ROAR : THE METAMORPHOSIS

The Metamorphosis by: Franz Kadfka

p.11-21

The Metamorphosis begings witht the main character waking up and discovers that he had been transformed into a bug when he was sleeping. He looked at himself countinusouly and discribed how he looked. His belly was rounded and brown, and he had an enormous amount of legs. At first he thought it was a dream but, in reality it was no dream it was a horrible experience for him. Samsa then kept thinking to himself if maybe he can go to sleep and hellbe human once again, but the problem was he couldnt fall asleep because he is used to sleeping on his right side and since he truned into a bug it was quite hard for him to do so. When he would turn himself he would rock back and forth to the same spot he started. The only thing Samsa could think of was his priorities. Samsa is is traveling salesmen and he that was the same day he had to travel out and he had to be at work no matter how much he didnt like it. He looked at the clock and found out that he was going to be late for work, he was never sick or out of work a day of his life while he worked for that company. So he kept thinking to himself what if he calls in sick will they suspect something. But, he couldnt do that either because he has never been sick so they would have acted suspicious.  His mom kept kalling him , but he was very scared because he didnt know what to say till he jus told her yes mother imokay. HE was making his way of his bed, he was making good progress. But everyone was asking for him but he didnt want to open the dorr he wanted to abandom his family because he was scared of what they would think. His boss was at his house telling him to open the door Samsa toldhim not to waste his time he will go to office and to give the employers his best wishes. His mom was crying atthis point she knew something was wrong and Samsa didnt say anything. His sisterwas crying in her room. Gregor went to sleep again and the Chief Clerk was turning the key to open the door. He wont come out of his room, then we find out that he was in the military in the picturehe was a lietenant. He still wont come out but he countinues to say that he is alright and that he is going to work.

"The boss would surely arrive with the Health-insurance doctor, would complain to his parents about their lazy and would cut short all objections by refering them to the health-insurance doctor,in whose eyes the onlt people that exist at all are perfectly healthy specimens who are work-shy"(Kafka 13).

Samsa turned into a bug, and all his worried about is getting to work about what is he going to d. What if he calls in sick? no way man your a bug youcant work like that in those conditions.Hes a salesman whos going to buy something fromhim if he tries to sell something. He would scare away all the customers. He should be more worried about turning intoa bug, forexample hes unable to move he needs to learn how to move with his body. Also he needs to tell his family ,he might wantto portray the perfect son and worker but he needs to tell them the truth and stop telling them that hes fine because in reality his not , he was turned into a bug. Some questions that I asked were How did he turn into a bug?, Did his family turn into bugs?, and is he having a dream.

ROAR #5: The Devil in the White City

The Devil in the White City by: Erik Larson

p. 320 - the end

While going towars the end of this book the Fair is also ending and everyone in the fair is movin out of Chicago because they have finally been aware that the mass disapeerences of people have been gettin bigger. But on the bright side the Fair ended up raising over 1.5 million dollars to pay of the exposition debt. Holmes was the reason of all the murders they were going to hang him because he was found guilty and he said he killed 2 people but in reality he killed over 200 people because of all the disapperes that have been going on for a while. He was sentenced to be hanged and before he was hung he confesed of all his sins that he did. He killed his children and buried them in the backyard. He imprisoned people then killed them. So all of the mysterious murders during the Fair was all his fault. But he wasnt the only one killing people, on the other hand. Prendergast wanted to run for city council but when he went to go check if he could they told him kno and he got very angry and decided to take it out on the mayor. Towards the end of the fair they had a ceremony in memory of the Mayor as well.

"Grahams also brought to the courtroom the wart Holmes removed from Benjamin Pitezel's corpe and a wooden box containing Pitezel's skull" (Larson 384).

This book overall was a pretty good book, it wasnt what i expected but it made a good impression on me. I knew that it was Holmes behind all the killings it was so ovious because since he was incharge of everyone he had the acess to hide that it was him and he only let women stay in the hotel. Especially when he had to travel to get money he was pretty shaddy comin back to Chicago. But i wonder if he was in the group of the scariest men in Chicago, and if he was how did he enter the group? I enjoyed this book my anticipation rose everytime i read it.

ROAR #4: The Devil in the White City

The Devil in the White City by: Erik Larson

p. 245- 320

Despite of all the due dates of the big fair, the day was finally here, and people from all over the world came to visit the most exordinary event in the United States. In the beginning of the fair Burnham made the opening statements and the event started. It was everything that people expected, a job well done. More than 25 million people attended this event. The fair wasnt all good news peopele were scared to go becuase after the first day their stock went down and that made economic problems for people to participate. A lot of people wanted to attend to look at the exhibits but couldnt because they knowingly didnt want to out themselves through money crisis. In a result the fair didnt make a lot of money. Holmes was a very suspicious man, he only let women stay in the hotel and his waitress had disapeered, but he didnt really pay any mind to it. Holmes wondered if the fair was even going to make a good profit but it was to far to tell. On July 4 people came to come and see the exhibit but they still they didnt make a good profit, this dispointed Holmes. They were several problems hitting the fair, econmic problems, technical diffilculties, and weather made it extremely hard for them to run the fair because on a rainy day the ferris wheel had an accident and ended up coming up in flames and Mr. Burnhams was arrested becuase he was responsible for the fair. SOme people can to fix some of the problems at the fair. The same day of the incident which was July 6, Infanta Eulalia, the youngest sister of spains dead king Alfonso XII and daughter of exiled Queen Isabel II. Newspapers called her the Queen of the fair becuase she was a famous person who came to the fair. The Queen of the fair had such a good time at the fair that in the end she didnt want to leave due to the great attention and treatment she was gettin she was going to leave on wednesday with regret.

