Journal 2
Alive in the Killing Fields
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Setting
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Reader Response Questions
Skim reread the second section of your book. Look for repeating images, motifs, or repetitions and consider their implications on the larger body of work here. What can you find? What might you continue to pay attention to as you read?
Some repeating images as well as themes that I have seen in my book are, war, survival and determination. My novel is based on a family that is captured while a war is going on between the people of Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge gang. Mop’s family has to fight for their lives throughout these chapters while they have been made slaves to work on the rice farms and build huts for the gang. They need to sneak and hunt for food because the amount of food they are given is not enough to keep them alive and I don’t think they’d have the courage or want for the food if they weren’t as determined as they were throughout the chapters so far. They are fighting for their lives nonstop not only helping themselves but the people around them as well. I’m going to continue to look for these themes and see if the theme of determination dies as they are stuck there for a longer period of time slowly losing hope of freedom and survival or if the level of determination rises and they get out of the horrible save farm fields.
Literature often uses a specific story to explain something larger about humankind. Can you see connections between the story you are reading and the characters’ conflicts, revelations, or insights that might also be true for all people?
I think that the message coming from the plot of this story is to always keep hope. Without hope everyone in this family would stop fighting for survival and never even think about escaping the rice fields. Without hope every character will have died from having no food or from being brutally murdered by a member of the Khmer Rouge. In everyday life everyone needs hope. Hope if what keeps us thriving and happy whether the hope is from wishing you do well on a test or being nervous for a job interview to even a boy you have a crush on. Without hope everyone would be miserable.
Conflicts in literature can be internal, external, or both. Which do you see in your book at this point? Explain how they contribute to your overall engagement with the text.Writers are skillful with weaving in sub-conflicts and multiple story lines. If you see this in your story, explain how this has impacted your understanding and engagement with the story. Writers create conflicts on three levels in literature: conflicts within the character, conflicts between characters, and conflicts with something outside the character: the world or God, perhaps. What do you see happening in your book?
The conflicts in this novel keep the audience’s attention. The main plot of the novel is based on a big conflict in the book which is whether or not Mop and his family are going to live or die. The author gets you attached to characters by having flashbacks of the main character with them when life was well and people were happy and then moves back to present time where there’s total chaos and anyone could die at any second. I think it was really good for the author to do that because it makes the reader want to know whether or not the character/ characters they like live or die. The war around Mop’s family is making it every difficult for them to be happy and live happily together and Mop wants all the horrible things to just stop and everyone reading wants to know if they live or die and if the gang is killed or just leaves.
Language is central to writing and it is chosen with care. How does this writer use language? Is it formal? Informal? Technical? Slang? Does the language change throughout this piece
The author has used very easy to read language. Throughout the book. The author has also described many places, things and events throughout the novel using dark threatening words to help describe the danger of Mop and his family’s situation. The author has also helped with the pronunciation of words and names such as ‘Chalet (zahLOT)’. Overall the book is very easy to read and keep the readers interest the whole time. The author keeps you on the edge of your seat as you anticipate what is going to happen next, you never know what will happen.
Some writers use humor to identify one character or to present ideas in a text. Do you see evidence of humor? Puns? Irony? Sarcasm? Why might the author have used them in this book?
In this novel I have seen no evidence of puns, humor, sarcasm or irony. The novel was written at a very dark time in Mop’s life and I really don’t think the author wanted to put humor into his morbid story. I think the author wanted to share with the audience just how horrible it really was in Cambodia at this time for all these innocent people. The lack of humor and sarcasm makes the language and plot seem more angry and sad, showing very well another theme of darkness for this novel.
There are several comparison devices available to writers: similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole, etc. Can you find examples of any of these in your text? If not, why not?
So far throughout the text I have seen very little to no literary devices. In my opinion I think it is because it is a non-fictional story told from the perspective of someone who experienced Such a horrible event. The book is very dark and in present tense I don’t think that Mop would really think about describing something using like or as or relating it to something else or giving human qualities are given to animals while he is trying to tell his dark touching story. The thoughts in the story are quick because Mop is trying to explain everything that happened in the short period of time.
