Novel Analysis Essay Topic

For my topic, I have decided to write about how the king helped Santiago in his journey in Paulo Coelho's book The Alchemist. This seemed like an interesting topic to me because Santiago was very dependent on him throughout his journey. On his journey for the "treasure", he found more than just the materials that rewarded him. Santiago figured out that not everything in life was about what you had or what you attempted to possess. His "Personal Legend" was what he was looking for, trying to find out what he really was pursuing in life.

I think that this will be a very fun and interesting paper to talk about. I have already found one source for this and will have it in class tomorrow. Other sources should be easy to find once I type in the right key words.

Things I've Noticed in The Alchemist

I'm really starting to see the connections to Aladdin now. All the characters just have that same feel to them as the ones from Aladdin do. Maybe it's just the desert feel that Egypt puts off? Not sure.

Another concept in this story that I like is the positive attitude of Santiago. At first, he is down on himself for having nothing and selling away his most prized possession. Now with this new job with the crystal merchant, he found a new outlook on life. It will be interesting to see as we conclude this story if his positive state of mind changes.

Alice Blog

What I noticed about Tim Burton's characters in his edition of "Alice in Wonderland" was the demented appearance of them all. As compared to the characters in the book, the movie made all the characters look almost like burn outs. The reason I say this, is because the rabbit in the book is shown as a large, almost fat animal. When showed in Burton's movie, the rabbit is skinny with saggy skin. Even with the charcters being like this, it doesn't harm or add to the way I think of the book.

My Outlook on Alice

With my first encounter with Alice, I was a bit confused with her. I had never came across a human which was smaller than me, attempting to swim along with me. As the mouse I am, I never thought I'd see this day come. As I approached this little girl, I was skeptical of the reaction I would receive from her. From the looks of her, she appeared very sweet and shy...I soon learned different.

As I came upon her struggling to stay a float, we struck up a conversation. My first impression of this girl stood on the same terms, until she uttered the dreaded "C" word..cat. Alice rambled on and on about her "wonderful" pet, Dinah. Even though I warned her not to bring up her companion, Alice kept on blabbing about the wonderful friend she had. She's lucky i'm a forgiving creature. This is all for now, I will keep you updated on the continued travels of my dear friend.

The Life of Lewis Carroll

I think that Lewis Carroll lived two seperate, but relating lives. As his life as a writer, he was very creative and aimed his work at his younger readers. In his most famous tale, "Alice in Wonderland" he brings the reader through deep levels of imagination and locks into the childish part of his writing ability. These "childish" attributes have raised some eyebrows. For him writing like this has brought up accusasions of drug use and other illict behaviors. He was named Charles Lutwidge Dodgson at birth, but later used the name Lewis Carroll for this piece of work alone. He did it to keep confidentiality with his fellow mathematicians. Along with writing and his passion for math, he was a reverened and a child photographer. Some of the shots that he had taken as a photographer were a bit scandalous, with the children often nude taking the pictures. After the discussion in class yesterday, I am very eager to start reading Carroll's piece. I hope he is an as interesting writer as he is in his personal life.

Friday Night Lights

The best book i've ever read was "Friday Night Lights" by H.G Bissinger. I encountered this book my sophomore year of high school after I bought it at Barnes and Noble in Sioux Falls. The book, which had previously been made into a movie, had a few stunning differences. Names and numbers of the football players were altered and the base of the story was not about the team, but the individual players. The main points of the movie-to-book relationship are the same, but I felt like I enjoyed reading the book more. I continue to read this book in my free time and also share it with my friends. For being a small town football player where the entire population of 600 were in attendance for every home game, this book really hit close to home.