Journal #26 My Thanksgiving Memoir

A memoir is an account of the personal experiences of an author. This account of personal experience usually includes emotional growth or an epiphany by the end of the memoir. The first thing that I want to say in this memoir is that I had a great Thanksgiving Break and I could not of have a better one. I drove up to Metamora with my dad to see his side of the family. It was my uncle Dick's house so his family came up along with my dad and I, my uncle Tom and his family, and also my uncle Steve. My uncle Dick has bone cancer and it just recently came back. He is not doing too well in his health and he is struggling to get through. It was so hard to see him in bad health and not like his usual self. Also my grandma and grandpa were not able to make the trip up to Metamora, so my dad and I made sure that we saw then before we left and they had somewhere to go for Thanksgiving. Two of my cousins have kids that are between three and four months so it was really great to see them. There was also a five year old and a three year old running around the house. I got up there on Wednesday night, watched some basketball, went to bed, got up on Thursday, had breakfast, then ate lunch, and finally relaxed a little before I had to be at my mom’s house. It was so great to basically all of my dad’s family all together to celebrate and give thanks. It also showed me how much it means to people to see their family and be with them on holidays such as Thanksgiving. I especially know how much my uncle Dick enjoyed having everyone there at his house to give him company through this tough time, and that showed me just how much a warm, friendly, and familiar face can really cheer someone up. I just hope that in some way I made my uncle happy, and I think that all my family being there, myself included, really cheered him up.

Journal #25 Critical Review of The Red Badge of Courage

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We finally finished up reading The Red Badge of Courage, a civil war novel written by Stephen Crane, and honestly I really liked reading the novel because, it had a good story, characters and figurative language but, it was just a really slow read. It had great imagery and the author did a great job of describing the civil war. In the review I read it talked a lot about how powerful and emotional The Red Badge of Courage was and I completely agree with that. With all the death, fear of battle, and the general melancholy mood around him, it is very easy to see why Henry, the main character in the story, would be so emotional throughout the story. He had many emotions about him running away from the battle and, in the beginning of the story he had a fear of the battle but as the story went on he started to get rid of the fear and go into battle. Also one the things that was much praised from The Red Badge of Courage was how Crane used Henry to show how the war was instead of showing a much more large scale point of view, like if the novel would have portrayed a whole regiment as the main characters instead of just one man. This was a very effective method utilized by Crane because, this was really the first time that someone had described a war from just one man’s point of view and also because it shows some of the struggles that an everyday soldier had to go through. One thing in this critical review that I definitely did not agree with was that Crane showed a lack of patriotism in this novel. Just because Crane did not just focus on all the good things that happened during war, does not mean he is not patriotic. Crane just showed some struggles that an everyday man, turned a soldier, has to go through when he decides to enter the war. Nobody had really every written a story like this before about a war so I think that is one reason why his story got so much praise as well as being criticized widely.

Journal #24 The Red Badge of Courage 9-20

After I read the first chapters one through eight in “The Red Badge of Courage”, I next read chapter nine through twenty. In these chapters much of the story plot is revealed and you learn a lot about the characters. Jim Conklin, one of Henry’s friends, just died from the wounds that he obtained in battle, so Henry and the tattered man he is with are deeply saddened. Henry feels as though he needs to get in the fight so he heads to the battlefield. He sees all the blue coats retreating so he asks one of them why they are all running, but they man will not answer Henry’s question, he just hits him in the head with the butt of his gun. Henry then returns to a new regiment to get his wound taken care of. He said that he got shoot in the head so all the troops see Henry as a brave fighter. They think this even more when they see him in battle because; he does retreat when he sees the enemy, staying in his position firing wildly. The captain of the regiment is very impressed by the courage that he showed and thinks that he is a fine soldier, when really he was just blind firing. He goes to another battle that he expects to lose. As his regiment marches the man holding the flag is shoot and killed so Henry sees it as his duty to further carry the flag. He rages on with it, having the troops in his regiment follow up behind him. In these chapters there really was not much use of religion but, there was a lot of use in figurative language by personification and dialect, use of nature by being it in the woods, human nature by the choices that Henry has to make, society in the army ranks, American dream in that Henry is an ordinary man doing a great thing, and a realism hero in Henry. Overall, this story includes many realism elements into it.

