express the importance of the relationship between reader and author, and how the exploration of this relationship, is crucial to one's reading experience.

First, Virginia Woolf portrays her point of view as accessible, with the use of the Possible Mindset. She suggests taking down all your preconceptions of literature, and to commence reading with a flexible mind. “If you hang back, and reserve and criticise at first, you are preventing yourself from getting the fullest possible value from what you read.” She chose her words carefully, she makes it extremely obvious how imperative it is to be capable of taking your own perception of each reading, and in time, transform it according to personal perspective. She advises at first though, to observe without any bias, and to exercise judgment second. Despite the gravity of this responsibility, she makes it known, that it is competent of all readers.

Virginia Woolf also suggests writing as a tool to understand and appreciate the gift of a writer. “Then turn from your blurred and littered pages to the opening pages of some great novelist…Now you will be better able to appreciate their mastery. It is not merely that we are in the presence of a different person, but in a different world.” Woolf introduces to us again the Possible Concept, while making us better able to appreciate authors and the situations they present to us in their novels in the Greater Concept. She employs the use of metaphor by comparing literature as windows into the past, bringing two worlds together, the past, and the present, as well as the future. This advises the reader, to once again keep an open mind in their perceptions of novels, and to introduce old concepts to new concepts. She suggests that mystery may reveal itself through novels, and that authors exist as guides through the oblique mystery of reading.

Virginia Woolf also makes use of Division, by carefully analyzing the stylistic qualities of different pieces of writing, and suggesting ways on how to interpret them appropriately. For instance, when speaking of poetry Woolf makes it clear, that there is no prepared perception of poetry, the reaction is unique from one individual to the next. “Thus we create the mood, intense and generalized, unaware of detail, but stressed by some regular, recurrent beat, whose natural expression is poetry; and that is the time to read poetry when we are most able to write it.” She once again, makes it seem possible and accessible to all readers, demonstrating how poetry unfurls itself by first writing it, and appreciating it. She also exhibits how poetry is personal, that there is significance without perceiving it's understood meaning, it reveals it's own purpose within each individual reader. She also then makes a division and explains fiction. She also characterizes biographies as roadmaps into people's lives, as well as past events. Each class of writing is classified by their reader's reaction.

Virginia Woolf wishes to introduce to each reader, the acknowledgeable gift of judging the values behind each method of writing. The most important value expressed by Virginia Woolf is the personalization of each piece of writing, and how it received differently and exclusively from each individual. She demonstrates ways to adapt and challenge your mind to conform to different techniques of writing, and shows how being a reader, is the ultimate reward.

Asher's first struggles between art and religion begin when he is a young boy. Because he goes to a Jewish school, all of his potential friends are Jewish and they do not take kindly to his drawing habits. They ostracize him and therefore force him even deeper into his drawing habits. "'A boy Asher's age should not be by himself all the time.' 'Asher likes being by himself.' 'It isn't healthy. It leaves scars. You don't want to leave scars on the boy.'" (Pg. 19). Asher spends much of his time by himself, often drawing in his room. Asher's father is the only one who recognizes the significance of this and how it could affect Asher's social life later on. This simple ostracizing eventually turns into explicit insults and attacks on Asher.

"I could also hear the high piercing voice, 'Here comes Asher Picasso Lev, the destroyer of Torah. Make way for goy Lev. Hey, Asher, do you draw dirty pictures, too? Draw a dirty picture for the Mashpia.'" (221). Asher tries to satisfy his artistic desires and fit in as a normal Jew at the same time, and obviously it isn't working very well. Now his peers don't just ostracize him, they openly criticize him. By trying to satisfy his art and religion, Asher loses many potential friends, and he never really connects with any of ‘his people'.
While Asher's peers immediately reject him for his artistic tendencies, his parents are a different case. When Asher is younger, his parents are able to see the dangerous potential in his drawing, but they blow it off as a phase. "Go wash your hands. You are driving us all crazy with your pictures and your stubbornness. What kind of Jewish boy behaves this way to a mother and father? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.'" (Pg. 106). Asher's parents express their disappointment and annoyance in Asher's habits by scolding him, but they never take action.

