The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

   The Boy in the Striped Pajamas was an excellent movie.  The movie showed how much of the German public knew nothing of what the Nazi's were actually doing to the Jewish people.  Bruno, who is the son of a German leader of a concentration camp.  Bruno befriends a house keeper his family has from the camp, soon Bruno's mother finds out what is actually happening to the people that work the camp. 
   Bruno's mother is told by a soldier that the people on the camp are being killed and burned.  Bruno is caught by his mother wandering into the back yard, of course Bruno being a young boy wants to know what is back there and eventually he sneaks past everyone and makes it to the camp.  At the camp Bruno befriends a young boy that is his age and starts asking questions.  Bruno does not ever realize what the severity of his friends reality actually is.  Bruno and his friend decide that Bruno could sneak under the fence to help his friend find his father.  Bruno is then herded into a gas chamber and before his family realized what happened to him he is gassed with the other people of the camp.
   The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a great example of irony.  Bruno's father is a commander of a Nazi death camp and while he kills his so called enemies he also ends up killing his son.  The Nazi's felt as if by killing the Jews they were making the world a better place, but in reality the were just ruthlessly killing people and in the movie it gave them a dose of their own medicine.

Narrator for "A Rose for Emily"

   "A Rose for Emily" is a very, very confusing story.  The way the story switches from different time periods never lets the reader get settled into the flow of the story.  Another thing that keeps the reader on their toes is the lack of information about who the narrator actually is, although the narrator seems to be close to Emily. 
     The narrator would often use "our" when talking about the town that Emily lived in, this makes me think that the narrator lives in the same town as Emily.  The narrator seems to be a bit closer to Emily but not by much more than any of the other townspeople.  I believe that the narrator is closer to Emily because of the way the narrator speaks about Emily.  The narrator talks about how there is a room upstairs in Emily's house that has not been seen in nearly forty years, how would anyone know this unless they were close to Emily.  Emily was portrayed as a bit of a recluse, she is very withdrawn, the people of the town respected her at one time but recently she has become more and more odd to the people of her town.
       Although it is not evident who the narrator actually is, there are some signs that the narrator is a towns person and that they have some sort of close relationship to Emily.  I believe the narrator may have been a friend from Emily's youth, who is the child of her father's family friend.  Since Emily's father was a well respected member of the community he probably had many friends who had children the same age of his own.

Pride is Deadly!

      Fortunado takes pride in himself being the one of the best wine tasters around.  Fortunado picks on his friend Montressor a lot.  Fortunado's constant picking bothers Montressor greatly because he has a great amout of pride and when he is insulted it is hurt, just like every other persons pride would be.  "The Cask of Amotillado" is a great story of pride and irony.
      Fortunado is quite full of himself.  Fortunado is not only full of himself, but he is also very cruel to his friend Montressor.  Although Fortunado is simply joking when he insults Montressor, which evidently happens very often because the story opens with Montressor saying " The thousand injuries of Furtunado I had borne as best I could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.".  The opening of the story gives the impression that Montressor had enough of Fortunado's mindless insults and was going to put a stop to it, and he did.  Later in the story Montressor reveals that his family motto is "Nemo me impune lacessit" which is translated to mean "No one attacks me with impunity".  Impunity means; exemption from punishment or loss.  In a sense Montressor was betraying his family by letting Fortunato insult him without punishment.  Montressor uses Fortunado's pride of being one of the best wine testers and lures him to his tomb by offering a chance to taste a rare fine wine.  While Montressor is trying to lure him down to his catacomb Fortunado tries to turn back but, all Montressor had to say was "Luchesi" who is Fortunado's rival.  In the end Montressor buries Fortunado alive, all because Fortunado insulted him in a friendly fashion.
       "The Cask of Amontillado" is a great demonstration of pride because it shows what people will do because of their pride.  Montressor killed because his pride was insulted by Fortunado.  Fortunado was lured to his death because he did not want to be out done by his rival.  The story also demonstrates irony because Fortunado means fortunate and in the end he was buried alive, not such a fortunate fate in my eyes.

                                                                   Works Cited
 Poe, Edgar Allan. Best of Poe: the tell-tale heart, the raven, the cask of Amontillado, and 30 others. Clayton, Del.: Prestwick House, 2006. Print.

Sweeney Todd Review

When we were watching Sweeney Todd in class I was actually surprised at how much I enjoyed the movie.  The movie had an excellent plot accompanied by an equally great cast.  Benjamin Barker (Sweeney Todd) was made into an ruthless killer after his wife and child were taken from him, and he was wrongly imprisoned.  There were many plot twists throughout the movie that kept me sucked in suspense in anticipation for what was next.  All-in-all the only part that I dislike about the movie is the musical aspect, even though it added to the aspect of the movie being a dark comedy, it annoyed me quite a bit.

Arsenic and Old Lace

Although the movie was a good bit older than everyone in the class, it was a really good movie.  It made murder seem like something that means nothing at all, like murder is not actually taking a life.  When Mortimer found out that his aunts had killed not just one but many men (for charity) they acted as if they had done nothing wrong.  Murder is an act punishable by death yet, the Brewster sisters murdered men for their charity to the community.  Aresenic and Old Lace put a seriously funny spin on the act of murder, it is a timeless classic that made me actually go out and buy the movie.

Guilt

In the play MacBeth by William Shakespeare, MacBeth is a well respected warrior who has a great desire to be king.  MacBeth ends up killing everyone in his way to be king.  Through his journey MacBeth is mislead by the three witches who set him out on his disaster to begin with.  I will be pointing out how the guilt of the cold blooded murders slowly got to MacBeth.                                                                                                       In the second act MacBeth, with the strong urging of his wife kills King Duncan.  After MacBeth commits the murder he sees blood on his hands even after he had washed them.  The blood is a symbol MacBeth's guilt of killing King Duncan and he will have to live with that guilt for the rest of his life.   
Banqou, who is MacBeth's best friend is killed by MacBeth's hired hands.  MacBeth has Banqou killed because he knew of the witches prophecy of MacBeth taking King Duncan's place as King.  While eating MacBeth sees Banqou's ghost sitting where he should be.  This is a good example of how the guilt of Banqou's murder is getting to MacBeth.
In act four MacBeth, driven crazy by the guilt of his cold blooded murders, seeks the guidance of the three witches once again.  MacBeth seeks the witches help because he is scared that a revolt will take place and his place on the throne will be overturned.
MacBeth properly demonstrates what guilt can do to someone's conscience.  William Shakespeare shows how MacBeth's guilt sticks with him after he either murders or has someone murdered.  Guilt eventually drove MacBeth crazy and it resulted in his death.
Shakespeare, William. MACBETH. New York, NY: Spark Publishing, 2003. Print