Sunday, October 28, 2007

the Sea Inside- Post 3

The director used eye level when showing the setting. This helps you feel like you are really there watching where this is happening. When something is at eye level it is really at your point a view and helps you understand the setting. For example, in the beginning, the director shows the beach and where Ramon lives at eye level. They did a truck when Ramon was being taken away in the car. This added drama and showed that this was a slow and big change for him to be going out. At the end of the movie, it shows Ramon's main lawyer, her husband, and child walking down the beach. They do it at a high angle looking down at them. I think they did this to show life. It contradicts with how Ramon killed himself. The end shows happiness and life by the way they shot the scene. When Ramon is in his bed they do a medium shot to show how sad and uncomfortable Ramon is. You can see it in his fast. Another scene they use a long shot. They show Ramon in his bed and his lawyer in the background callapsing. This adds drama because Ramon can't see what is happening but the viewers can.

The Sea Inside- Post 2

Some of the similarities between The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and The Sea Inside is that both Ramon and Jean-Dominique Bauby are quadriplegics. They both have people who care about them and are always helping and visting them. There are many differences between them though. In the Sea Inside, Ramon became a quadriplegic when he dove into the shallow water and broke his neck. Now he lives with his brother's family and they all look after him. In The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Jean-Dominique Bauby became quadriplegic because he had a stroke and he got a disease called Locked-In Syndrome. He has to live in the hospital because he can't eat or even speak. Ramon can communicate and Bauby can't. Another major difference is that Ramon doesn't have as much medical problems, so he has a while to live. Bauby on the other hand has a very short time to live before he passes away. I think that The Sea Inside was much more powerful. I think this because there were more conflicts. There wasn't really a conflict that made you connect in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. In The Sea Inside, there is such a big controversy over whether Ramon should be able to kill himself or not. It gets many people in his life involved and other problems with different people come out. You were able to connect much more with Ramon then you were with Bauby and that makes it so much more powerful.

The Sea Inside- Post 1

I think that it was a sad movie because there are so many emotions and different conflicts that come up during the movie. I think in Ramon's case, he shouldn't be able to kill himself. In ways, he is still healthy and is still able to do things normal people can do. If he really wanted to go outside and go see places around the world, he could. He can still talk to people and write and do some things he wants to do. It would be different if all he could do was lay in bed everyday and not do anything. He has family and people that love and care about him. If he was a complete vegetable and all he was doing was suffering, I think then he should be able to kill himself. But Ramon doesn't really seem to be suffering all that much. I think that his friends that agreed to help him aren't bad people. They agreed to help him because they care about him. They knew that he wanted to die and they just wanted to help him so he could be happy. For example, Rosa told Ramon that she would help him die because she loved him. I think that does show love because Rosa could be sent to jail for something like that. She was basically risking her own life to make Ramon happy. I think that takes a lot of bravery and love. I think the people that didn't want to help him even with the case, like his brother, wasn't showing that he cared about him. Even if he didn't agree with what he was doing, he still should have been there to support him and help his brother. I think Ramon was wrong to trick people into killing him and I think he just took the easy way out. I don't think the way he commited suicide was right. If he didn't win the case and the courts decided he could not kill himself, he should've obeyed.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

The Cage-Post 6

In the last section of the book Riva is still in the sick room recovering. The girls in the camp need to entertain the commandant and the gaurds for the christmas holiday. The doctor knows that Riva is still sick but she wants her to read a poem. She is now out of the sick room and reading her poem. When she is done, she faints. Later in the day, the commandmant comes and talks to her about the peom and how much she liked it. She gives her a notebook and Riva sees that there is some human in her. Riva has to go to work now. She lines up like she used to with all the other girls and marches to the factory. They tell hre to stay behind. She now has a new job working in the nurse's office. She becomes friends with the nurse and she gives Riva food and let's her take a warm bath. The next day, the girls are walking along and they hear bombs. All the gaurds run away and leave them in the middle of the road, not knowing what was happening. The Russians come and free the Jews from the camp. Riva goes back to her house to see if she can get her family pictures. The ladyy living there said she threw them in the garbage. Riva goes to her brother's grave stone and makes him a tombstone. The book ends with Riva talking to her daughter about her new life.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Comments

The Cage-Post 5

Riva continues to work in the camp. She meets a new friend there. She asks her if she could borrow the brown paper bag she has. Riva wants to start writing her poetry again. So she can give encouragement and tell her story. Her friend continues to get her paper bags but she has nothing to write with. So her friend steals her a pencil from her gaurd. Riva writes her poetry. She reads it to the other girls in her bunk and it brings hope to the girls. Some cry and they hold eachother close. One day Riva gets a cut in her hand from working. It is getting infected and she is getting blood poisoned. She comes down with a high fever and she is very ill. The doctor must report anyone who is sick more than 3 days cause they will be sent a way. But the doctor tells the gaurd that Riva needs to see a doctor because if she doesn't, she will die. She says that Riva is the only way she will keep her workers cause otherwise they will all become sick with grief and lose their hope. Riva gets taken to many doctors but none will see her because she is a jew. She finally arrives at a doctor that will treat her. She says if the poisoning doesn't stop spreading, that they will have to amputate her arm. Riva gets better and goes back to the camp. I think it was very kind of the doctor to take in a Jew when she wasn't supposed to. She went out of her way to make Riva better. I also think it was very kind of the doctor from camp to risk her job and life to fight with the gaurd to get Riva a doctor. Riva brought hope and encouragement to all the girls in the camp and that takes a lot of strength during times like these.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