Journal #23 The Red Badge of Courage and How it Shows Realism

“The Red Badge of Courage” is a classic war story that was written by the author Stephen Crane. It is a Civil War war story and even though the author was born after the War ended, he did a great job of including details and descriptions of the people and places of the Civil War. He was fascinated by the war and he does a great job to make it seem like he was in the war even though he was born after it ended. During this time period, Realism was becoming very popular and elements from that literary time period show up in this work. Crane does a great job of using imagery in his work, such as describing settings and people not with only one sense such as how they look but he does a great job of making it feel like you are really there because, of how describes things using all of the senses. This imagery is very important to the Realism time period and so is some other figurative language such as alliteration. Right after you start reading this story you can already see some alliteration by how he describes things to give them human like characteristics. Also one of the biggest things of the Realism time period was how they portrayed a hero. The main character, Henry, is not the modern hero that we think of because, he is just a normal kid who is going off to war but in the Realism time period he is because, they classify their hero as someone ordinary who is put in extraordinary situations. Henry is definitely this because, he is just an ordinary kid but he is put in the extraordinary situation of being in one of the bloodiest wars every. I really liked how Crane used this ordinary kid to tell of a war story. Overall, this book shows many important elements from the Realism time period and is very important to American Literature overall.

Journal #22 Field Trip

I really liked the Veteran’s Day field trip that the whole school got to take on Friday. I learned a lot and all of the places that we went to had a very special meaning. The first place that I visited was the Camp Butler National Cemetery. It was very interesting to see how far back the cemetery went in its roots and how it got its start. I had no idea that the camp was used as training ground for soldiers during the Civil War. One of my dad’s closest friends is buried at Camp Butler so that was really nice to pay my respects to him and my dad also really liked that too. I liked how they had a computer to help you find the veteran that you were looking for. I really enjoyed visiting the camp and it gave me an idea of some of the soldiers who have served and died for this country. The next place that my group visited was Camp Lincoln. This was really cool because, this place is not open to the public so it was a pretty special thing. We got to go to shop where they repair vehicles, guns, and electronics. It was extremely cool to see some of the vehicles that they use up close and also get to go inside. I never really knew how much armor the vehicles really have on them so that was really neat to see. I got to see a humvee, a vehicle that rescues vehicles, and also some kind of tank thing that had wheels. That was amazing to climb in the tank thing. Next were the guns and I extremely enjoyed that. I got to handle some neat guns and even pick up a RPG confiscated from Iraq. We then saw some of the electronic stuff that they use. After Camp Lincoln we had lunch then headed to Oak Ridge. I really enjoyed seeing all the memorial stuff they had and it was very well done. Last was the Air Force National Guard. I loved seeing the air planes and everything. Overall it was a great experience.

Journal #21 I Dream I That I Thought was Real

Everyone dreams, but not everyone remembers them, and I happen to be one of those people. I only remember dreams rarely, but I wish I really did. Since this journal is about a dream that I thought was real, I would first have to remember the dream. I only rarely remember them so I will have to talk about a dream that I had awhile back, but that I can still remember. It was my seventeenth birthday and I got a brand new Ferrari Enzo from my dad. I was so ecstatic about my new car so I decided to take it out for a test spin. It just so happens that my birthday is on November 20, so the first snow of the season was still on the ground. Since I had this brand new car and there was snow on the ground, the only logical thing to do was to get a driver who I believe has a lot of experience and is the best driver I know. That person happened to be Mr. Langley. So I sped down 125 to pick up Mr. Langley so I could drive my new car some more. I picked him up, and he was so excited to be riding in a Ferrari, that he jumped out of shoes. Mr. Langley being the professional thrill seeker that he is, decided that the best thing to do was fish tale down the road to have some fun. Since he controls my English grade I gave in to his command and decided to fish tale. We did for about five minutes and nothing bad happened. It was a lot of fun and I was so glad I picked him up. It was getting late, so I dropped him off and headed home. On the way home, I hit some black ice and lost control. I was not injured but, sadly my Enzo was crashed. It was a very tramtic for me and I woke up screaming and yelling in a cold sweat. I thought it was real and it was definetly a night terror.