They support his drawing a little because all good parents should support their children, but they expect that he will grow out of his drawing habit, move on, and join the rest of the Jewish community. However, as time goes on, Asher's parents slowly begin to realize that their expectations will not be met. "'Asher, come with us to Europe.' ‘No,' ‘We miss you. I miss you. There are great art schools in Vienna.' ‘No.' ‘Asher-‘ ‘He'll try to take it away from me. No.'" (Pg. 257). At this point, Asher's parents realize that it is too late to save their child from drawing and that all they can do is hope that he doesn't do anything worse. "'Do not forget your people, Asher. That is all I ask of you. That is all that is left for me to ask of you.'" (Pg. 216). Asher could simply desert his family and deserted his religion, but he decides to keep trying to find equilibrium.

Towards the end of the novel, he takes his parents to an art show to show them a picture he had painted for his mother. The drawing of a crucifix did not go over very well with his parents, and after that they spoke to him very little. Additionally, the Rebbe kicked him out of the Jewish community he had been a part of. In the end, Asher ended his relationship with his parents because he kept trying to establish a connection with them between art and religion.

As if losing all of his friends and family were not enough, Asher also loses most of his sense of identity. Asher first realizes the insecurity of his identity when he tries breaking out of his obedient Jewish mold by staying out very late. "Where had I been? Did I know what time it was? My mother was sick with fear and had gone to bed. They had called the police. She had just called them back to tell them I was home. What was I doing? I was driving everybody crazy." (Pg. 115). Asher finds himself second-guessing his own motives and he asks himself if he should continue to act rebellious or if he should try to honor his parents and his religion. "I would not paint on Shabbos. I spent Shabbos mornings praying and reviewing the Torah reading. I spent Shabbos afternoons studying a book on Hasidus I had brought with me." (Pg. 239). It appears that Asher wants to remain committed to his religion, but all this really shows is his lack of identity. After deserting his parents and being ostracized by most of the Jewish community, there is no reason for Asher to continue his traditions other than to regain some of his lost identity.

While Asher does have some identity in art, people have been attacking it his whole life. At the same time, his aggressors always stressed religion, and so that is what he is reaching out to for identity. Sadly, striving for identity is not the same as having identity and in the end, the only identity he has is what little he has left in art.

Asher Lev constantly tries to bring his artwork and religion to an equilibrium. Yet when tries to be two people at once, he fails utterly, and he slowly destroys himself and his relationships. All the other kids at school dislike his drawing habits, and so he never develops any friendships. Asher's parents want to help him and they want to understand, but they are so engrained in their own culture that it is impossible for them to connect with their son. Finally, he loses his sense of identity because he attempts to immerse himself in both the secular world of art, and the religious world of Judaism. Neither of these offers him very much comfort or security while the other is preset in his life because of their complete incompatibility. Asher's unwillingness to be decisive and choose one or the other causes him to lose many that are dear to him

As time passes it begins to look as though he has gone from acting insane to actually being insane. Ophelia is another character that is shown to be mad within the play. She is the daughter of Polonius, the advisor of King Claudius. She deeply loves Hamlet, but leaves him when her father commands her. It is after this that Hamlet's madness begins to show itself. Ophelia is stricken with her own madness when Hamlet accidentally kills her father and is then sent away to England. It is during this time that she dies, but it is left up to the audience to decide if she died accidentally or committed suicide. It is through these two characters that a clear picture madness comes to mind. Madness in the play is shown through Hamlet and Ophelia.

Although hamlet is mad by the end of the play, he is not so at the beginning. For example, after he sees the ghost of his father, Hamlet devises a plan to see if what the ghost said to him was the truth or a demon's lie, "As I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on" (1.5.176). Hamlet knows that as the Prince of Denmark people will look at him every time that he enters a room. To get around this he would have to act crazy until people will not take notice of him whenever he walks into a room. Hamlet is not mad at this point because he is shown to be thinking clearly and is able to come up with a plan that makes logical sense. Hamlet may not be mad yet, but his act is so good that it is hard to tell throughout the play when he is acting and when he is not.

