Revised Blog Post "V for Vendetta"

            Link to my original blog post: http://aroseanothername.blogspot.com/2015/02/v-for-vendetta-reading-response.html   
              In today's world, Everyone is concerned about our own, and other countries, justice system, and afraid of anarchy taking over.  V for Vendetta deals with this fear and concern in the book.  V for Vendetta,  written by Alan Moore and drawn by David Lloyd, is a graphic novel which takes place in England about a dystopian future in which people are watched constantly and everything is filtered.  One person wants to change this totalitarian government.  His name is V and the government calls him a terrorist.  The book centers on V and Evey Hammond, a would-be prostitute whom V rescues.  In V for Vendetta, the book revolves around two main concepts, justice and anarchy, both of which are very instrumental in shaping the plot.  V for Vendetta uses these two themes to make a comment on not only the society in the book, but our society as well. 

            In V for Vendetta, the theme of justice is used to talk about our own justice systems as well.  The book debates on what justice means and what its limits are.  For example, in the beginning of the book, the police, or Fingermen as they are called, have found out that Evey is trying to prostitute herself.  This scene takes place before V rescues her and shows readers just how far freedom and justice can be taken, not just in the world of V for Vendetta, but in our own, as well.  One of the Fingermen says, “You know the laws on prostitution, that’s a class-H offence.  That means we get to decide what happens to you…. You’ll do anything we want and then we’ll kill you.”  The bringers of justice in this society get to decide your fate.  This is the same in our world, only, it is the makers of justice, and not the bringers who decide our fate.  In this case in V for Vendetta, they want to rape and kill her.  That would be allowed in their society because that’s their justice.  The price of prostituting is getting your self killed.  Is this right, is this justice?  Does prostitution equal rape and death in the eyes of the law, and moreover, in the eyes of justice?  It does there.  Justice in our world can be misused like this as well.  people are allowed to decide someone else's fate on a jury in court, and they can be prejudiced.  Their opinion is not always right or fair.  This shows how justice can be taken to the extreme and can be mistaken for allowing law keepers to do whatever they want, not only in the book, but in our world as well.  At another point in the book, V talks about how the justice of the world of V for Vendetta had been transformed.  V says, “The justice that I loved was gone; who had such kindly eyes; who took such small and careful steps…Transformed, she glared through narrow slits and ground good men beneath her vicious heel.”  This shows readers how, in their society, justice had morphed into something that is more like injustice in disguise.  This is another way that Moore and Lloyd try to convey to us that this can also be the case sometimes in our world.  Justice in our world is supposed to help find the truth and give people the treatment that they deserve, yet it can sometimes be twisted or biased.  Justice in the world of V for Vendetta oppresses citizens and rises up those who shouldn't be put upon a pedestal.  Is it justice to rape and kill someone who’s only guilty of prostitution?  Is it justice to oppress innocent and good people? In our world, it is not considered so.   This book tells us how justice is easily abused and misused.

            Justice is not the only theme that is used to convey feelings about our world, anarchy is used to talk about how our own fears of anarchy are somewhat misplaced.  The book focuses on what anarchy really is and how it connects to the other theme of justice.  Most people think of anarchy as something with no laws or order to keep people in check.  But, while talking with Evey about anarchy and how it is different from chaos, V says, “Anarchy means ‘without leaders’; not ‘without order.’ With anarchy comes an age of… true order, which is to say voluntary order.  This age…will begin when the mad and incoherent cycle… has run its course.”  Most people mistake anarchy for chaos, just as Evey does in the book, which is why we are afraid of anarchy in our world.  This anarchy that V wants is not chaos, but uncontrolled order.  This type of anarchy is meant to balance out the chaos that their government’s justice has brought about, and to bring about a true kind of justice.  This justice from anarchy would be the people’s self-appointed justice, not their totalitarian government’s justice.  This is supposed to convey how our government is not as controlling and formidable as it says it is.  Moore and Lloyd are drawing a parallel here from our government to the book's in ow they have both brought about a kind of controlled chaos into the world.  V also talks about the different versions of anarchy: chaos and order.  As V describes anarchy he explains, “Anarchy wears two faces: both creator and destroyer.  Thus, destroyers topple empires; make a canvas of clean rubble where creators can then build a better world.”  In this way, this shows how V believes that in order to make this society better, he must first destroy it.  This is also V’s way of saying that in order to get justice, there must be anarchy.  It is also Moore and Lloyd's way of telling us that our own world needs a bit of anarchy to make it a better place.  Our world needs to destroy a bit to rebuild something better.  All of this shows that the book is trying to say that anarchy is not always as noxious as we think that it is.

