Sunday, November 23, 2014
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
"Subtle Knife" essay
Astor Meredith-Goujon
November 16, 2014
The Subtle Knife
The
Subtle Knife is the second book in the “His Dark Materials” trilogy. The series
is about a girl named Lyra and a boy named Will. In her world everyone has something called a
daemon. It is an animal that is tied to a person. If a person is too far away
from his or her daemon they will die. A daemon is like a soul. The big aspect
of this trilogy is something called Dust. Dust is when matter becomes aware of
it self and can communicate with people in certain ways or tell them things
that would be extremely hard to find out. One of the biggest things that
effects what the characters do and ultimately the story is love if it’s friendly love, romantic love or love for an object.
One
example of this is when a group of kids try to kill the main characters because
they indirectly killed the bother of two of the kids. In the book it says, “ Will
managed to make out Angelica’s voice high over them all 'You killed my brother
and you stole the knife! You murderers! You made the specters get him!! You
killed him, and we’ll kill you! You ain’ gonna get away! We gonna kill you same
as you killed him.'” This shows how much they want to kill Lyra and Will. It
shows the love that this kid has for her brother. It also shows how much
Angelica’s friends love her and her brother because they will kill people for
their friends. Also these kids didn’t even kill the brother they should find a
way to get revenge on the specters not kill these kids. This event even help
Will to learn how to use the knife better which changed the story.
Another
example of love effecting what people do and ultimately effecting the story is
at the end when it says, “But in that same moment, as the lantern light flared
over John Parry’s face, something shot down from the turbid sky, and he fell
back dead before he could say a word, an arrow in his failing heart… But will
was there before she could find her foot, and the subtle knife was at her
throat. ‘Why did you do that?’ he shouted. ‘Why did you kill him?’ ‘Because I
loved him and he scorned me’” the person that she killed was a big character.
He was the father of Will, one of the main characters. In the story you never
learn anything about this character. He just died. He was really important. You
know this because he was mentioned many times thought the story as an important
character. So him dying is a huge deal and deprives you of a lot of
information. This affects the story a lot.
The
last example of love affecting the story is when Lyra’s alethiometer got
stolen. The guy who stole it wants the subtle knife. This makes Will end up
getting the subtle knife and changing the entire story. It even helps them get
the alethiometer back while still retaining the knife. Lyra’s love for the alethiometer changed the story in a
huge way. The most important object in the story is the subtle knife. Now that
Will has it he has a lot of power which means that people will want to kill him
or take the subtle knife which in turn does effect the story. He also can
control people with the subtle knife if they really need it. He can offer
himself and get reward from having the subtle knife and knowing how to use it.
Love
is a very big deciding factor in what we do as humans. It can give us the drive
to kill or change our lives in a huge way. It can affect other people in big
ways. Love is what we live for. Love defines us as people and can change our
lives in ways we can’t imagine. Love is the most powerful thing in life.
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Golden Compass Essay
Astor Meredith-Goujon
October 28, 2014
Essay of “The Golden Compass”
The
book the Golden compass is about a girl named Lyra in a fictional world. She
lives in oxford. In this world every one has something called a daemon. They
are complaining are tied to a person from birth. If they get too far from each
other they will die. Lyra doesn’t have any parents. Daemons are animals and
they can change into any animal when the people are kids but they settle on one
animal. I think that a Daemon is like someone’s soul. The Daemons change
because kids have a lot of emotions and act a lot of different ways. But when a
kid grows up they sort of settle on a personality and who they want to be and
how they want to act so the Daemon doesn’t need to change to fit the person
anymore.
One
of the reason I think this is because in the book it says, “‘Ah, they always
have settled and they always will. That’s part of growing up there’ll come a
time when you’ll be tired of his changing about, and you’ll want a settled form
for him.’” One of the key things in this quote is that he says that settling is
part of growing up. Which means that they are somehow related. It also shows
how the child grows and only wants their daemon to be in one form. It also
shows how Daemons always settle and everyone grows up so this is an important
fact.
Another
reason I think that this is true is because when it says in the book, “‘Why
don’t you just make some more armor out of this metal here Iorek Byrnison?’
‘Because it’s worthless. Look,’ he said, and, lifting the engine cover with one
paw, he extended a claw on the other hand and ripped right through it like a
can opener. ‘My armor is made of sky iron, made for me. A bear’s armor is his
armor is his soul, just as your daemon is your soul. You might as well take him
away’-indication Pantalimon-‘and replace him with a doll full of sawdust. That
is the difference.” This confirms that a Daemon is the soul of a person and
that they are connected to them. It also shows how important a daemon is because
it is connected with the person. Someone cannot live without a soul. A soul is
something that represents you as a person.
The
last reason I think that daemons represents people’s emotions is because at the
end of the book it says, “ His hands, still clasping her head, tensed suddenly
and drew her toward him in a passionate kiss. Lyra thought it seemed more like
cruelty than, love and looked at their daemons, to see a strange sight: the
snow leopard tense crouching with her claws just pressed in the golden monkey’s
flesh and the monkey relaxed blissful, swooning on the snow.” The people had
bitter love between them. The Daemons interacting this way toward each other
shows that Daemons represent emotions. The fact that the snow leopard had its
claws unsheathed shows the bitterness and the monkey being relaxed and blissful
shows the love between them. Also the snow leopard it’s cut the monkey with
it’s claws which show that they don’t hate each other.
A
daemon is like how a person would be in their animal form. They are the complete representatives of that.
They are companions and they are tied to you. They are just like a soul in a
real person. The point of the daemon is to show that you can’t live without a
soul and how important emotions and feelings are. They are the most important
things just like emotions.
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