A second way that Hamlet shows that his madness is only an act at first is when he confesses it openly to his mother during the scene that he kills Polonius in my accident, "It is not madness/That I have uttered" (3.4.147-148). With this single confession Hamlet shows the audience as well as his mother that he is in fact thinking rationally even when it seems that he is not. To act mad when one is in fact sane would have taken a lot of acting skills on Hamlet's part. The confession alone shows that Hamlet is sane up until that point in time, at least. Although Hamlet may sound sane as he starts to turn, his actions before and after it bring the whole confession of sanity into question as a whole. Hamlet may appear to be sane, but insanity may already be taking a small root inside him.

One way Hamlet can be shown to be insane takes place during the scene that he confesses to his mother that he has only been acting crazy. During the scene Hamlet sees the ghost of his father again, only this time he is the only one that sees it, "To whom do you speak this?" (3.4.135). The Queen cannot see the ghost of her former husband, and from that she believes that Hamlet is seeing things when he is preaching to her that he is not crazy. Because she believes that Hamlet is seeing things she does not believe his confession at all. Because she does not believe his confession she believes that Hamlet is sick of mind. From this we can see that madness in Hamlet may already be taking over his mind, for when he first saw the ghost of his father it was dressed differently and more than one person saw it. From this the Queen still thinks that her son is insane, "Alas, he's mad" (3.4.109). Now that the Queen is sure that Hamlet is mad she is sure not to trust anything that he says to her. Even if he were to tell her how Claudius murdered his father she would only think that it is a wild story coming from the lips of an insane man. Now the Queen believes without a doubt that Hamlet is insane. Hamlet is now labeled crazy by all but those who are in on the plan with him. Now that most people think of him as crazy, the people closest to him begin to wonder if they are right or not, for it is getting hard to tell when Hamlet is acting and when he is not.

Since it appears to most that Hamlet is insane they must ask themselves why he is so to begin with. Polonius thinks that it may be because he ordered his daughter, Ophelia, to leave Hamlet for fear that he did not really love her and was only using her to his own means, "That hath made him mad./I am sorry that with better heed and judgment/I had not coted him. I feared he did but trible/and meant to wreak thee. But beshew my jealousy!" (2.1.111-114). Ophelia tells her father that Hamlet's madness started after she obeyed his command to leave Hamlet and take no token of affection from him ever again. With that in his mind Polonius sees that unreturned love must be the spring from which the madness within Hamlet's mind sprung from. This is but one possibility to how madness entered into Hamlet. Hamlet can be called mad here because the grief within his broken heart has begun to take over him. With a broken heart in mind King Claudius and Polonius set a trap to spy on Hamlet, hoping to find out if this is the truth cause of Hamlet's madness, or that it is from something else entirely, "Madness in great ones must no unwatched go" (3.1.154). If the madness in Hamlet goes unwatched he could end up doing something so crazy that it ends up hurting Denmark. Even if it does not go that far, someone is bound to be hurt in the process, or even killed. By watching Hamlet they can find out what has caused his madness and possibly help him with it. Hamlet's act of madness is so good that he actually has people watching him to see why he is acting the way that he is acting. Hamlet is not the only character in the play that is shown to have madness within them.

Near the end of the play it is made clear to the audience that Ophelia has gone insane. An example of this is when her brother, Larates, has returned to Denmark from France and she seems to take no notice of him and is either talking to people who are not there or misinterpreting the people that she does see, "I hope all will be well. We must be patient, /but I cannot choose but weep to think they would/lay him i'th' cold ground. My brother shall know/of it, and so I thank you for your counsel. /Come, my coach! Good night, ladies, good night, /sweet ladies, good night, good night" (4.5.69-74). Ophelia has been driven over the edge by the death of her father at the hands of Hamlet. In the space of a short period of time she has lost both her love and a close relative of her. Something like that would drive anyone insane, which in this case it really makes her insane. Ophelia is shown to be mad because she begins to act weird in places that others would be normal.

