Gracie AP lit

Ok I need to get back to my general intro so peace out for now.

Overall I really enjoyed reading this book. It’s only flaw to me was that it was really long and some parts were unnecessary to the plot as a whole and it could’ve been made shorter. It was still really good and I can say after finishing it I feel the ending answered all unanswered questions and might’ve made some readers a little teary-eyed.

There’s a lot of foreshadow in this book. I mean there should be since the narrator, Johnny, is telling us the story of his childhood as a flashback. I’m just kinda confused with the character of Owen. So he knows when he’s going to die and how he will die. He writes in his diary, “I know when I’m going to die - and now a dream has shown me how I’m going to die. I’m going to be a hero! I trust God will help me, because what I’m supposed to do looks very hard” (422). Owen has no issues with knowing when he’ll die, spoiler, he dies fairly young while at war. He knows he’ll die a hero. His faith is so strong. He knows God will help and protect him. Owen foreshadows a lot when he talks about his death and how he’ll die. We know Owen dies and we know that he will die heroically. I’m amazed that Owen takes all this so well. He knows when he’s going to die and he knows how he’ll die. I wouldn’t want to know all that. But he has no issues because he knows God has a purpose of him, he is “God’s Instrument”. His character is so complex and seems wise beyond his years. He has a lot of faith.

I’m feeling optimistic. I have a couple more sources for my book now. I believe they will work (I still have to read and annotate them). I told Ms. Chrisman about my struggles at OU and she was nice enough to look up and print 3 more sources for me. I’m feeling better about my sources now. Hopefully a couple will end up working, enough so I can write about them and finish the project. Overall, I’m feeling better about the sources I have and after I look at them more closely hopefully I’ll find some that will work for me!

At this point in the book we find out that Johnny’s mom was a singer at a bar every Wednesday night. We find out where she would actually go in Boston when she told Johnny and everyone else she was going to a singing teacher. We find out why she kept the red dress that she said she hated and only kept it because the store she bought it from had a fire and lost the business transactions, so she could just keep it instead of returning it, which is a lie obviously. This is a big revelation for Johnny. He doesn’t know how to process it. He thought he knew his mom, but he finds out that he really didn’t know much about her. She was capable of lying to him, which is something he can’t believe. At first I thought the character of Tabby Wheelwright, Johnny’s mom, was pretty simple and straightforward. I mean even her own sister in the book said she was “simple”. After this big reveal we see that this is not the case. She is quite more complex than I thought. Johnny’s mom has been dead for 10 years at this point. Johnny still wants to find who his real dad is, so after this he thinks he could be closer to finding his dad. He thinks his dad could be someone in Boston, possibly the piano player that played at the joint with her. Johnny and Owen are desperate and want to find the truth. They just didn’t know this was the truth they were looking for.

I read in one of my criticisms about the armlessness theme that is portrayed in the book. I have never heard of that so I was curious to know more. The article mentions how “armlessness is an image of a figure standing with arms outstretched or missing and recalls Christ’s Crucifixion”. It goes on to state how several things are mentioned in the book that are armless, such as the fake armadillo that both boys love. Owen took the arms off it when he had it in his possession after the death of Johnny’s mom. It also mentions the dummy that Johnny’s mom used to dress up before she died that is in Owen’s possession as well. I believe all of this foreshadows Owen’s death. He saves a bunch of kids from a grenade, but ends up dying in the explosion and losing both arms. This whole theme was something I didn’t pick up until I read about it. It’s a very interesting theme to have. The one that really got my attention was the armadillo because Owen was the one who took its arms off. And finally at the beginning of chapter 9 Owen finally tells us why he did this! He says, “’GOD HAS TAKEN YOUR MOTHER,’ he said to me, when I was complaining about practicing the shot.... ‘MY HANDS WERE THE INSTRUMENT,’ he said. ‘GOD HAS TAKEN MY HANDS, I AM GOD’S INSTRUMENT’” (343). Owen believes he has a purpose and God has a plan. In the movie Simon Birch, it was the same too. Simon (Owen) believed God had a certain plan for him, and he was made to do something big. Owen takes his religion very seriously. He took the armadillo’s hands because his own hands took away Johnny’s mom. He believes he is God’s instrument, doing what God intended him to do. This theme of armlessness is very interesting. The symbolism of the armadillo is also quite interesting.

So I went to the OU library with Krysten to get some criticisms for my book. We went up to the research lady and asked for criticisms for our books. I’m not totally sure she knew what we were asking but she pointed us to these books that actually does work for our books. So we obviously needed more than 2 sources, so we took to the computer to look up more criticisms. We found a couple sources for each of our books. So it was kinda a struggle to find good sources, the ones I did find, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to use. Hopefully they end up working for my book and they’re credible sources. I know the one is from a website, so I’m not sure about the credibility. Overall my time at the OU library was ok.

