Senior 2: Cliché friendship

4: What point of view does the author use?  What are the advantages to the author’s chosen point of view?  (What is the author able to do, because they chose to tell the story with that point of view?)  How would the book be different if it employed a different point of view (e.g., 1st person instead of third person, or a different first-person narrator)?  

The point of view that the author uses is unlike any other that I’ve read. He uses first person, but also third person. This was confusing at first until I eventually got used to it. With this the author is able to do many things that any other type of narration could not. For example, it allows him to narrate all the characters and show how they eventually come to meet and  bond together as colleagues and friends, while also telling his own story. An example of them discovering something in a tree happens on the very last page of the novel. They’re all together when “Sillett went aloft. Marie Antoine followed. — ‘I’m finding tiny golden-brown ants up here,’ Antoine said on the radio, ‘It’s only the second time I’ve seen ants up in a redwood.’ ‘That may be a new species,’ Sillett said” (248). At one of the tallest altitudes they’ve ever been in, they found ants. It occurred to me that these ants weren’t just a discovery as for a new species, but a discovery in friendship. This may sound cheesy but it’s truly what I believe. The reason I say this is because they are confident enough to talk to each other about things they find. Have you ever heard the saying, “Your true friends are the ones who you tell good and bad news to first.”? That only further proves my opinion. This just shows how seeing each one of the character’s back stories from that specific narration style allowed us to understand their companionship easier. I feel like If this book were to be written in a different narrative style, like only in the first person, things would be a lot more confusing in the way we view the characters because we don’t know where they even came from. It would be like just adding a random character at a random time. I feel like this was a good decision by the author.

Works Cited

Preston, Richard. The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring. New York: Random House, 2007. Print.

Senior 2: Keep on trucking

3: What is the theme of your book?  (How do you know?)  Before you read the book, what did you think about this subject? Did reading this book give you a new insight or deepen what you already know about this theme?

The theme of this book is “Never give up on your dreams” or “choose a job you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” The only reason I know that that’s what the theme is, is because there were two characters in this story that decided what they were currently doing wasn’t fun and not what they wanted to do. Bob Van Pelt, one of the main characters was in class one day when he realized, “As a college student, [he] wanted to be a physicist, but one day when he was sitting in a physics course he found himself staring out the window of the classroom into the crown of an oak tree, and he thought, I don’t want to do physics anymore. With a bachelor’s degree in physics, he got a job as a cook in Sequoia National Park” (154). He eventually ended up going to Humboldt State University doing what he truly wanted to do. Obviously I’ve seen things like this theme everywhere, especially in school. This didn’t really affect my view on this subject because I was so used to seeing it everywhere. It was, however, interesting to see this theme put into a book about trees and tree climbers. That’s not what I thought the theme was going to be at all. In fact, I had no clue what the theme would be. Anyway, seeing how this theme, that has been repeated to me for years and years, actually proved to work (twice!) was really interesting because a lot of the helpful tidbits of information that I learn in school about careers just seem far fetched. For example, my advisor mentioned that some people that don’t go to college end up really successful, and this was bizarre to me. Reading this book sort of opened my eyes to all the possibilities there are no matter how extraordinary.

Works Cited

Preston, Richard. The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring. New York: Random House, 2007. Print.

Senior 2:Canopies and houses

2: What is the setting of the story?  Is the setting familiar or unfamiliar to you?  Why?  (It might be familiar if you’ve been to the place where the story is set or it is set in modern-day.  It might be unfamiliar if it is in a time period you haven’t lived during, is set somewhere where you haven’t been to, or is set in a fantasy world.) How did familiarity or unfamiliarity affect your ability to envision the story?