After the death of her father Ophelia begins to show weird traits, one of which is speaking in a short of gibberish, "Pray let's have no words of this, but when/they ask you what it means, say you this:/ Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's day,/ All in the morning betime,/ and I am a maid at your window,/ To be your Valentine./Then up he rose and donned his clothes/And dupped the chamber door,/ Let in the maid, that out a maid/Never departed more" (4.5.47-56). Ophelia speaks only in gibberish and none of the people that are around her seem to know what it all means. Although it is never stated in the text, the maid line could be Ophelia's way of telling the people around her that she is pregnant with Hamlet's baby, but of that it is hard to say. Although gibberish could be spoken by a sane person, it is normally the trait of a crazy person. Because of this Ophelia could be considered insane. That is how madness is shown within the play.

Hamlet and Ophelia are two characters that show the madness that is within the play. In the beginning Hamlet is not an insane man, but is rational and clear thinking in his actions. He comes up with a plan to start acting insane to find out if the ghost of his father was speaking the truth when it appeared before him, and for the most part it does work. Even when he confesses that it is only an act no one believes his words because of how good he was at acting insane. When Hamlet confesses his secret to his mother, Queen Gertrude, she begins to think that he is even more insane than she first thought. The reason for this is because when he is confessing his sanity he claims that he sees the ghost of his father watching the two of them, telling Hamlet to kill Claudius, but to leave Gertrude alone. However, unlike before Hamlet is the only one who can see the ghost of his father, who is now dressed in rags instead of the armor he whore the last time they met. Gertrude believes that the ghost that Hamlet sees is only in his mind, so she feels that his mind is going fast. When everyone believes that Hamlet is crazy they try to find out the reason for his madness. Polonius believes that it may have been born from the unreturned love of his daughter, Ophelia.

When he tells Claudius this the king comes up with a plan to find out if this is the reason for his nephew-son's madness: they shall watch Hamlet as he talks with Ophelia and watch the reactions. After Polonius is accidentally killed by Hamlet Ophelia's grief begins to turn her mind from sanity to insanity to the point that she is almost unrecognizable from what she was only a week or so earlier. When Larates returns home from France Ophelia does not seem to recognize her own brother. To add to that she is only speaking in gibberish. Madness is defined as a semi-permanent mental disorder, typically stemming from a form of mental illness. Over the course of the play the minds of both Hamlet and Ophelia begin to crumble away into nothingness from the events that have been going on around them in their lives. As time passes they get worse and worse until they finally snap and do something rash. Hamlet's is the revenge murder of Claudius after it is discovered that the cup of wine that Gertrude drank from was poisoned and that it was meant for him. For Ophelia it is her apparent suicide. It just makes you wonder what would have happened if old Hamlet had not been murdered by his brother, Claudius.

In the introduction of the book, Burgess writes, “…by definition, a human being is endowed with free will. He can use this to choose between good and evil.”(ix) Alex, in accordance with existentialist ideas, creates his own existence, based solely upon his own actions, yet he also chooses to use his free will for what world considers to be evil. During the first part of the story, Alex, fifteen at the time, goes around with his droogs*, George, Pete, and Dim, beating up the old and poor, robbing houses and businesses, and even shamelessly raping women, all without consideration of any wrongdoing. This shows Alex to be somewhat of a neo-stoic. He cares not for the emotions and opinions of others, and disregards the effects of his actions on the realities of others, including those of his pee and em* and his fellow droogmates. Overall, Alex is dangerously abusive of his free will and his personal influence on the world.

As the book progresses, Alex receives a rude awakening from his carefree lifestyle, catalyzed by his droogs betraying him during one of their insidious acts. Alex is trapped by his partners in a house he is attempting to rob, then arrested by the millicents* and imprisoned for killing the owner of the house. In a matter of days, Alex goes from being a man whose complete freedom is seemingly impermeable to outside influences, to living an existence where every aspect of life is restricted in some way. Yet even in this situation, Alex can distinguish between black and white, and act in accordance to either good or evil, thus he can still influence himself and the rest of the world.