Journal #20 My Favorite Tall Tale

A tall tale is a story that is based on the life or adventure of a real person that gets exenterated to make them have supernatural powers or out of this world characteristics. Some of the most famous ones out there are the stories of Johnny Appleseed, John Henry, and Paul Bunyan. I personally am not that much of a fan of tall tales anymore. I used to very in to them whenever I was younger and liked stories like that but, now if I do decide to read for fun, which is not very often, I like to read more revalent books that are more close to the stuff that I am going through in my life. The tale tales are just not as entertaining anymore because, I know that these people could really do the things they did or have the traits that hey supposedly had. One example of this is Paul Bunyan who was supposedly like twenty feet tall and had a giant blue ox. Someone could ever be twenty feet tall, and an ox could never be around ten feet tall like how they portrayed him in the tall tale. If I were to pick my favorite tall tale it would probably have to be Johnny Appleseed. He was a man who went around and planted apple seeds, all around the country. I am sure that how many he actually planted is not true, but I like that it is true that he went around and planted apple seeds. Looking back, Johnny Appleseed was not my favorite tall tale because, it was not as interesting as the other ones but, now it is a lot more interesting to me because, some of the story is believable. I think the big thing with tall tales and me now is that I like to read more of logical books, and tall tales are not very logical at all. In my younger years I liked the crazy stories but, now some of them are just plain silly.

Journal #19 Vengeance

Vengeance is a huge part of today’s society. Everyone has such huge egos and people’s reputations are such a big part of their lives that getting vengeance is a big part of not only current American society but, also in the whole world. If someone embarrass you, makes fun of you, or makes you look bad then you are very likely to try and get even with that person or try and get vengeance. At my school I see this a lot. One person will make fun of the other one, so the person who got made fun will get vengeance by talking behind the other persons back. You can see this in everyday society too. A lot of times whenever someone murders or kills someone else, it is because, that person wanted to get revenge on the other person. In the Middle East, one group will bomb or hurt another so, the other group will seek vengeance on the group that hurt them. Yesterday there was the Massacre at Fort Hood. A military man did not want to de deployed into fighting again, so he took vengeance on the people around him because, they were trying to make him do something that he did not want to do. Vengeance and holding a grudge are horrible things to do. Trying to get back at someone solves nothing and only makes matters worse. Getting vengeance on someone may make you feel good for a short while, but after that the consequences of your actions or the guilt from what you did can make you feel horrible about yourself. In the story “The Cask of Amontillado”, Montresor seeks vengeance on Fortunato, and even though he is successful in his vengeance, fifty years later he has some guilt about his crime that he did. Even though you may think that everything will be a lot better after getting vengeance, the chances are that you will just feel a lot worse about yourself and actions.

Journal #18 My Biggest Fear

Beeing a male in today’s soceity, you are supposed to be a “tough guy”, show no emotion, never cry, and have no fears. America sees guys that show emotion as outcast and not real true men. Taking this in to consideration, I do have some real true fears that are in my every day life. One of my biggest fears that I have is death. I know that everyone does die in their life time but, it still scares me to think about it. It is just hard to think about dieing, and going to heaven or not depending on your beliefs. I believe in heaven and it is my life’s ultimate goal to be in heaven but, there is still that fear of what if I do not make it to heaven by living the life I should. That is a very frightening thing for me to think about. I am not scared of the usual things that some people are scared of such as spiders or snakes or things like that. Also many people are scared of being buried alive or dieing some specific way but, I am just scared of death and what comes after that. My belief is that you have to live the puriest life possible and be forgiven for all your sins or you will not get into heaven and be sentenced to a life in hell for eterninty. I have tried to live the purest life I can possibly live my life so far but, there is always that fear of the unknown because, I will not know until my time of judgement in my afterlife. What I think is right might be a sin in God’s eyes so I have to follow the Bible as closely as possible to try and live a life that is truly good enough to get into the gates of heaven. That is my biggest fear in this life and all I can do to get over it is to live the best life I possibly can.