The Cage-Post 4

They arrive at the camp. They are ordered to go different directions, separating almost everyone in their group. Riva loses her brothers. They are told to take off all their clothes and leave their beloingings. Riva has to take off her glasses and is now almost blind. Then all the women must have their heads shaven and put into a cold shower. They are giving random articles of clothes..some too big, some too small for the women. They are brought into bunks with some people near death. They are marched and ordered around like animals. They work all day and hardly get any water. Some just pass out on the ground. There is talk about "the smoke" where they believe that the dead bodies are burned. Riva and her friends are moved to another camp. They work on machines but Riva was too skinny and small to work on them so she is working in the underground shelter.

The Cage-Post 4 (Quotes)

In the book, The Cage, by Ruth Minsky Sender, a quote that i found really compelling was...

"My eyes are blurred from burning tears. My head is spinning. And through it all come the voices of strangers calling, commanding: "You must live! You must hope!"(151)

I found this compelling because through all the horrible things that were happening at the moment, some people still found the strength to tell other people to not give up and to hope.

"With tears in her eyes she says, "We are not animals yet. We still have our pride."(153)

This also shoes hope to me. The jews are being treated like animals and like they are not human beings. But inside these women find a way to still have their pride.

Monday, October 8, 2007

Diving Bell and the Butterfly

After reading The Diving Bell and the Butterfly I realized how hard it must be for people that have locked-in syndrome. They can't eat, communicate, go on with everyday life, and they really have to have everything done for them. I didn't like the book because I thought there were way too many details. The stories that he told made no sense to me and I couldn't see a point in why he was telling them. The chapters were random and they didn't go in order. You couldn't tell whether he was talking in the past or in the present. A lot of people probably wonder why he would write a book about this. In the book, he talks about how he was going to write a book one day. Everyone has something that they want to accomplish in their life. I think that writing a book was his. He knew that he probably was going to die soon and this was his last chance to achieve his goal. I think that he wrote about this subject because at the time, it's all he new. It's all he lived everyday. I couldn't imagine how he must feel, spending time with his kids and not even being able to talk to them, ever again. It would be so hard doing the same thing day after day and having everything you do be done by someone else like you are a baby. I would probably go insane and have no hope. You could kind of see that happening with him toward the end of the book, when he finishes the book by saying "I'm off now..." I didn't like the ending because it left you hanging. You had no idea what was going to happen to him and what his purpose was in writing The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Overall, I didn't like the book, mostly because it wasn't very interesting and I didn't like the style or the way that he wrote it.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

The Cage-Post 3

Summary:
Riva's brother, the one who had tuburculosis, died. They meet a new friend named Yulek. His father died at a labor camp and his mom went insane and was taken away with the sick people. He taught Riva to never give up hope and to keep writing her letters. Riva and her two brothers were moved into an old grocery store. They kept the secret library there but if they got caught they would be in huge trouble. When Riva went to work at the tailor's everyone was silent. Riva was on the list of teenagers to be deported but Mr. Berkenwald put someone in her place. He said she was a mother to her two brothers now and he couldn't bear to ruin 3 lives. Riva's two brothers use their bread to buy her new clothes for Pesach. Yulek is put on the list to be deported. It was a very hard goodbye for Riva, as they have become more than friends. The nazi's are telling the people that if they come on their own to work at labor camps, the families will get to stay together. Riva and her brothers don't believe this and so they hid in the cellar. Awhile later they decide that if they stay and hide they are just going to die. But if they go to the labor camps they may have a chance at living and staying together as a family. They go with their family friends and stay together as a family as they get on the train. They end up in Auschwitz.


Reaction:
I can't imagine having as much hope and strength as these people. They know that they have a huge chance of dying, yet they remain calm. During the searches, they don't cry and give up hope. They stay silent and patient until the Nazi's leave. I could never do that. It would be so hard to get on a crowded train for three days and not know where you are going and what is going to happen once you get there. The Jews show such courage and hope. I would never be able to handle the situation like Riva and her brothers are.

The Cage-biography of author


Ruth Minsky Sender was a survivor of the halocaust. She survived the death camps of Auschwitz from 1940-1945. Ruth was born in 1927 and by the time she was 16 she adopted her 3 brothers. At the camp she was seperated from the rest of her family. At Camp Mittelstein, Ruth became deathly ill. She was the only one from her family to survive, other than her older siblings that were already in Russia. She now works at a school in New York teaching Jewish history and her time during the halocaust.

picture:http://shoahbooks.tripod.com/tolife-ruthmirskysender.jpg
information:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Minsky_Sender