Twelve Angry Men:Untold Story

In the beginning of the play, "Twelve Angry Men" the twelve jurors and the foreman of the jury sit around a table and discuss what verdict they want to give to a 19 year old boy who is accused of stabbing his father in the chest and killing him. All of the jurors agree that the defendant is guilty except for juror #8. Juror #8 believes that the defendant is not guilty despite all of the evidence the court has that points toward the 19 year old being guilty of killing his father. All of the other jurors come at him saying things like " The boy lied and you know it" and "How do you like this guy?" I was wondering the same questions in my mind until juror #8 brought up a good point. He has a doubt in his mind that the boy killed his father (or should be put in jail)  because he said "Ever since he was five years old his father beat him up. He used his fists." There could be a whole other reasoning behind this killing. Yes, there is really no excuse to murder your own father, but they shouldn't just look at the kid, think he's a cold hearted criminal and send him away to prison. This 19 year old has an untold story. He grew up in a slum his whole life and spent his whole childhood getting beat up by his father. Children who grow up in that kind of environment usually grow up to get into some sort of trouble and usually tend to be violent. This can make a jury see the murder from this 19 year old's point of view instead of just assuming that he's a bad person and deserves to be put in jail. If juror #8 never pointed this out to the rest of the jurors, no one would have stopped to take the 19 year old's life and all of the bad things he has went through from a young age into consideration and he would have just been thrown in jail for the rest of his life.

Do you agree with juror #8's point? Would you feel bad for the 19 year old or do you think he is just guilty and deserves to be put in jail for murdering his father?

The Stolen Party

The short story, "The Stolen Party" by Lilian Heker was one of my favorite short stories that I have read. This story is about a little girl named Rosaura and she is the daughter of a maid. Rosaura is invited to a girl named Luciana's birthday party and Rosaura's mother is the maid of Luciana's mother, Señora Ines. Rosaura's mother doesn't want Rosaura going to the party because it's a "rich people" party and she knows why her daughter was invited. However, Rosaura thinks that she was invited because she's friends with Luciana and she wants Rosaura to be there to celebrate with her. When she gets to the party, Luciana's cousin questions her and ask her why she's there and says "No, you are not a friend of Luciana because I'm her cousin and I know all her friends. And I don't know you." Throughout the story, there is a "monkey" that keeps being mentioned. At first, I didn't think much of it but then I started to look deeper into it. Rosaura had a lot of fun at the party but didn't realize that she was only the helper all along. She helped Señora Ines with the food and she helped the magician, just like the monkey did as his helper. At the end of the story, Señora Ines gives Rosaura 2 dollar bills and says "You really and truly earned this. Thank you for all your help, my pet." That is when it finally dawns on Rosaura that she was just a helper, just like the "monkey" and just like her mother who was the maid.

While reading this story, I could clearly see the divide between classes. Luciana was born into an ascribed status just like Rosaura was but a different kind of ascribed status. Luciana was born into the higher class and automatically had a better life just because her parents were rich and a part of the higher class. Rosaura was born into the lower class and since her mother was a maid, Rosaura was looked at as just another little helper too and didn't have all the luxuries that Luciana and her family had. What I don't really understand though is why children are subjected to this kind of behavior. I don't understand how little kids could just not be friends with someone or treat someone differently just because they come from a different background and aren't just like them. Luciana's cousin questioned Rosaura because she knew Rosaura was different from everyone else.

Would you treat someone differently if you thought that they were in a lower or higher class than you? Do you think Rosaura could have stood up for herself or do you think it was better that she didn't try to defend herself after Señora Ines handed her the money?

Girl

Recently, I read a short story written by Jamaica Kincaid called "Girl." The narrator of this story is a mother and this mother is talking to her daughter. She is telling her daughter all of the rules about being a girl and how she should act and how she should live her life. She is telling her what to do and what not to do. When I first read this short story, I didn't really know how to interpret it. It just sounded like a mother who wanted to teach her daughter how to be a lady and wanted to raise her right. However, when I was able to discuss this story in a group with other people, my interpretation of the story changed. When I first read this, I read it with a very stern yet caring tone of a mother. When I read it again with a group, I picked up on a quite harsh tone coming from the mother and was able to pick up on things I didn't notice before. Starting on line 9 and 10 the mother says "On Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming" and she repeats the "slut" part in lines 16 and 17 as well. I also noticed that the daughter isn't able to get a word in at all because the mother just keeps going on and on giving her this huge lecture about what girls are 'supposed' to do  instead of simply just having a talk with her daughter. The mother keeps repeating the phrase "this is how" in the beginning of every sentence. This is when I realized that the tone of this story isn't just stern and caring but it is also very harsh. Her mother is practically calling her a slut. She is trying to tell her how to be lady because she thinks that if she doesn't then her daughter won't be able to find a good man on her own and have children because she's "so bent on becoming a slut."

