Post #1

1) Out of the three books I enjoyed my dystopian novel, 1984, the most. In this novel I felt that Orwell did an amazing job at displaying the effects of Totalitarianism in a normal society. I felt like this was done through clearly depicting how all the citizens lived in complete fear of Big Brother and the Party. I also liked this book because of how it changed my mindset. In the book it described different scenarios where the citizens were limited to a certain amount of chocolate, cigarettes, or other items that the citizens felt were a necessity which caused them to ration these items. This really made me realize how important it is to cherish the things you have and not take things for granted.

2) The book I enjoyed least was There Eyes Were Watching God. Although the depiction of the southern dialect during that time period was a new interesting twist, it wasn't very enjoyable. The way the author used dialogue in the book was really confusing and took a very long time to get used to. This made it much harder to read. However I did manage to enjoy the book after getting the hang of the dialogue. I felt that the beginning of the plot was very boring and hard to get in to. The ending to this novel is what bugged me most of all. When Janie killed Tea Cake, I felt that it contrasted the author's theme of needing a relationship to be content with oneself. This is mainly because not only did Janie end up single, but she killed her spouse and was still able to be content with herself.

3) For The Stranger, the main element that I would focus on is the inability for the character to find himself, or be excepted into society. For example when the character's mother dies, he has trouble feeling remorse when everyone expects him to, and then stereotypes him as somebody that is troubled because he can't feel remorse towards the death of his mother. Something else I found rather significant and interesting was how the sun affected him. When he murdered the Arab he described the sun as if it was the cause of his actions. During this incident he described the sun as "The same as it was the day Maman died." I feel that this proves the sun is the cause of his anger.