Last Sanday I had a ton of homework. I did most of it; I finished my essay for english, I worked on my spanish packet, and I did my History worksheet. I however did not do my Algebra work. I walked into class the next morning. The teacher asked for my homework. Crap. I should have just done it. It wasn’t even that hard. Mrs.—— then furthered my bad morning. “Time for a quiz, clear your desk.” I was going to fail.

Hey there! I am so glad that all yall showed up to like bury my cat or whatever. I know you like all loved my kitty. I am kinda sad and stuff  about her dyin. But i can like get a new one now. Okay thats all have a totally awesome day and i like totally hope none of your little cats die or nothin. O yeah i forgot. Umm theres like a little party or somethin tonight for myy cat and yall can like come and hang out and stuff! I will be like totally off the heezy fo sho! So yeah you should definitley come. Ill see all yall later!!

Without the earth what would we be

for she is the earth and she is the sea

she is the forest filled with trees.

She is freedom and she is life

yet still man acts against her in strife.

Why can they not see her wonder

inslead her surface they savagely plunder.

They do not contemplate her creations

there is killing among her nations.

They choose not to heal and love,

Their ignorance they seem proud of.

What this world needs is peace

The raging violence we must cease.

in order to feel the beat of her drumming rain

they must realize her great pain.

And from this,

Wisdom they shall gain.

I stood on the top of the old wooden pier that was covered in green algae and fishing bait. I looked over the egde at my magnificent marine paradise: birds of all sizes were seemingly hovering over the water waiting for their dinner and sleek clear fishing lines vanished as they entered the salty abyss. The waves crashed over the barnacle covered pilings, shaking the whole structure on which I was standing. I felt the wood shudder under my feet as the powerful rushes of fighting water pounded against the ridid poles. I smelled the fresh sea air and let the wind whip through my hair. All 0ther noises seemed blurred by the lullaby of the crashing waves. This is my paradise.

They took cover in the floor my closet after a long and highly demanding summer full of  splendor, residing on my feet. Worn to work, making beds for countless hours, stopming on carpet and hardwood, climbing up an endless amount of staircases.  Worn out by the many walks through sound mud and salty sea water. Faded from all of the time they passed in the sun of magnificent summer. They went on long trips to foreign places; adorning my feet in a bed of hot crystal sand, trudging through seaweed on the floor of an aquamarine colored ocean. They even played soccer with little children in Panama. They walked the streets of the capital. They pushed on plastic bike pedals and hiked through the woods. My sanuks served me well and definitley deserve their retirement in the carpeted relaxing environment of my bedroom closet.

+ I walked into the gym, my ears ringing with the sound of  enthusiastic fans and the squeak of  rubber soles on the perfectly shined court. I drew my eyes away from the players and looked up in the stands. Black and gold. People dressed in attention grabbing and wild outfits filled the wooden bleachers, all jumping up and down and shouting in support of their team.

-I walked into the gym, my ears were immediatley filled with the shreiks of obnoxious little teenagers, yelling and screaming, shaking the bleachers and crowding the adults who actually wanted to watch the game. Everywhere i looked I saw black and gold. The students were dressed in skimpy, flashy outfits. They were everywhere!

Mrs. Robinson

HN English III

18 December 2009

Damage of the Detached Mind

            The debate between war and peace is one that requires a great deal of contemplation:  War is generally a nation’s effort to protect its citizens, but peace among nations also brings about this desired protection.  Some hate war because it costs the lives of so many, others because of the effects it has on those who are not killed.  In A Farewell to Arms, Earnest Hemmingway addresses this heartfelt dispute in such a way that the reader feels the grievances of his characters.   To achieve this involvement with the text, Hemmingway uses indirect characterization, dialogue, and predominately static characters. 

            Indirect characterization is a key element in A Farewell to Arms.  Fredrick Henry, the protagonist, narrates the story in first person point of view, allowing the reader to become familiar with him through his thoughts, actions, and words.  This type of characterization is more actively engaging.  The reader has to decide for themselves what a character is like.  This process is much more interesting and draws the reader into the novel.  When Henry describes the “clear, blue” water of the summer in contrast to the “cold muddy” water of the “misty” autumn and winter, the reader can conclude that he has a negative view of the passing troops.  (Hemmingway 1, 2).  Another main way that a reader can gain insight into a character is by being intuitive to the way other characters respond or react to them in the novel.  Through dialogue between Henry and Rhinaldi, and by the way Rhinaldi acts toward Henry, the reader may interpret that Henry has a more dominant personality.  Rhinaldi who was “in love with Mrs. Barkley”, seemed to just step aside when Henry established an infatuation with her. (Hemmingway 12)  The numbness of characters like Henry can also be interpreted as a result of ambivalent feelings the war had caused in people. Indirect characterization enthralls the reader and leaves room for personal interpretation of main characters in A Farewell to Arms.

     Most of the novel’s main characters are flat and/or static. This element of characterization offers more insight into the effects of the war on people involved in it. From the first chapter forward, Henry is detached from the war and seems to be secluded from the fighting. Henry tries to remove himself from everything and move forward. Minor characters who actually support the war effort are portrayed as ignorant and naïve; contrasting to Henry. Henry describes the fighting in the “brown, bare mountains” while watching at a distance from the small village in which he was living at the time; adding physical disassociation to Henry’s impression of detachment (Hemmingway 1). In addition Henry isolates himself from the people around him. He does not develop a deep attachment to anyone in the novel. Even Catherine Barkley – the object of Henry’s sexual affection – does not seem to bore his hard outer shell. In the closing pages of the novel, Henry shows not grief or sorrow when his baby and Catherine die: He had not changed at all. His resentfulness of the war and the destruction it caused, along with his doubt of the greatness it would bring, dazed him and made him a cold man, this coldness coinciding with the death and freezing temperatures of the bitter and brutal war.