The setting of the story varies from the past to the present, showing what the main characters’ memories were or just showing their backstory. As for the location, it is located mainly in one of the many forests the characters visit. The setting is very familiar to me, in fact, because I had taken a few trips to the forest with some of my friends, classmates, and teachers for an annual “forest competition.” Aside from that, the setting’s familiarity allowed me to understand what the characters were seeing with great ease, as I already know what the trees or certain type of foliage looked like and how they were presumably arranged. There were a few times in which I felt a little jealous because the characters were in the tops of the trees, where I had never been of course, looking over the other trees. A time I remember being super jealous was when Steve Sillett was talking to his brother at the very top of a tree. He said, ‘Scott, I’m standing at a place where my eyes are above the top most foliage of this tree,’ Sillett said. ‘Above the world’s tallest living thing’” (123). Wow! Did I envy this guy. What a view this guy must’ve had. This didn’t really affect my view of the setting because this was just one instant in which I had no clue what it looked like, but instead just a mental image.

Some events happened in the characters’ hometowns or their homes. This wasn’t really an issue for me to view because it was just a home. The story as a whole was fairly simple to comprehend and visualize simply because it took place in familiar places that I could relate with such as a forest or a hometown.

Works Cited

Preston, Richard. The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring. New York: Random House, 2007. Print.

Senior 2: Reality check

1: Are any of the characters a developing character, changing over time?  Explain how the character changed in the story. (What were they like before? What were they like after?  Who or what changed them?)  Was the change a large or a small change?  Is the change believable for the character in his/her situation?

An example of a developing character, in the novel, The Wild Trees, by Richard Preston, is Steve Sillett. Sillett is now one of the leading scientists and botanists that studies old growth California Redwood forests. He came up with a lot of new ways to climb and study these trees. Aside from that, this scene, or part, of the story revealed something about Sillett that sort of surprised me. Taylor and Sillett are reminiscing and talking about being up in huge trees, when Sillett just starts to talk about how he could just fall off at anytime if he were to just cut his harness and ropes. This is a key point in the story because we get to see how Sillett actually feels about his life. Taylor’s life isn’t all that perfect either and contemplates the same thing but he tells Sillett, “My dad has rejected me. Man, he’s cut me off. It’s a crazy, mad world we’re in. Think about the trees, okay? Don’t think about Amanda. Don’t think about falling, Steve, okay? Don’t think about yourself, man. Don’t think about anything but the trees” (Preston 165). After this, Sillett realizes that there is much more to discover in those massive trees, and that he shouldn’t think about his life at that point in time just like Taylor said, but instead to just keep going and try to resist the urge to think about those negative things in his life. I feel like this is a key moment in the story, especially for Sillett because it shows the darker side of him and what he feels, as well as how he surpasses his negative thoughts, whether that be with the help of his friend or not. This isn’t a really big change in his character because it was just one small time where he had to go against what he was thinking. However, I think it is a big change in the way he thinks. Taylor changed Sillett’s whole mentality, specifically not think so negatively and that there is always something to do to distract you from all of the bad things happening in your life.

Works Cited

Preston, Richard. The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring. New York: Random House, 2007. Print.

Senior 1: Silly Hobbes, you were wrong

Question 4: What is the theme of your book? (How do you know?) Does the theme reinforce or go against what most people think?  (Would most people agree or disagree with this theme?)  Explain.

The theme was revealed to me at the very end of the book. It was very clear to me what the theme was especially because it was said by the protagonist. Mark Watney says,

“Every human being has a basic instinct to help each other out.” (Weir 88)

I do not agree with this statement just because I just got done with a project in which I was strongly convinced that every man is selfish, but I do see his point. Without the 7 billion people on Earth trying to help or supporting him, he would’ve gotten nowhere. Think about it, a national space corporation in China gave up something that they were working on for months, probably years to be real, just to save one man. He also talks about how they didn’t try to save him just because he was a man but also to show how far science and space travel has gotten and how far our attempts at living on another planet has gotten. I can understand how some people might not agree with him because they’re either really salty or have experienced the opposite, but after this whole event, he believes that every human is watching out for one another. If I were in his position, heck yeah I would think the same. How many people risked their lives, their jobs just for one man? This is where the statement, “I can’t thank you enough” comes into play because you literally can’t. Money can’t do anything, all he could do is appreciate what people did for him and try to show it as much as he could, at least that’s what I would do.