            As you can see, the two major themes of this book are justice and anarchy.  The book’s focus is on how these two themes interact, and subliminally, how we can incorporate them into our lives.  V for Vendetta wants us to realize that our own justice systems aren't perfect, and that anarchy is not something to fear.  Anarchy isn't chaos, but un-ruled order, and justice should be finding the truth dealing out punishments fairly.  As V says, “justice is meaningless without freedom.”  This freedom can be our own type of anarchy, our own liberating order, that may even help us with justice.  What V for Vendetta is really trying to teach us is that justice and anarchy can coexist.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore Reading Response

            Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan is a book about a young man named Clay Jannon.  He starts working at a bookstore only to discover a secret society called the Unbroken Spine.  The society is bent on cracking a code about the secret to living forever that was left in a book by an old book printer.  Clay teams up with his friends to crack the code using technology, technology which the secret society refuses to use, and to save Mr. Penumbra and his bookstore which the society wants to close.  In this book Robin Sloan uses themes of Old Knowledge such as what is in books vs. New Knowledge such as the internet and how they interact.

            Robin Sloan uses themes of Old Knowledge such as the knowledge contained in books or knowledge which is passed down through word of mouth throughout his story.  In the book clay is talking to Rosemary Lapin, a very old lady who is a novice in the Unbroken Spine about a code which leads to a connect the dots picture of the founder of the society.  As he looks at her work drawn out on an old scroll, he observes, “But it is incomplete; in fact, it’s barely started.  You can see the curve of the chin and the hook of the nose, but nothing else… How long, I wonder, has Lapin been working on this?”  This is meant to show readers, that working by hand without use of tech takes a very long time much longer than if you used a computer to do the work for you.  All of this is meant to show readers that even though books and your brain are very good, sometimes you need technology to speed things along. 

            In the book, Robin Sloan uses themes of New Knowledge such as information found using technology or the internet throughout the book.  At one point in the book, Clay is talking to Mr. Penumbra about the connect-the-dots code set up by the Unbroken Spine which he solved.  He says, “ ‘I borrowed an old log book, and we scanned it…because Google has this machine, it’s super fast…Anyways, the point is, we just pulled out the data automatically.’ ” As previously seen this code has taken Rosemary Lapin several years, and she had barely started it.  While on the other hand, it had taken Clay only a day to start and complete it with the help of technology.  This is all to show readers that New Knowledge is very helpful and it is not something to be taken lightly.  It may very well lead to some great discoveries. 

            All in all the message that Robin Sloan want to send his readers is that while books and ancient codes may all be well and good, it is technology and the internet that will help us in the end, or in other words, “move over Old Knowledge, here comes New Knowledge”.  The age of pens and papers is ending and the age of the internet and all its wonders is beginning.  And while it may be hard to let go, we all need to accept it.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore Synthesis Page

"V for Vendetta" Reading Response

                V for Vendetta,  written by Alan Moore and drawn by David Lloyd, is a graphic novel which takes place in England about a dystopian future in which people are watched constantly and everything is filtered.  One person wants to change this totalitarian government.  His name is V and the government calls him a terrorist.  The book centers on V and Evey Hammond, a would-be prostitute whom V rescues.  In V for Vendetta, the book revolves around two main concepts, justice and anarchy, both of which are very instrumental in shaping the plot. 