"Royalty at best is a troublesome customer for republicans to deal with and royalty of th spanish sort is the most troublesome of all. . . It was their custom to come late and go away early, leaving behind general regret that they had not come still later and gone away still earlier, or, better still perhaps, thst they had not come at all" (Larson 263).

It seems to me that this fair was a bad idea is some ways but it brought some possitivity to Chicago as the same time. Some of the problems that the Fair brought to chicago were the economic problems because the fair didnt really bring a lot of money because the stock was going down for some people so they had to be careful. Secondly, people kept coming up missing and since this big event was going on they didnt pay attention to them. As chicago was in the beginin of the book findin out that someone is missing wasnt a big surprise to those people at the time. Some positive feedbacks were famous poeple came to the Fair which made chicago look really good and they trete them so well that the famous individuals did not want to leave they wanted to leave with regret. This was good because they were giving a good name to Chicago apposed to what other people said about Chicago and scary murderest place.

ROAR #3: The Devil in the White City

The Devil in the White City by: Erik Larson

p. 175 - 245

Holmes continued to construct what the Fair was going to look like and it was coming together but they came up with a new idea, they want to make it possible for the Hotel to be higher than then the eiffel tower. The only problem with making the building taller was how much they had to spend. Jobs started to get cut because of how much they have to spend on the new part of this area of the hotel and they thought that they couldnt meet the deadline of making the building. In order for Holmes to make money he decided to find the cure of alcoholism. He had to do that in order to cure Pitezel and to make it to then sell it. While Holmes was doing his job Burnham stayed in Chicago to keep up with the deadline because if they didnt finish it would be trouble for all people who were hired to make this fair a spectacular event that the U.S has ever seen to display the history of Christopher Columbus.

AS we back away from the fair a little Holmes gets married to a wealthy women and he does it in secret so that no one knew, but he seems to find himself in troublesome places whenever he tries to get involved in such things like that. Millie left her family and lived with Holmes. As Holmes was trying the find the cure he used Emelines body and then she was never seen again and he disposed of her body. More disaperences were happening in the fair and the everyday when the workers would go to work it would rain so they couldnt get much done.

"He spent $25,000 on drawings and additional specifications and used them to recruit a cadre of investors that included two prominent engineers, Robert Hunt, head of a major Chicago firm, Andrew Onderdonk, famous for helping construct the Canadian Pacific Railway" (Larson 179).

This part of the book made me question who Holmes really was. Was he a secret murderer or was he just an architect that was building the World's Fair. Emelines body disapeered and he was the last person with her so he must have used her body as a practice dummy and thats how she bacame a ghost tothe world because no one could find her. Is Holmes really focused on finishing the World Fair because i dnt see him trying too i just see him trynna make money which wasnt really hepling him because it wasnt making money? The eiffel tower is the compotition so why couldnt they decide to make it taller in the beggining so they didnt have to try to make it fit in the end?

ROAR #2: The Devil in the White City

The Devil in the White City by: Erik Larson

p. 69 - 175

   As I countinued reading The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson they finally decided that they were going to do the fair in Chicago. Since they were going to do the fair in Chicago they were making sure that the fair was going to be perfect, they decided that whoever was going to design the fair was going to be well skilled. Since France was a perfect, they made it a competition if the fair isnt the best people all over the world were goign to hate whoever built it, but whoever designed the best fair ever was going to become very famous. The architects that agreed on building the masterpiece were McKim, Post, and Peabody. The book goes into their past history and explains how they had arrived where they were at that momment, aggreing whether they were going to build the fair. Ideas were being thrown out into the workplace to see if anyone can come up with anything. Then suddently Holmes said why dont the fair be a hotel. More ideas started coming out afterwards. For example to make sure the Hotel was affortable to people who want to visit Chicago for this big event. They were finally coming to a glance for this fair but it didnt seem big enough for the event which was an impediment. While Holmes was hired to design this fair he realized that they have been an increase on how many people have been missing but, he didnt let that get in his way because he only came to Chicago to become rich and famous. The Fair was coming on to it's highlight at this point.

"Patients stayed in the three-story Livingston Hotel, a red-brick building of simple appealing design, with arched windows and a veranda along the full length of its facade, a fine place to rest between injections of Dr. Leslie Enraught Keely's "Gold cure" ( Larson 161).