 

Senior 1: Legendary Grandpa

Question 3: What is the setting of the story?  Is the setting familiar or unfamiliar to you?  Why? Does the setting create an obstacle for the characters? How?

The setting of the story takes place on, well, Mars. For the most part, that is, sometimes it’s on Earth or in the Hermes spaceship but mainly on Mars. Mars is very familiar to me, in fact, I was born there. In all seriousness, mars is as familiar to me as is New York City, so not at all. I only know what Mars looks like just because of pictures on the internet, same as New York. Now Mars might be a little bit of a problem for the characters and their struggle to get Mark back home because it’s 54.6 million kilometers away, the atmosphere could kill you, and it takes about a half an hour to send a message back and forth from Earth to Mars. Not only is Mars a new place for Mark Watney to live on for three years, but it’s also been proven to be uninhabitable at least with current technology. When Mark was walking up the hill to enter the crater near Ares 4 he said to himself,

“I can’t wait till I have grandchildren. “When I was younger, I had to walk to the rim of a crater. Uphill! In an EVA suit! On Mars, ya little shit! Ya hear me? Mars!”” (Weir 71)

This alone shows how scary it was for him. Most grandparents that tell stories would say something about World War 2 or something but this guy wants to freak his grandchildren out by saying he was on Mars and almost died 30 million times. Being on Mars is an obstacle in itself, but having to climb the side of a crater while hauling two heavy land rovers probably made this journey a little harder for him. Oh yeah, and they flipped over from the wind conditions.

Senior 1: FeelsBadMan

Question 2: What is a protagonist?  Who is the protagonist in the novel?  What makes the protagonist sympathetic or unsympathetic? Explain.

A protagonist in a story is simply just the main character. The protagonist in Andy Weir’s, The Martian,” is Mark Watney. Mark is a very intelligent man with many talents. In my opinion, Mark is as sympathetic as he is caring. He and his crew went through a huge dust storm and had to escape. Mark was impaled by a satellite dish that was knocked out of place by the wind. His team left him because they thought he was 100% dead. Fortunately and unfortunately for him he was alive. His blood pooled up on his suite and dried causing it to seal the hole in his suit so he wouldn’t die from atmospheric pressure. The reason I say he’s sympathetic and caring is because he understood why his crew left him on the dusty planet and he wasn’t as infuriated as I would be. On the way back to Earth, Mark’s crew was told that Mark was still alive on Mars and they rushed to try to contact him. They were all in a state of guilt and remorse (Wouldn’t you be too?). Mark Writes to his commander, who is on her way home,

Hi, Commander.

Between training and our trip to Mars, I spent 2 years working with you. I think I know you pretty well. So I’m  guessing you blame yourself for my situation.

Don’t.

You were faced with an impossible scenario and made a tough decision. That’s what Commanders do. And your decision was right. If you’d waited any longer, the MAV would have tipped.

I’m sure you’ve run through all the possible outcomes in your head, so you know there’s nothing you could have done differently (other than “be psychic”).

You probably think losing a crewman is the worst thing  that can happen. Not true. Losing the whole crew is worse. You kept that from happening. (Weir 50)

You can almost clearly see what I mean when I say that mark is very sympathetic. He’d rather risk his life for his whole crew then have his whole crew die trying to save him. Of course, he cares a lot about himself and doesn’t want to die but we can see here that he cares about other people more than himself.

Watch this to get a better idea of how Mark felt

Senior 1: Potato tomato, tomato potato

Question 1: What is a “conflict” in literature?  What is the main conflict in your book?  How does the ending resolve (or not resolve) the main conflict?  (Is the ending happy, unhappy, or indeterminate?)  Was the ending an appropriate ending for the book?  Explain.