            In V for Vendetta, justice is a major theme.  The book debates on what justice means and what its limits are.  For example, in the beginning of the book, the police, or Fingermen as they are called, have found out that Evey is trying to prostitute herself.  One of the Fingermen says, “You know the laws on prostitution, that’s a class-H offence.  That means we get to decide what happens to you…. You’ll do anything we want and then we’ll kill you.”  The bringers of justice in this society get to decide your fate.  In this case, they want to rape and kill her.  That would be allowed in that society because that’s their justice.  The price of prostituting yourself should not be getting killed, but it is.  Is this justice?  Does prostitution equal rape and death in the eyes of the law, and moreover, in the eyes of justice?  It shouldn't, but it does here.  This shows how justice can be taken to the extreme and can be mistaken for allowing law keepers to do whatever they want.  At another point in the book, V talks about how the justice of this world has been transformed.  V says, “The justice that I loved was gone; who had such kindly eyes; who took such small and careful steps…Transformed, she glared through narrow slits and ground good men beneath her vicious heel.”  This shows readers how, in this society, justice has morphed into something that is more like injustice in disguise.  Justice in our world is supposed to help find the truth and give people the treatment that they deserve.  Justice in this world however, oppresses citizens and rises up those who shouldn't be put upon a pedestal.  Is it justice to rape and kill someone who’s only guilty of prostitution?  Is it justice to oppress innocent and good people? No!  It’s not!  This book tells us how justice is easily abused and misused.

            In V for Vendetta another major theme that the book revolves around is anarchy.  The book focuses on what anarchy really is and how it connects to the other theme of justice.  Most people think of anarchy as something with no laws or order to keep people in check.  But, as V says, “Anarchy means ‘without leaders’; not ‘without order.’ With anarchy comes an age of… true order, which is to say voluntary order.  This age…will begin when the mad and incoherent cycle… has run its course.”  This anarchy that V wants is not chaos, but uncontrolled order.  This type of anarchy is meant to balance out the chaos that the government’s justice has brought about, and to bring about a true kind of justice.  This justice from anarchy would be the people’s self-appointed justice, not their totalitarian government’s justice.  V also talks about the different versions of anarchy: chaos and order.  As V describes anarchy he explains, “Anarchy wears two faces: both creator and destroyer.  Thus, destroyers topple empires; made a canvas of clean rubble where creators can then build a better world.”  In this way, this shows how V believes that in order to make this society better, he must first destroy it.  This is also V’s way of saying that in order to get justice, there must be anarchy.  All of this shows that the book is trying to say that anarchy is not always a bad thing.

            As you can see, the two major themes of this book are justice and anarchy.  The book’s focus is on how these two themes interact, and subliminally, how we can incorporate them into our lives.  Anarchy isn't chaos, but un-ruled order, and justice should be finding the truth dealing out punishments fairly.  As V says, “justice is meaningless without freedom.”  This freedom can be our own type of anarchy, our own liberating order.  What this book is really trying to teach us is that justice and anarchy can coexist.

V For Vendetta Synthesis Page

Blog Review: Living in the Glass Castle

Link to Sara's Blog Post: http://sarafellman.blogspot.com/2014/11/blig-post-121-thirteen-reasons-why.html

            For my blog review, I read Sara’s 1st blog post on “Thirteen Reasons Why” by Jay Asher.  The book is about a girl named Hannah, who killed herself, and left behind thirteen tapes giving thirteen reasons why she killed herself.  Behind each reason is a person that has done something horrible to her.  There are several things that make this blog post amazing.  One thing that makes this blog post great is the inferences based off of the text.  Another thing that makes this blog post so good is that Sara also makes many connections to the real world from the text.  This is why Sara’s blog post is so amazing.

