#and rues tragedy speaks for itself
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The Holocaust
The summer of 2022 marked the 80th anniversary of the first Nazi deportation of Jewish families from Germany to Auschwitz.
Welcome to candlelight Narratives, Today I am speaking on a really hard subject, one of the darker moments in world history, please don’t let these atrocities go forgotten as History likes to repeat itself.
The word Antisemitism means prejudice against Jews.
In 1879, Wilhelm Marr a journalist originated the term antisemitism, denoting the hatred of Jews, and also hatred of various liberal, cosmopolitan, and international political trends of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The trends under attack included equal civil rights, constitutional democracy, free trade, socialism, finance capitalism, and pacifism.
The Holocaust is history’s most extreme example of antisemitism with the persecution and murder of six million Jewish men, women and children by the Nazi regime. The Nazis, came to power in Germany in January 1933, they believed that Germans were "racially superior" and wanted to create a “racially pure” state. Jews, deemed "inferior," were considered an alien threat to the so-called German racial community.
During that time German authorities also targeted and killed other groups, including their own children at times, because of their perceived racial and biological inferiority: Gypsies, Germans with disabilities, and some of the Slavic peoples (especially Poles and Russians). Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals.
Because the Nazis advocated killing children of “unwanted” groups, children were especially vulnerable during the nazi regime.
Sadly Calculating the numbers of individuals who were killed as the result of Nazi policies is a difficult task. There is no single wartime document created by Nazi officials that spells out how many people were killed in the Holocaust across Germany much information about the tragedy has been forever lost to time, Some stories were passed down while others never got to be shared.
“Kristallnacht: what happened on the night of broken glass?
Herschel Grynszpan carried a revolver and thoughts of revenge with him as he walked through the streets of Paris on the morning of November 7, 1938. The 17-year-old German refugee had just learned that his Polish-Jewish parents, along with thousands of other Jews, had been herded into boxcars and deported from Germany. From the day Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933, Antisemitism had become encoded in the governmental policies of Nazi Germany. For years, Jews experienced state-sponsored discrimination and persecution, and Grynszpan had seen enough.
The young man who had emigrated to France two years earlier walked into the German Embassy on Rue de Lille in search of the German ambassador. When Grynszpan was informed that the ambassador was out on his daily walk, he was brought in to meet with diplomat Ernst vom Rath. Pulling out his revolver, Grynszpan fired five times at vom Rath and shouted, “You are a filthy kraut, and here, in the name of 12,000 persecuted Jews, is your document!”
Hitler sent his personal physicians to Paris to treat vom Rath, but two days later the diplomat died from his wounds. The Nazi regime found the murder to be a welcome excuse to launch a vast pogrom against the Jews living inside its borders. Until then, Nazi policies toward the Jews, such as boycotts and deportations, had been primarily nonviolent, but that all changed in the hours after vom Rath took his last breath.
Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels orchestrated a “spontaneous” reaction to the political assassination. He sent a teletype message to state police stations and secret service headquarters with detailed instructions on organizing and executing a massive attack on Jewish properties. Goebbels ordered the burning of Jewish houses of worship, businesses and homes. He ordered the storm troopers to arrest as many Jews as the prisons could hold—“especially the rich ones”—and to prepare the concentration camps for their arrivals. Firemen were told to do nothing to stop the blazes unless the fires began to threaten Aryan-owned properties.
Starting in the late hours of the night of November 9, 1938, and continuing well into the next day, Nazis in Germany and Austria torched approximately 1,000 synagogues and vandalized thousands of Jewish homes, schools and businesses. Nearly 100 Jews were murdered during the violence, and approximately 30,000 were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Following the night of terror, the shattered windows of vandalized Jewish businesses littered the sidewalks of Germany and Austria, which led to the rampage being known as Kristallnacht, German for “crystal night.”
After ruining their property and their temples in a murderous attack, the Nazis then made their victims pay for all the damage from the “night of broken glass.” The insurance companies paid the Jews in full, but the Nazi government confiscated all the money to pay back the insurance companies to prevent them from bankruptcy due to the catastrophic losses. The Nazis also fined Germany’s Jews $400 million for their “abominable crimes,” including the killing of vom Rath in Paris. Hermann Göring, Hitler’s second-in-command, said the sanctions would ensure “the swine won’t commit another murder.”
Foreign countries issued statements of condemnation. Hugh Wilson, the American ambassador to Germany, was summoned home for “consultations” and never returned. In spite of the words, though, most countries, including the United States, kept their restrictive immigration policies against European Jews in place, and there were few ramifications for the Nazis.
A week following the assassination in Paris that was used as a pretense for the state-sponsored “spontaneous demonstration,” vom Rath’s coffin, draped with the Nazi swastika flag, was paraded through the streets of Dusseldorf as thousands of mourners raised their arms in salute of the murdered diplomat. Grynszpan was transferred from prison to prison in France until the Nazi invasion during World War II when he was extradited to Germany where he was incarcerated in a concentration camp. His ultimate fate is unknown, but he may well have been among the 6 million killed during the Holocaust, the genocide was foreshadowed on the “night of broken glass.” in November.
Although the Nazis deported hundreds of thousands of Jewish men and women, for many places where those tragic events happened, no images are known to document the crime. Surprisingly, there’s not even photographic evidence from Berlin, the Nazi capital and home to Germany’s largest Jewish community.
The lack of known images is important. Unlike in the past, historians now agree that photographs and film must be taken seriously as primary sources for their research. These sources can complement the analysis of administrative documents and survivor testimonies and thus enrich our understanding of Nazi persecution.
“JANUARY 30, 1939
Amid rising international tensions Führer and Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler tells the German public and the world that the outbreak of war would mean the end of European Jewry.
Inspired by Hitler's theories of racial struggle and the supposed "intent" of the Jews to survive and expand at the expense of Germans, the Nazis ordered anti-Jewish boycotts, staged book burnings, and enacted anti-Jewish legislation. But it was the nationwide pogroms (Kristallnacht) in 1938 and the outbreak of war in 1939 that marked the transition in Nazi racial antisemitism toward genocide. To justify the murder of the Jews both to the perpetrators and to bystanders in Germany and Europe, the Nazis used not only racist arguments but also arguments derived from older negative stereotypes, including Jews as communist subversives, war profiteers, hoarders, and as a danger to internal security because of their inherent disloyalty and opposition to the Reich.”
Jewish Deportations continued until the war started to look bad for the Nazis as the Soviets and The Americans made a push towards Berlin. Some Germans even into the Nazi ranks aided the Jews in escaping the reach of The Third Reich, Many books, and a few movies have been made about these events. As the Allies closed in on the heart of Germany. The Final solution was issued by the Nazi Party leading to the outright murder of most survivors in the work camps because Nazi leadership already knew what gruesome end awaited them all. They had watched Mussolini in Italy tortured and killed. Their former Ally The Soviets were closing in with vengeance and the only defence force remaining were The old or members of The Nazi youth, After Adolf Hitler Committed Suicide Many remaining Nazis surrendered while some Fled Germany altogether.
Investigating photos of Nazi deportations
Between 1938 and 1945, more than 200,000 people were deported from Germany, mainly to ghettos and camps in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe.
To make pictures of Nazi deportations accessible for research and education, a group of universitys in Germany and the Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research at the University of Southern California launched the #LastSeen. This effort aims to locate, collect and analyze images of Nazi mass deportations in Germany. The deportations started with the forced expulsion of around 17,000 Jews of Polish origin in October 1938, right before the widespread antisemitic violence of Kristallnacht, and culminated in the mass deportations to Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe between 1941 and 1945.
The mass deportation targeted not only Jews, but also people with disabilities as well as tens of thousands of gypsies.
the #LastSeen Project has three main goals: first, gathering all existing pictures. These images will then be analyzed to identify the victims and perpetrators and recover the stories behind the pictures. Finally, a digital platform will provide access to all the images and unearthed information, both enabling a new level of study of this visual evidence and establishing a powerful tool against Holocaust denial. I am making this video to hopefully inform someone who may not know or perhaps remind those who know that this sad time in history did in fact happen and we must keep informed to prevent anything of the sort from happening again with any luck
When the project began, the partners were skeptical of whether they would find a significant number of never-before-seen images of mass deportations.
But after addressing the German public and querying over 1,700 German archives, the group has sense received dozens of unknown images, more then doubling the number of German towns, from 27 to over 60, where now they have photographs documenting Nazi deportations.
