Mr_Shank

In this Section I am going to look at Petruchio.  Petruchio is a wealthy and very arrogant man who has come to Padua from Verona to find a wife.  So two suitors of a girl named Bianca, who cannot marry until her sister, Katherine, is married, convinces him to court “Kate”.  Kate is a very strong willed woman who many refer to as a shrew.  During this time period shrews were looked down upon harshly, and people did not even like to be in the same room with them much less talk to them.  So Pertruchio goes to speak with Kate’s father to ask to court her.  He agreed, and had her meet him.  The only reason that Petruchio wishes to marry Kate is because he wants a wife with a large sum of money coming her way, and she fits the bill.  Petrucio is very hard headed, and has a temper just as short if not worse than Kate’s.

My question is do you think that Pertruchio will succeed to tame Kate?  Or do you think that she might tame him in a way? Please support your answers with quotes and facts from the story.

-Kody

In this last post I would like to look at John Grady. In this section John Grady leaves Mexico and is persecuted because of Blevins’ horse. Two men who were trying to make a profit took him to court. He won and kept the horses. Then he went to Rawlins’ home and gave him his horse back. While there Rawlins offers for John Grady to stay with his family. John declines and when Rawlins asked him what he was going to do John Grady said I don’t know. We then see John Grady at a cemetary standing over the grave of an old lady who worked for his family for many years. He always called her his abuela. Then at the end of the novel we see John Grady riding off across the desert past a tribe of Indians.

Why do you think McCarthy ended the novel in this manner? What do you think is the relevance behind having the Indians?

-Kody

In the third chapter of the novel I am again going to look at John Grady.  In this chapter John Grady and Rawlins are both hurt by a man who slashes both of their stomachs.  John Grady then kills the man, he feels remorse which Rawlins scolds him for when they are both released from prison.  When they are released Rawlins decided to go back to Texas, but John Grady decides he is going to stay in Mexico and go back to the ranch to retrieve the horses and try and win Alejandra.  This brings me to my first question which is:  Do you think that John Grady is making the right decision or should he go back to Texas with Rawlins?

My next question is who do you think hired the man to kill Rawlins and John Grady?  John Grady knew that the man was a proffesional killer and that someone hired him to kill them.  Do you think it was Alejandra’s aunt or maybe her father?  Why do you think they wanted to take such extreme measures to get rid of the two.  I mean they were already in jail weren’t they?

-Kody

In this segment of the novel i am going to look at Lacey Rawlins.  Rawlins is John Grady’s best friend and the person who came a up with the idea of running away to Mexico.  When the two had met Blevins, another boy from America riding south to Mexico, Rawlins didn’t like him and thought he would get them in trouble.  Rawlins is right in this fact because the two are arrested because after they helped Blevins retrieve his stolen horse he went back into the town and tried to steal back his gun.  When he did that he shot a man dead and he was arrested for it.  Then Rawlins and John Grady were arrested because they were suspected of aiding Blevins in the shooting.  On the way to the prison that Rawlins and Cole are to be in the people taking them shot Blevins.

Do you think that Rawlins was right in not wanting to ride with Blevins or do you think that he is just an overly cautious person?  Also do you think that if Rawlins gets the chance to escape from prison he will take John Grady or do you think that it will be every man for himself?

-Kody

In this first section i am going to look at the protaganist John Grady Cole.  The book starts out with John arriving at his grandfather’s funeral.  He is very shook up by this because he lives on his grandfather’s ranch and knows that his mother doesn’t want it.  he loves the ranch and wants to take it over but she won’t here of it.  Grady’s parents are divorced and they had stayed together for a while just because of John.  Now John Grady was only 16 years old when all of this happened and his mother was in a play.  he went to San Antonio from San Angelo to see her.  After the performance John sees how distant he is from her.

My question for you is why do you think that John Grady wanted to run the ranch so badly as a 16 year old teenager and not be able to live his life a little before sttling down?  And do you think that his idea to run away from home was a good idea why or why not?

-Kody

For our final post about War of the Worlds, i chose to study the narrator again and see how he has changed since the start of the novel.  It seems that seeing all the death and destruction wrought by the Martians has definitely changed him, as it would have done to any person.  In the beginning, he was a very scientific, logical man who was intrigued and excited by the happenings on Mars and on Earth.  Now that he has been through so much for his survival, however, he has lost his interest in science and become more of an emotionally based person.  Throughout the chapters, we are given an insight to his thoughts and we see that he has become much more of an introspective person.

“For that moment I touched an eomotion beyond the common range of men, yet one that the poor brutes we dominate know only too well. I felt as a rabbit might feel returning to his borrow and suddenly confronted by the work of a dozen navvies digging the foundations of a house.  I felt the first inkling of of a thing that presently grew quite clear in my mind, that opressed me for many days, a sense of dethronement, a persuasion that I was no longer a master, but an animal among the animals under the Martian heel. With us it would be as with them, to lurk and watch, to run and hide; the fear and empire of man had passed away.”