How would you react if your mom gave you a lecture and was practically calling you a slut or any other demeaning name? Do you agree with the so called 'rules' that girls should follow?

Danger of a Single Story

Recently, I read a speech written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie called "Danger of a Single Story." The three main ideas I picked up on while reading this speech was 1. Don't judge a book by it's cover 2. Don't let a single story define a person and 3. Tell multiple stories instead of one. Before I start talking about why I picked out these three main ideas, I'll give you a little background on the speech. In the speech, Adichie talks about how when she was younger, the only books that she read were British and American children's books even though she grew up on a university campus in eastern Nigeria. She also used to write stories when she was younger and all of her characters were white and blue-eyed, they played in the snow, they ate apples, and they talked a lot about the weather. She said "What this demonstrates, I think, is how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story." What she is trying to say is that being told only one story about a certain group of people over and over again will become embedded in your mind and will prohibit you from being able to form your own opinion about a specific person and will force you to just believe stereotypes. Adichie came from a middle-class Nigerian family where her father was a professor and her mother was an administrator.  They got a house boy and all her mother kept telling her was that their house boy, Fide, was poor. Since she was told over and over again by her family that Fide and his family were poor, that is all she ever thought of them. That was her only opinion of him and his family until she went to his village to visit and saw a beautifully patterned basket that his family had made. She didn't think they were capable of creating something so great simply because they were poor. She realized that their poverty was her single story of them.

When Adichie went to college, she experienced being at the other end of the stick when someone had a single story about her. Her roommate was shocked that she learned how to speak English so well. She asked if she could listen to what she called Adichie's "tribal music" and was very surprised when she produced her tape of Mariah Carey. She realized that her roommate felt sorry for her before she even saw her. Her roommate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe.

By only listening and believing a single story, you miss out on getting to know a person as an individual and having the pleasure of learning that they might not be anything like the single story that you were told. The point of this story was to in fact show the danger of a single story and to also try to encourage people to tell multiple stories instead of just one so that you don't judge a book by its cover and you don't let a single story define a person.

Have you ever let a single story determine your opinion of someone? Have you ever been a victim of a single story?

A Long Way Gone: End

In the end of the book, Ishmael thankfully gets taken out of the war and is put into a rehabilitation center. However, all the boys that were put into the rehab center started acting like wild, caged animals. They attack the cook, throw bowls and other things at the nurses, and they even break into the medical supplies to fulfill their need for drugs. Once again, Ishmael is having another internal conflict with his need for drugs and violence in order to feel normal again and go back to how he was before the war. Ishmael goes through his first breakthrough in rehab when he meets a nurse named Esther. As I mentioned in my first blog post about the beginning of the story, Ishmael has a really strong connection and attachment to rap cassettes. In order to try to get him to open up, Esther buys him a Walkman and rap cassettes. At first it makes Ishmael mad but eventually he does open up to Esther and starts to talk about all of the painful memories of the war that he wanted to forget. Even though Ishmael does start to open up, he does have his moments of anger and will lash out out of nowhere. After all that he's been through, it's understandable that he most likely just wants to be alone. He relied on himself to survive and feels like at this point, there's no one he can trust but himself because everyone else betrayed him in some way during the war.

The rehab center somehow locates Ishmael's uncle Tommy and he returns home with his uncle in Freetown and begins the school year. On May 25, 1997 violence breaks out in the capital and for the next five months gunmen rule the streets, looting, raping, and killing people. This is ironic because Ishmael has escaped the war only for war to find him again. Uncle Tommy becomes ill one night and ends up dying in Ishmael's arms. He calls a girl Laura that he met and asks if he can come to New York to live with her and she agrees. Ishmael ends up escaping the country illegally and is sheltered as a war refugee.

