TPMJB - Second Half

Summary:

Miss Brodie’s set grows up and they move on to the senior level, all of them taking the classical curriculum except for Mary. The girls perform Miss Lockhart’s science experiments, and five of them study Greek while Mary studies German and Spanish. The headmistress divides the Brodie set and separately questions the girls, hoping to obtain any information about Miss Brodie that they could use against her. Sandy believes that paintings of Mr. Lloyd’s wife and children do not look like Miss Brodie, but his paintings of the schoolgirls capture something of their teacher. As the girls become fourteen and fifteen, Miss Brodie confides in them about Mr. Lowther’s devotion to her. Miss Brodie wants to confide more completely in one of the girls, and she selects Sandy. The girls are still questoned by the headmistress about Miss Brodie even after they reach 17. Joyce, the new girl, decides on taking Miss Brodie’s political views to heart; she disappears from school, and six weeks later students learn that she has run away to Spain and died in a train accident. In the final year, only four of the original six girls are still enrolled at Blaine School.  Sandy becomes Mr. Lloyd’s lover, but from that relationship she values most his religion, Catholicism. Sandy then also becomes a nun. In that same senior year, when questioned by Miss Mackay, Sandy tells the headmistress that Miss Brodie was a Fascist. Once this was revealed, this political position forces Miss Brodie to resign at the end of that school year.


Quote: 

" After all she was a woman in her prime "

(Spark 3hours,45mins,38 secs)

Reaction:

This theme of "prime" kept reocurring throughout the whole novella. Miss Brodie was a woman in her prime. She was very strong and sturdy; and even after the years and the aging was still beautiful. She traveled all over Europe and had a passion for Hitler and Musulini. She had many lovers and was an extremely free spirit. Her political views were what forced her to resign; however she left a little bit of her inside each and every single girl in the Brodie set. Even years after her death and their aging the girls still talked to each other. Every conversation always led to Miss Brodie being brought up. Miss Brodie showed these girls the real world and made herself memorable to them. 

TPMJB - First Half

Summary:
Miss Brodie ruins the schools curriculum as she puts foward her own passions: both personal and academic. She teaches the girls what she believes is important and in order of importance. She shares with her girls her status in the school and trouble she has with the headmistress. Miss Brodie is memorable for these students and the work she did with them, they remember her throughout their lives which their repeated flash-forwards reveal. These girls, along with one other, form “the Brodie set.” This Brodie set is who Miss Brodie considers the "creme de la creme."
 The girls all have different traits; Miss Brodie uses that to try and plot her plan to stay within the school no matter what any adminstrator has to say. The girls soon start to realize that the group constitutes the body of which Miss Brodie is the head; which is to say Miss Brodie is the master mind behind everything. 


Quote:

"There is a long story attached to Miss Brodie's retirement. She was betrayed by one of her own girls; we were called the Brodie set."

(Spark 43mins,38seconds)

Reaction:

This is an example of dual narrative voice which is used a lot in this novella. Sandy is using dual narrative voice because this is her reflecting upon Miss Brodie in her prime; this is known because Sandy says before she wished to visit her grave, if she could ever find it. Also, it used foreshadowing. It used foreshadowing because we now know that Miss Brodie gets betrayed and that she ends up retiring although her struggle to maintain within the school system. However, we don't know how they finally get her to retire. We also don't know who betrayed Miss Brodie and how; we are simply left to wonder and to keep reading. 

TLB: Chapter 9 - 16

Summary:

Susie introduces Grandmother Lynn who arrives for Susie’s memorial. The memorial had been the suggestion of the principal of her school, Mr. Caden. Grandmother Lynn does everything wrong: she drinks too much, she tries to get her granddaughters to use drugs, she is not the best of role models, but as Susie states, when she gets to the house she brings back the life that was lost along with Susie's. Grandmother Lynn really makes the family face reality with her bluntness. Susie learns to live through Ruth and uses it to her an advantage; she drops clues and also find things about her family and friends through Ruth. Mr. Harvey likes to go down into his basement where he has hidden the bodies of the animals that all the neighbors believed had been killed by Joe Ellis. Mr. Harvey would spread quicklime on the bodies so he would have nothing left but the bones. Then, he would count them just like the souvenirs of his murders. Susie's dad, ever since her death, has been also going through a lot; everything is falling apart for him. The police won't respond to his calls, they don't believe Mr. Harvey is the murderer, and his wife agrees with them. He is also having trouble at work and is afraid he won't be able to support the rest of his family.  Lindsey begins to case the Harvey house as she runs every day with the soccer team. Susie also realizes that people are starting to say their final goodbyes and she will soon be forgotten. 

Quote:

“I watched my beautiful sister running . . . and I knew she was not running away from me or toward me. Like someone who has survived a gut-shot, the wound had been closing, closing - braiding into a scar for eight long years.” 

(Sebold, 242) 

Reaction:

Her sister was growing up right in front of her eyes. Lindsey tries her hardest to find out what happened to her sister but she also learns how to live her own life. She starts shaving which is a huge turning point in the book because everyone realizes that life moves on even after tragedy; however, they also realize that Susie will never get to live ANY of that because her life got caught short. Lindsey was quiet and kept to herself about the pain and rage she had inside of her. The despair of not being able to give her sister the justice she deserve and also of not truly knowing who her killer is. However, she has finally reached a point where she can handle the pain she feels, and where she is slowly healing. Lindsey keeps herself preoccupied with things such as running and sports in order to keep her mind off of things; she also shows an interest for guys which also helps her slowly try and get over her sister's death. 

