Invasion of the body snatchers blog #12

In the Invasion of the Body Snatchers, there were many themes of xenophobia. It seemed as though in the beginning, everyone was so taken back by the epidemic that was coming across town. They were first looking at the people who thought that their mom wasn't their mom were going crazy. But in the end it was the normal people that were now different from the rest of the town. Everyone had to be the same and act the same. Once one person got their body snatched everyone else became immune to the idea that it was alright just because it would make them fit in. This film reminded me a lot of Monsters are due on Maple street. Once one person got the idea that something was wrong they all started to blame each other. No one takes the time to analyze the situation, they just jump to conclusions. But it seemed as though everyone got brainwashed even though they caused their own destruction. Throughout all our readings and books, people are so afraid of others and people or things that are out of the ordinary. But the true fact is that we are going to be the death of our self. Humans are their own worst enemy because we conform to things so easily. There is truly nothing to be afraid of but our self. I would say though that invasion of the body snatchers was just a science fiction movie. It could never happen, yet it made it seem like it truly could happen because how easily we conform. I could see that easily happening in our world with a different situation, not involving growing duplicates from eggs. But if someone really wanted to change a town, they would be able to.

"Repent, Harlequin" Blog #6

I enjoyed reading this story, but I would not want our society to live that way. In a sense, we do life that way because everything revolves around time. We are always planning for the next thing to happen, always moving or anticipating something. This society they were living in didn't give them to opportunity to take a second to stop and smell the roses. Instead it that happened, they would get less time on their life to even think about roses. The whole routine of going to work at a certain time, or school, appointments, is all just the same thing different day. Why live your life always planning the next step you will take to get you somewhere on time. I don't want to be on my death bed wondering why I did the same thing all my life. No one wants to face the fact that we do have a clock on our life and we will never know when it will show up. Just like in to story, no one wanted to face to Ticktockman or say that to his face. Everyone knew he was there but they didn't want to have to face the fact that he had the ability to decide their fate. No one should have the ability to decide how long or short someone lives. But when Harlequin faces the Ticktockman, he proves to him that he doesn't have that ability. Because the clock was a little off and the Ticktockman was late, he wasn't going to have to pay to consequences because he knew he was in charge. Time should not punish you, it should give you life and joy. It shouldn't be something that's always there but just a distant thought for reference.

There Will Come Soft Rains Blog #4

There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury, I didn't really like it very much. I got that everything was ran by a clock and a schedule. But I didn't understand why this house was the only one left on the street. The dog was still alive and the house was filled with smells. I don't think there was enough information to figure out what happened before this house was the last one standing. But the part I did think about was how all that was left was the so called robot house. Something like that is man made and its messed up to think that that is exactly what could be left standing when were all gone. All that will be left are our electronics that we created and they will outlive humans. When you die all you have are your belongings and its all just stuff. We live our life to fill it up with wealth and such. But in the end none of it is worth anything. We go through routines everyday to get more stuff out of our life. But why? All that seemed worth it was the memories that seemed to be stuck in that house. But those will last forever. We should just be filling our mind up with memories instead of our houses with things. Because once that gets lit on fire, there is nothing left.

Blog post #11 Random Sample

In Random Sample, the point T.P. Caravan was trying to portray is that humans get everything handed to them. Us as beings seem to only try really hard unless your getting something out of it. It seemed as though the little girl in to story only tries unless she got a piece of candy. I feel this is supposed to show that humans are very greedy. From when her and her brother johnny were killing the ants, they had no feelings for them. They didn't care about the life they were living, they just liked to watch what happened when they would do certain evil things to them. They didn't care at all about anything but themselves. When the spaceship came down they treated them with disrespect as well. It seemed like anything that was different from them didn't have any feelings or nerves. When the aliens were giving her a test, it seemed like they were testing her on her violence. When she took the books and started to hit them, that just proved a point that us as humans are selfish. But in the end, when everything is hot and the little girl is upset. Its almost like the boy who cried wolf. She begged and whined, but when she was in trouble like the ants were, she expected for everyone to help her and bow down to her. This story went well with The King of the Beasts. Creating species that will be sure to survive is a good idea but it is unfair to all the other species. Humans using selfishness to help their own personal success. It was ironic when the biologist was reporting creating a man, just like an animal. How can you both be the same species yet one can treat another a different way. It goes along with the xenophobia unit. We are all so afraid of things being different from us, we try to protect ourselves before anything happens by caging things up and creating clones to we can manipulate them to think, act and feel the way we want them to feel. Our world is so focused on creating something better we don't ever understand that we have a variety of living beings around us that we could correspond with but no, we always want whats different. The grass is always greener on the other side. But really its not. It can be green on this side if you look at from a different perspective.

