Response to "A Clean Well-lighted Place" Film Adaptation

In the film adaptation of “A Clean, Well-lighted Place”, there were a lot of things that really upset me.  In the story, the man was sitting in the shadows of a tree and it’s leaves.  The story says this three different times.   It has to be important.  The shadows are a symbol of the light and dark that this story plays with.  This point leads me to my next one which is if he is sitting under a tree, at least part of the café should be outside, right.  Well I guess not because he is sitting on a bench in the middle of the café.  Another thing that bothers me is that the story was written in the 1930’s, but there is a flat screen tv and speakers.  We could assume that the story is now set in the present, but then A young guard wearing a WWII uniform walks by.  I am confused by the conflicting time periods to the point where it starts to distract from the actual point of the story.

  In the movie it also bothered me that the two waiters were sitting at a table, in the middle of the hallway, in front of the bathroom.  What kind of waiters just sit talking by the bathrooms.  They could sit anywhere else in the café and look perfectly normal!  They should be sitting at another table or in the bar area where they could better see the old man and act like any normal people would.  The final and biggest problem that I had with the movie was that they were Irish.  That sounds bad but they are supposed to be Spanish.  They spoke Spanish in the story.  The old man paid with Spanish money in the story.  The older waiter says prayers substituting the Spanish word for nothing for most of the words.  Why isn’t the story set in somewhere like Spain!?  The Spanish elements add to the scene and make the story seem more complete, because you can imagine where they are.  This is completely ruined if you make the waiters Irish.  Why do they have to be Irish anyways?  Unless you are reading the story along with watching the film you can’t understand a single word that they are saying!

One of the few things that didn’t bother me from the film was how they used the parallel of the man walking in to the dark and the other man walking in to the light.  This was really interesting and it made me happy that they got at least one thing in the story right.  

A Clean, Well lighted place Response

"You should have killed yourself last week,"
I picked this because even though the man was deaf her communicated with the men and could probably understand what he said.  I find it interesting that he never even commented abou what he said and just went on like he didn't notice it.

"light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order."
In this quote he is talking to himself about what their cafe needs to have.  He seems to find it important that there be a clean, sfae place for people.  He wants there to be a place for anyone who wants or needs somewhere to eat or have a drink that isn't a loud, dark bar.  

"We are of two different kinds," the older waiter said. He was now dressed to go home. "It is not only a question of youth and confidence although those things are very beautiful. Each night I am reluctant to close up because there may be some one who needs the cafe." 

This is important because he is talking about why the cafe should stay open late.  He says that someone might need the cafe.  He is also mentioning that they are two different kinds of people, because the younger one just wants to get home, but the older one wants there to be a place for anyone who needs it.  He cares more about the customer than getting home before 3:00.  

Fahrenheight 451 quote

“Don’t let the torrent of melancholy and drear philosophy drown our world.  We depend on you.  I don’t think you realize how important you are, we are, to our happy world as it stands now.”

Beatty is trying to convincing Montag that the world is better with no feeling or happiness because literature also causes controversy and unhappiness.  Because literature might offend a minority, it has to be taken away.  This keeps people from being unhappy or upset.  Unfortunately, this also causes life to lose meaning.  Beatty is talking about philosophy drowning the world.  I think that he puts it like that because like a person drowning, literature and philosophy and ideas can be overwhelming.   

The Trail of Tears

Captain John Smith

Winter (VanDevelder), 1838 (VanDevelder)

They walk along the path worn by thousands.  I glance over at them and am instantly met with the downfall of their people.  16 thousand walk away from Georgia towards their new life, their new destiny (VanDevelder) (The "Indian Problem").  Small children stumble along in failing efforts to keep up with the steady pace the captain enforces with the point of his bayonet.  Every once in a while one of them looks up at me and am tortured by their dark sad eyes.  What have we done? I question myself daily.  First, we tell them to be Christians and buy land (The "Indian Problem").  We tell them to have proper English names (The "Indian Problem").  Then, their efforts are met with this.  They were here first, yet they bent and changed their lives because we have forced them to.  This is wrong.  They went to the supreme court.  They won their case (Darrenkamp).   Yet, here we are, 7,000 soldiers, forcing them to walk thousands of miles to Oklahoma to a land they know nothing about (The "Indian Problem") (VanDevelder). 

Chief William

Winter, 1838

We walk along the Trail of Tears (Trail of Tears Association).  Trail where many cried.  Children cry.  Women cry.  Some men cry.  Cry because they are tired and they are hungry.  Most of all cry because we have to leave.  Leave our homes.  Land where our tribes have thrived  for hundreds of years.  Leave our memories.  Things that tie our souls there.  Leave our lives.  Place where we had homes and friends.  Sick have suffered.  Thousands have died (VanDevelder).  Never stop.  Never look back.  Air gets colder.  We walk further.  Sun is fading and light is leaving us.  We walk away from the homes that we knew.  Raven follow us.  They caw mournfully with the screams of my people’s hearts.  Green grass leaves.  Is replaced by crisp gray brush of the plains.  Dead plains.  Empty plains.  Foreign land.  Land of our enemies.  This is our new home.  Our new life.  Our new beginning.  New beginning feels like end. 