At the end of the book, there is a question asked that is a story usually told to young people in the village once a year. "There was a hunter who went into the bush to kill a monkey. He had looked for only a few minutes when he saw a monkey sitting comfortably in the branch of a low tree. The monkey didn't pay him any attention, not even when his footsteps on the dried leaves rose and fell as he neared. When he was close enough and behind a tree where he could clearly see the monkey, he raised his rifle and aimed. Just when he was about to pull the trigger, the monkey spoke: 'If you shoot me, your mother will die, and if you don't, your father will die.' What would you do if you were the hunter?" (217). Ishmael thought about this for years and he finally concluded to himself that if he were the hunter, he would shoot the monkey so that it would no longer have the chance to put other hunters in the same predicament.

Q: What do you think is the reasoning behind Ishmael's answer to that question? What would YOU do if you were the hunter?

A Long Way Gone: Middle

In the middle part of the book is where Ishmael is on his long journey to find peace from all of the madness and war around him. He knows he has to keep moving or the Rebels are going to catch up with him and either recruit or kill him. At this point, him and his group are just traveling from village to village, hoping to find shelter for as long as they can. When they entered a new village, they realized that it had already been attacked by the Rebels. The villagers stole their shoes and chased them out of the village which now forced them to walk on 120-degree temperature sand while barefoot. The boys are hungry and exhausted and every time Ishmael acknowledges the struggles that he is facing, his mind starts to wonder to darker places. He begins to fear not only his surroundings but he starts to fear himself too. His mind keeps going to violence. This shows the concept of man versus self because he has to fight himself mentally to be able to survive. In every village that Ishmael and his group go to, people will either fear them or attack them. They are being treated like dangerous monsters and Ishmael is afraid that he might actually be becoming a monster.


A few chapters later, Ishmael ends up getting recruited. He now is being forced to kill people and has no other choice if he wants to survive. In the book, Ishmael says "A young soldier came by with a plastic bag full of some kind of tablets" (116). The corporal starts giving him drugs so that it will boost his energy to be able to fight in the war. These drugs basically put him through a "trip" so that he just blanks out and will be able to kill people without hesitation or being afraid. Ishmael and his friends are still children and don't know whether they should express themselves like children or to just suck it up and act like adults. They don't know what is going on around them or what's going to happen and that is what scares them the most. They still have the ignorance and innocence inside of them as children and they aren't able to express that anymore because that's what puts them in danger.  What is happening around them doesn't feel real until they are forced to take part in the killing as well, which is the one thing they were once against. "A splash of blood hit my face. In my reverie I had opened my mouth a bit, so I tasted some of the blood" (118). This is when it all finally became real to Ishmael. He had just watched someone be shot to death and now he has the blood of a dead man on his face.  

Q: Do you think you would be able to grow up this quickly at 15 and throw your childhood away? Do you think you'd be able to handle everything you witnessed and still be able to be strong and cope with it?

A Long Way Gone: Beginning

The war book that I have been reading is called "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah. It is a memoir that Ishmael wrote about his experience in having to become a child soldier when he was only 15 years old. In the first chapter, he talks about how his journey began when he was 10 years old, right before the civil war comes to his village. Ishmael, Junior, Talloi, and Mohamed have a rap group together that they formed when Ishmael was eight years old. In January of 1993, they all leave their village of Mogbwemo to take a trip to the town of Mattru Jong. Right after they leave, the Rebels attack their village. Ishmael doesn't know if his family or anyone from his town his dead or alive. "The rebels had attacked the mining areas...this town will be next, according to the teachers" (9). Ishmael and his group wanted to go back to their own village to see if everyone was okay but once they realized that the Rebels were coming for the village that they were in at that time, they knew they just had to keep it moving and couldn't turn back.

In this chapter, comparison and contrast are used to show what Ishmael's concept of the war was before the rebels had attacked. It makes more of an emphasis on how ignorant Ishmael and his friends were to how traumatizing the war really was because they did not realize the effects of war until it hit them right in the face. His flashbacks that he has of his peaceful life before the war show the beginning of him starting to lose his innocence as a young child. Also, the rap music that him and his friends are into, represents Ishmael's way into the modern world. Rap becomes a way for the group to be able to express themselves through the lyrics that they write themselves. Ishmael carries a cassette tape with their raps on it around with him all the time which symbolizes him holding onto what he has left of his childhood and his innocence.

Q: How would you feel if you knew you would literally have to run to save your life? Do you think you'd be able to process what was going on at such a young age?