5 News Articles Relating to Lord of the Flies

1) http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/804740--three-suffocate-in-arson-attack-on-athens-bank

People suffered and were killed in Arson, in Athens bank by petrol bombs. Comparing this situation to Lord of The Flies, it reminds of me the events in which Simon and Piggy had died as well. Instead, Simon got killed by accident in the dark, when all the bosy thought he was the beast and ran to spear him. Piggy died from Roger throwing the boulder onto him to kill him. Although these cases may seem different, they are similar ideas. One shouldn't kill innocent people just because something isn't going their way.

2) http://www.thestar.com/sports/basketball/nba/article/803520--lebron-james-dominates-nba-mvp-voting-wins-again

For LeBron James, it's his second voting that dominated all others, to get the NBA MVP award. This article kind of reminds me of the beginning of Lord of the Flies, where Ralph was voted over Jack immensely. LeBron James has his game (and if in your opinion, his looks), and Ralph has his appearance and tallness to win the vote of being Chief.

3) http://www.healthzone.ca/health/mindmood/mentalhealth/article/802820--mad-professor-sure-and-he-s-full-of-mad-pride

A line from this article says "Of course, most mad people are not dangerous, he points out. They're not differen't from you and me."
Reville is insane and seems like a sociopath, just like Roger, in Lord of the Flies. Roger killed Piggy, but Reville and Roger are similar. Reville seems to joke around a lot during his lectures, but when he compared taking off somone's head on the bus and talking someone's head off instead, was rather unecessary. To be making comments like that all the time, and saying that he "voted for NDP because [he] was mentally ill" can be reasons to why he could be referred to as a sociopath.

4) http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/803502--paul-hellyer-defends-aliens-after-stephen-hawking-s-warning

Stephen Hawking believes there are aliens and extraterrestrial beings. He also realizes that some people may not agree with that idea/theory. In the novel Lord of the Flies, some did not believe in the "beast", like Simon and Piggy. But, all the others believed that there was a beast somewhere and they wanted to hunt and kill it.

5) http://www.thestar.com/sports/football/article/804830--is-ben-roethlisberger-the-most-hated-athlete-in-the-world

Just by looking at the title of this article, you can make out how this relates to Lord of the Flies. Jack is the most hated person on the island. One line from the article says "Then he started acting up", and that's exactly what Jack did in the novel, by acting up when Ralph confronted him about hunting not being the most important thing.

The Tormentors

I tried to pretend they weren't there
but all they did was follow me, hurt me, traumatized me and tormented me.
My heart beared the pain, but believed that they would go away soon,
But each and everyday, they broke me so easily

I tried to stay strong
And build up some courage,
Stitch the wounds,
And forget the damage.

They dug deeper and deeper inside of me,
to strike the spots they knew would hurt me best.
They won, they conquered,
they succeeded in leaving me distressed.

So in the end, I have learned that in this world
there are many people with tender hearts that are being shattered and emptied,
and i am amongst those crying souls
one of them who have been bullied.

By Rummya Yohaseharan

Freedom of Speech

Freedom of Speech: Should there be limits to this constitutional guarantee?


Freedom of speech is speaking freely about your own opinions, whether it should be something that's spoken with kindness, or something that not all people agree with. In my perspective, freedom of speech should be limited because the public will critisize you, offense may be taken, and violence could occur.

One reason that the freedom of speech should be limited, is because first of all you'd get critisized. Critisizm involves judgement, and once you publicly speak your mind about something that someone else may not agree with, judgement occurs when you keep reinforcing it. The public may not share the same values, morals and beliefs as you and you cannot change their views. For instance, if someone were to speak publicly about different races, and then start discriminating certain ones, that would arise critisizm. Furthermore, this leads to the public taking offense of what a particular individual states openly. When offense is taken, several things start to happen: people begin to feel angry and frustrated, they will end up having low self-esteem, and then people result in feeling that they don't belong in that particular environment. Once someone publicly speaks about something discouraging, the community would sometimes tend to think that the one spokesperson is speaking for everyone in the community. As a result, anger and frustration would occur, leading to low self-esteem which then causes people to feel that they no longer belong in that community. Finally, if we go back to anger and frustration, we know what can come out of that: violence. Violent behaviour can occur when people say whatever they want to say. In highschool we all hear about gangs, drugs, and violence. For example, one particular gang could say something negative about another particular gang. From there on, they could discriminate against another's race, or appearance and say hurtful things. Not only could this utter violent behaviours for that other gang, but this could also be hurtful for other people to hear. Therefore, freedom of speech should be limited, for several things could happen if you were to say whatever you wished, whenver you wished.

In other words, people do have a freedom of speech. It's just that you shouldn't abuse your freedom by stating your opinions in hurtful ways, to make another individual obtain low self-esteem. If all of us were to get charged everytime we spoke to someone hurtfully, I think all of us would be close to being bankrupt. Why? Because everyone is different, and everyone has a different way of seeing things. We have all learned what kindness is: being polite with your words, speaking in a polite tone of voice, and having manners. Speaking rudely, especially in public where different people are looking at you, listening to the words that spill out of your mouth, is something that peopl should take precaution of. Therefore, freedom of speech should be limited because of the critisizm from the public eye, offense taken from the public, and unecessary violence that could occur.


By, Rummya Yohaseharan

"Wilhelm" by Gabrielle Roy

Task: Write a 3-paragraph blog post in which you argue for against the following statement:

"It was the mother's responsibility to intervene in her daughter's life as she did."

In your post, you should express your personal point of view, and provide strong arguments to support it. Include specific references from the story.



