Water for Elephants blog

When we had the discussions on characters yesterday, I felt that when people in the class were discussing Jacob they were giving him a pretty hard time. The main character in the very interesting book Water for Elephants is easily the most likable and enjoyable person to read about in my opinion, our entire reading selection so far. I remember when some of my classmates mentioned how naive he was and pointed out certain parts (like when he could do nothing while the poor elephant Rosie took abuse from the psycho August) all I could think was well yeah, what else could he have done? I get the feeling that some people believe just because someone is a made-up character in a fictional novel, that somehow means they don't have to follow simple rules of logic. If Jacob did anything against August or the crooked ring-leader Uncle Al, he would have been fired or killed, end of story. Jacob did what only could have been done at the time and does a little good through the whole story(caring for the animals, helping out his friend Camel) which makes me enjoy this book even more.

Illumination

I would never compare the suicide of the grandfather character in Everything is Illuminated and the pointless suicide of the main protagonists in Toga Party. I've already established my feelings over Toga in my last blog, so I'll explain more of my feelings toward the grandfather's timely end. As we all seen in the movie, we find out who the grandfather is and his importance to the story (as a man who is actually from the village that our protagonist Stephen has been looking for, his horrible experience in the slaughter of his friends and family, and so on.) One of the main parts of how it is explained why he eventually offs himself is the part where the grandfather survives the firing squad and throws down his coat that has the Star of David stitched on it. I personally believe that it represented him giving up his faith and burying all the pain and memories of his home town. Then after meeting up with the old woman and sole survivor, (former love?) I believe he finally makes peace with it all. After his long life and experiences I can only guess that he wanted to end his life on his own terms.