Friday, December 4, 2009
Alexandra Sack 12/4 Reflection-Scribe
The main focus of our dicussion was to attempt to recognize the protagonist of the novel and his characteristics and personality. We concluded that by the lack of sophisticated grammer and use of simplistic thinking and rambling, that the protagonist is a young child. We were able to recognize by reading the first few paragraphs of this novel that the rest of the books' tone will rely solely on immature and silly remarks with much rambling and incomplete thoughts due to his age. A pattern that we discovered throughout the first few paragraphs was that he had a defined and strong opinion towards peace and against violence but didn't seem to be sure about any other topic. This is something that each group member was able to strongly agree to. We also, as a group, identified that amongst the many symbols, the "birdseed shirt" was the only one in which the protagonist does not discuss or ramble on about. We were all suspicious of this, in that the symbol represents "a quick escape" which may have a relation with his father's death. Overall, our discussion was very productive and helpful in beginning this complex novel and no stalling occured. We are all very interested in reading this novel because we can all relate to the protagonist and his experience to 9/11 so we all had a lot to contribute. Next meeting we hope to have a better understanding of the significance of the chapter title, "What the?" and the relationship it has with jujitsu.
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I was not in class for the majority of the class discussion, but I did learn a lot as soon as I joined the discussion. The other group members did a great job of filling me in and helping me to understand the excerpt from the first chapter. One of the main themes I noticed throughout the excerpt was the sentence structure. The simple sentences and various run-on sentences showed the lack of sophistication in the writing. Using this information, our group hypothesized that the narrator of the story must be writing in the voice of a young person. Another pattern my group members and I noticed was the symbolism of the objects that the narrator described. All of these objects relate to the ways that he wants to protect those he loves. I am curious to begin reading the novel to discover what deeper meaning these symbols may have. I would also like to know why the narrator periodically speaks in French throughout the excerpt, which will hopefully be answered in the coming chapter.
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