This quote expresses an overwhelming emotion that the narrator felt as he emerged from his hiding place.  What he saw that made him feel this was not so much the amount of destruction, but the way the Martians have alienated the planet to make it their own.  It no longer looked like a place on Earth, but a place inhabited by some strange, extraterrestrial beings.

I think that this is one of the major things thar affected the way the narrator changed in the final portion of the novel.  He had almost no hope left and hardly even wished to live anymore until he discovered the dead Martians in London.  This gave him hope for humanity and allowed him to continue on and eventually return home and find his wife.

In the end, it turned out that humanity did survive.  They outlasted the Martians and were able to reclaim their planet.  However, this was only due to a microscopical phenomenon out of their own control. “By the toll of a billion death man had bought his birthright of the Earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty.  For neither do men live or die in vain.”  This is also true of the narrator.  He only survived because of instances out of his control.  Whether it was because of deterences to the Martians from the military, or ignorance on the their end he was able to live.  I also think that this book makes you think on both sides of the “war”.  Yes, the Martians are trying to wipe us out, but they are doing it to save themselves.  Humanity would do the same thing.  And when you think about it, we do the same thing as the Martians everyday on Earth.  We see ourselves as greater than the rest of the life on our planet, so we use it or kill it for our own good.  We are like mindless little ants to the Martians, but since we treat creatures on our planet the same way, are the Martians really in the wrong? Are we just blameless victims to a force far greater than ours?  Or is there another side? What if, as a young boy sprays an anthill with a hose, the ants are thinking the same thing that we are; “why?”

In these chapters I have decided to watch and follow the narrators wife. Now I know that we haven’t heard or seen much of this women, but I feel that she is a very important person in this book. She is the reason why the narrator is having all of these adventures. If it weren’t for this women being a part of this man’s life I don’t even think that there would be a book called the War of the Worlds because the man would probably be dead.

The things we know about the narrators wife. She is in Leatherhead hiding with her cousin who (lets face it) is probably going to run away without her if he sees, or comes in contact, with a martian. Another thing that we know is that she is a supporter of her husband (just like every wife), but she is a special person. In the beginning of the book I thought that her husband was away a lot, but she put up with it.

My questions for you are:

What would this book be like if roles were reverse and the narrator’s wife was the narrator? Really think about this question. Think of all of the details that would change. Would the knowledge of the martians change? Think really hard.

Abbey

The character I would like to focus on is the narrator’s younger brother. Like the narrator, we do not know his name. However it is known that he lives in London and upon hearing of the Martian’s arrival sends a telegraph to his brother, telling him that he would like to come to his house to investigate the Martians for himself. The brother is very much like the narrator in that he likes to see things for himself and that he keeps a cool head in times of danger. Also, like the narrator, he seems very chivalrous. The narrator insisted on leaving his wife to return their cart to the innkeeper they borrowed it from. This requires him to go back to their town, which is under seige. The narrator’s brother, during his flight to escape the Martians, attempts to help a lot of people and tries to do the right thing. Upon seeing two women being attacked by robbers, he fights of the men and is almost killed when one of the women come back with a revolver and drives the thieves off. While traveling with the two women, he also attempts to save a man from being trampled by a cart, an act which nearly gets him killed, and helps in convincing Mrs. Elphinstone to come with them on the boat and travel to safety instead of staying on land and putting herself in danger out of fear of leaving for a new country. The brother seems to be a very self-righteous person. What do you think drives him to be so chivalrous? Do you think his self-righteousness will keep him alive or eventually get him killed?

In this section of the novel we see that the story is told in first person.  The narrator is a main character but his name is not revealed in the first nine chapters.  The narrator believes that he first saw the capsule that lands on Earth being shot off about three days before the landing.  He then describes himself walking with his wife the next night, and the night that it arrived he was in his study working with his windows wide open.  If he would have looked up from his desk while working he would have saw what seemed to be a meteorite flying through the sky.  But he didn’t look up so he didn’t see it.  When the capsule opens the narrator was the one of the people who was standing there watching. He was also one of the first to recognize that there was a threat.  One of his best friends was the first to be killed by the martians Heat-Ray. After this happens he knows he must take his wife and get away from the city. So he goes to the innkeeper and rents the innkeeper’s dog cart and horse. He then takes his wife and their maid and goes to Leatherhead, a town where his wife’s family lives. The way the narrator acts throughout this section, he seems to be in an upper class and feels he is better than everyone else. The narrator seems to be enthused by science and astronomy. What do you think he will do when the capsule finally opens? and why do you think he will act this way?