TLB : Chapter 1 - 8

Summary:
Susie Salmon, "like the fish", introduces herself and gives the reader all of the background information of her murder. Susie had been taught to respect authority and was forced to talk to Mr. Harvey as he approached her in the cornfield on her way home. Mr. Harvey lures her into a hiding place he made in the ground, and Susie, giving him the benefit of the doubt, followed him down into the place. In this hole in the ground, he proceeds to rape her; after he rapes her he makes her say she loves him then he kills her. Susie talks about where she is and her heaven, she realizes that all the people she sees on the field are all in their own version of heaven and it just fit with hers. Susie get her own roommate, Holly who has an interesting story of her own; and she also gets an intake counselor that is the same age as her mom. However, Susie cannot have what she wants most which is to help everyone know the truth.  Susie watches the people she loves change drastically; her father turned into someone she did not know. He awoke each morning as the man he had always been until his consciousness allows the knowledge of Susie's death to sink in. He is overcome with guilt that he wasn't there when his daughter needed him most. 


Quote:

“She had a stare that stretched to infinity. She was, in that moment, not my mother but something separate from me.”

(Sebold, 43)

Reaction:

Susie's mom is a mysterious character that no one really knows much about. After Susie's death, her mother was very distant; it was almost as if she was a completely different person. Ever since Susie's death she kept more to herself and she was never really stable. She was very pessimistic and lost hope in ever finding Susie back when they first found her elbow. Susie's father said he mother had "Ocean Eyes" which Susie thought stood for the blueness but it actually stood for something much deeper. Her father was referring to the bottomless of her soul; no one truly knew what she felt or how she was dealing with things. However, Susie doesn't understand this until after she passes because she sees everything differently but this idea scares her because her mother isn't just her mother but someone she doesn't know of. 

The Lovely Bones :) - Part 2

A Review By the New York Times :

• "In spite of the horrific act at the center of the story — the rape, murder and dismemberment of a 14-year-old girl — the novel is not depressing or assaultive but rather, somewhat perversely, warm, hopeful and even occasionally funny."
                     I agree with this description of both the movie and the book because although I cried at the end of the movie you get this warm feeling that everything is okay. You feel the sense of completion that Susie feels after she kisses the boy of her dreams. You see her face lights up when she reaches the tree and it has all the leaves on it's branches. While I was reading the book, the tone isn't presented as a girl SCREAMING out for help; it is a girl who is telling her story of a sick man and a poor girl who didn't fully get her justice but who wanted people to know what happened.
  
• "Accordingly Mr. Jackson’s interest in the “in-between,” as this suburb of heaven is called, is primarily visual. The drama is all down below, where the surviving members of the Salmon family contend with the loss of their eldest child."
                  Mr. Jackson's in-between world is sort of a maze for Susie. It is everything she ever wanted however she still feels extremely lonely. She has unfinished business left on earth and she tries to reach out to the people she loves in so many different ways. Her in-between world is a place where she is free to live like she never lived before but she doesn't want to because she sees the hurt that everyone is going through. At the end of the movie when the tree has all its leaves and she meets all the other girls; she says she still isn't ready and goes down to earth and does the one thing she had left to do. 
  
• "The filmmakers’ evident affection for the book expresses itself as a desperate scramble to include as much of it as possible, which leaves the movie feeling both overcrowded and thin. "
                  This is so true because I personally always believe that books are better than their film, but Mr. Jackson tried so hard to incorporate most of the book into the film. However, there were some things he left like for example in the book they find her elbow, but in the movie they only find her hat and blood. Also in the book Susie and Holly have a mentor in their in-between world that is supposed to help them realize that they need to let go every tie they have to the real world; the movie doesn't include this character however.   

Work Cited :

Scott, A. O. "Gazing Down, From a Suburb of Heaven, at an Earthly Purgatory., 

             " Movie Reviews Showtimes and Trailers - Movies - New York Times
               - The New York Times. 11 Dec. 2009. Web. 22 Jan. 2011. 

             <http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/movies/11lovelybones.html>.

                              

The Lovely Bones :) - Part 1

This movie was absolutely AMAZING! I watched the movie, The Lovely Bones, with my father and it was an extremely touching movie. My father and I did not budge from the couch and at the end of the movie I came out in tears. The beginning of the movie starts off with a quote from the beginning of the book. 

 The movie starts out with an introduction of Susie Salmon (like the fish) and a few lines from the book. The narrator is Susie who is speaking to us (the audience) from "her heaven". Her heaven is pictured in the movie as a reality of everything she wants, which is ever changing. In her heaven she is able to see how everyone is doing back home but she is also able to really live in what she thinks is her perfect home. She meets a girl, Holly, and at first we don't know why she shows up to help Susie out. Later on in the film we find out that Holly was also a victim of Mr.Harvey; she also got raped and killed. One thing I really liked about the production of this movie was its uses of the "over the shoulder" shot. I liked this particular camera angle because it gave us more of a feeling of what Susie was actually seeing. They also zoomed in and out of the shots to show how close Susie was to her family but at the same time she was actually so far. The director faded in and out more towards the end when she was revealing the names of all the other girls that the sick twisted Mr.Harvey raped and killed. When the movie ended I ran into my dads arms and cried because I could not imagine how someone could do that to a little girl. I began to think to myself that there truly are some SICK people in this world and I went and thanked both of my parents for their over-protectiveness. I admit at times it gets annoying but they do it to prevent things like that to happen to me. Overall this movie was phenomenal and I recommend EVERYONE to go see it.