Last White Mountains

4. Finally, chose one of the 3 main characters and write how this character has changed during the course of the novel.

I am going to talk about the changes in Henry through out the book. At first Henry always used to fight with Will and would love to Will in to trouble. Some evidence is- ( This is from Will's point of view) "We swayed and struggled, and then crashed together and rolled down into the ditch by the side of the road. There was some water in it, but we went on fighting, even after a voice challenged us from above." Later on Henry had to collaborate a little more with Will because they started the journey to the White Mountains. Otherwise they would have crumbled and gotten nowhere. After they are captured Henry changes.

When they were captured Henry and Will meet Beanpole. Beanpole helped them get out of the prison and did lots more. After this point the way Henry changed was he became closer to Beanpole than to Will. This is an example of my statement- (Will's point of view)
"I had become aware of a change. It was nothing clearcut; just that Henry talked more to Beanpole, that Beanpole directed more of his remarks to Henry- that there had been a shift, in fact from it being a matter of Beanpole and myself, with Henry a little bit out of things, to a situation in which I was, to some extent, the excluded one." So at this time Henry spent more time with Beanpole than Henry. Later on he changed even more.

Now Will, Beanpole and Henry have reached the castle of the Red Tower. Will had an extremely comfortable room and Beanpole and Henry had to sleep in the servant rooms and serve as servants. It was clear in the book that Henry was jealous of Will because of the way he acted around Will. So Henry turned very sour towards Will and got even closer to Beanpole. At the end things got all right- I am talking about when they start of the journey to the White Mountains again Henry becomes nice to Will. This is a piece of evidence supporting my statement- ( In Will's point of view) "Afterward Beanpole put some of the healing herbs, which he had found, on the wound, binding them in place with a bandage made from the tail of my shirt, and Henry said he knew it must have been pretty agonizing: he would have shrieked a lot more. I was more glad of his kindness than I would have expected." These are the changes I have noticed in Henry through out White Mountains.

White Mts. 4

"The bitter thing was all the spirit, all the gallantry, was wasted. For even more than inferiors, they accepted and looked forward to being Capped. It was a part of becoming a knight, or of turning from a girl to l"The bitter thing was all the spirit, all the gallantry, was wasted. For even more than inferiors, they accepted and looked forward to being Capped. It was a part of becoming a knight, or of turning from a girl to lady. Thinking of this, I saw how good things could be meaningless in isolation. What value did courage have, without a free and challenging mind to direct it?" (p. 111)
In France when people are capped everyone accepts it as a natural part of life and you have to do it (not only in France). In France it is considered this to be a process of a girl turning in to a lady and a boy to a knight. So this is sort of like a graduation ceremony in our world. All these things the people are thinking are not true- this is not a natural part of growing up, this is not a process of young children becoming adults. In our world adults are free people who can do anything they want- marry, get a job they can literally do anything they want. Though in the book you can not define capped people as free. This ceremony is the process of a human serving the tripods. A human's knowledge, mind, opinions are not theirs anymore once they are capped. So if they are not free then how can they have courage to do anything? How can they make their decisions? How can they live their life? This is what I think the passage is talking about.

Literature Circle #3

The tripods were able to control people because they destroyed the cities. In the chapter of The City of the Ancients they travel through ruins which is most likely to be Paris. Then they didn't clean up after the mess so people don't have the guts to fight against the tripods. Now this allows the tripods to control everyone and they do that by capping them. Tripods control the amount of information taken in by the people and tell them to do certain things and make them encourage and force people to cap. It kind of is like a chip on a person so the tripods can track them down and figure out what they are doing. This is how I think the tripods were able to control people.

I have two quotes from one paragraph supporting the statement that Will is comfortable staying with Comte, Comtesse and Eloise but is frustrated that they are capped:
" My feelings about Eloise herself were also jumbled and uncertain." The second quote I found is- "More and more I had come to see the Capped as lacking what seemed to me the essence of humanity, the vital spark of defiance against the rulers of the world. And I had despised them for it- despised even, for all their kindness to me and their goodness, the Comte and Comtesse."





These are quotes about how Will feels about being capped."They were Capped, they accepted the Tripods and all they stood for, but that did not prevent them from being, as I had seen in the Comte Comtesse and Eloise and now in others, warmhearted, generous and brave. And happy."
Another one is - "Before Capping there might be doubts and uncertainties and revulsion; perhaps these people had known them, too. When the caps put on, the doubts vanished. How great a loss was that? Was it a loss at all? The Tripods, apart from the act of Capping itself, did not seem to interfere much with men." These are my evidences.

Lit Circle 2

Yes, Zhanpole has a very unusual character. Though he is going to be a vary helpful guide to Will and Henry. This is because he can speak French so he can communicate with all the other people. A proof is that Zhanpole's name is French it sounds like Zhanpole to Will and Henry. This would help because if people think they are foreign run-aways but Zhanpole could start speaking French instantly and the capturers would have a doubt. This is one way Zhanpole could help Will and Henry through their journey.

The other thing is that Zhanpole knows his way around the city. So Zhanpole turns kind of like a guide. He knows his way around because in the start when he let them go he asked where they wanted to go. He replied saying he knew the way. This will help Henry and Will because Zhanpole would know where there would be a lot of tripods. So they could escape and he would find the best hiding places. These are the two ways Zhanpole is helpful to Will and Henry.

How I am like Will in White Mts.

It is tough to find the similarities between Will and I. Though I will admit that I am sort of rebellious. In my opinion Will is rebellious because he doesn't listen to people. Not only that he is dis-obeying the tripods and his religion. I don't get that far but I am rebellious sometimes towards my parents. For example I won't wash the dishes. It is different but it is clear that it is one similarity between me and Will.

The other thing is that I'm careless and so is he. I am not saying that I don't care about other people. What I am saying is that sometimes I don't think before I act. For instance I took my brand new phone when I went for a swim ( without my parents permission), so as a result when I was returning back I dropped my phone down a staircase. I would say Will is careless because once he took the watch and ran outside wearing it. In return he got in to a fight with Henry while wearing it. These are the two similarities Will and I share personality- wise.

My Resolutions and Vacation!

I have a lot of New Year's resolutions but I think these are the ones I really need to work on.-
1. Be a little more obedient towards my family.
2. Sleep early on school nights.
3. Do my homework the day I get it and start it within half an hour of me reaching home.
Lately I have been working on this pretty strictly.

About my vacation!
For my vacation I went to Kolkata, India for about two weeks. Over there I met my nieces, cousins, aunts, uncles, brother-in-laws and my grandmother. I had loads of fun with my nieces and cousin sisters because first of all I love kids under the age of 6 (but I don't mind kids above that age) and one of my nieces is four and the other 3. I enjoyed being with my cousin sisters because they are old enough to take me shopping so I went shopping with them most of the time and all the rest of the stuff girls do. My holidays were really good except for one thing- I really hate the fact that I didn't celebrate New Year, well I did but I didn't enjoy it because one of my aunt and her husband that everyone is not very of fond of except my parents and another aunt of mine came over. What I really did was counting down in a boring way. That is basically what happened during my vacation. Was your vacation fun?