Second Entry for the second book
Literary Terms
Simile and other literary terms were used. My repsonse is same as one in the first entry.
Plot
Winston Smith is the party member who has feelings against the party. One day Julia came to him and she also had the same idea. They did not follow party rules and loved each other. O’Brien, a strong party member of inner party suggested to Winston and Julia that he is part of anti-party group. One day when Winston and Julia were in a curio shop party police came and arrest them. O’Brien was actually a spy of the party and tortured Winston to obey the party. Finally, Winston gives up and loves the big brother.
My favorite part
My favorite part is where children is asking their mother to watch hanging. Since I didn’t want to see and even did not know that such thing existed this part is very interesting. I wonder what kind of society would be born with those children. People will think death as easy thing and murder will happen very frequently.
Theme
Danger of dictatorship
The novel illustrates a society where a big brother, the ultimate leader, governing the whole country. With his decision, facts can be corrected and people can die. The author might be warning us to avoid this type of government.
Brainwashing
One of the way that Big Brother uses to regulate his people is brainwashing. For example showing the picture of enemy and also turning the terrible sound. People start to think that the guy in the picture is causing a trouble to them.
Filed under Musings | Comment (0)First Entry for the second book
what have you learned from your novel?
Currently in 2oth century I learned about Mao, Lenin, and Stalin. They are all communists and socialists. Therefore, the society that 1984 pictured is the one that they all wanted to have. I have read similar kind of novel before. But then that allowed people to have sexual contacts while 1984 did not allow. Supervising system that the 1984 had was very impressive. Telescreen, I think is very pragmatic since it works as a watching camera and news notifying machine. Since people do not know whether they are being watched or not people have to act carefully.
What do you enjoy most about your novel?
I enjoyed the part that Winston Smith evaluated his colleague. He was thinking that he is not a desired person of this society and thus will be erased soon. Actually that guy was disappeared soon.
What are the themes of your novel?
I think there is a theme related to controlling sexual feelings. Since party regulated sexual behaviors and treated sex as an act of creating a new party member.
Also I think party is trying to make people dumb because party was reducing the number of decorative words. It makes me to think that the party wants people to think same and simple
What literary devices, studied in class, are used in this novel and for what purpose?
Simile was used. Unlike the war novel that read just before this book used some literary devices to give more meaning and make fluent of sentence structure.
Filed under Musings | Comment (0)Second Blog for the first book
Literary Devices
Flashback
Flashback is used in “Going After Cacciao”. Book talks about past and present stories of the squad. If a chapter talks about the past then the next one talks about present. This structure is very confusing because quotes and situation does not match to those in the previous chapter. There is a book called “Empire of the Ants” from Bernard Werber which also uses this format.
Point of View
The author knows everything in the story. He tells stories to us. For example, the author often changes about the subject that he is talking about although they are in different space. Also he talks about internal feelings of Paul Berlin
Tone
Tone is very simple and understandable because it is a war novel. Nobody during war uses decorative words. All communications should be simple and quick.
Plot
The Squad is going after Cacciato who ran away from his squad. He was always self-sufficient man. He dreamed about going to Paris and finally ran away to go to Paris. Squad chases after him. As though Cacciato and the squad are going in equal speed they always are in a distant that excites us. I mean when the squad goes to a town then they find a clue that Cacciato was here and took a train to other place. They reach to India and to Afghanistan to eventually to Paris. Squad seems to manage to capture Cacciato but then he ran away again in Paris.
My favorite Part
My favorite part is the starting part. When I was first notified the situation of the squad. The feeling that soldiers now have to chase down an idiot directly comes to my mind. I have to join the Korean army soon and I often heard how bad the life in army will be if a comrade is not normal. Imagining myself going after one of soldier from my squad gives me a weird feeling. This part makes me to communicate with the author so this is my favorite part of the book.
Theme
I think the theme of this book is absent of order in war. In war anything can happen and those things are usually not planned to happen. Since war deals with life it should be carefully calculated or thought before taking any motions. However, the reality is that no thinking exists. Instinct and craziness only exist. Like the whole squad had to chase Cacciato in the middle of war, war can lead us to do anything even though we had no intention to do. No order and no logi in war.
Filed under Musings | Comment (1)Hello world!
What have you learned from your novel?
My selection to my book “Going After Cacciato” was very random. Tim O’Brien is a famous writer so I thought his books should have decent qualities. Unlike “The Things They Carried” this book was much unknown to people and according to my research not many people did not read this book. However, I continued reading because some great books are often forgotten and reevaluated in the future. I hoped that this one was one of those. As I read this book I found something very interesting. The background was the Vietnam War. This greatly grasped my attention and motivated me to go through the book. The book tells about the nature of the war. I’ve also read other war time novels like “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “Night”. However, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” “Night”, and “Going After Cacciato” had different view of the war. While others showed the cruelty and realities of battlefields, “Going After Cacciato” concentrated more on psychology, feelings of human during war.
What do you enjoy most about your novel?
I enjoyed the fact that it was about the Vietnam War. Although I’m living in Vietnam I do not know anything about it. So I always wanted to know about Vietnam so that I can understand more about the country. I was pleased to read that tunnels actually existed and that they were very sophisticated. One thing that I was surprised to read was that soldiers were not discriminated by townspeople. There is a chapter which soldiers are staying in a town looking for Cacciato but it does not talk about any Vietnamese complaining about them staying in their town.
What are the themes of your novel?
One theme that I captured in this novel is that no rules exist in wars. Soldiers accidently kill water buffalo on the way. But then there isn’t actually anything that soldiers can do for the dead buffalo or rules that regulate their actions. They could just kill all buffalos and have a barbeque party. People at home think that certain rules exist to regulate soldiers but I think author was trying to send a message that neither rules are applicable nor exist.
What literary devices, studied in class, are used in this novel and for what purpose?
This novel uses flashback as long as I believe. The weird structure of this novel is that story does not continue in a straight line. What I mean is that if chapter one talks about present then chapter two talks about past. This sequence continues until I read. Therefore, the book uses flashback. Half of chapters talk about stories when Cacciato was with soldiers and the remaining half tells stories about chasing after him.
Literary devices are used to ornate or complicate the text. However, since this is the war time novel tone is very simple and understandab and minimum literary devices are used.
Filed under Musings | Comment (1)