Many of these photos had been collecting dust on shelves in local archives in Germany while some were found in private homes. In the future, the project hopes for discoveries in archives, museums and family possession in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, South Africa and Australia. We know that liberators took photographs with them from Germany at the end of the war, and survivors received them later in various ways.
The project has already located photos in the United States. In two cases, survivors had donated them to archives, Simon Strauss gave an image to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum depicting the deportation in his German hometown of Hanau. He wrote on it, “Uncle Ludwig transported.” The second photo was at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York, which had received the hitherto only known picture from the Nazi deportation of the Jews in Bad Homburg.
Naming and recognizing victims
The identities of deportees and perpetrators in the existing images are often unknown. Most photographs show groups of victims whom project staff aim to identify so they and their stories can be acknowledged. This is very difficult, since there are seldom close-up shots.
This is but one example of how scholars desperately need the public’s help to recover the stories of countless unidentified victims of the Nazis.
I hope this presentation proves to be informative, Thank you so much for watching the video. If you enjoyed please like and subscribe to show your support. Later guys.
Sources:
Berenbaum, Michael. "Holocaust". Encyclopedia Britannica, 5 Sep. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/event/Holocaust. Accessed 2 October 2022.
The Video is right here: https://youtu.be/RcqMJJ_MhIg
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Binge-Watching: Princes Tutu, Episodes 24-26
At long last, we reach the end of Princess Tutu! In which the story itself is the battleground, Rue is worthy of love, and the ending is rewritten.
Battle of the Storytellers
There was never any question in my mind that Princess Tutu was never going to be the tragedy Drosselmeyer was so insistent it was. From the very beginning, this has been a story of overcoming the decided path, rejecting what’s assumed to be inevitable, refusing to follow the whims of a story that seeks only to harm and injure. There was no way the characters weren’t going to end up breaking free of the story by the end, re-writing its ending and rebuilding it into something kinder and more loving than Drosselmeyer’s plans for it. And as is only fitting, the final battle of Princess Tutu is a battle for control of the story itself. Fakir and Drossy clash narrative streams as they try to exert their will over the climax with the looming shadow of the revived raven casting the town in nightmarish relief. They push and pull, throwing the full weight of their desires behind their visions for this story’s end. And you can feel the chaos as this battle spills out from the pages and onto the streets; there are no shortage of tableaus in this finale that freaked my fucking balls off. Seeing the story start to spread past the town walls, escaping its confines and spilling into the world beyond, the ballet skeletons that accompany Rue in the depths of despair, Drossy forcing Fakir to write Duck’s death sentence, only for Fakir to stab his own hand to stop the story from flowing... this was one heck of a final battle from start to finish.
But what makes this climax ultimately so inspiring is that it isn’t just the “Fakir fixes everything” show. He’s not the only one writing this story, after all; Duck’s writing it right with him. Through her courage and conviction, she gives a voice to the voiceless thoughts he can barely put down on paper, shining as a beacon of hope in the darkness, guiding his hand to tell the story that must be told. Fakir may not be able to write for the prince, but he doesn’t need to. The self-sacrificing knight he once was no longer suits the champion he’s become. Now, he writes a story for the person who truly matters to him, for the enemies he’s come to respect, for every last person in need of a better ending than the one Drossy’s prescribed to them. Because that’s the story he truly wants to tell. Not a story of mindless devotion, but a story that frees, a story that inspires, a story that restores hope where once it was lost. And Duck gives that story legs to stand on, dancing on and on and on, refusing to give in to despair, until her light finally shines through. And together, they break everyone out of the story. They give everyone wings to escape the story, wings to fly themselves home with, speaking in one voice as they write their way to a better ending. It’s triumphant, it’s self-affirming, it’s jubilant, and it’s nothing more or less than Princess Goddamn Tutu.
Rue Deserves Love
And that sense of communal effort is key to understanding this show’s ultimately hopeful message. The characters in this story have all been forced into roles that constrict and crush them, turning them into cheap imitations of the people they once were. And in those molds, they waste away in isolation, growing colder and crueler by the day. Mytho’s desire to love everyone taken to its logical extreme, turns him into a cowardly, eternally empty shell who grows too twisted for anyone to love him back, a vicious circle that repeats in on itself until he literally turns into a crow, the black-feathered embodiment of despair that’s been dragging Rue down her entire life. By the time he hits his lowest point, even his heart shards are sorrowful at the hollow being he’s become, lost and alone and unable to remember love. In a sense, Mytho is the locus for all of Princess Tutu’s commentary on love; desire for it blinds him, excess of it breaks him, exploitation of it hollows him out, and lack of it exacerbates all those problems to the breaking point. And in Drossy’s ideal world, this makes him the perfect tragic character, alone and unloved and in need of salvation from a martyr worthy of his life. His loneliness is desirable. It’s part of the plan.
But you know what wasn’t part of the plan?
Rue being the one to save him with a declaration of love.
That conclusion breaks the entire machinery of the story. That twist throws Drosslemeyer’s grand plans off track like nothing he could have ever prepared for. The dark rival isn’t supposed to win in the end. She’s supposed to be defeated by the pure white hero, cast off into darkness and left to wallow in it. That was the role she was supposed to play... but it was never a role she deserved. She was never a monster doomed to evil and cruelty. She was never made to fit such a dark mold.
All she was... was a girl. A girl enveloped in self-loathing and an abusive home, a girl who came to hate herself and everything she represented, a girl who found hope in the prince who gave her solace, but could never love her back. And as time went on and her love grew and grew, it only made her sink deeper and deeper into herself, to the point where she was no longer able to express it healthily. So she lashed out, grew possessive, put up a million walls to keep her kingdom intact, to try and hold onto the one person who truly made her happy. And by the time she realized the damage she was doing, it was too late. Mytho was already broken, a victim of the same callous love the raven shredded her apart with. In trying to safeguard her love, she poisoned it and poisoned the object of her affections along with it. Her love only brought pain to the person she loved. And watching her completely give up, sinking into her despair as she realizes the magnitude of her failures, was really goddamn hard to watch. That kind of abject despair only comes from a true understanding of just how deeply you’ve fucked up. In that moment, we see all the abuse Rue’s suffered smother her, all the lies her so-called father told her creep up and swallow her whole. And that is who Drosslemeyer tried to cast as this story’s irredeemable villain. Because when all you see are the boxes, you forget about the people underneath.
Because when the decisive moment came and the prince was in danger of being devoured by the monster who raised her, Rue didn’t allow her despair to win. She shouted out at last, for every time she stayed quiet, for all the mistakes she needed to repair, for all the love she’d been terrified of sharing. She shouted out, and she was heard. Because Rue was never the crow princess, doomed to darkness. She was Rue. She was a girl full of love, a girl who desperately wanted to hope, a girl who finally found the courage to hope when everything was turned against her. And it’s that love that saved Mytho in the end, that love that pulled him back to himself and remember the power that love can have. Tutu on her own could only do so much. She couldn’t cleanse Mytho’s soul with a reminder of the history shared between two people, a loved that blossomed and bloomed despite all the barriers against it, a love that refused to play by the structures of the story controlling it. That love could only come from someone as caring, as defiant, as ceaseless, and as loving as Rue. And that love deserves to be returned. That fragile, honest love, every bit the equal of the story’s supposed heroine, deserves to be answered by the connection it formed with the soul it saved.
Rue was never the crow princess.
She was never the villain.
All she was... was someone who deserved to be loved.
All she was... was Rue.
Who We Truly Are
And that’s all everyone in this story ever was. They were never the tragic heroes or doomed lovers that Drosselmeyer so desperately wanted them to be. They were Mytho, a brave prince with the courage to answer the love of the one who called to him and fight for the princess who truly deserved it. They were Fakir, a storyteller with the inspiration to throw off the chains of the story and write his way to a better ending. And they were Duck, only just a duck, but also so much more than that. They were their true selves, and no matter how terrifying it might be to accept that fact, those true selves were always the stories they deserved to tell. Those true selves were so much more interesting, so much more valuable, so much more hopeful than Drossy’s outdated Creative Writing 101 claptrap. Duck as a tragic princess doomed to fade away into light? Been there, done that. Duck as the bravest duck in the world, able to fail and cry and fear and rise again, scared of bringing this story to the end but willing to face the consequences regardless, dancing on her own webbed feet as bravely as she danced as a swam princess, refusing to give into pain and despair no matter how many hits she took, all to keep hope alive and save every last person she cared about? Now that’s a heroine I can get behind. That’s a story well worth telling.
