Saturday, November 15, 2014

Never Fall Down

Jeremiah T
11/13/14
Prompt:Analyze the impact word choice has on the meaning or tone of a text.Analyze how dialogue or specific incidents reveal information about characters. Make sure to include textual evidence.

     The book I'm currently reading is "Never Fall Down" and word choice plays a big part in the text. The main character (Arn) is the narrator of the story. He is about my age maybe 11 or 12, even though 
you understand what he's reading and can visualize what's going on he sometimes writes complete sentences. Although you still understand him and can easily visualize what's going on.  It feels like your actually watching a movie about a kid in Cambodia, that doesn't speak English that well. 

     In the book, I feel like I'm actually in Cambodia taking orders from the Khmer Rouge and trying to survive without getting killed. They took away all of Arn's innocent soul. Here's an example on page 53 "Then the guy with the ax, he look at me. Deep in the eye. To see what I feel. I make my eye blank. You show care, you die. You show fear, you die. You show nothing, maybe you live." To me, it's really sad, but I guess he must have to learn to keep his life. I would do the same, learn to survive and change my feeling from time to time. Another example is "They see me looking at a prisoner, they think maybe I'm bad too. One day I see this guy from hometown, the taxi driver, the one with the big belly, the one I gamble and beat. Same guy but skinny now, no belly, skin sagging off his bone. I see him kneeling in the square, his hands tie behind, and I think: this guy can get me kill only by looking at me." I put this because he can't even see anyone from his old town without getting himself hurt or killed. Also you can't show any knowledge or the Khmer Rouge kills you. 


  Arn is very intelligent and kind. But his personality changes a lot in this book. He used to like this girl but he can't anymore because if you do you die. When he's the cook he steals a little rice at a time. See Arn is smart, he realized rice is like money. If you get your hands on it you can do almost anything. He bribes people with rice, he even bribed a soldier, and they are supposed to kill you if they find something like this out. Since he is the leader of the band, the Khmer Rouge give him breaks, but those breaks may not last forever.    
           

1 comment:

  1. I like that your reading "Never Fall Down" I loved reading that book. It had some great word choices and it makes you feel like your right there next to Arn and your shooting as well.

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