Later in the story, after accidentally killing one of his cellmates in a fight, our protagonist is subjected to a fate that some would consider to be worse than death, described by one character, the prison chaplain, as, “…a region where you will be beyond the reach of the power of prayer. A terrible thing to consider.”(97) What he means by this is that our little Alex, after special treatment that will subliminally affect his mind, will no longer be able to decide between good and evil, but instead be mechanically driven to do right. In doing this, Alex's ability to engage in free thought and decide his own actions is destroyed, leaving him with only minuscule control over his life and surroundings. When he goes out into society in this state, partly because of his new mind and partly due to his old evil ways, Alex simply cannot function, and is beaten within an inch of his life by the people he hurt in his past. This models both the general concept of karma and the necessity of freedom of choice in humanity.

In the final chapter of the book, after Alex is cured of his horrible mental malady, Burgess goes on to compare the concepts of human freedom and human nature, but that is an entirely different topic with no place in this analysis, of which I only bring up for conclusive purposes.

Throughout the course of the book, the effects of Alex's actions constantly come back around to affect him at a later time. This in turn, influences what kind of actions he may take in the future. When Alex does wrong, he finds himself in worse and worse situations, until right is the only thing he has the ability to do. This all goes to show how actions and reaction are constantly affecting the world and everybody who lives in it, and that while human freedom is a true concept, it only has as much power as fate cares to give it.

The Lenni Lenape Indian's culture is hard to interpret correctly, but its best values are sharing, responsibility, and loving nature. The Indians feel that if you have something you don't need the item is rightfully the Indian's to take if he needs it. In the right minds of the whites, we would consider this stealing, but for the Indians everything is theirs. For example, in the novel, on page 137 True Son and Half Arrow saw the two boats that belong to a trader and Half Arrow say he should get the boats since the whites have stolen from the Indians. Plus it is a custom for the Indians since the trader doesn't need it right now. With this action the Indians have flourished since they can take anything around and live among each other as each Indians provide one another with everyone's needs. Even with all this, each Indian still has his or her own daily responsibilities. For example, True Son has to venture outside with his Indian comrades. He is given the responsibility of bait to bring his white relatives to come to shore (pg. 164). Instead of killing his white kin, he tells them what was really going on and saves the settlers' lives. This proves that he is not responsible to his own people, and then he must be burned. And it is awkward too, since the Indians love nature, but still burn peoples. For instance on page 176, True Son calls all of Mother Nature names such as father, sisters, brothers, and mothers. This shows that they treat nature as their own kin and enjoy it whenever they can as it cleanse their souls with fresh air and sounds in the woods. Therefore, nature fills them with everything they need because almost anything can happen in a blink of any eye as nature fills in the empty space of life in heaven.

Some of the greatest values of the settlers are comfort, family rules, and security. For the settlers, they cannot live without a fork, spoon, sleep in a bed, etc. We are like control by a civilized god that civilized everything we do. For example on page 76 in the novel Bejance explain to the boys that they live in comfort unlike living free in the woods. The settlers have a restrain since if they don't have those “fancy beds” etc. then they won't feel comfort enough and might perish. And have all those luxury items, there also are family rules. For example on page 67-70, True Son gets his first lesson of discipline as he meets his uncles. He is rude to his Uncle Wilse and got a good hard punishment as he learns to respect his kin and white elders. This proves that the elders in the settlers' family have more control over the decision. The settler's family rules have a strict preference since sometimes they take matter to their own hands. And with rules, there comes a strict security system. The whites have to defend against the Indians themselves. For example on page 69, his uncle tells him that they have to do what they have to do to protect their family and must always keep on guard for Indians. The settlers' security is so high that they seem to be ready for any attacks that the Indians do. Therefore, the settlers' security must be on guard because if the settlers lose control then anything is vulnerable to happen as death may come upon them.