A mother-daughter relationship is one that requires a lot of love, care, and the ability to understand one another. In the short story "Wilhelm" by Gabrielle Roy, the mother of the main character felt that it was responsible of her to intervene in her daughter's life as she did. A mother should not always interfere in her daughter's life. A mother interfering in her daugher's life could create tension between the two individuals, result in a bad relationship between mother and daughter, or erupt a feeling of misery within the daughter.

For instance, a tension between any two individuals is disturbing. Even being in the presence of such an individual would probably trouble your feelings. The main character's mother in the short story "Wilhelm" did not understand the main character, her daughter. The first time her daughter brought up the subject of Wilhelm, and how he had sent her a box of chocolates from Holland, and walked her home, that was the beginning of a sort of tension that came between the two individuals: "Alas! The moment his back was turned, Maman asked me about my young man. 'Who is that great beanstalk?'" Referring to someone as a beanstalk gives a negative connotation, and from there, the rough relationship between mother and daughter had begun. A mother-daughter relationship should be open, and free of hurtful comments or demanding speech. When this sort of thing happened to the main character, she seemed to feel uncomfortable speaking to her mother, and being open with her. Her mother had said, "If he takes the same sidewalk as you, mind you cross right over to the other". Yes, the main character couldn't prevent Wilhelm from walking beside her but it also seemed like she just wanted him to be walking her home. She didn't mind, but her mother did. Because of this, the mother-daughter relationship grew very distant, and it appeared that the main character felt miserable for she couldn't go against her mother's words. If you felt comfortable talking about your feelings with your mother, wouldn't you feel upset and bothered if your mother couldn't understand how you felt? I'm sure most of us would feel that way. Well, so did the main character: "Maman was turned into something like a spy, busy with poking about in my wastebasket; and then i thought that she was certainly the last person in the world to understand me!" By the looks of it, it seems as though she feels frustrated at the fact that she wanted her mother to understand her, but her mother didn't. Her mother tried to keep them apart, by making sure that Wilhelm didn't walk home with her daughter, making sure that the letters were not to be sent anymore, and also by forbidding her to see Wilhelm. The main character had to go through some tough obstacles that had to do with love, and her mother. Misery and frustration had swept inside of her because of her mother's prejudice against the "Hollander", but there was nothing more she could do to tell her mother how she felt because her mother was being adament about the subject.

So should a mother always interfere into her daughter's life? Well through the tension, the result of a distant relationship, and the frustration of the daughter, my personal point of view of this situation is that a mother shouldn't always interfere in her daughter's life. There are times when a mother should tell her daughter to do the right thing if her daughter is following the wrong path, but to interfere with her daughter's love is something that shouldn't be what a mother does. A mother could advise her daughter on the type of man her mother thinks she should be with, but should never demand her daughter to not see the man, or to stop talking to the man through any means of communication. That would result in the daughter to do things without her mother knowing, and to feel that she cannot be open with her mother, just like how the main character in "Wilhelm" had felt. Therefore, the mother intervening in her daughter's life as she did led to several bad outcomes, instead of good morals and content feelings.

By Rummya Yohaseharan

"Saturday Climbing" by W.D. Valgardson

6. The father metaphoricaly suggests that his daughter may face obstacles in her life which he never had to face. What obstacles do you think people your age may have to overcome which were not present in your parents' generation?

"Once, when she deviated from the route her father had taken, she became stuck at an overhang. Not having dealt with the obstacle himself, Barry could not help and had to leave her to find her own solution."

In our parents' days, there weren't that many challenging or risky obstacles to face. In our days, there are many things that we have to be careful of, and there are also many things that we have to overcome, which were not present in our parents' generation. Some of these things, include technology, friends, and the environment.

Technology is one of the biggest things on this earth that can be an advantage, or a disadvantage. We have different sites for social activity such as Facebook and other chatrooms, MSN for online instant messaging conversations, and even cell phones with internet and text messaging. All of these things help you keep in touch with one another in a good way, buh in another way, all of these things can lead to great harm. Technology becomes a disadvantage when someone posts pictures of you on the internet that you don't want to be seen, or when someone writes something about you on the internet for everyone to see or comment on. However, our parents didn't really go through any of that because internet was used mostly for research back then and perhaps some of them didn't really have computers to begin with.

Friends could also put you through obstacles that your parents may have never faced in their childhood. Back in our parents' days, they wouldn't even be able to hang out with friends all the time, so they barely got to talk. They had strict curfews, and most likely had friends that grew up with them, and perhaps the same way as they did. These days, kids don't really listen to their parents and they grow up the way they want to grow up, and do the things they want to do regardless of whether it's bad for them or not. This leads to facing obstacles such as your relationship with your boyfriend, or a dilemma between you and your best friend, or even a dispute between family and relatives.

Last but not least, environment plays a role in the difference between our generation and our parents' generation. Normally the environment you grow up in would determine at least a bit of how you grow up to be, if not all. The environment includes going to school, and teens in our generation face a lot of problems going to school. These problems could be things like not making friends, being bullied, or having to face an enemy everyday. In our parents' days though, school was a place to learn and it was a place where teachers were strict and had high expectations of students. In class, students weren't really allowed to interact with one another because of discipline so therefore you wouldn't really have been talking to your friends in school at all except for lunch time. Because of that, if there isn't much communication, there isn't going to be many arguments.

Technology becomes more advanced, friends become unexpected, and the environment pulls you into its wonders of sorrow and happiness. Everyone has to go through some form of hardship in different ways, and this is how our generation differs from our parents' generation.

Quotes

"My mind shine, even when my thoughts seem dark."
"Make Jokes. No stress. Love, Live, Life. Proceed, progress."


-- Lil Wayne