And that’s the story that was ultimately told. Fakir takes control of the narrative and brings this tragedy to an unexpectedly happy ending. Mytho decides that his selfless love for Rue is more important than his selfish love from everyone else. Rue finally believed herself worthy of being her prince’s princess, finding the love she’s always desired. Fakir breaks the mechanism of tragedy running this town, declaring that from now on, he’ll be the one to write this story. And Duck is, in the end, only just a duck. A duck with the love of countless people and the courage to do whatever she sets her mind too. The tragedy is over. Drosselmeyer has no more stories left to tell. Now, the story can begin anew.
Now, the story can turn to hope.
And now... we get to write it ourselves.
Odds and Ends
-You know, I probably should’ve realized the pendant was the last heart shard.
-Seeing Mytho finally back in action? Bad. ASS.
-”Now, show me a tragedy! A cataclysm of tears from which not one of the players is saved!” Alright, cool your jets, Zack Snyder.
-”Give us your heart!” Petition to make this the new “Mine!” seagull call.
-”I love you, Duck.” “I love you too, Rue.” And somehow I’m still shipping it.
-”What if all this time, I’ve been a character is someone else’s story?” aksjdhasihakds
What a wild ride it’s been. See you all later tonight for my series reflection, as well as what show will take its place!
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In fair Verona, our tale begins with CALINA SOKOLOVA, who is TWENTY-FIVE years old. She is often called CLEOPATRA by the MONTAGUES and works as their EMISSARY. She uses SHE/HER pronouns.
Her life began as the lives of most LEGENDS do: a far cry from the way they’re bound to end. She came into this world kicking and screaming, but not a soul was there to see it—no shepherds, no kings, not even her own mother. For the first few hours of her life, the world hardly knew she was there at all; she’d snuck into it unnoticed and unannounced, though certainly not for a lack of trying, and she’d have left it that way too, had fate not laid her in the arms of a woman who’d prayed for her for years without ever having known her. A princess of the dark alley she’d been born in and nothing more, she was given a roof over her head and a name to call her own, something to remember her by and something to come home to when the world got a little too cold. Calina Sokolova was born from the ASHES of the nameless girl she might’ve been, a child spared from the pain of being forgotten because she’d never been known in the first place, and for a time, she was loved. Her new mother promised her what her first one never could—that she’d never be alone—and for fifteen years, she made good on that promise. The diamond she’d found in the rough grew into a young lady with a mind that could save them both from the comfortable gutter they called home, and by the time Calina was on the cusp of adulthood, they’d scrounged enough money for her to go to Novosibirsk in search of work and a better life. Things were looking up for the girl who’d always thought to keep her head down.
And then the sickness set in. It was subtle, nearly gentle, in the way it took hold of her mother, the way it stole the light from her eyes and turned her sun-kissed skin a ghostly pale, and Calina HATED it for that, for likening her mother’s demise to the wilting of the flowers they’d both so loved to pick. Her desperation to see the woman who’d given her a life far greater than the one fate had dealt her to live led her to spend every penny they had trying to save her, to buy one more day, one more hour, one more minute with her, but in the end, she lost her, and the world kept turning in spite of it all—in spite of her. The sun rose the next day as it always did, CRUEL in the way it shone as if nothing at all had been lost, and Calina was left to pick up the pieces of a life that could’ve been, a life that should’ve been. It was in the days and weeks following the only real tragedy she’d ever known that she learned the difference between savagery and true destruction, the difference between spilling blood and KILLING HOPE. What truly haunts people is seldom the means by which things meet their ends, the maladies and blades and disasters that take, but what remains and what once was: a necklace her mother always wore, the smile she’d loved so much.
She lost her mother a second time—piece by piece—when she struggled to move on, to pull herself out of the hole she’d plunged into. First, she sold her possessions—the sweater she’d gotten for Christmas and worn so much it was like a second skin, the pots and pans and cutlery they’d prided themselves on using so artfully. When the money ran out and she found she had nothing left to give, she sold the only thing she had left: her body. She spent years working in a brothel for far less than she deserved, pulled in and TRAPPED into a never-ending circle of unpaid debts by a madame that preyed on those who knew no better or were too desperate for money to care. It was almost shamefully easy to become someone else, to be anyone or anything her clients wanted—anyone but herself, and she did her job so well that Calina Sokolova became little more than a distant MEMORY, a girl who’d once had it all and lost it—a girl who’d died with her mother. But it wouldn’t rain forever, it seemed. Salvation came when she least expected it, as it often tends to do, in the form of a red-haired stranger that paid off the remainder of her contract in full, and clever enough not to count her blessings prematurely, she walked out of the brothel a free woman with the knowledge that her FREEDOM would undoubtedly come with a PRICE.
To her credit, she wasn’t wrong, but she was also far from right. Damiano was not a man seeking to use her, to drag her by her hair from one hell into another; he was a man who wanted her cooperation, her allegiance. He, with the machinations of his war-worn mind, knew that she was a WRAITH looking for a soul to tie itself to. So he gave her one: Faron Vasiliev. Told of the girl she’d once been by a client of hers, all sharp wit and quiet ambition, he’d sought her out with a proposal of sorts, one she’d be equally foolish to accept as she would be to refuse: she could build an empire with him, or she could turn around and ask her madame for his money back. “Didn’t anyone tell you that you can’t make a whore into a housewife?” She’d asked, dark eyes narrowed in the way of a tactician looking for a suitable place to strike. Vasiliev laughed then, the sound every bit as unexpected as her question, and said, “I don’t need a housewife. I need a general.” And so a general she became. This is the story of a girl turned woman turned PHOENIX, a girl who learned that true conquering comes not from cutting a man down at the knees, but by making him kneel of his own volition. Calina Sokolova has not come to burn your city to the ground; she’s come to see you strike the match yourself. This is her TORCH SONG; remember her not only for who she was, but what she took from you—everything.
MONA CHEN: Mark. The Montagues and the Capulets war over territories like the Greeks warred with the Spartans -- as though Ares himself had a hand in the game that was being played. The Dark Lady is perhaps the most sought-after by the Montagues, Mona’s particular services being a rather coveted source of information and revenue. It seems, though, that Calina has gained the woman’s interest in particular. The emissary feels the weight of her gaze and the subtle knives that are meant to cut into her so that Mona might piece her apart. She has learned, though, to be an enigma, has learned to keep her cards close to her chest so that none might know the hand that she wishes to play until it is too late to step away from the game. Mona will be hers, though. Mona will rue the day that Calina ever learned her name.
BORIS KOVROV: Distrust. She errs on the side of Faron’s judgment only when it aligns with her own, and though it tends to be a rather rare occurrence, they can both agree on this: Boris Kovrov is not to be trusted. Calina has seen her fair share of snakes in this world, ranging from harmless to utterly lethal, but she’s never known a man so confidently cunning, so elegantly manipulative. It comes as no surprise that he’s found his niche among the Montagues, surely, but there are few things their mob condemns more than treason, and he’s a known perpetrator of the art. But despite knowing what he’s capable of, she’s hardly compelled to do much more than keep a wary eye on him and rein him in from time to time; the real puppeteer stands just behind him, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
GRACE DALY: Suspicion. Brutal and gentle things alike have always left a bitter taste in her mouth, and the soldier’s affinity for red—for blood and lipstick and everything violent—has never sat well with her. It’s not as though Grace is the only one among their ranks with a love of savagery in its most base form, but she’s among the closest to the top of the hierarchy, and Calina knows—perhaps better than anyone—that wild things ought to be watched closely. So long as the woman’s teeth are bared in another direction, she won’t have to make her shut her mouth.
ALEXANDER RALLIS: Intrigue. She’s heard stories about him. Tales of conquering and red-tinted dreamscapes made into bloodied battlefields; fables of a self-made god who had built himself up from the husk of his own mortality and the dust of his enemies’ bones. Calina is indifferent to these tales as she is a firm believer that solid actions speak much louder than fickle words—but she knows that every myth carries a figment of truth. And that is what her reluctant intrigue towards the man stems from; a desire to glimpse the truth within the fabrications of glory that the consigliere is so enshrouded by. So far, the only true thing that she has been able to perceive is Alexander’s swift climb through the tenuous Montague ranks and it has prompted a strange wonderment within her especially when considering the fact that anyone who speaks of Alexander Rallis speaks more of his achievements than his beginnings. Calina understands how crucial a beginning is to every story and thus, she can’t help but wonder where it all started for him.
