A tunnel was where Equality 7-2521 found the value of being different.

 

 

 

The Uncharted Forest was where Equality 7-2521, later named himself Prometheus and started his new life with his loved one.

 

             

 

Quotes:

 

pg. 17

     It is a sin to think words no others think.

          I thought this quote was interesting because can you imagine what it would be like if everyone in this world thought and acted the same way? 

 

pg. 24

     We wished it so much that our hands trembled under the blankets in the night and we bit our arm to stop that other pain which we could not endure.

           We all have a point in life when we wish something so badly and hate the fact that we can't have it. Or when we get those feelings that we can't control.

 

pg. 30

     We know, when we look into each other's eyes. And when we look thus without words, we both know other things also, strane things for which there are no words, and these things frighten us.

          I really liked this quote because I think its cool how facial expressions can say a lot more than what words express. At the same time it can be bad in those moments when we feel things that we don't want others to notice.  

 

pg. 41

     We do not know why, when we think of them, we feel of a sudden that the earth is good and that it is not a burden to live. 

 

pg. 46

     Fear walks through the City, fear without name, without shape. All men feel it and none dare to speak. 

          I found this quote to be very true because if you take a look at our society, there are many things we all know are wrong, but no one dares to try and make a change, we just keep silent and move on with it. 

 

pg. 61

     Are we proud of this thread of metal, or of our hands which made it, or is there a line to divide these two?  

 

pg. 61

     For the first time do we know how strong our arms are. And a strange thought comes to us: we wonder, for the first time in our life, what we look like. 

          I think this was an interesting quote because it is strange how sometimes we don't notice things in us or in other people. Or how sometimes all of a sudden we want to know more about us, I mean aren't there times when you feel that you don't even know yourself?? 

 

 

 

 Reflection: 

     Even though this book is short, I found it to be quite interesting. This is one of  those books that make you think a lot and wonder about life and how our society is.  The narrator of this book really made me think that we should all value what we have; especially the fact that we have the freedom of being different and having our own thoughts and beliefs. It also made me think in how we should always have the courage to stand up for what we believe and want for ourselves. We should try to make a change when we know that a change is needed because if we don't do it, no one else will. Another important thing that I got from this book is that we should always try to stay in touch with our inner selves.  I mean I think its pretty important to know who we truly are because like one of my quotes above states, there are many times when we notice new things or traits in us in the long run that we didn't even know we had. Those traits could sometimes be good or bad traits in us. And if we notice them, we could probably become better human beings. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quotes:

 

Pg. 33

     My life was over; my life had just begun.

 

Pg. 61

     You save youself or you remain unsaved.

 

          I find this quote to be very true because the only one that can save you is yourself. People can try to "save" you but that won't be true until you save yourself.

 

pg. 109

     I was in the center of it all and simultaneously I realized I didn't exist.

 

pg. 113

     In my mind, the rapist had murdered me on the day of the rape. Now I was going to murder him back. Make my hate large and whole.

 

          Hate is a very strong feeling and this quote makes myself ask the question of, how much can someone really hate?

 

 

pg. 139 

      I had been so afraid, I had chosen the man who scared me most, the one who had been looking at me.  

 

          This quote made me think on how sometimes even if we know what the right thing to do is, we end up being cowards because of fear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alice's Poem to Her Rapist

If they caught you,

long enough for me 

to see that face again, 

maybe I woudl know

your name.

I could stop calling you 'the rapist,'

and start calling you John or Luke or Paul.

I want to make my hatred large and whole.

 

If they found you, I could take

those solid red balls and slice them

separately off, as everyone watcked.

I have already planned what I would do 

for a pleasurable kill, a slow, soft, ending.

 

First, 

I would kick hard and straight with a boot,

into you, stare while you shot quick and loose,

contents a bloody pink hue.

Next,

I would slice out your tongue,

You couldn't curse or scream.

Only a face of pain would speak

for you, your thick ignorance through.

Thirdly,

Should I hack away those sweet

cow eyes with the glass blades you made

me lie down on? Or should I shoot, with a gun,

close into the knee; where they say

the cap shatters immediately?

 

I pictue you now,

your fingers rubbing sleep from

those live blind eyes, while I rise restlessly.

I need the blood of your hide

on my hands. I want to kill you

with boots and guns and glass.

I want to ____you with knives.

Come to me, Come to me,

Come die and lie, beside me. 

 

Reflection:    

     This book made me think about how nothing can really be forgotten or changed in this world once something happens. Also that instead of trying to forget things, we should be realistic and try to move on with our lives knowing that what ever happened to us was in the past. Feeling hate doesn't solve your problems; the only one you're truly hurting is yourself. It's true that life isn't easy and we often whine about tragedies that may have happened to us but those same tragedies should only push us to being a better person and having the strength to move on with our life and not giving up.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quotes:

     

pg. 97

"Americans are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier."

 

pg. 162

"I could carve a better man out of a banana."

 

pg. 165

" A cat's crake is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's..."

 "And?"

" No damn cat, and no damn cradle."  

 

pg. 169

"People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order, so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meanigful to say."

 

pg.169

" Man is vile, and man makes nothing worth making, knows nothing worth knowing."

 

pg. 179

"From the way she talked, I thought it was a very happy marriage."

Little Newt held his hands six inches apart and he spread his fingers. "See the cat? See the Cradle?" 

 

pg. 248

" Any man can call time about, but no man can say how long the time out will be." 

