Journal 5

The mood of this novel changes throughout the story. The battle game scenes mostly give tense feelings (by describing the battle scenes and letting Ender win in a remarkable way). The mood is happy when Ender gains victory in the games because the author described how the team cheered when Ender wins. Like I said in the previous entry, the novel saddens me. It saddens me because Ender only finds happiness when he wins a game, which tells me that he totally became a soldier that the adults wanted him to become, a machine-like being. This novel seems like our society decades later. People picking out best and young for wrong uses and the young ones knowing nothing about what they are doing… giving up youth for something you do not know is not a fair deal. Soon our world will become like that, a world that does not allow weak people, and there will not be any solution. Was not the world’s goal to live happily? I do not understand how picking the best people and making them work makes the world happy. Somehow, the world’s goal has changed into having the most power.

Journal 4

The climax of Ender’s Game is when Ender and his army fights in a war, which they thought as a game. It is interesting how the author managed to write down all the actions and not bore the readers. In the climax, Ender eventually succeeds of getting rid of the main hive of the buggers. When he takes his headphones off, he sees people cheering and praying. Rackham tells Ender that he was the actual commander for the army, and Ender notices what is going on. I was kind of sad from the beginning to the end of the story. The way Ender was treated made me think that he was only a tool for defeating lives that are not favored by the world. The saddest part for me is the end of the novel where Ender blames himself for killing buggers, who have done nothing wrong. This part of the story also made me a little angry. Because of the adults, a child had to be used as a weapon in the war. One of the saddest types of people to see is teenagers with their youths taken away. It is important to meet the world’s criteria, but it is more, much more important to develop during youth. Why give up such important time in life for the world? What has the world done for us except for poisoning children and teenagers with messages from media that does not make sense? This book is a book that has numerous actions, but also with numerous messages.

Journal 3

The main characters of this novel are Peter, Valentine, and Ender. I do not have a character I favor or hate, but I did not like it when the main characters fought, especially when Peter threatens and bothers Ender. I still do not know why Peter threatened Ender so much when he loved him (after Peter plays buggers and astronauts with Ender, he tells Ender that he loves him and that he is sorry). I could not decide if I liked the characters or not. They were either too violent or too emotional. These three main characters are special because they know and do things ordinary children cannot do. Ender wins a battle for the world by leading an army, and Peter and Valentine fools the world by pretending to be people who criticize politics. Their intelligence is extraordinary, and not many children have such intelligence. They are like the “powerful” people in this world. They, especially Peter, know what the world needs and know what the world fears. By using the two points, Peter actually succeeds in having the government listen to him. Leaders in ancient history and today use these facts too, by bringing out what the country fears the most and what the country is in need of. People like Peter (or people who are less violent than him) could have been or have been great leaders, knowing when to use their power and what they know about their people.

Journal 2

There are no current situations related to the novel, but there are cases that are similar. Young children are exhibiting their superior intelligence, and parents are trying to make their children smarter and smarter by sending them to hagwons or having a tutor (mostly in Korea). Many people describe such students’ countenance as “dark,” “exhausted,” or “experienced in pain.” It seems that they have forgotten about youth. This is the battle for the “best,” just like a student in Battle School trying to be the best so that he would not be “iced.” The novel does not suggest any solutions, and no one can. The whole world is battling for the “best,” and who can change the mind of the world? This is 2007, a part of the period where technology is improving. The world will look for the best of the best people to think of a brilliant solution for the problems we have in this world, which will make the battle harder. Just like other organisms, we humans look only for the best. Those who do not meet the world’s criteria have to suffer in some way. It is humans’ nature to look for what we call the best, which is why no solutions are brought up. Who can beat humans’ nature or habit and change it?