Calina is portrayed by BERTA VÁSQUEZ and was written by BREE. They are currently TAKEN by KIERSTEN.
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Phantom Rambles
Chapter Twenty One - Interesting and Instructive Vicissitudes of a Persian in the Cellars of the Opera
(Vicissitudes Definition - a change of circumstances or fortune, typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant.)
(This is the room in which Raoul and the Persian found themselves.Art by the amazing TalviEnkeli on deviantart.)
The Persian's narrative. (Heck i’mma just dump the whole chapter in here and comment where I will!)
It was the first time that I entered the house on the lake. I had often begged the “trap-door lover,” as we used to call Erik in my country, to open its mysterious doors to me. He always refused. I made very many attempts, but in vain, to obtain admittance. Watch him as I might, after I first learned that he had taken up his permanent abode at the Opera, the darkness was always too thick to enable me to see how he worked the door in the wall on the lake. One day, when I thought myself alone, I stepped into the boat and rowed toward that part of the wall through which I had seen Erik disappear. It was then that I came into contact with the siren who guarded the approach and whose charm was very nearly fatal to me.
I had no sooner put off from the bank than the silence amid which I floated on the water was disturbed by a sort of whispered singing that hovered all around me. It was half breath, half music; it rose softly from the waters of the lake; and I was surrounded by it through I knew not what artifice. It followed me, moved with me and was so soft that it did not alarm me. On the contrary, in my longing to approach the source of that sweet and enticing harmony, I leaned out of my little boat over the water, for there was no doubt in my mind that the singing came from the water itself. By this time, I was alone in the boat in the middle of the lake; the voice — for it was now distinctly a voice — was beside me, on the water. I leaned over, leaned still farther. The lake was perfectly calm, and a moonbeam that passed through the air hole in the Rue Scribe showed me absolutely nothing on its surface, which was smooth and black as ink. I shook my ears to get rid of a possible humming; but I soon had to accept the fact that there was no humming in the ears so harmonious as the singing whisper that followed and now attracted me.
Had I been inclined to superstition, I should have certainly thought that I had to do with some siren whose business it was to confound the traveler who should venture on the waters of the house on the lake. Fortunately, I come from a country where we are too fond of fantastic things not to know them through and through; and I had no doubt but that I was face to face with some new invention of Erik’s. But this invention was so perfect that, as I leaned out of the boat, I was impelled less by a desire to discover its trick than to enjoy its charm; and I leaned out, leaned out until I almost overturned the boat.
Suddenly, two monstrous arms issued from the bosom of the waters and seized me by the neck, dragging me down to the depths with irresistible force. I should certainly have been lost, if I had not had time to give a cry by which Erik knew me. For it was he; and, instead of drowning me, as was certainly his first intention, he swam with me and laid me gently on the bank:
“How imprudent you are!” he said, as he stood before me, dripping with water. “Why try to enter my house? I never invited you! I don’t want you there,(LOL) nor anybody!(What a mood Erik) Did you save my life only to make it unbearable to me? However great the service you rendered him, Erik may end by forgetting it; and you know that nothing can restrain Erik, not even Erik himself.” (I adore how Erik talks in third person.)
He spoke, but I had now no other wish than to know what I already called the trick of the siren. He satisfied my curiosity, for Erik, who is a real monster( Bit RUDE) — I have seen him at work in Persia, alas — is also, in certain respects, a regular child, vain and self-conceited, and there is nothing he loves so much, after astonishing people, as to prove all the really miraculous ingenuity of his mind.(SEE EVEN THE DAROGA AGREES WITH ME PEOPLE!!!)
He laughed and showed me a long reed.
“It’s the silliest trick you ever saw,” he said, “but it’s very useful for breathing and singing in the water. I learned it from the Tonkin pirates, who are able to remain hidden for hours in the beds of the rivers.”
I spoke to him severely.
“It’s a trick that nearly killed me!” I said. “And it may have been fatal to others! You know what you promised me, Erik? No more murders!”
“Have I really committed murders?” he asked, putting on his most amiable air.
“Wretched man!” I cried. “Have you forgotten the ‘rosy hours of Mazenderan’?”
“Yes,” he replied, in a sadder tone, “I prefer to forget them. I used to make the little sultana laugh, though!” (OH BABY NO JUST NO)
“All that belongs to the past,” I declared; “but there is the present . . . and you are responsible to me for the present, because, if I had wished, there would have been none at all for you. Remember that, Erik: I saved your life!” (I’M YOUR FATHER AND YOU WILL LISTEN TO ME DAMN IT!!!)
And I took advantage of the turn of conversation to speak to him of something that had long been on my mind:
“Erik,” I asked, “Erik, swear that . . . ”
“What?” he retorted. “You know I never keep my oaths. Oaths are made to catch gulls with.”
“Tell me . . . you can tell me, at any rate . . . ”
“Well?”
“Well, the chandelier . . . the chandelier, Erik? . . . ”
“What about the chandelier?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Oh,” he sniggered, “I don’t mind telling you about the chandelier! . . . IT WASN’T I! . . . The chandelier was very old and worn.”
When Erik laughed, he was more terrible than ever. He jumped into the boat, chuckling so horribly that I could not help trembling.
“Very old and worn, my dear daroga! Very old and worn, the chandelier! . . . It fell of itself! . . . It came down with a smash! . . . And now, daroga, take my advice and go and dry yourself, or you’ll catch a cold in the head! . . . And never get into my boat again . . . And, whatever you do, don’t try to enter my house: I’m not always there . . . daroga! And I should be sorry to have to dedicate my Requiem Mass to you!”
So saying, swinging to and fro, like a monkey, and still chuckling, he pushed off and soon disappeared in the darkness of the lake. (hOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE THIS FLAMING DUMPSTER CHILD?!)
From that day, I gave up all thought of penetrating into his house by the lake. That entrance was obviously too well guarded, especially since he had learned that I knew about it. But I felt that there must be another entrance, for I had often seen Erik disappear in the third cellar, when I was watching him, though I could not imagine how.
Ever since I had discovered Erik installed in the Opera, I lived in a perpetual terror of his horrible fancies, not in so far as I was concerned, but I dreaded everything for others.
And whenever some accident, some fatal event happened, I always thought to myself, “I should not be surprised if that were Erik,” even as others used to say, “It’s the ghost!” How often have I not heard people utter that phrase with a smile! Poor devils! If they had known that the ghost existed in the flesh, I swear they would not have laughed!
Although Erik announced to me very solemnly that he had changed and that he had become the most virtuous of men SINCE HE WAS LOVED FOR HIMSELF— a sentence that, at first, perplexed me most terribly — I could not help shuddering when I thought of the monster. His horrible, unparalleled and repulsive ugliness put him without the pale of humanity; and it often seemed to me that, for this reason, he no longer believed that he had any duty toward the human race. The way in which he spoke of his love affairs only increased my alarm, for I foresaw the cause of fresh and more hideous tragedies in this event to which he alluded so boastfully. (Yeah how do you tell your psychotic friend that he may not be loved in return???)
On the other hand, I soon discovered the curious moral traffic established between the monster and Christine Daae. Hiding in the lumber-room next to the young prima donna’s dressing-room, I listened to wonderful musical displays that evidently flung Christine into marvelous ecstasy; but, all the same, I would never have thought that Erik’s voice — which was loud as thunder or soft as angels’ voices, at will — could have made her forget his ugliness. I understood all when I learned that Christine had not yet seen him! I had occasion to go to the dressing-room and, remembering the lessons he had once given me, I had no difficulty in discovering the trick that made the wall with the mirror swing round and I ascertained the means of hollow bricks and so on — by which he made his voice carry to Christine as though she heard it close beside her. In this way also I discovered the road that led to the well and the dungeon — the Communists’ dungeon — and also the trap-door that enabled Erik to go straight to the cellars below the stage. (The Daroga is a smarticle particle)
A few days later, what was not my amazement to learn by my own eyes and ears that Erik and Christine Daae saw each other and to catch the monster stooping over the little well, in the Communists’ road and sprinkling the forehead of Christine Daae, who had fainted. A white horse, the horse out of the PROFETA, which had disappeared from the stables under the Opera, was standing quietly beside them. I showed myself. It was terrible. I saw sparks fly from those yellow eyes and, before I had time to say a word, I received a blow on the head that stunned me. (Rude ERik!)