            In Sara’s blog post, she makes inferences from the book and its characters.  One thing that really stuck out to me that she wrote was when she wrote that the author’s purpose was “having us readers, read Hannah’s voice as our own.”  This really stuck out to me because as she says earlier in the blog post, the book is told from the perspective of a character named Clay.  Hannah is just a narrator.  I have read this book before, and this inference made me look back at the book in a new light.  It made me realize that in fact, what Sara says here is true.  When you read this book, you do take on Hannah’s view of things.  Even though the book is told from Clay’s perspective, you see it through Hannah’s eyes.  Sara’s inferences about the book were profound and eye-opening.  They make you look at the book differently than how you would have, had you not read this blog post.  This, for a reader, is a very good thing because it opens you up to new perspectives.

            Another thing that Sara does in her blog post is to make connections to the real world based off of the text of the book.  One connection that she made was between Hannah’s deluded view of the world and how this relates to herself and everyone as a whole.   She talks about Hannah’s need for perfectionism and how everyone has this want for everything to be perfect.  In Sara’s words, “I can relate to Hannah; I want a perfect life, and if one thing is ruined, it upsets me, most people can say the same.”  This too, made me look back at this book which I had read, in a new light.  I had never considered Hannah to be a perfectionist, but this blog post made me realize that she was a perfectionist.  It also made me realize that everyone is a little bit of a perfectionist.  A blog post that makes you look at things differently and make realizations is a good blog post.

            All in all, Sara’s blog post about “Thirteen Reasons Why” by Jay Asher was awesome!  She made you realize new thing and look at things differently.  She did this through inferences and connections.  In her first blog post about this book, she said that she could relate to the character of Hannah, yet in the second blog post about the book, she talked about how she was disgusted by Hannah.  It’s very rare when you find a character that you can be both disgusted by, and yet can relate to it.  It’s even rarer to find someone who will admit this.  Reading Sara’s other blog post about “Thirteen Reasons Why” made this one stand out even more because it was so interesting to see her change of opinions.  All of these factors made this an amazing blog post.

            

Non-Fiction Critical Analysis 2: Hechinger's Field Guide to Ethnic Stereotypes

            In “Hechinger’s Field guide to Ethnic Stereotypes” by Kevin and Curtis Hechinger, the Hechinger brothers want readers to know that stereotypes are nonsense because we are all different, and therefore, should be ignored.  One way that the Hechinger’s show readers this is by listing out all of the different stereotypes of different ethnicities.  The Hechinger’s also use ridiculous “facts” to make stereotypes seem even more crazy and unsupported.  For example, according to the book, “Many Scandi-Americans… have spent so much time consuming dairy products, eating baked goods, and sitting out the snows on their living room sofas, they have fundamentally altered their genetic code.”  This quote is just one example of a crazy “fact” that is obviously untrue and supports a ridiculous stereotype.  Finally, the Hechinger’s use humor to make fun of stereotypes and show that they are nonsense.  All of these examples show and support how people should not be confined to stereotypes or to listen to stereotypes.

            The Hechinger’s want readers to laugh at the hilarity of stereotypes, and feel surprised at the assumptions of some stereotypes.  One way that the Hechinger’s do this is by using humor to make fun of and show the ridiculousness of stereotypes.  For example, in the book, the author’s say, “But recent improvements in down-coat technology have led to the dispersal of Latinos across the country.”  This is one of the many ways that the book uses humor to disperse myths about ethnic groups that stereotypes and generalizations bring and support.  The Hechinger’s also simplify the topic by using casual language.  This use of language familiarizes and connects the narrator and the reader, causing the reader to feel comfortable while reading the book, and allows them to feel surprised at certain revelations and facts that contradict stereotypes. 

            After reading “Hechinger’s Field Guide to Ethnic Stereotypes,” I agree with the Hechinger’s that stereotypes should be ignored, but I think that the way they supported and built up their ideas with humor was confusing and unnecessary.  Their humor was too forced and to me it ended up just being confusing and seemed at least a little racist.  I agree with their message, but I thing that they went about saying it the wrong way.