Bibliography

A&E Television Networks. "The "Indian Problem"." 1996. History.com (http://www.history.com/topics/trail-of-tears). 27 February 2013.

Darrenkamp, Angela. "The Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears: Cause, Effect and Justification." n.d. History Matters. 28 February 2013.

Trail of Tears Association. "Trail of Tears National Historic Trail." 1996. North Carolina Office of State Archaeology. 27 February 2013.

VanDevelder, Paul. "1838 - Cherokee Trail of Tears." 2012. Savages and Scoundrels. 28 February 2013.

The Importance of Integrity

Integrity.  The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.  Having integrity means that you have good morals and a good character.  Why does the theme of integrity matter in novels?  How does it affect the characters?  I’ve found that having or not having integrity drastically changes the outcome of both the plot and the characters. 

In the book, To Kill a Mocking bird, Atticus often shows the theme of integrity.  He first noticeably shows integrity with the story of Mrs. Dubose.  Even though she is rude to him and calls him offensive names, he is still polite.  He realizes that the old woman is sicker than she looks and probably doesn’t mean everything that she says.  He also knows that it is only her opinion and not necessarily the correct judgment of what he is doing.  Atticus also shows the theme of integrity when the mob comes to his house.  They question him and mock him, but he knows that what he is doing is right and that is enough for him.  Atticus also shows integrity just by taking Tom Robinson’s case.  He tells the kids that he took the case because he could “never ask you to mind me again.” He is basically saying that he took the case because it was the right thing to do.  Atticus had nothing if not high morals and shows this an innumerable amount of times throughout the book. 

In Four Truths and a lie, a lot of the main characters don’t have integrity.  When Scarlett’s language arts class is assigned a “stranger writing” activity she is paired with “#17” from another school.  When he sends back a letter challenging her to play four truths and a lie or have her secret be revealed to everyone, she accepts.  Her first task is to find out if her teacher, Miss Cardanelli is dating the other school’s language arts teacher, Mr. Lang.  She already displays the theme of lack of integrity when she invades her teacher’s privacy and stalks her at the mall.  Then, the second task is to find out if “number 14” is named Louis Masterpole.  Again, she shows lack of integrity by sneaking in to a classroom during lunch to look in her teacher’s desk and her grade book to find the list of pen pals.  This demonstrated low moral because she is going through someone else’s private desk just to see find out something for her own personal benefit.  She also shows the theme of lack of integrity when she gets the third and fourth statements; Karli Montesorri meets her boyfriend on Monday nights in the library after curfew and Hannah Wilcox got busted for shoplifting over the summer and the school almost didn’t let her come back.  She invaded people’s privacy and broke not only in to the library, but also broke in to the principal’s office and looked in someone else’s record.  She had the least amount of integrity with the last statement; Amber’s dad isn’t actually in the military.  She completely displays the theme of lack of integrity when she opens her best friend’s private journal.  Despite that Scarlet has no integrity with the game, she also lets down her basketball team by meeting her pen pal in the woods when she is already on probation.  She couldn’t play and caused the team to forfeit because they only had four people that could play.  She showed a lack of integrity when she broke the rules for her own benefit even though she knew that she might disappoint her team and ruin the game for the rest of them.  Scarlett had almost no integrity for the entire book because she was so scared that her secret would be revealed, that she didn’t mind exposing others’ and hurting other people to protect herself. 

Even though Scarlett had almost no integrity, her pen pal, James and her roommate, Chrissa, had even less.  James overall had a weak personality at points in the plot.  He let Chrissa convince him to blackmail a perfect stranger because she said that it would be “fun.”  What kind of person finds blackmail fun?  That alone displays lack of integrity.  He is also letting Chrissa tell him what to do even though he knows that it is wrong.  This is lack of integrity and shows lack of morals.  Despite that James is sending the statements, Chrissa is really the antagonist in the story.  She tries to trick James in to ruining Scarlett’s social reputation just because she is jealous that Scarlett seems to take everything too lightly and not get stressed out about everything.  Chrissa wanting to hurt someone else because of envy shows the theme of lack of integrity.  People with integrity don’t purposely to harm other people just because they don’t like them, or don’t want them to succeed.  Almost none of the main characters in this story have integrity. 

The only main student with integrity in this book is Amber.  Amber is Scarlett’s best friend at her new school.  Amber doesn’t care that Chrissa (who happens to be the most popular person in their grade) starts rumors about Scarlett.  She also doesn’t care too much about what other people think about her and she doesn’t change her personal beliefs and opinions to match other people’s.  Amber also shows the theme of integrity when she forgives Scarlett for looking in her journal.  She realizes that Scarlett’s personality is more important than what she did when she was being blackmailed.  Another example of when Amber shows integrity is when she doesn’t tell anyone Scarlett’s secret.  Even though she knows that it would help her social status to tell other people Scarlett’s secret, she knew that a real friendship was more important than her social status.  By looking at the bigger picture and looking over her immediate reactions to the events in the book, Amber showed the theme of integrity by acting in the best way possible in all situations. 