When I came to myself, Erik, Christine and the white horse had disappeared. I felt sure that the poor girl was a prisoner in the house on the lake. Without hesitation, I resolved to return to the bank, notwithstanding the attendant danger. For twenty-four hours, I lay in wait for the monster to appear; for I felt that he must go out, driven by the need of obtaining provisions. And, in this connection, I may say, that, when he went out in the streets or ventured to show himself in public, he wore a pasteboard nose, with a mustache attached to it,
(This is always what I picture ^)
instead of his own horrible hole of a nose. This did not quite take away his corpse-like air, but it made him almost, I say almost, endurable to look at.
I therefore watched on the bank of the lake and, weary of long waiting, was beginning to think that he had gone through the other door, the door in the third cellar, when I heard a slight splashing in the dark, I saw the two yellow eyes shining like candles and soon the boat touched shore. Erik jumped out and walked up to me:
“You’ve been here for twenty-four hours,” he said, “and you’re annoying me. I tell you, all this will end very badly. And you will have brought it upon yourself; for I have been extraordinarily patient with you. You think you are following me, you great booby, (*Snorts*)whereas it’s I who am following you; and I know all that you know about me, here. I spared you yesterday, in MY COMMUNISTS’ ROAD; but I warn you, seriously, don’t let me catch you there again! Upon my word, you don’t seem able to take a hint!” (SAYS THE DUDE WHO IS KEEPING A GIRL IN HIS HOUSE UNWILLINGLY!!!)
He was so furious that I did not think, for the moment, of interrupting him. After puffing and blowing like a walrus, he put his horrible thought into words:
“Yes, you must learn, once and for all — once and for all, I say — to take a hint! I tell you that, with your recklessness — for you have already been twice arrested by the shade in the felt hat, who did not know what you were doing in the cellars and took you to the managers, who looked upon you as an eccentric Persian interested in stage mechanism and life behind the scenes: I know all about it, I was there, in the office; you know I am everywhere — well, I tell you that, with your recklessness, they will end by wondering what you are after here . . . and they will end by knowing that you are after Erik . . . and then they will be after Erik themselves and they will discover the house on the lake . . . If they do, it will be a bad lookout for you, old chap, a bad lookout! . . . I won’t answer for anything.”
Again he puffed and blew like a walrus.
“I won’t answer for anything! . . . If Erik’s secrets cease to be Erik’s secrets, IT WILL BE A BAD LOOKOUT FOR A GOODLY NUMBER OF THE HUMAN RACE! That’s all I have to tell you, and unless you are a great booby, it ought to be enough for you . . . except that you don’t know how to take a hint.” (Erik you c h i l d)
He had sat down on the stern of his boat and was kicking his heels against the planks, waiting to hear what I had to answer. I simply said:
“It’s not Erik that I’m after here!”
“Who then?”
“You know as well as I do: it’s Christine Daae,” I answered.
He retorted: “I have every right to see her in my own house. I am loved for my own sake.” (Uh huh sure you are bb)
“That’s not true,” I said. “You have carried her off and are keeping her locked up.”
“Listen,” he said. “Will you promise never to meddle with my affairs again, if I prove to you that I am loved for my own sake?”
“Yes, I promise you,” I replied, without hesitation, for I felt convinced that for such a monster the proof was impossible.
“Well, then, it’s quite simple . . . Christine Daae shall leave this as she pleases and come back again! . . . Yes, come back again, because she wishes . . . come back of herself, because she loves me for myself! . . . ”
“Oh, I doubt if she will come back! . . . But it is your duty to let her go.” “My duty, you great booby! . . . It is my wish . . . my wish to let her go; and she will come back again . . . for she loves me! . . . All this will end in a marriage . . . a marriage at the Madeleine, you great booby! Do you believe me now? When I tell you that my nuptial mass is written . . . wait till you hear the KYRIE . . . ”
He beat time with his heels on the planks of the boat and sang:
“KYRIE! . . . KYRIE! . . . KYRIE ELEISON! . . . Wait till you hear, wait till you hear that mass.” (awe he wrote a wedding song for her *Screeches*)
“Look here,” I said. “I shall believe you if I see Christine Daae come out of the house on the lake and go back to it of her own accord.”
“And you won’t meddle any more in my affairs?”
“No.”
“Very well, you shall see that to-night. Come to the masked ball. Christine and I will go and have a look round. Then you can hide in the lumber-room and you shall see Christine, who will have gone to her dressing-room, delighted to come back by the Communists’ road . . . And, now, be off, for I must go and do some shopping!” (LOL)
To my intense astonishment, things happened as he had announced. Christine Daae left the house on the lake and returned to it several times, without, apparently, being forced to do so. It was very difficult for me to clear my mind of Erik. However, I resolved to be extremely prudent, and did not make the mistake of returning to the shore of the lake, or of going by the Communists’ road. But the idea of the secret entrance in the third cellar haunted me, and I repeatedly went and waited for hours behind a scene from the Roi de Lahore, which had been left there for some reason or other. At last my patience was rewarded. One day, I saw the monster come toward me, on his knees. I was certain that he could not see me. He passed between the scene behind which I stood and a set piece, went to the wall and pressed on a spring that moved a stone and afforded him an ingress. He passed through this, and the stone closed behind him.
(Ah Daroga you sneaky sneak!)
I waited for at least thirty minutes and then pressed the spring in my turn. Everything happened as with Erik. But I was careful not to go through the hole myself, for I knew that Erik was inside. On the other hand, the idea that I might be caught by Erik suddenly made me think of the death of Joseph Buquet. I did not wish to jeopardize the advantages of so great a discovery which might be useful to many people, “to a goodly number of the human race,” in Erik’s words; and I left the cellars of the Opera after carefully replacing the stone. (He just noped out of there)
I continued to be greatly interested in the relations between Erik and Christine Daae, not from any morbid curiosity, but because of the terrible thought which obsessed my mind that Erik was capable of anything, if he once discovered that he was not loved for his own sake, as he imagined. I continued to wander, very cautiously, about the Opera and soon learned the truth about the monster’s dreary love-affair.
He filled Christine’s mind, through the terror with which he inspired her, but the dear child’s heart belonged wholly to the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny. While they played about, like an innocent engaged couple, on the upper floors of the Opera, to avoid the monster, they little suspected that some one was watching over them. I was prepared to do anything: to kill the monster, if necessary, and explain to the police afterward. But Erik did not show himself; and I felt none the more comfortable for that.
I must explain my whole plan. I thought that the monster, being driven from his house by jealousy, would thus enable me to enter it, without danger, through the passage in the third cellar. It was important, for everybody’s sake, that I should know exactly what was inside. One day, tired of waiting for an opportunity, I moved the stone and at once heard an astounding music: the monster was working at his Don Juan Triumphant, with every door in his house wide open. I knew that this was the work of his life. I was careful not to stir and remained prudently in my dark hole.
He stopped playing, for a moment, and began walking about his place, like a madman. And he said aloud, at the top of his voice:
“It must be finished FIRST! Quite finished!” (The life of a writer)
This speech was not calculated to reassure me and, when the music recommenced, I closed the stone very softly.
On the day of the abduction of Christine Daae, I did not come to the theater until rather late in the evening, trembling lest I should hear bad news. I had spent a horrible day, for, after reading in a morning paper the announcement of a forthcoming marriage between Christine and the Vicomte de Chagny, I wondered whether, after all, I should not do better to denounce the monster. But reason returned to me, and I was persuaded that this action could only precipitate a possible catastrophe.
When, my cab set me down before the Opera, I was really almost astonished to see it still standing! But I am something of a fatalist, like all good Orientals, and I entered ready, for anything. (LOL I love you Daroga)
Christine Daae’s abduction in the Prison Act, which naturally surprised everybody, found me prepared. I was quite certain that she had been juggled away by Erik, that prince of conjurers. And I thought positively that this was the end of Christine and perhaps of everybody, so much so that I thought of advising all these people who were staying on at the theater to make good their escape. I felt, however, that they would be sure to look upon me as mad and I refrained. (Good call)
On the other hand, I resolved to act without further delay, as far as I was concerned. The chances were in my favor that Erik, at that moment, was thinking only of his captive. This was the moment to enter his house through the third cellar; and I resolved to take with me that poor little desperate viscount, who, at the first suggestion, accepted, with an amount of confidence in myself that touched me profoundly. I had sent my servant for my pistols. I gave one to the viscount and advised him to hold himself ready to fire, for, after all, Erik might be waiting for us behind the wall. We were to go by the Communists’ road and through the trap-door.