The Martian, written by Andy Weir, has a very obvious conflict. You can easily tell what the conflict is after you read the first chapter. Mark Watney, an astronaut is stranded on Mars all by himself after his crew leaves him and he has to try to survive, make contact with NASA, and even try to get home. His crew didn’t leave him because they were evil or anything, they just left him because they thought he was dead. In fact, Mark says later in the story that it was a good decision to leave him there and for the crew to get home safely. Mark had a very difficult time trying to survive on the red planet even with all the supplies. The first thing he did for food was he made a potato farm out of leftover Earth soil, Mars soil, and his own excrement. Everything went to plan except for the fact that he didn’t have enough water to give to his crops. Mark used the oxygen and hydrogen reserves left in his station to create water. What a genius! He kept creating water for about seven days successfully until one minor miscalculation. He accidentally let out some extra hydrogen into his Hab, what his home was called. As you may or may not know, oxygen + hydrogen + fire = boom. One little spark could blow up his entire home. He had to figure a way to remove all the hydrogen without destroying the crops or blowing himself up. Mark says,

“I can trick the regulator into pulling all the oxygen out of the Hab. Then I can wear a spacesuit (so I can breathe) and do whatever I want without fear of blowing up. Yay!” (Weir 10)

Mark planned on removing all the oxygen out of the Hab to then make controlled bursts of explosions remove most, if not all, the hydrogen. This works for a while but he forgot that when he breathes there’s some oxygen that comes out of his lungs. Events like this happen constantly through the book until the very end where (Spoilers) he gets rescued by his crew members. The ending, in my opinion, was very fitting. After all Mark went through he definitely deserved to get off that God forsaken planet.

Social Anxiety

Question: Choose a character that is not the protagonist. How does she/he hinder the protagonist’s growth?

Andy Evans and Rachel stop the protagonist, Melinda Sordino, from growing or continuing. Andy raped Melinda which basically ruins her social skills and makes it to where everyone thinks she is a weirdo and a kook. The night of the party, where she was raped at, she called the police because of what happened to her, breaking up the party. Andy is mad at Melinda because she told Rachel about what happened between the two. Take note that Rachel and Andy are going to prom together. Andy privately speaks to her after prom saying, “You have a big mouth, you know it? Rachel blew me off at the Prom, giving me some bullshit story about how I raped you. You know that’s a lie. I never raped anybody.” in which she responds with, “What’s wrong, ugly, you jealous? Can’t get a date?”( Anderson 193) I feel like this shows how Andy prevented her from “growing” out her shell because he’s lying about what happened and what actually happened made her an introvert. Rachel also prevents her from growing because she doesn’t believe what she says about Andy raping her. She basically talks to her friends (Melinda and Rachel used to be best friends and in the same social circle) telling them to bully Melinda by saying she’s a weirdo. In this situation it is hard to move on, not only from being raped but, from the bullying and hatred towards her especially from her ex-bestfriend. This is totally unacceptable in my eyes. I feel like these two made her life really hard and I’m sure that she had a really hard time because of them.

Drama Alert

Question: How does the setting in this novel relate to our world? How is it different?

The novel takes place in a normal high school setting. The setting in the novel is very similar to that of the real world in that there are bullies, drama, clubs, gossip. The bullies and name callers are a necessity in a high school, there is no way to prevent jerks in a high school. The drama in the book is caused mainly by a group of stuck up girls called the Marthas. These girls are relentless. Heather, one of the nicer members of the Marthas sees that there is a new girl, “She’s a friend. She was the first person to make feel at home here” says heather. “She is creepy. What is wrong with her lips? It looks like she has got a disease or something. says Emily”(Anderson 45) This quote shows how the high school girls in the novel are very similar to the girls in real life. There is no stopping them when they judge. There’s a saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” This phrase fits in perfectly with the girls in this book and the girls of today’s society. Also gossip is a very similar part of today’s world. Rachel tells her friends about how she thinks Melinda is lying about being raped and they start calling her weirdo. There is no privacy in this world and it is shown very predominantly with these girls.