The most important values that let the settlers triumph were their vast of arms, farming, and housing. First of all, the whites have a vast collection of arms, however, the Indians uses weapons that they make from trees or bought from traders. From way back in history, when the whites were fighting the Indians, the whites had the offensive and are superior over the Indian while the Indian were good at defense since they know that land more. This value lets the settlers won because they driven the Indians further back and when there is no place for the Indians to hide the settlers kills the Indians. Even with this technique, the settlers need food to live so they start farming. From way back in history, the pilgrims didn't have anything to eat so they had to ask Squanto to help them farm. Farming is a value that let the settlers triumph because the settlers could survive and create more population, but for the Indians it is different. It is different for the Indians because on page 116 Half Arrow says that he ate yesterday. This means that the Indians have to rely on the forest for food or they will die. With these two only one value is left: housing. The whites have housing because they need a place to keep them safe. I think this let the whites triumph because they have a shelter where it can protect them from attacks but the Indians have to stay out of in the open. For example, on page 127 True Son and Half Arrow enjoy nature while sleeping on the ground. This proves that the Indian are not so cautious since they can be kill by any lurking eyes around them. Eventually these values let the settlers triumph while the Indians were lost forever.

The values that our world is missing today that the Lenni Lenape's cultures have supplies are freedom, sharing, and respecting nature. First of all, freedom for the Indian is different. For example on page 127 True Son is enjoying the fresh air and all his little friends, but for the settlers they have to live in a lock-up place, and have to followed rules. We desperately need freedom because then we would at least experience the joy of no rules. But with freedom there comes a time when someone is in need which leads to sharing. Sharing is one of the values we are missing because our kinds don't help other people. There are people that are homeless and who are orphans and we don't even have a heart to help them. Our minds have been corrupt so we only think of ourselves, but not others. But there are still things we need to help other than those people. We are missing respecting nature. We don't even respect nature since we liter and cut down trees to build houses. We only think of building industries and finding more treasures while we destroy the environment. I think we desperately need this goal because we need a safer and cleaner environment so there would be fewer diseases.

Therefore, I think that the settler and Indians culture has not yet fully understand or accepted each other culture so that cause destruction to the Indians while the white settlers triumph. Just don't open the window to the new world too much or it might cause chaos.

The book takes place mostly during World War II. However, it does give some information over the time both before and after the war. The years in this book range from Japan's early interactions with America in the 1850's all the way toe the results of the Rape and the war in the 1980's. The main location in the book is Asia, in particular Japan and China. It also mentions a few islands on which the Japanese fought, including the infamous Pearl Harbor bombing.

The first major event that occurs in the book is the visit of Matthew Perry to Japan. This visit gave the Japanese the first glimpse of steam power along with a showing of the military might of America. The visit eventually leads to the industrialization of Japan, the adoption of bushido as the moral code for the people, and the building of its army in hopes to become more powerful than even the Western nations.

The training of the army began in frenzy. Starting from elementary school onward, everything taught in the schools helped prepare the people for war. Children would be seen marching by the thousands in straight lines. Also, the abuse used by the teachers, such as slapping the students, hitting them with fists, and smacking them with bamboo weapons, only served to harden them for the future. Only more abuse followed these brutal first years if you wished to continue towards a military career. Military schools were isolated, and while there, you were taught to kill without feeling. In fact, some soldiers lost all feeling to the point where they would compare the Chinese people to pigs. According to the diary of one Japanese soldier, “a pig is more valuable now than the life of a [Chinese] human being. That's because a pig is edible” (page 218).

Finally, in 1894, war broke out between Japan and China over Korea. Within six weeks, the war was over, and Japan had won. Then, in 1905, the Japanese went to war with Russia, again emerging victorious. These victories marked Japan's emergence as a military power in Asia. One activist even went as far as to prophesize that “…these two countries [America and Japan] are destined to fight. Only God knows when it will be” (page 27). As World War I came and went, the Japanese economy flourished. However, this prosperity soon ended with food shortages and thousands of homeless. Radicals in the army soon began to argue that the only solution to these problems is military expansion. Tensions began to grow in the 1930's as Japan took over Manchuria and bombed Shanghai. But these were only minor incidents compared to what was to happen in only a few short years.

