The Tale of Despereaux, 1.

My favorite character from Kate DiCamillo's, The Tale of Despereaux, is Princess Pea.  I really liked how this she is portrayed as having all of her needs taken care of, yet still capable of being kind and profoundly empathetic.  So often people who are given so much seem to come off as stuck up and disengaged to the feelings of others, but this is not the case in this novel.  Even after the death of her mother, the princess is able to forgive the rat (Roscuro), which is necessary for them to live.  Another example of her kindness is seen in how she treats Miggery Sow.  Princess Pea was kind to Miggery Sow from the start; she waved to her one day long ago, she related spoke to Miggery in a friendly way when she brought her some red thread, and most importantly, even after Miggery had plotted to capture her and drug her to the dungeon, Princess Pea was still kind and empathetic to her when Roscuro was telling Mig that nobody cares what she wants. 

The Alchemist, Bildungsroman.

The Alchemist is another example of a bildungsroman, made evident through the main character Santiago.  Like the protagonists in other novel, Santiago goes through a journey of self-cultivation in which he discovers many things about himself.  For Santiago, it takes a departure from the environment he knew as home to seek out his soul.  Through his travels from Spain to Egypt, seeking a treasure he is not really sure of, he is able to find out more than he even imagined about himself and ends up returning back to where he started.  Unlike the character of Esperanza, who develops herself in the confines of her community and sometimes without an option, Santiago chooses to undergo an actual journey.  However, this just reiterates the point from the novel of how everyone has their own personal legend, and these differences just represent how there are numerous ways that people can discover themselves and bring more fulfillment to their life.

The Alchemist, 1.

I read Paulo Coelho’s, The Alchemist, for the first time 2 years ago in my World Religions class, and it is a book that has stayed with me.  This time through, one of the things that stuck out to me the most was the notion of dreams as presented in this book.  Through Santiago and the people he encounters on his journey, dreams are presented as necessary in order to have purpose in life.  Furthermore, it inspired me to witness how one can make or break his or her own destiny.  Anyone can have a dream or a goal, but that is only the beginning.  One must have the desire and strength to execute it, and be capable of picking themselves up after the inevitable hardships that come on the journey.  Having an end in sight, while not knowing the path to get to that end, is incredibly scary.  However, like Santiago, it is necessary to forge ahead and to continue to make choices, even if you do not know the certain answer.  It is hopeful to imagine the world, as Colelho portrays it, as wanting you to succeed on your quest towards your destiny.

The House on Mango Street, 3.

The book, The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros is definitely a bildungsroman, as exemplified through the character Esperanza.  Esperanza is the protagonist of the novella, who matures in both body and mind, through the one year of her life that is depicted to the reader.  The sum of the vignettes in the book make up the process or journey that Esperanza undergoes in moving from a girl to a woman, not to mention an individual, which was a difficult thing to do in her Chicano society, being both a female and a minority.  There were two vignettes that stood out to me as turning points in which Esperanza the girl becomes Esperanza the woman.  The first of these was the chapter called “Hips,” where Esperanza begins to realize the changes in her body and her difference from men.  This also is the point where she seems to recognize, although not really accept, the sexuality and power that comes with womanhood.  Secondly, the chapter “Red Clowns,” insinuates Esperanza being raped, and obviously strips her of an innocence of childhood, as well as making her realize again the battles of being a female.  While these chapters depict major events, both of which she did not have a choice in, which help turn Esperanza from a girl into a woman, she takes them in stride.  By the end of the book, it is obvious that Esperanza has taken her experiences and what she knows and has learned through the years and breaks the cycle of the typical female from her Latino section of Chicago.  Even more than that, not only is Esperanza courageous enough to leave what she knows for something more, she is brave enough to know that she will eventually return in order to help others.

The House on Mango Street, 2.

The portrayal of Esperanza's character in The House On Mango Street has a sort of kinship with a couple of the other characters that we have covered this semester.  Principally, the characters that I see as akin to Esperanza are Pi, Ike, Janie, and Lucy.  First of all, the importance of one's name and the background of having both a mother and a father connect Esperanza with the character of Pi.  Secondly, Esperanza and Ike share a profound sense of inheritance and heritage as represented through Esperanza's shame and Ike's action of renouncing his familial inheritance.  Thirdly, there are obvious connections between Esperanza and Janie as seemingly hindered individuals, being born female and a minority in society.  Lastly, I found the kinship between Esperanza and Lucy to be very interesting as they are nearly opposite in aspects.  These two characters are not an example of who I would of put together right away as having a connection, but I was really intrigued by our discussion in class today about how, despite all of their extraneous traits (like societal status, financial status, living situation, ethnicity, etc.), the fundamental issues they are going through are incredibly similar.  This is profound, especially in today's society with current events including wars on religion and violence between cultures, in that if we clear away the smoke from the bombs and the walls built up to the "other," I think what we would find is that at the core of every person is a heart and soul that wants to live, and grow, and prosper, just like you and me.

The House on Mango Street, 1.

I was immediately caught up in Sandra Cisneros’, The House on Mango Street.  Although we have already encountered female protagonists in this course, the character of Esperanza, as well as all of the other female characters depicted in this book, were so much more powerful and real than any of the others.  The way in which Cisneros weaves the theme of womanhood and the unseen, abusive relations that afflict nearly every female in Esperanza’s Latino neighborhood is incredible.  All of the snapshots we receive of the characters are so simple and unembellished, yet they manage to tug at my soul the whole way through.  One of the characters that stood out to me the most was Sally, a beautiful young girl who Esperanza looks up to at different points in her life.  For me, Sally’s character is the embodiment of male dominance in this Latino culture, where nothing is her own and there is no way to escape.  Even her beauty is not her own and betrays her in the end, as her good looks and sex appeal only lead to her abuse and confinement, first by her father and then by her husband. 

Life of Pi, 2

Death is a very strange event to imagine.  In Chapter 22 of Life of Pi, Pi is imaging the deaths of an agnostic and an atheist and what they are thinking just as the slip away from the realm of reality.  While the atheist is convinced by the glorious white light and immediately believes, the agnostic continues to doubt, even upon seeing the white light, writing it off as a possible glitch in his brains' functioning, brought about by death.  Death is not an event that I reflect upon often, and I somewhat prefer to keep it that way.  There has not been a lot of deaths in my family, and I never reflect on my own death, so I have never had a fear of death.  This short passage struck me because I can see myself in certain attitudes of atheist and agnostic people.  Just as I choose not to examine uncomfortable topics such as my own death, I think there are certainly times when I choose not to assess the quality of my life and my heart for fear of what I'll find there.  However, what disturbs me most about this passage is that death is imminent.  Unlike religion, where one can choose what they believe and cultivate a relationship with God that is personal, death is the same for everyone.  It is not a question of if it will happen, but when it will happen, and the reality that we cannot choose any of this for ourselves.  The positive thing though, which becomes clear in this passage, is that we can choose for ourselves the life we live, the way we cultivate our hearts and minds and souls, up until that point of departure from this earth.  In doing so, we will hopefully avoid having to come to a realization on our deathbed, of living a life that was not truly fulfilling.