In this part of the book it has come to my attention that people in Chicago have become to ust to the disapearences that they have forgotting that it is a huge crime for somebody to kill and be kidanpped. Since a big event is coming into this part of the city they trying to not make it a big deal because they didnt want to make Chicago look bad , do to the people who voted for the fair to be in Chicago. The the weird thing is Chicago in general sounds dangerous and people decided to have this famous fair there. As for Holmes, how can he jus countinue his work withought caring for the other lives that are being taking away. I know money is a big deal in this world but it didn have to go that far when people know about the killings and not say a word.

ROAR: The Devil in the White City

The Devil in the White City by: Erik Larson

p. 3 - 68

       As I first started reading The Devil in the White City the setting starts in Chicago where Erik Larson talks negatively of Chicago. He mentions continually that murder and death is not stranger in Chicago. Chicago is seen as a dangerous place because the book explains that it's easy to disappear in Chicago with all the murders. In 1892 the city of Chicago experience about eight hundred violent death. Men shot women, women shot men, and children shot each other, it was filled with cynical and violent individuals. During that same time period France had the best unforgettable expedition, the United States wanted to make something unforgettable too ; they decided that they wanted to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of Columbus's discovery of the New World by hosting a world's fair. On February 24, 1890 people were voting to decide where the World's Fair was going to take place. The World Fair was either going to be held in Washington D.C, New York, and Chicago. Everyone on that day was waiting outside to find out if Chicago won or not. There was only one guy who did not vote and Chicago was the only city that needed one more vote to be able to host it. 

"It was so easy to disappear, so easy to deny knowledge, so very easy in the smoke and din to mask that something dark had taken root. This was Chicago, on the eve of the greatest fair in history" (Larson 12).

As I started reading this book, it had me so interested, I was really impatient and it gives you every detail. It taught me a lot, like the number of deaths, I never knew how dangerous Chicago was back then its so crazy. So far there are no characters but i'm dieing to know who the narrator is. My question is since Chicago is such a scary place and killing is all away why is the book called The Devil in the White city when white is pure and Chicago didn't seem pure and there was already destruction there so the devil couldn't really make a big impact on it. So why is the book The Devil in the White City?

ROAR #4: THE LOVELY BONES

The Lovely Bones by: Alice Sebold

p. 101- 328

 

  As I finished reading the Lovely Bones we are jus discovering that the father has started his own investigation because he feels as if the police isnt really helping the situation at all. So after a while the father senses that her murderer would be Mr. Harvey. So before he starts searching around Mr. Harveys house he calls Len Fenerman about Harvey. Fernerman goes to Mr. Harvey's house and starts askin him questions. Fenerman is told by Harvey the tent is a wedding tent built in memory of his dead wife Leah. Mr. Salmon remembers being told her name was Sophie. He writes down these nameas, a list of the dead. So after a while, Ruth begins walking in the cornfield and Ray joins her. Mr. Salmon visits Ray’s mother, who agrees to let him speak to Ray. He tells her George Harvey killed Susie, but there is no proof. She tells him she would kill Harvey. 

    Susie makes another apperance in front of Buckley who is her little brother. While that is happening Mr. Harvey starts having disturning dreams about women and children and he begins to feel very guilty and it bothers him throught the whole book. He becomes very paranoid. Lindsey her sister breaks into Mr. Harveys house and finds a sketch of where her sister was killed. While she was coming out of Mr. Harvey's house he saw her and he called the police but decided not to press any charges. But, of corse the police didnt believe Lindsey and they favored Mr. Harvey. Mr. Harvey made himself seem like he was the good guy because of his job. At his job he basically build doll houses. We later find out towards the end of the book that this wasnt the first time he lowered a girl into an area to rap her and kill her. He builds places or things to get girls intersted and makes them come to him like trapping a pray. He has done to more than 12 girls and he has never gotting caught.

     Time goes by and then Susie finally desides to just move on because no one is going to find out who killed her. So the family eneded up moving on Lindsey ended up loosing her virginity to Samuel on their way home in a closet, and after he asked her to marry him.

 

"Heaven is about flathead nails and the soft down of new leaves, wild roller coaster rides and escaped marbles that fall then hang then take you somewhere you could never have imagined in your small-heaven dreams" (Sebold 325).

 

Finishing this book I look back and tell myself this book wasnt about Sussie it was more about her family and their struggles. I think that because since she died she can't do much because she cant communicate with them at all. Her father has to go through a lot to get over things. He ends up using violence and having breakdowns. The mother ends up going crazy and takes a brake she ends up leaving the house for a while but ends up coming back towards the end. Susie's sister Lindsey works out to get over her anger and sadness. She keeps thing to herself and shuts everything out. But, Samuel ends up getting her back to how she ust to be. Her family struggles throught this whole book. Sussie looks after them but she can't do anything so this book was jus about the family going through hard times and how an old disgusting man would prey on innocent girls , rape them then kill them in the worst ways. Personally i think this book was to personal for me.