Blog #10: Class Evaluation

In this class I've truly learned the importance of literature and books.  Without both of these, our society could easily turn into any of the terrible societies that we read about in the novels we covered this semester.  After this class I plan on making more of an effort to pick up more books to read, especially books that I normally would not have read on my own.  I really liked the set up of this class, how we were able to discuss the books in class and were not taught at, only nudged in the right direction.  I feel that I become a more critical reader when I had to analyze the books I read myself, instead of being told what the books were supposed to mean.  This is a great new skill because before I could not analyze a book to save my life, I could never see the deeper meaning and never knew how to go about looking for that deeper meaning.  This class has been one of my favorite of my college career and I am likely not to forget what I have learned in this class.

Blog #9: Censorship

A world without books would be a terrible place, the world would be filled with ignorant, dumb people who are addicted to TV just like Montag's wife.  Everyone would be so plugged into technology, more so than they are today, that they wouldn't even notice the world around them.  I would miss having books around so much, I really like reading in my spare time and for relaxing.  I would probably still try and read books and try to hide it if I weren't allowed to anymore.  Whenever Hollywood makes a movie out of a book they are metaphorically "burning books", because the movie is never as good as the book, it lacks detail and takes away the reader's imagination.  One of my favorite parts of reading books is being able to create an image in my head of what is going on in the book, but whenever I go see the movie of a book I read it never looks anything like what I imagine.  Movies and TV ruin the imagination that reading sparks, if we were to ban all books our society would become simple minded and there would be no originality.

Blog #8: The Hunger Games

I thought the plot of this book was highly disturbing, but I was so enthralled by it that I couldn't put it down!  Which was even more disturbing...  It reminded me of reality TV and how we do the same.  We watch really dumb shows like "Jersey Shore" where we can barely stand the character but we love it!  And I still don't understand why.  I thought this book was very good, as disturbing as it was.  It was definitely my favorite book we've read so far.  The theme of the book was pretty similar to the rest of the books that we've read in class in that it's about how society can easily go by the wayside and become a dystopian society.  While reading this book it reminded me a lot of the TV show Survivor and how people seem to act a certain role instead of being themselves in order to win the game.  Like in the case of Judd aka Fabio, who played up his role as the "dumb blonde" who everyone loved and thought was hilarious.  Which he eventually won the game because he went the entire game without making any enemies.  In the link posted below Fabio shows how "dumb" he is by peeing in the pool and acting like everyone does it.

Survivor: Fabio