Planet of the Apes blog post 10

In Planet of the Apes there was a lot of xenophobia that went on during the film. To begin when the space travelers first landed, they saw some sort of scar crow that were lined along the mountains. This makes me think that they are trying to scare some sort of creature away. Something that the apes didn't want to encounter. When Taylor got captured, they treated him like an animal. Even when he started to show signs of intelligence, they shunned him away thinking that he was still dumb. It seemed like the apes became afraid of what humans would do to them because they knew that humans once walked the Earth far before them. The lead ape didn't want anything to do with these "animals" and thought they were born to kill. I also think there was some discrimination between apes as well. You could tell what apes were higher up and had the ability to give orders. Some seemed to just be a guard all their life. It was almost as if there were apes inside that didn't get treated fairly as well. Its unfair that where ever your born into, is the life that is chosen for you. The apes didn't seem like they had a decision for who would be the lead ape. He seemed as though he crowned himself that because he knew so much about humans. When he told Taylor that he knew about the humans, why would he then treat man still the way he did. Obviously the apes weren't as intelligent as man because they seemed to feel no remorse for torture either. They could spray man with fierce water and starve them without feeling a bit bad because that's how they were born. The only ape that seemed to show true feelings was the woman ape doctor. She cared about Taylor and what he had to say to them. She knew that there were more intellectual beings out there but her civilization wouldn't allow her to study that topic more into detail. I feel that there really wasn't any hope for the ape civilization because without being able to learn the history of their planet. Things don't make sense. You cant live in a society that restricts you from expanding your knowledge and that's exactly what the apes were doing.

Ender's Game Final Chapters

I really did enjoy Ender's Game when I got to the end. I thought it was awesome that the whole solution all along was communication. People don't understand that fighting doesn't solve anything, you can see it in our world today, when Ender killed, and when Ender finally understood what the story was with the buggers. People are so quick to judge others, so we put up defence and hope that you are the greater being. But the truth is, everyone is just trying to survive in the place they were birthed. If everyone understood that no matter what kind of beings are out there, everything has a story . If the only way Earth was trying to communicate with the buggers was through violence, then of course the buggers are going to fight back. They wanted to survive just as much as the people on Earth. Ender understood that it shouldn't have been a race to be the best and defeat the buggers. Throughout Enders life he was manipulated to live a certain way and think a certain way. The school completely changed his approaches to situations. But many times Ender didn't like the way it made him, he seemed more angry and lonely than he ever felt when he was alone with Valentine. The school seemed to be a program made for people to figure out the survival of the fittest among young children. Those conditions are not meant for children. But through it all, Ender came out becoming the bigger person. He seemed to live a lot happier and healthier than Peter, who always seemed to be struggling to be on top his whole life. Through teasing Ender from the time he was a kid, as well as Valentine. He died knowing that he had made many mistakes though some good. Overall, the book was really good and I think that the ending was one of the best that I have had in my years of reading.

Blog Chapter 10-12

With Ender being commander I think it is hard for him to start to give orders to others and be the person he really didn't like in the beginning. Even though he tries to be their friend too he now has a leadership roll that he has to fulfill. He also realizes he is acting a lot like Gaff when he picks on Bean. He know Bean is good. But Ender being commander really shows his true leadership skills because when you have respect for your toons they have respect for you. Even though many other Army's are starting to not like him, they all know that he is something else. When Bonzo gets killed by Ender it seems to have promoted him to war. I feel they felt that he was able to kill and not feel any regret towards it even though Ender didn't know he killed either boys. That is what they look for in a leader is the task of taking control of the situation no matter what it in tails. Personally this book disturbers me in how young the kids are and how mean they treat them. The commanders of the school seem to use the kids as game pieces to find the strongest and weakest. It is true xenophobia at its best. The ones that don't live up to their standards end up just staying in one position and not going where they want to go.