Journal 1

One of the major themes of this novel is the difference and the relationship between children and adults. In this book, every child in Battle School has to act like adults. They are treated as soldiers, trained like soldiers, and taught like soldiers. The students in Battle School are taught how to kill, or how to take control of other “weak” people (Ender having to listen to Bonzo when he first goes into Salamander Army). The only difference between adults and the children in the novel is the physical appearance and strength. The children have forgotten that they are children because of the adults’ control. This theme is important to teenagers in this year because they have to know that they are not adults and that they should not be exactly like them. If a child is treated and trained like an adult, his mind will become uncomfortable someday when he becomes a teenager. Teenage is only the beginning of learning how to become a successful, “good” adult. A child should not be taken away from his youth, a period where the child can learn and grow. Trained or not trained harshly like adults, the child will affect the world. Training children or teenagers this way is not the best way. Youth is a chance to live the world, and taking that chance away is the same as taking a child’s life away.

Entry 8

[entry of my choice]

Animal Farm would is probably the book I have repeated reading the most. I was recommended this book by my English tutor, and she told me that this book was related to a major event in history. I tried to connect every ancient history people I knew to the book. I remember my first try was Hitler, who had almost no connection, and I was extremely embarrassed. Since then I got to know who Stalin was and what he did. Animal Farm sounded very similar to another Orwell’s book, 1984. People lose freedom, they do not know, some of them get brainwashed, and they are forced to trust in the government. How the government’s word play affected the characters, I still do not understand. By reading these books, I got to know more history than I did before (I am glad; I did not know any major historical events at all except for World War II).
I heard of the title of this novel, Animal Farm, when I was in elementary school. My mom told me about the book, and I thought it was some peaceful story with animals living in a farm with a “normal” farmer. I did not know that an interesting and simple story like this was a history event. After reading this book for the first time, my head almost popped because there were too much information and too much to compare with the story and the real history. This was my third time of reading this book, and I am not tired of it at all.

Entry 7

[are there any settings in this novel which you have found to be beautiful? or disturbing? or memorable? describe these settings and comment on why they were meaningful to you.]

The most memorable setting I have found is the farm with the windmill being built. The animals have decided to make a windmill for better living, and this windmill’s size or height was not told, but I can imagine the machine working beside the farm. It is made out of stone, probably grey, and cements were used. It would look like a small tower with fan-like wings going around on its head. I am not sure if I can call this windmill “meaningful” to me. While I was reading this novel, the windmill was broken down a several times and had to be rebuilt. Every time that happened, my emotions were similar to the animals in the book. “Do they have to build that again?” I gaped at the page of the book when the windmill was blown up. While reading about the windmill, I was reminded of myself building something with a toy. It had taken me a long time, and someone trips on something and lands on my masterpiece. I was sad as the animals were in the novel. Maybe this is why I have chosen the windmill as the most meaningful or memorable, because it made me feel the shock of recognition twice. I think I reacted most to the events related to the windmill more than I did to other major events.

Entry 6

[please choose one passage from the novel that is significant to you. why is this passage meaningful? Please type it into one of your entries and comment on what you think about the passage.]

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others (p.81).”

This was said as the major rule of the farm almost at the end of the story. In the beginning of the book, the Old Mayor’s warning was not to become like humans; all animals are equal, despite the species. No “levels” should divide animals up. This quote shows that everything had gone back to start, because the goal for the animals, no longer for pigs, were to live without human and not human-like. The animals connect to people who work in this world.
I do not understand how Napoleon got to the point of choosing these kinds of words as a rule. I do not understand how “All animals are equal” turned to “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal.” Was being equal an impossible goal from the start?
No equality is seen in the world today, and people now do not even try to be. I think the quote I chose shows the reality. We do now have classes, and that cannot be changed unless every single person in this world can change his thoughts. This may have developed from human’s greed for power. They want to seem powerful, so they have to put some people down in order to do so. Pigs pretended to be the “brainworkers,” or the leaders, so they had to make other animals work. The pigs finally concluded that being leaders is “more equal” than animals that work exhaustingly.