Seeing my pistols, the little viscount asked me if we were going to fight a duel. I said:
“Yes; and what a duel!” But, of course, I had no time to explain anything to him. The little viscount is a brave fellow, but he knew hardly anything about his adversary; and it was so much the better. My great fear was that he was already somewhere near us, preparing the Punjab lasso. No one knows better than he how to throw the Punjab lasso, for he is the king of stranglers even as he is the prince of conjurors. When he had finished making the little sultana laugh, at the time of the “rosy hours of Mazenderan,” she herself used to ask him to amuse her by giving her a thrill. It was then that he introduced the sport of the Punjab lasso. (Smarty)
He had lived in India and acquired an incredible skill in the art of strangulation. He would make them lock him into a courtyard to which they brought a warrior — usually, a man condemned to death — armed with a long pike and broadsword. Erik had only his lasso; and it was always just when the warrior thought that he was going to fell Erik with a tremendous blow that we heard the lasso whistle through the air. With a turn of the wrist, Erik tightened the noose round his adversary’s neck and, in this fashion, dragged him before the little sultana and her women, who sat looking from a window and applauding. The little sultana herself learned to wield the Punjab lasso and killed several of her women and even of the friends who visited her. But I prefer to drop this terrible subject of the rosy hours of Mazenderan. I have mentioned it only to explain why, on arriving with the Vicomte de Chagny in the cellars of the Opera, I was bound to protect my companion against the ever-threatening danger of death by strangling. My pistols could serve no purpose, for Erik was not likely to show himself; but Erik could always strangle us. I had no time to explain all this to the viscount; besides, there was nothing to be gained by complicating the position. I simply told M. de Chagny to keep his hand at the level of his eyes, with the arm bent, as though waiting for the command to fire. With his victim in this attitude, it is impossible even for the most expert strangler to throw the lasso with advantage. It catches you not only round the neck, but also round the arm or hand. This enables you easily to unloose the lasso, which then becomes harmless. (He’s so smart)
After avoiding the commissary of police, a number of door-shutters and the firemen, after meeting the rat-catcher and passing the man in the felt hat unperceived, the viscount and I arrived without obstacle in the third cellar, between the set piece and the scene from the Roi de Lahore. I worked the stone, and we jumped into the house which Erik had built himself in the double case of the foundation-walls of the Opera. And this was the easiest thing in the world for him to do, because Erik was one of the chief contractors under Philippe Garnier, the architect of the Opera, and continued to work by himself when the works were officially suspended, during the war, the siege of Paris and the Commune.
I knew my Erik too well to feel at all comfortable on jumping into his house. I knew what he had made of a certain palace at Mazenderan. From being the most honest building conceivable, he soon turned it into a house of the very devil, where you could not utter a word but it was overheard or repeated by an echo. With his trap-doors the monster was responsible for endless tragedies of all kinds. He hit upon astonishing inventions. Of these, the most curious, horrible and dangerous was the so-called torture-chamber. Except in special cases, when the little sultana amused herself by inflicting suffering upon some unoffending citizen, no one was let into it but wretches condemned to death. And, even then, when these had “had enough,” they were always at liberty to put an end to themselves with a Punjab lasso or bowstring, left for their use at the foot of an iron tree.
My alarm, therefore, was great when I saw that the room into which M. le Vicomte de Chagny and I had dropped was an exact copy of the torture-chamber of the rosy hours of Mazenderan. At our feet, I found the Punjab lasso which I had been dreading all the evening. I was convinced that this rope had already done duty for Joseph Buquet, who, like myself, must have caught Erik one evening working the stone in the third cellar. He probably tried it in his turn, fell into the torture-chamber and only left it hanged. I can well imagine Erik dragging the body, in order to get rid of it, to the scene from the Roi de Lahore, and hanging it there as an example, or to increase the superstitious terror that was to help him in guarding the approaches to his lair! Then, upon reflection, Erik went back to fetch the Punjab lasso, which is very curiously made out of catgut, and which might have set an examining magistrate thinking. This explains the disappearance of the rope.
And now I discovered the lasso, at our feet, in the torture-chamber! . . . I am no coward, but a cold sweat covered my forehead as I moved the little red disk of my lantern over the walls.
M. de Chagny noticed it and asked:
“What is the matter, sir?”
I made him a violent sign to be silent.
sorry this one was so long but since the chapter was heavily dialogued...Is that even a word???
Since the WHOLE chapter was the Daroga talking it just seemed right to include it. I may continue this format??? Ok bye.
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The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
My daughter was obsessed with this book (and sequels) when she was about 12. Although I was vaguely aware of the content I’m ashamed to say I didn’t read it at the time or even watch the films. As a mother and teacher I feel I should’ve read the book, if not to censor my daughter’s book choices, then at least to be able to discuss it with her.
I started reading this book after having read the short story ‘The Lottery’ (Jackson, 1948). The content and theme of this short story were both fascinating and shocking and reminded me of what I’d heard about ‘The Hunger Games’. Once I picked up the book, I could hardly put it down. Shocking, endearing, exciting, confusing and tragic. The story is set in a dystopian future where the rulers from the “Capitol” require two children from each of the districts to take part in the games – a fight to the death, orchestrated by the game-makers and watched by the entire nation. In many ways it is a classic story of good against evil. As I followed Katniss through the preparations and fight to survive, I was on the edge of my seat willing her to outsmart the other contestants. I was horrified at myself that I hoped the others would die, but it was the only way Katniss could survive. Outsmarting the game-makers was the icing on the cake!
Her father died in an accident, but not before teaching her to hunt and fend for herself; vital skills for survival. Her mother, ’with her dead eyes’ (p. 33) is emotionally absent and it is left to Katniss to provide for the family. Appleyard (1991) writes of the restrictions the adult world places upon adolescents in stories but in this case the adult world not only restricts but threatens their lives. The government, game-makers and population take pleasure in watching children fight. Even the adults who are supposed to help them are largely useless. Each time the children overcome a challenge, another is thrown at them. Adults have created a world of inequality where everyday survival is hard and then to make it even worse, they have created a survival game for children where the only way to survive is to kill others. The themes of inequality between rich and poor and suffering are woven into all aspects of the story, both before the games and in the arena. Even in the harsh fight for the survival in the arena, it is wealth (sponsorship and gifts) which keeps the children alive.
Katniss displays many of the characteristics of the traditional hero in pre-adolescent books and is the ‘central figure who by competence and initiative can solve the problems of a disordered world’ (Appleyard, 1991). She is strong, noble, clever, resourceful and caring. Yet her pride, whilst a strength, is a potential downfall and the underlying doubts and internal conflict about her relationship with Peeta (and Gale) form an undercurrent in the story also making the story appeal to the adolescent.
Cinna (the stylist) sees Katniss more clearly than she sees herself. He highlights her inner strength and connection to Peeta saying, “I want the audience to recognize you when you’re in the arena … Katniss, the girl who was on fire.” Katniss is in stage 5 (identity versus role confusion) of Erickson’s stages of development in which she starts to question her identity. ‘An identity crisis is a time of intensive analysis and exploration of different ways of looking at oneself’ (Appleyard, 1991). This includes the exploration of social relationships which we see in Katniss’s confused relationships with Peeta, Gale and Rue.
Despite the obviously violent and shocking premise of the storyline, I think this book is suitable for 12-15-year olds. There are three main things which adolescents find important in a book (Appleyard, 1991): Identification and involvement with the characters, realism and a story which makes them think. The Hunger Games includes all three. ‘Identification succeeds when the characters of adolescent novels match their readers' newfound sense of complexity, but do not exceed it. The chief difference from the characters of juvenile stories mis that the main characters of teenage fiction have inner lives. The reader has full access to their thoughts and feelings, their anxieties and self-questionings.’ (Appleyard, 1991). The story has great characters, lots of adventure and excitement, and ultimately a happy ending. The fact that the story is set in a world not dissimilar to our own makes it all the scarier. Yet there are moments of tenderness and tragedy. I cried when Rue died and when the ‘still warm loaf’ was sent to Katniss by the people of District 11. I was relieved when Foxface died accidentally as it meant both Katniss and Peeta had a chance without having to kill her. My heart broke for Peeta who so obviously adores Katniss.