Japan soon started a full-scale war with China in the summer of 1937. The invasion of China's mainland began with Japanese defeating the city of Shanghai. However, this task proved to be much more difficult than the Japanese anticipated. When Shanghai finally fell after months of fighting, the city was destroyed. Japanese troops then marched on Nanking with revenge in their minds. While on the warpath, the Japanese burned and pillaged almost everything, from small villages to large cities. One city that was hit particularly hard was Suchow, a city located on Tai Hu Lake. According to China Weekly Review, the invasion “caused the population of the city to drop from 350,000 to less than 500” (page 38). Finally, in December of 1937, the Japanese reached Nanking.

Fighting around Nanking began on December 9 when the Chinese refused to surrender the city. Even though the Chinese outnumbered the Japanese and had enough ammunition to last five months of siege, the city fell in only four short days. This was due to many reasons, including that orders could not be spread among the entire army. Therefore, when the army was ordered to make a retreat, only about half the troops received the order. What started as an orderly retreat quickly became a rout. By the time it was all over, around 90,000 Chinese troops had surrendered. Then the killing and the rape began.

The Japanese killed tens of thousands of soldiers, using the excuse that they didn't have the food to feed so many POW's. Even so, hundreds of thousands of Nanking civilians who possessed no weapons were tortured and killed. Numerous methods of torture and extermination were used. These included live burials, mutilation, death by burning, death by freezing, and death by dogs. At some points, the Japanese would entertain themselves during these mass exterminations by having killing contests. During one of these, the only survivor recounts that “…a pregnant woman began to fight for her life…in the end the soldier killed her ripping open her belly with his bayonet and jerking out not only her intestines but a squirming fetus…” (page 86). Also, tens of thousands of Chinese women became the victims of rape. Many of these women were killed right afterwards or died of diseases after months of continuous rape. However, even in these times of death and despair, heroes emerged from the pack.

Some of these people were attacked by the Japanese, yet survived through unbelievable odds. For example, a rape victim had her head nearly severed down to her vertebral column, yet managed to survive long enough for surgeons to sew her neck back on. Another woman was stabbed thirty-seven times when she fought her Japanese captors, yet is still alive today to tell the tale. Also, the small group of foreigners, consisting mainly of Germans and Americans, in Nanking at that time made valiant efforts to save the Chinese civilians from death and rape. They first established a Nanking Safety Zone which housed over 300,000 civilians by the time the Rape had ended. They managed to feed these people, and continuously patrolled the Safety Zone to prevent the Japanese from attacking the people within the zone. Many of these people ended up suffering for their heroic actions.

After about six main weeks of torture, rape, and mass murder, the majority of violence ended. Finally, World War II came to an end with the dropping of the Uranium bomb on Hiroshima, and the Plutonium bomb on Nagasaki. Finally, on August 14, the Japanese surrendered. Following this were the war crime trials. Thousands of Chinese citizens attended these to act as witnesses while tens of thousands of others came to see the execution of Japanese war criminals. For example, on the day when one criminal, Tani Hisao's verdict was announced, the “courtroom was not large enough to accommodate everyone who wanted to attend. More than two thousand spectators packed the courtroom while loudspeaker [broadcasted] the proceedings to tens of thousands of residents gathered outside” (page 171). However, only a small portion of the Japanese criminals were caught and executed. This was brought upon by the Cold War, and America's desire to make Japan a sort of “puppet” so that all of Asia would not be lost. Therefore, the amount of money Japan had to pay was minimal and many former criminals were allowed to stay in relative comfort.

I felt that all of the information that the author presented was relevant, though some aspects of it may have been repeated more than enough. At some points, the details were extremely gruesome and gory, but were necessary for the overall gist of the book. I felt it was important that all these facts be placed in here because people need to know everything that has happened, especially those in denial about the Rape of Nanking's occurrence. This is especially important in that “[t]hose who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (page 16). I learned lots of information from this book, and would definitely recommend it in the future to any looking to learn more on this topic.

One of many themes that I saw in the text was that looks can be deceiving (or different from reality). Jing-mei fools her piano teacher into thinking that she is playing things right. She probably started of by playing somewhat defiantly, and gradually took advantage of her piano teacher's deafness. In the process of deceiving the piano teacher, she also deceives her mother. Jing-mei's mom works hard to give Jing-mei an education. This relates to the quote because Jing-mei does literally get away with mistakes, but it might also mean that she started slacking in her academics. Laziness most of the time only starts getting bigger. It's hard to break a habit that you're used to.

