Monday, March 15, 2010

A Day No Pigs Would Die

The greatest feeling that someone can have is having something that they can call their own. I am talking about something they got themselves, not something that their parents got for them as a reward. For most, they never feel this feeling until they are an adult. Some never even get this feeling because they have had things handed to them their entire life. Those people when they get to the real world, it comes as a shock. To few, like Rob Peck from A Day No Pigs Would Die, this feeling comes very early. In Rob’s case, he has worked on a farm his entire life so working for a living is no shock to him. I think that the story A Day No Pigs Would Die is a excellent story that doesn’t sugar coat anything and is packed with great life lessons.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

The Pearl

Have you ever dreamed of diving into the ocean and finding a giant pearl? What would you do with it? That is what happens in “The Pearl” when Kino finds “The Pearl of the World”. Kino decides to sell it to pay the doctor after a scorpion stings his baby, but as soon as people hear of Kino’s pearl, everything goes downhill.


Although Kino thinks that the wealth of the pearl will not effect him, it soon does. When Kino goes to the pearl buyers to sell his pearl, he turns down every one of their offers and threatened to go to the capital to sell his pearl if he doesn't like their prices, even though they were all reasonable prices. It also becomes harder for Kino to trust anyone because he thinks everyone is after his pearl so he buries his pearl in a different place every night, fearing someone may know the old spot. Kino also gets very aggressive and kills a man who was trying to steal Kino's pearl.

Even though Kino was corrupted, his wife, Juana, was trying to get the old Kino back. After seeing that Kino had been corrupted by the pearl's wealth, Juana tried to convince Kino that they didn't need the money. When things got worse, she wants nothing more than to destroy the pearl. Kino still refused so Juana decided to take the pearl in the middle of the night and throw it into the ocean. Unfortunately Kino caught her but was soon confronted by even more people after the pearl, who also failed.

Though the pearl may have been able to bring great wealth to Kino, as soon as others heard of it they wanted if for themselves.

The Black Stallion and the Red Mare

At some point in life you almost always come across a decision that seems impossible to make. One option is what you desire most but, is disobeying something you were told at one point in your life. The other option is to do as you were told even though it will tear you apart on the inside. That is the decision that has to be made by Donald in the short story “The Black Stallion and the Red Mare”.

In this short story the main character is a boy becoming a young man named Donald. Donald is the kind person who does what he is told when he is told. This can be an advantage at times but it can also be torture. He also has a love for things that are free and wild. During this story those two characteristics clash and fight against each other when his father tells him to help him round up a group of wild horses. His natural action to do what he is told would crush the freedom of the wild horses which seems unbearable to him. Eventually, he decides to do as he is told and remains loyal to his decision and his father by helping him round up the horses after revealing their location to his father.

Although Donald chose to destroy the freedom of the horses, he simply could have lied to his father and say he never saw the horses. If Donald did this, the thought of the freedom of the group being crushed wouldn’t haunt him at night and he would never regret anything besides lying to his father which would be a whole different predicament. Another setback he might encounter is his father may ask him to keep searching for the horses and he would have to keep lying to his father and, once again, tear him apart on the inside.

Many decisions can be nearly imposable to make because of the seemingly endless amount of decisions where each outcome seems more horrid than the last. Donald’s decision to tell the truth to his father seems to be the right decision to me due to the fact that telling the truth is always better than lying because all lying does is tear you apart on the inside.

Monday, March 8, 2010

I Robot “Little Lost Robot”

People say a lot of things. We say things we mean and things we don't mean. In some cases we can't tell whether or not what others say is what they really mean. Then people start to make assumptions off of false information which make things hectic for both people. That is the dilemma in the short story “Little Lost Robot” from the book I Robot.

When people communicate with one another there are often misunderstandings and confusion occurs inside the group. I often misunderstand things when people are talking to me. Most of the time when humans communicate when something does not make sense to them they try to make sense of it by themselves because they have the ability to do so. Robots however do not have that capability, they must take everything literally.

Not only do people just not hear the conversation properly, they also get confused by the many meanings of words. Since words often have many meanings people hear one thing when others mean something completely different. The short story “Little Lost Robot” is and excellent example of this confusion. Almost everyone in their life at some point misunderstands someone because they are thinking of the other meaning of a word. That is how I and many others make most of our mistakes.

Although we communicate most every day, we often misunderstand a lot of them due to the many meanings of words or just the mishearing the conversation. Should everyone just think things over before they say it, including myself, or if people would pay more attention to body language, which is a very important part of communication, there may be a lot less misunderstandings in our everyday conversations.