Some repeating images as well as themes that I have seen in my book are, war, survival and determination. My novel is based on a family that is captured while a war is going on between the people of Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge gang. Mop’s family has to fight for their lives throughout these chapters while they have been made slaves to work on the rice farms and build huts for the gang. They need to sneak and hunt for food because the amount of food they are given is not enough to keep them alive and I don’t think they’d have the courage or want for the food if they weren’t as determined as they were throughout the chapters so far. They are fighting for their lives nonstop not only helping themselves but the people around them as well. I’m going to continue to look for these themes and see if the theme of determination dies as they are stuck there for a longer period of time slowly losing hope of freedom and survival or if the level of determination rises and they get out of the horrible save farm fields.
Literature often uses a specific story to explain something larger about humankind. Can you see connections between the story you are reading and the characters’ conflicts, revelations, or insights that might also be true for all people?
I think that the message coming from the plot of this story is to always keep hope. Without hope everyone in this family would stop fighting for survival and never even think about escaping the rice fields. Without hope every character will have died from having no food or from being brutally murdered by a member of the Khmer Rouge. In everyday life everyone needs hope. Hope if what keeps us thriving and happy whether the hope is from wishing you do well on a test or being nervous for a job interview to even a boy you have a crush on. Without hope everyone would be miserable.
Conflicts in literature can be internal, external, or both. Which do you see in your book at this point? Explain how they contribute to your overall engagement with the text.Writers are skillful with weaving in sub-conflicts and multiple story lines. If you see this in your story, explain how this has impacted your understanding and engagement with the story. Writers create conflicts on three levels in literature: conflicts within the character, conflicts between characters, and conflicts with something outside the character: the world or God, perhaps. What do you see happening in your book?
The conflicts in this novel keep the audience’s attention. The main plot of the novel is based on a big conflict in the book which is whether or not Mop and his family are going to live or die. The author gets you attached to characters by having flashbacks of the main character with them when life was well and people were happy and then moves back to present time where there’s total chaos and anyone could die at any second. I think it was really good for the author to do that because it makes the reader want to know whether or not the character/ characters they like live or die. The war around Mop’s family is making it every difficult for them to be happy and live happily together and Mop wants all the horrible things to just stop and everyone reading wants to know if they live or die and if the gang is killed or just leaves.
Language is central to writing and it is chosen with care. How does this writer use language? Is it formal? Informal? Technical? Slang? Does the language change throughout this piece
The author has used very easy to read language. Throughout the book. The author has also described many places, things and events throughout the novel using dark threatening words to help describe the danger of Mop and his family’s situation. The author has also helped with the pronunciation of words and names such as ‘Chalet (zahLOT)’. Overall the book is very easy to read and keep the readers interest the whole time. The author keeps you on the edge of your seat as you anticipate what is going to happen next, you never know what will happen.
Some writers use humor to identify one character or to present ideas in a text. Do you see evidence of humor? Puns? Irony? Sarcasm? Why might the author have used them in this book?
In this novel I have seen no evidence of puns, humor, sarcasm or irony. The novel was written at a very dark time in Mop’s life and I really don’t think the author wanted to put humor into his morbid story. I think the author wanted to share with the audience just how horrible it really was in Cambodia at this time for all these innocent people. The lack of humor and sarcasm makes the language and plot seem more angry and sad, showing very well another theme of darkness for this novel.
There are several comparison devices available to writers: similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole, etc. Can you find examples of any of these in your text? If not, why not?
So far throughout the text I have seen very little to no literary devices. In my opinion I think it is because it is a non-fictional story told from the perspective of someone who experienced Such a horrible event. The book is very dark and in present tense I don’t think that Mop would really think about describing something using like or as or relating it to something else or giving human qualities are given to animals while he is trying to tell his dark touching story. The thoughts in the story are quick because Mop is trying to explain everything that happened in the short period of time.