My own uneasy feeling about the book is mirrored in commentary made by others and the book was banned in some schools and libraries. Spiegler (2012) put it in perspective: ‘The violence itself, however, is not gratuitous and it is not celebrated. Quite the opposite. The violence is deconstructed, analyzed, and mourned by the lead characters. The book has a powerful anti-violence and anti-war message’. The book could be used as a catalyst for discussion on social responsibility with young people. Another interesting article I came across had a powerful message for encouraging young people to read the book: ‘Perhaps the main point of the novel is the main reason in truth why it is put up for banning. The novel talks about how you shouldn’t just blindly follow the government and that if something is wrong or unjust you should speak up against it.’ (Merrit, 2016)
Before researching the book I found it hard to justify a book where children have to kill each other, yet just like my daughter at the age of 12, I couldn’t put the book down. The younger child will read the book as an adventure where good overcomes evil and the older child will experience the theme, conflicts and outrage on a deeper level.
Bibliography
Appleyard, J.A. (1991). Becoming a Reader. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press
Collins, S. (2013). The Hunger Games. London, UK: Scolastic Ltd.
Jackson, S. (1948). The Lottery. USA: The New Yorker.
Mcleod, S. (2008, September 17). Erikson's Psychosocial Stages of Development. Retrieved January 27, 2019, from https://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html
Merrit, M. (2016, February 18). 403 Forbidden: Banned Books. Retrieved February 28, 2019, from http://sites.psu.edu/bannedbookscmlit130/2016/02/18/hunger-games/
Spiegler, J. (2012, March 30). Should I Let My Ten-Year-Old Read The Hunger Games? | Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility. Retrieved February 28, 2019, from https://www.morningsidecenter.org/teachable-moment/lessons/should-i-let-my-ten-year-old-read-hunger-games
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Suicides - Guy de Maupassant
To Georges Legrand.
Hardly a day goes by without our reading a news item like the following in some newspaper:
"On Wednesday night the people living in No. 40 Rue de——-, were awakened by two successive shots. The explosions seemed to come from the apartment occupied by M. X——. The door was broken in and the man was found bathed in his blood, still holding in one hand the revolver with which he had taken his life.
"M. X——was fifty-seven years of age, enjoying a comfortable income, and had everything necessary to make him happy. No cause can be found for his action."
What terrible grief, what unknown suffering, hidden despair, secret wounds drive these presumably happy persons to suicide? We search, we imagine tragedies of love, we suspect financial troubles, and, as we never find anything definite, we apply to these deaths the word "mystery."
A letter found on the desk of one of these "suicides without cause," and written during his last night, beside his loaded revolver, has come into our hands. We deem it rather interesting. It reveals none of those great catastrophes which we always expect to find behind these acts of despair; but it shows us the slow succession of the little vexations of life, the disintegration of a lonely existence, whose dreams have disappeared; it gives the reason for these tragic ends, which only nervous and high-strung people can understand.
Here it is:
"It is midnight. When I have finished this letter I shall kill myself. Why? I shall attempt to give the reasons, not for those who may read these lines, but for myself, to kindle my waning courage, to impress upon myself the fatal necessity of this act which can, at best, be only deferred.
"I was brought up by simple-minded parents who were unquestioning believers. And I believed as they did.
"My dream lasted a long time. The last veil has just been torn from my eyes.
"During the last few years a strange change has been taking place within me. All the events of Life, which formerly had to me the glow of a beautiful sunset, are now fading away. The true meaning of things has appeared to me in its brutal reality; and the true reason for love has bred in me disgust even for this poetic sentiment: 'We are the eternal toys of foolish and charming illusions, which are always being renewed.'
"On growing older, I had become partly reconciled to the awful mystery of life, to the uselessness of effort; when the emptiness of everything appeared to me in a new light, this evening, after dinner.
"Formerly, I was happy! Everything pleased me: the passing women, the appearance of the streets, the place where I lived; and I even took an interest in the cut of my clothes. But the repetition of the same sights has had the result of filling my heart with weariness and disgust, just as one would feel were one to go every night to the same theatre.
"For the last thirty years I have been rising at the same hour; and, at the same restaurant, for thirty years, I have been eating at the same hours the same dishes brought me by different waiters.
"I have tried travel. The loneliness which one feels in strange places terrified me. I felt so alone, so small on the earth that I quickly started on my homeward journey.
"But here the unchanging expression of my furniture, which has stood for thirty years in the same place, the smell of my apartments (for, with time, each dwelling takes on a particular odor) each night, these and other things disgust me and make me sick of living thus.
"Everything repeats itself endlessly. The way in which I put my key in the lock, the place where I always find my matches, the first object which meets my eye when I enter the room, make me feel like jumping out of the window and putting an end to those monotonous events from which we can never escape.
"Each day, when I shave, I feel an inordinate desire to cut my throat; and my face, which I see in the little mirror, always the same, with soap on my cheeks, has several times made me weak from sadness.
"Now I even hate to be with people whom I used to meet with pleasure; I know them so well, I can tell just what they are going to say and what I am going to answer. Each brain is like a circus, where the same horse keeps circling around eternally. We must circle round always, around the same ideas, the same joys, the same pleasures, the same habits, the same beliefs, the same sensations of disgust.
"The fog was terrible this evening. It enfolded the boulevard, where the street lights were dimmed and looked like smoking candles. A heavier weight than usual oppressed me. Perhaps my digestion was bad.
"For good digestion is everything in life. It gives the inspiration to the artist, amorous desires to young people, clear ideas to thinkers, the joy of life to everybody, and it also allows one to eat heartily (which is one of the greatest pleasures). A sick stomach induces scepticism unbelief, nightmares and the desire for death. I have often noticed this fact. Perhaps I would not kill myself, if my digestion had been good this evening.
"When I sat down in the arm-chair where I have been sitting every day for thirty years, I glanced around me, and just then I was seized by such a terrible distress that I thought I must go mad.
"I tried to think of what I could do to run away from myself. Every occupation struck me as being worse even than inaction. Then I bethought me of putting my papers in order.
"For a long time I have been thinking of clearing out my drawers; for, for the last thirty years, I have been throwing my letters and bills pell-mell into the same desk, and this confusion has often caused me considerable trouble. But I feel such moral and physical laziness at the sole idea of putting anything in order that I have never had the courage to begin this tedious business.
"I therefore opened my desk, intending to choose among my old papers and destroy the majority of them.
"At first I was bewildered by this array of documents, yellowed by age, then I chose one.
"Oh! if you cherish life, never disturb the burial place of old letters!
"And if, perchance, you should, take the contents by the handful, close your eyes that you may not read a word, so that you may not recognize some forgotten handwriting which may plunge you suddenly into a sea of memories; carry these papers to the fire; and when they are in ashes, crush them to an invisible powder, or otherwise you are lost—just as I have been lost for an hour.
"The first letters which I read did not interest me greatly. They were recent, and came from living men whom I still meet quite often, and whose presence does not move me to any great extent. But all at once one envelope made me start. My name was traced on it in a large, bold handwriting; and suddenly tears came to my eyes. That letter was from my dearest friend, the companion of my youth, the confidant of my hopes; and he appeared before me so clearly, with his pleasant smile and his hand outstretched, that a cold shiver ran down my back. Yes, yes, the dead come back, for I saw him! Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.
"With trembling hand and dimmed eyes I reread everything that he told me, and in my poor sobbing heart I felt a wound so painful that I began to groan as a man whose bones are slowly being crushed.
"Then I travelled over my whole life, just as one travels along a river. I recognized people, so long forgotten that I no longer knew their names. Their faces alone lived in me. In my mother's letters I saw again the old servants, the shape of our house and the little insignificant odds and ends which cling to our minds.
"Yes, I suddenly saw again all my mother's old gowns, the different styles which she adopted and the several ways in which she dressed her hair. She haunted me especially in a silk dress, trimmed with old lace; and I remembered something she said one day when she was wearing this dress. She said: 'Robert, my child, if you do not stand up straight you will be round-shouldered all your life.'
"Then, opening another drawer, I found myself face to face with memories of tender passions: a dancing-pump, a torn handkerchief, even a garter, locks of hair and dried flowers. Then the sweet romances of my life, whose living heroines are now white-haired, plunged me into the deep melancholy of things. Oh, the young brows where blond locks curl, the caress of the hands, the glance which speaks, the hearts which beat, that smile which promises the lips, those lips which promise the embrace! And the first kiss-that endless kiss which makes you close your eyes, which drowns all thought in the immeasurable joy of approaching possession!