The big event that really brings the characters of Johnny and Owen together is the death of Johnny’s mother, who was killed when Owen hit a foul ball in baseball that struck her in the head. Both boys were very close to her. Her death shocked them both. Both had to grieve and adjust to life without her. At the beginning you don’t hear much about her death. Johnny tells us how she died and that’s about it at first. As you get a little farther into the book you find out about the time after her passing, when both boys were grieving. You hear about Johnny and how he doesn’t know how to feel about the passing of his mother, let alone that his best friend was technically the cause of her death. Johnny also tells us how he knows Owen feels extremely guilty. You also hear a lot about the baseball that killed her. The sheriff even calls it the “murder weapon”. It went missing after she was struck. The sheriff is always looking for it throughtout the book. Johnny is almost positive that Owen took it. He has a collection of things in his room that he keeps nice and orderly. Johnny is certain that that ball has to be there sitting on his shelf. As of right now, Johnny’s mom’s death is not talked about a lot in the book. I believe this is intentional since Johnny is our narrator and doesn’t want to open up about his mother’s death. It’s too hard for him to share about it and go in depth, at least in the beginning. I’m also really surprised how quick Johnny was to let Owen back in his life. If something like that were to happen to me, I would not want to see that person for a while because the sight of them would remind me of what happened. Johnny takes some time but he lets Owen back in as if nothing much has happened. It’s interesting the way that Johnny grieves.

This shows how confident Owen is and how he doesn’t care what Johnny’s cousins would think of him. Johnny is worried that his cousins will pick on Owen and be too rough with him, because they are pretty rough sometimes. This shows how different the two characters are, and how different their personalities are.

I gotta say I didn’t really know what I wanted to read. I got some suggestions and started looking at those. I looked around at books that were “similar to that book”. When you search a book you get even more suggestions. I found this book called “A Prayer for Owen Meany”. I read the description of the book and thought it would be an interesting read. It sounded very good. I decided that this was going to be the book I read for my final project. That’s pretty much how I chose my book!

I'm sure most of you have seen the movie, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It's a classic movie that tells the story of a young boy, Charlie, who wins the chance of a lifetime to take a tour of the famous Wonka chocolate factory. Throughout the tour, the other kids fail to listen to Wonka and his warnings and end up paying the price. While this movie is a good family movie that falls under the category of comedy and fantasy, it also has an underlying meaning to it. The hidden meaning in this movie is the idea of the seven deadly sins and how people can be so tempted to commit a deadly sin. Each of the kids represent a sin, and each of them commit one of the sins in the movie. This movie is a classic, fun movie, but it also teaches kids a lesson on what can happen if they don't behave. Willy Wonka transcends the genre of just a fantasy/comedy movie by adding the thought of the kids representing the seven deadly sins.

I think Antonio Meucci is as close to an original as you can get. He was the first creator of the telephone. He came up with a very early form of a communication device that was used like a telephone. Alexander Graham Bell was the first to patent the phone, but it was Meucci who first created the phone. This is why I believe he's the closest to an original.

This is definitely true for change, and it totally relates to Bethany. It was probably very hard at first to accept that this happened to her and she will always be missing one of her arms. It was probably hard to grasp the idea that she could possibly never surf again. Then, the messy part in the middle, is the road back. She has to learn how to do almost everything all over again. She has to train and re-learn certain things that were second nature before. She has to learn how to surf again, which can’t be easy. It’s messy to learn and adjust to this new change in your life. It’s hard and it is a struggle, but then you get to the end and it’s gorgeous. Bethany learned that she can inspire and help others. She can show people her strength and hopefully inspire them to be brave like her. This is the gorgeous part, where it seems like there was a purpose for all this. This happened for a reason. This is change.

This article definitely relates to Bethany. She relies on her strength in God, and she does not let her disability define her. She is known for her strength and comeback after the attack. Her relationship with God really helped her get through this difficult time, which is what this article mentions.

I feel this relates to Bethany and my book. After the attack, Bethany remained positive and pushed through. Just because something happens that’s extremely awful and life-changing, doesn’t mean you have to stop doing what you love. You find a way to do it, which is what I believe these lyrics are trying to say. You can do it and you can make it through, just like Bethany did.

I feel like this article totally relates to Bethany. The author goes on to explain how her younger brother died and her parents divorced. This is something very tragic that happened to her, but she doesn't see it that way. She sees it in a new light. Without the death of her brother, she would've never moved to the US to become a doctor. Her life would be completely different, and she mentions how she wouldn't like it that way. She turns something horrible into something good. That's what Bethany does too. She turns the loss of her arm into something that she can use to inspire others. That is what you need to do when that life-changing moment happens, spin it into a positive.