Having or not having integrity can be a saving quality or a fatal flaw for the characters in these novels.  All the characters with integrity had better outcomes, because inside they knew that they did the right things.  It is important to have integrity because then you can be happy with the decisions that you make and the kind of person that you are.  People like Atticus and Amber have happier endings because they can be more at peace with themselves, because they did the right thing when others were too afraid to.  Stories like these can be an example to us and can show that integrity shouldn’t just be a literary theme; it should also be a quality that we recognize and have in our own lives.  

Glass

Author's Note: This is a poem that I wrote because this week we had to write a creative piece.  In this piece, the narrator is insane and therefore not trustworthy.  The narrator is talking in circles and never really gets to a specific point other than sanity is like glass which would also be able to be found if you only read the first two lines of the poem.  

Sanity

A fragile glass

Waiting to be broken

And when it has broken

 The shattered pieces tear us apart

Our hopes and dreams

are crushed by sanity

But insanity is nothing but broken glass

A clawed hand reaching up and stealing your memories

Your thoughts crumble into nothingness

Clouded with delusion

Until nothing makes sense

Because sanity can be broken,

but insanity can’t be cured

Adele Parody point of view

Original Lyrics

There's a fire starting in my heart
Reaching a fever pitch, it's bringing me out the dark
Finally I can see you crystal clear
Go 'head and sell me out and I'll lay your ship bare
See how I leave with every piece of you
Don't underestimate the things that I will do

There's a fire starting in my heart
Reaching a fever pitch
And it's bringing me out the dark

The scars of your love remind me of us
They keep me thinking that we almost had it all
The scars of your love, they leave me breathless
I can't help feeling
We could have had it all
(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
Rolling in the deep
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)
You had my heart inside of your hand
(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
And you played it, to the beat
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)

Baby, I have no story to be told
But I've heard one on you
And I'm gonna make your head burn
Think of me in the depths of your despair
Make a home down there
As mine sure won't be shared

(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
The scars of your love remind me of us
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)
They keep me thinking that we almost had it all
(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
The scars of your love, they leave me breathless
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)
I can't help feeling
We could have had it all
(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
Rolling in the deep
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)
You had my heart inside of your hand
(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
And you played it, to the beat
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)
We could have had it all
Rolling in the deep
You had my heart inside of your hand
But you played it, with a beating

Throw your soul through every open door (woah)
Count your blessings to find what you look for (woah)
Turn my sorrow into treasured gold (woah)
You'll pay me back in kind and reap just what you sow (woah)
(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
We could have had it all
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)
We could have had it all
(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
It all, it all, it all
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)

We could have had it all
(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
Rolling in the deep
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)
You had my heart inside of your hand
(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
And you played it to the beat
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)

We could have had it all
(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
Rolling in the deep
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)
You had my heart inside of your hand
(You're gonna wish you never had met me)

But you played it
You played it
You played it
You played it to the beat.

What would the Adele song "Rolling in the Deep" be like if it was from her ex boyfriend's point of view.  I think that it would be more interesting because he had to be pretty upset with Adele.  I also think that it would make Adele seem like less of the victim and it would show how she is overreacting.  I left some of the basic sentence ideas so that it can clearly show him reacting to her.  

White/clear=ex boyfriend
Pink:Adele's responses/back-up singers(most of these lines were the same from the original song)

There's a fire dying in my heart
because you're out of my life and it's bringin' me out the dark
I could always see you crystal clear

you're the first to sell me out 'cause you never did care
I wanted to leave without any piece of you
why did you underestimate the things that I would do

There's a fire dying in my heart
because you're out of my life
and it's bringin' me out the dark


The scars of your love remind me of us
They keep me thinking how I didn't want it all
The scars of your love, they leave me breathless
I can't help feeling
I didn't want it all
( but why didn't you want to stay with me?)
 I wish you never met me
(why do tears always fall, I hate what you did to me )
You overreact to everything
(What did I do? why do you hate me)
And you blamed me for things all the time
(Tears are gonna fall, you ruin everything)

Baby, I never really liked you
I wanted to run away and go find someone new
You act like it's my fault for your unending despair
Finally I realized that I don't really care

(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
because the scars of your love remind me of us
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)
They keep me thinking how I didn't want it all
(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
The scars of your love, they leave me choking
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)
I can't help feeling
I didn't want it all
(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
I wish you never met me
(why do tears always fall, I hate what you did to me)
You overreact to everything

(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
And you blamed me for things all the time
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)
I didn't want it all!!!
why don't you understand me!!!
you overreact to everything
It's like you try to find things wrong with me!!!


you crush my soul in every open door (woah)
You ruin everything right down to the core(woah)
you act like sorrow is your treasured gold(woah)
you look for attention everywhere you go(woah)
(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
I didn't want to stay with you
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)
I didn't want to stay with you
(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
with you, with you, with you
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)

I didn't wan't to stay with you
(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
sometimes you start to scare me
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)
I can never do anything
(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
without you writing a song about me
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)

I just didn't want it all!
(You're gonna wish you never had met me)
please forget you ever met me
(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)
You overreact to everything
(You're gonna wish you never had met me)

and you made me
you made me
you made me
you made me want to leave