 

pg. 267

" Man breathes in oxygen and exhales carbon dioxide." 

     I really liked this quote because it shows how sometimes we always take in the purity but end up converting it into bad stuff.

pg. 279

" As the poet said, Mom, ' Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been" ' " 

 

Poems From Cat's Cradle

 

pg. 78

I have a kitchen.

But it is not a complete kitchen.

I will not be truly gay

Until I have a

Dispose-all.

 

pg. 107

A fish pitched up

By the angry sea,

 I gasped on land,

And I became me. 

 

pg. 127

I wanted all things

To seem to make some sense,

So we all could be happy, yes,

 Instead of tense.

And I made up lies

So that they all fit nice,

And I made this sad world

A par-a-dise.

 

pg. 182

Tiger got to hunt,

Bird got to fly;

Man got to sit and wonder, "Why, why, why?"

Tiger got to sleep,

Bird got to land;

Man got to tell hiself he understand.

 

pg. 233

A lover's a liar,

To himself he lies.

The truthful are loveless,

Like oysters their eyes!

 

pg 255

Iwas the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge.

When I felt the bullet enter my heart

I wished I had staid at home and gone to jail

For stealing the hogs of Curl Trenary,

Instead of running away and joining the army.

Rather a thousand times the county jail

Than to lie under this marble figue with wings,

And this granite pedestal

Bearing the words, "Pro Patria."

What do they mean, anyway? 

 

Vocab: Flabbergasted, cosmogony, notorious, acquisced, diaphanous 

 

Reflection:

     This book really shows the selfishness in human beings and how everyone in this world is pretty self centered. The person who lives for others doesn't really exist. Everything in life is just like a cat's cradle, strings always getting in the way of other strings, in order to reach thier own goals. It is sad to adimitt the truth but everyone stomps on somebody who interferes with what they want at some point in there life not caring what the other person might feel. You can feel sorry for them and have not wanted to hurt them but you still end up doing it and when you find the pleasure you were seeking for there is no guilt left on the situation before. A great example of this is the book itself. All the Hoenikkers end up giving up their father's creation in order to find happiness even if the consequences of that ice-nine creation meant destroying the world.

 

I would really recommend this book to others because it is full of hidden meanings and is a way of viewing our world in a different setting. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I would give this book 3 stars. It was totally nothing like what I usually read but I liked it anyway because it made me think what I would do in a situation like the one that the characters in this book faced.

 

 

Quotes from the book:

      " Some games are fun even when you lose. Even when you know you're going to lose before you start." Pg. 59

                   Dwight said this to Moira when they were talking about the cruise that the Scorpion was going to take in search of life even if there weren't many possibilities of finding it.

 

     " There doesn't seem to be much point in writing stuff that nobody will read."

     " There should be something written, all the same, even if it's only going to be read in the next few months." Pg. 73

                    This was said when Commander Towers asked for the historical report on one of the ships. I liked this quote because the commander believed in writing a report even if everyone was going to die and there were very slim possibilities of somebody reading it.

 

     " It's not the end of the world at all, its only the end of us. The world will go on just the same, only we shan't be in it."  Pg. 80

                    I really like this quote because I think ist very true. I've heard people say that the world is going to end at some point but l really think that what really ends is ones life when one dies.

 

     "Id rather have it this way, in my own home town, than have it in September in Australia." Pg. 178

                    I thought this was a good quote because sometimes when people know they're going to die, and still have a chance to live longer in another place, they prefer dying in their hometown rather than live longer and die in a foreign country.

     

     "I couldn't bear to--to just stop doing things and do nothing. You might as well die now and get it over."

     "If what they say is right, we're none of us going to have time to do all that we planned to do. But we can keep on doing it as long as we can." Pg. 181

I thought these two quotes were important because once everybody in town heard that they had little time to live, they stopped doing their regular activities and started closing stores down. Others, decided to do what they liked  best before their death.

 

" You get scared stiff. Then directly when it's over you want to go on and do it again." Pg. 201

                    This quote was not that important but I thought it was kind of cool because it happens all the time. It makes me think of a roller coaster in Silverwood because when you get on, you start feeling the speed and sometimes get nervous and then after it's done you want to get on it again.

 

 

Some Vocab: vehemently, sedulously, demure, ballasting, whimiscally,inconspicuous, amateurishly     

 

 

Reflection:  This book really points out the value of life. It is scary to think that people in all of the countries in the northern hemisphere could be dead because of radiation. The thought of only two or three countries in the southern hemisphere having the last people alive on earth gets even more terrifying. This book really made me think of a quote that says, " Live every day as if it were the last." I thought that it was very sad at the end when people just stopped doing things because their death was near. Stores started closing and people started running out of supplies. At the same time I thought that it was very cool how others were planning on how they wanted their death to arrive. They wanted to die after accomplishing some of their dreams; they wanted a happy ending. I think that is the way I would like to die. I also got thinking on how I would react to the fact of knowing when your life will get to an end. A part of this book that was really touching was when Peter was telling his wife about the kit that would help them end their lives sooner to avoid the pain of the radiation sickness. The kit contained a pill for her death and another one for their baby. Mary's reaction on this was horrible. She got really angry at the thought of her husband telling her of a way to kill their own baby. She said that she would never be able to do that and started saying a lot of things that hurt Peter. I think this would be a really hard situation. I mean, I don't know if I would be able to cause a loved one's death even if it was to save them from suffering.