Many themes can be found throughout this story. Another one that I found was you can be your own enemy. If she had stopped herself from trying to be lazy and tried to do the work, she could have been one of the leading pianist, and maybe even a prodigy. It was perfectly fine that she didn't want to be someone she didn't want to be, but the way she showed that was what happened wrong. Jing-mei's mom only did what any other mother would do, by trying to give the best for her. Apparently Jing-mei was under a lot of stress especially for one without much age. Her irresponsibility is shown up when she does the talent show and completely blows it. It is shown that her parents had done a bit of bragging about her daughter's music skills, which only adds to their humiliation. Even after that, her mom does not give up hope, she keeps trying.

Jing-mei does make mistakes, a lot of mistakes.

When her mother offers her the piano after the many years, she plainly refuses it, probably because it represented a tough time in her life. Or maybe she didn't want to give her mother the satisfaction. But after her mother dies, she does play it and get it in tune. Jing-mei was surprised to find that her mother still didn't lose hope in her and maybe even forgave her. She seems to appreciate her mother much more than she used to in her childhood later on. Her mother's dresses and items were kept in secure containers. When she plays the songs on the piano, she realizes they're same part of one. This is a symbolism that can refer to two things: one to her and her childhood self, and one between her mother and her. Even after she made all those mistakes in her life according to the quote, her mother forgave her, and she never gave up on Jing-mei.

Understandably, Bradbury could not have known what a great book he was writing at the time. The purpose of this book was to teach people to leave the television and the families' people had created on the screens and go back to reading classic literature. As he says “There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them”. He also said that television is a thoughtless activity and as every one of those quarter second clips goes by on the screen we forget to think, all the fast pictures going by makes us think we're thinking. Books are not the opposite of televisions as they do not teach us how to think, but they are the catalyst for individually developing our minds in a good way. The main character Guy Montag brings up a story from his youth about how his older roguish cousin paid him to fill a sieve with sand at the beach. He continually tries and tries to fill it up, but the sand always sifts through. This is how books work with our minds, they never stick around for too long, but you have to keep trying because putting something worthwhile into your brain continuously is better than nothing at all. If no one ever put any literature, books, or truth into their minds, the world would turn into an awful place.

My version of what the word dystopian means is that the world has come out the opposite of what we wanted it to be like. I know that's kind of a crude description, but I've grown a love of dystopian style art. Movies like Idiocracy, Pleasantville, and Brazil show artist renderings of what they think the world will be like as we continue on our current course of action. Books like Fahrenheit 451, 1984, and Brave New World have much in common with the movies I mentioned earlier, but the one central idea that all anti-utopian media outlets possess is that mankind has become a wasteland of human thought.

The big difference that gives Fahrenheit 451 the edge over all the others of its genre is that it gives a logical and feasible reason to the breakdown of the mind, the choice to quit reading. Is today the same as Bradbury's depiction of the future? No, we aren't even close, colleges are still teaching liberal arts to young minds, English classes can still give reading assignments, and bookstores are still legal. Are we heading down the same path as the book? My unfortunate instinctual answer is yes, websites like Wikipedia, Sparknotes and Cliffnotes.com are shortening books so that whole works of literature can be read in under an hour. Movies like The Bourne Ultimatum, Moulin Rouge, and Sin City give us no time to stop and think about what's going on while we watch them. And I've heard too many of my friends say they only read when they have to.

To conclude, reading is a blessing of the people that writers give to us. Although our fast-paced lifestyle is fun and a part of our culture, I think that we need to begin reading more to add texture to our lives. As Professor Faber says “Do you know why books such as this are so important? Because they have quality.” And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores.” (Faber, 83) If we could add texture to our lives and still appreciate roller coasters, violent video games, and high-speed action movies, I think the world would be a better place. That would define the paradise of having your cake and eating it too.