"Taking these old pledges of former love in both my hands, I covered them with furious caresses, and in my soul, torn by these memories, I saw them each again at the hour of surrender; and I suffered a torture more cruel than all the tortures invented in all the fables about hell.
"One last letter remained. It was written by me and dictated fifty years ago by my writing teacher. Here it is:
"'MY DEAR LITTLE MAMMA:
"'I am seven years old to-day. It is the age of reason. I take
advantage of it to thank you for having brought me into this world.
"'Your little son, who loves you
"'ROBERT.'
"It is all over. I had gone back to the beginning, and suddenly I turned my glance on what remained to me of life. I saw hideous and lonely old age, and approaching infirmities, and everything over and gone. And nobody near me!
"My revolver is here, on the table. I am loading it.... Never reread your old letters!"
And that is how many men come to kill themselves; and we search in vain to discover some great sorrow in their lives.
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Suicides - Guy de Maupassant
To Georges Legrand.
Hardly a day goes by without our reading a news item like the following in some newspaper:
“On Wednesday night the people living in No. 40 Rue de——-, were awakened by two successive shots. The explosions seemed to come from the apartment occupied by M. X——. The door was broken in and the man was found bathed in his blood, still holding in one hand the revolver with which he had taken his life.
"M. X——was fifty-seven years of age, enjoying a comfortable income, and had everything necessary to make him happy. No cause can be found for his action.”
What terrible grief, what unknown suffering, hidden despair, secret wounds drive these presumably happy persons to suicide? We search, we imagine tragedies of love, we suspect financial troubles, and, as we never find anything definite, we apply to these deaths the word “mystery.”
A letter found on the desk of one of these “suicides without cause,” and written during his last night, beside his loaded revolver, has come into our hands. We deem it rather interesting. It reveals none of those great catastrophes which we always expect to find behind these acts of despair; but it shows us the slow succession of the little vexations of life, the disintegration of a lonely existence, whose dreams have disappeared; it gives the reason for these tragic ends, which only nervous and high-strung people can understand.
Here it is:
“It is midnight. When I have finished this letter I shall kill myself. Why? I shall attempt to give the reasons, not for those who may read these lines, but for myself, to kindle my waning courage, to impress upon myself the fatal necessity of this act which can, at best, be only deferred.
"I was brought up by simple-minded parents who were unquestioning believers. And I believed as they did.
"My dream lasted a long time. The last veil has just been torn from my eyes.
"During the last few years a strange change has been taking place within me. All the events of Life, which formerly had to me the glow of a beautiful sunset, are now fading away. The true meaning of things has appeared to me in its brutal reality; and the true reason for love has bred in me disgust even for this poetic sentiment: ‘We are the eternal toys of foolish and charming illusions, which are always being renewed.’
"On growing older, I had become partly reconciled to the awful mystery of life, to the uselessness of effort; when the emptiness of everything appeared to me in a new light, this evening, after dinner.
"Formerly, I was happy! Everything pleased me: the passing women, the appearance of the streets, the place where I lived; and I even took an interest in the cut of my clothes. But the repetition of the same sights has had the result of filling my heart with weariness and disgust, just as one would feel were one to go every night to the same theatre.
"For the last thirty years I have been rising at the same hour; and, at the same restaurant, for thirty years, I have been eating at the same hours the same dishes brought me by different waiters.
"I have tried travel. The loneliness which one feels in strange places terrified me. I felt so alone, so small on the earth that I quickly started on my homeward journey.
"But here the unchanging expression of my furniture, which has stood for thirty years in the same place, the smell of my apartments (for, with time, each dwelling takes on a particular odor) each night, these and other things disgust me and make me sick of living thus.
"Everything repeats itself endlessly. The way in which I put my key in the lock, the place where I always find my matches, the first object which meets my eye when I enter the room, make me feel like jumping out of the window and putting an end to those monotonous events from which we can never escape.
"Each day, when I shave, I feel an inordinate desire to cut my throat; and my face, which I see in the little mirror, always the same, with soap on my cheeks, has several times made me weak from sadness.
"Now I even hate to be with people whom I used to meet with pleasure; I know them so well, I can tell just what they are going to say and what I am going to answer. Each brain is like a circus, where the same horse keeps circling around eternally. We must circle round always, around the same ideas, the same joys, the same pleasures, the same habits, the same beliefs, the same sensations of disgust.
"The fog was terrible this evening. It enfolded the boulevard, where the street lights were dimmed and looked like smoking candles. A heavier weight than usual oppressed me. Perhaps my digestion was bad.
"For good digestion is everything in life. It gives the inspiration to the artist, amorous desires to young people, clear ideas to thinkers, the joy of life to everybody, and it also allows one to eat heartily (which is one of the greatest pleasures). A sick stomach induces scepticism unbelief, nightmares and the desire for death. I have often noticed this fact. Perhaps I would not kill myself, if my digestion had been good this evening.
"When I sat down in the arm-chair where I have been sitting every day for thirty years, I glanced around me, and just then I was seized by such a terrible distress that I thought I must go mad.
"I tried to think of what I could do to run away from myself. Every occupation struck me as being worse even than inaction. Then I bethought me of putting my papers in order.
"For a long time I have been thinking of clearing out my drawers; for, for the last thirty years, I have been throwing my letters and bills pell-mell into the same desk, and this confusion has often caused me considerable trouble. But I feel such moral and physical laziness at the sole idea of putting anything in order that I have never had the courage to begin this tedious business.
"I therefore opened my desk, intending to choose among my old papers and destroy the majority of them.
"At first I was bewildered by this array of documents, yellowed by age, then I chose one.
"Oh! if you cherish life, never disturb the burial place of old letters!
"And if, perchance, you should, take the contents by the handful, close your eyes that you may not read a word, so that you may not recognize some forgotten handwriting which may plunge you suddenly into a sea of memories; carry these papers to the fire; and when they are in ashes, crush them to an invisible powder, or otherwise you are lost—just as I have been lost for an hour.
"The first letters which I read did not interest me greatly. They were recent, and came from living men whom I still meet quite often, and whose presence does not move me to any great extent. But all at once one envelope made me start. My name was traced on it in a large, bold handwriting; and suddenly tears came to my eyes. That letter was from my dearest friend, the companion of my youth, the confidant of my hopes; and he appeared before me so clearly, with his pleasant smile and his hand outstretched, that a cold shiver ran down my back. Yes, yes, the dead come back, for I saw him! Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.
"With trembling hand and dimmed eyes I reread everything that he told me, and in my poor sobbing heart I felt a wound so painful that I began to groan as a man whose bones are slowly being crushed.
"Then I travelled over my whole life, just as one travels along a river. I recognized people, so long forgotten that I no longer knew their names. Their faces alone lived in me. In my mother’s letters I saw again the old servants, the shape of our house and the little insignificant odds and ends which cling to our minds.
"Yes, I suddenly saw again all my mother’s old gowns, the different styles which she adopted and the several ways in which she dressed her hair. She haunted me especially in a silk dress, trimmed with old lace; and I remembered something she said one day when she was wearing this dress. She said: 'Robert, my child, if you do not stand up straight you will be round-shouldered all your life.’
"Then, opening another drawer, I found myself face to face with memories of tender passions: a dancing-pump, a torn handkerchief, even a garter, locks of hair and dried flowers. Then the sweet romances of my life, whose living heroines are now white-haired, plunged me into the deep melancholy of things. Oh, the young brows where blond locks curl, the caress of the hands, the glance which speaks, the hearts which beat, that smile which promises the lips, those lips which promise the embrace! And the first kiss-that endless kiss which makes you close your eyes, which drowns all thought in the immeasurable joy of approaching possession!
"Taking these old pledges of former love in both my hands, I covered them with furious caresses, and in my soul, torn by these memories, I saw them each again at the hour of surrender; and I suffered a torture more cruel than all the tortures invented in all the fables about hell.
"One last letter remained. It was written by me and dictated fifty years ago by my writing teacher. Here it is:
”'MY DEAR LITTLE MAMMA:
“'I am seven years old to-day. It is the age of reason. I take
advantage of it to thank you for having brought me into this world.
”'Your little son, who loves you
"'ROBERT.’
“It is all over. I had gone back to the beginning, and suddenly I turned my glance on what remained to me of life. I saw hideous and lonely old age, and approaching infirmities, and everything over and gone. And nobody near me!
"My revolver is here, on the table. I am loading it…. Never reread your old letters!”
And that is how many men come to kill themselves; and we search in vain to discover some great sorrow in their lives.
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