     Hemmingway’s novel, as the title suggests, is a testament of the isolation and piercing coldness of war, and more so the destruction it causes on the human mind. Hemmingway successfully developed his characters in such a way that their actions, thoughts, and words display the intense hardship of lives affected directly, or indirectly, by war and its abettors. A Farewell to Arms, however, is far from a pacifist outcry; it more so shows disdain for the cruelty of the world itself, and antipathy of an environment that refuses to nurture and protect true love.

Mrs. Robinson

Honors English III

21 September 2009

“Leap not to witchcraft”: The controversy of Voodoo and Child Abuse

     Dave Pelzer begins his biography: “SMACK! Mother hits me in the face and I topple to the floor.  I know better than to stand there and take the hit.  I learned the hard way that she takes that as an act of defiance, which means more hits, or worst of all, no food.  I regain my posture and dodge her looks, as she screams into my ears.”  (Pelzer 3).  In A Child Called “It”, Dave Pelzer describes his horrific childhood in an extraordinary and inspiring way.  Similarly, in his 1953 Tony Award winning play, Arthur Miller depicts the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692.  It may seem as though child and witchcraft vary drastically; however, the pair correlate.  Both cases are difficult to prove, adolescents are at an advantageous standpoint, and innocent parties suffer frequently. 

     Child abuse and witchcraft are “invisible” crimes lacking any hard evidence and often based on hear-say.  In The Crucible Abigail Williams and her friends were discovered “dancing” in the woods with Tituba, a slave of one of the girl’s families; out of fear they fabricated false accusations of witchery to save themselves.  The court, for the most part, didn’t question their allegations.  However, in some instances, Reverend Hale acted as a social worker would in an abuse dilemma by collecting information from accused parties  and alleged victims  (Miller 31-4).  Hale asked “Do you know your commandments, Elizabeth?… and You mister,” John responds with only nine commandments, making him “non-Christian” in the eyes of Puritan parishioners, although he is a Christian man.  Likewise, social workers often collect medical documentations that can be used in court, even if they were accidents. This is because there is no way to prove that they are from a child abuse incident or from an injury sustained through an accident.  In many cases children really do tell the truth about being abused, such as in Pelzer’s case; however, many people’s lives are ruined due to false accusations by angry children.  So the question becomes, “which ones are lying?” This is very hard to answer due to lack of substantial proof in these cases. 

     Another congruity between witchcraft and child abuse is that children are given the benefit of the doubt in both types of cases.  Human instinct is to protect and defend children, as they do not have the skills to advocate for themselves.  This instinct drives adults to presume the accused party is guilty, especially when there is an estimated 794,000 innocent children who are victims of abuse each year (“Prevent Child Abuse America”).  In the eyes of modern society, minors are defenseless and blameless.  Not many would presume that a child would make up accounts of abuse to somehow benefit themselves, let alone have the level of intelligence to craft such a scandalous act of defiance.  On the other hand, the girls in Miller’s play who clamed to be victims of the devil’s work were far from clean-handed.  They caused the persecution of townspeople by making up accounts of spirits being sent out upon them.  When Mary Warren testified against the girls, they pretended that she were casting a frigid shadow upon them, making it seem as though she was a witch.  They used this powerful weapon against anyone who got in their way, yet the court believed every word and had no suspicion that they were being fallacious.  This also happens frequently in child modern child abuse cases.  Extreme trustworthiness can be accredited to the confidence that Danforth had in the girls’ Puritan faith: “Do you know that God damns all liars?” Danforth expects that they would not disobey the ten commandments and risk perpetual misery in hell, the accepted punishment for sinners in Puritan society.  Toward the end of the drama John says “It is not on a boat we’ll meet again Abigail, but in hell,” perpetuating the punishment of their committed sins in Abigail’s mind.  In the witchcraft trials and in the case of child abuse, children are the last to be suspected of lying. 

     Additionally, in these predicaments, crimeless people sometimes bear great anguish while the guilty walk free.  Often in abuse cases, a teacher, or other person outside the child’s family will make accusations based simply upon suspicion. These claims can be enough to convict an innocent parent or other adult of harming a child. Equivalently, in The Crucible, most of the innocent people of Salem who were accused by Abigail and her friends were hanged.  The girls were the ones who had practiced witchcraft as defined by Puritan law, and set off this purging epidemic, yet they all walked free.  At one point in the play Danforth says that “The pure in heart need no lawyers,” however, it seems that they need them the most.  Abigail was not in need of a lawyer, but those who had not committed any crimes were unable to prove themselves innocent.  The families of the hanged people would be forever changed.  The exemplary people who died in the Salem witch trials as well as those who are wrongly convicted of child abuse did not deserve the pain they had to endure. 

    Pelzer continues on: “I act timid nodding to her threats, ‘Please’, I say to myself, Just let me eat.  Hit me again, but I have to have food.  Another blow pushes my head against the tile countertop.  I let the tears of mock defeat stream down my face as she storms out of the kitchen, seemingly satisfied with herself”.  (Pelzer 4)  Although child abuse and witchcraft are invisible crimes, children are given the benefit of the doubt, and crimeless people suffer. On the other hand, Dave Pelzer and millions of other innocent children have shared horrific childhood abuses and their perpetrators have walked free, just as Abigail walked free in The Crucible.  The American justice system, past and modern, can not filter out the guilty in all cases, but they will continue to try by providing persons to act on the child’s behalf and to find the truth.

Works Cited

“FAQs – Prevent Child Abuse America.”

     <www.preventchildabuse.org/about_us/faqs.shtml>.

“The Crucible.”  Arthur Miller.  1999