Honors English Deibler 4

1.) Yes, in my opinion, Mark’s thoughts are justifiable based on all he has seen and been through.  He states that he felt that he should end his own life a few months after the murder he witnessed and he could have felt guilty that he did not do anything to possibly help the man who was brutally murdered.  So as a result of his guilt for that, the only way that he could have felt better was to take his own life.  On that lone, winter afternoon, he had been finally been penetrated by the force of suffering which had been with him for years, and his soul had been affected.  Mark had been through so much at such a young age that he was not sure that he could handle it.  He stated that he felt that life could never, would never change for him. He was tired of how things were, and he could not bare to think of how things were going to be for him in the future.

Having to deal with poverty, fear, pain, and suffering were too much for him to handle at such a young age.  However,  I may think that his actions are justifiable, I also think that his actions are not justifiable by all he has been through.  He might not be able to deal with all of the pain, suffering, and poverty, but he does not have to go through it alone.  As his mother told him, his sisters would miss him very much.  They too have to go through the same things as Mark.  He might have felt that there was nothing left to do, but there is always another choice.  For Mark, his mother made that other choice for him.  That choice was to take away the blade, and have him live fulfilling life as she has been telling him he will lead on eday.  Although as he stated that the doors of opportunity were shutting more the harder and more persistently he knocked, he should not give up. His mother has been trying to get him into school, and get working papers, and kept getting turned down. She, however, did not give up.  If anything, it made her go after it more.

2.) page 168-” While standing there, lost in a world of confusion and fear, my mother expectantly joined me.  I tried hiding the knife behind my back, but she had already seen it.  She remained still alongside me, alternately loking at me, then at the knife.  Overwhelmed with guilt, I dropped my eyes.  A few moments passed in tense silence. Still she didn’t say anything, seemingly waiting for me to say something, to explain the reason for the knife, and why i was trembling.”

This passage struck me as the most significant even thoughh there were many runner ups. It did so because it was (in my opinion) when Mark realised that he was not going through all of his struggles, which made him contemplate suicide, alone.  His mother taking his knife away and making him promise that he would never do anything so drastic again was something he needed to make him know that he is not being neglected and that he has people that care for him.

3.) -First off, who are the tsotsis? Second, what do you think happened to the second man they were chasing?

     -Does the school care enough to send people after Mark themselves, or did his mother ask the school to send people put to receive him? Also, did Mark get beaten for not being in school because he was beaten so badly for not being in school? Why? Wouldn’t they get that they were the reason he wasn’t there and lay off the beatings for a little while?

2.) In Kaffir Boy, the single most pivotal moment was when he was taunting and throwing rocks at the “shit-men” with other boys.   Although the boys ran away, Mark was caught by the “shit-men” and they made him stand naked in a bucket full of excrement and march in place. This scene is important to the character because he stated that “I was sure of one thing: never again would I jeer at the shit-men, nor anyone else for that matter.”, so from this punishment that he got from making fun of these men for something that possibly cannot be helped, such as their job, he should not make people feel bad about something that does not matter much at all, because being treated poorly in turn is not anything fun.  This scene changed how he thought of what is fun and what is not because of the consequences. It is important to the overall message of the story because it helps relate to the hard times in a different form, which would be abuse, and not hunger or lack of money as in other parts of the book. 

In Animal Farm the single most pivitol moment was when the animals were looking into the farm house at the end and they could not tell the humans faces from the pigs.  This scene is important to the characters lives because it helped to show them that the world that they are living in now is no different from the one they were in before.  The imortance of this scene to the overall message is that it helps state that in the end, power was with one person (pig), and that is unchangable.  The ability to have power is always going to be wanted and somebody is going to have power.  The animals did not realize this until they saw the pigs and humans undepictable from one another through the window.